Dead n could not tell much of a tale to soone untrained in excavating it. But this cultivator, like the others Anper er Yecine had flushed out, had never been about to tell him where the next cell operated in the first place. Therefore, dead was as good as living - at least then they were not trying to kill him.
The cultist’s body twitched on the ground before the elder devote to family pride realized his mistake... and plunged his blade down once more. Piercing a heart in a form that did not flow naturally from long-learned motions, just from skill eting desperation. Twisting his sword tip in a wrenching way to destroy the vital organ.
"Regeneration Physique. Won’t let that happen a third ti."
The original strike had also been less than cleanly perford, he assessed. His Danger Astralism had scread the needed warning only half a second before the cultist moved - that spike of killing intent as sharp and slick as the poisoned knife being drawn.
Foot slid, leg locked, and hips helped pivot into a single downward cut that caught his back-attacking enemy on the shoulder. Weight and sharpness tearing through bone, muscle, and lung almost down to sternum.
Yecine executions favored severing through the neck, the kind of angles that left no chance for retaliation. But general, center mass landings of steel were often the best any warrior could hope for - especially on short notice with an opponent capable enough to react to your speed and style.
Which is why it was always important to carry through with maximum aggression. First to strike, first to blood, first to kill. The Swift Aspect of the father of three had been his biggest source of self-satisfaction at a young age.
The physical energy techniques innately ford had given him a visible edge in muscle activation ti that most cultivators on the continent would never achieve. It was even why he was chosen as heir in his cohort, as early duels with others showed off his promise and led to the family faction in charge of him paving a road for his life.
Fighting capability paired up excellently with a spiritual sense that reacted inordinately well to bloodlust - but not well at all to most general Intent. This had given those n their first potential puppet hero. Performance in the Descent had even been just as good as could have been hoped, slaying countless Lesser and Interdiate Voidlings.
Just nothing more ’heroic’.
Training him as a dutiful swordsman of their family had made him beco widely known as he aged... but also made him too capable of faithfully following plans to their end. If military leadership placed him alongside Ondua er Goltbred and others on a team, he worked solidly within those rules.
If he was the one best capable of handling distractions to isolate a Leader-class invader while other people took glory, then Anper had not balked at the orders. Not at the ti. It was what he was asked and ant to do, nothing more. Sa with his ’brother in battle’.
But ti was a great eroder of patience, anger was a great fuel of spite, and the envy of others inside an echo chamber had a way of eventually becoming the downfall of everyone. Sothing that Anper could have learned many lessons from... but chose only a select few.
His jaw tightened in ’annoyance’ as he crouched beside another corpse in his wake. Righteous, justified self-defense in his mind. If he could call accusing soone of sothing then turning his back to them a re goading of assault, then he would have quit after the first three tis.
Searching efficiently through pockets and belt pouches... with the sort of speed that, in different circumstances, would have told the story of a practiced highwayman... he pulled a second dagger, few coins, and almost nothing else at all. Yet, he eventually found what he was hoping for.
An item most of these people carried obsessively, but not all of them. A journal - sealed this ti in his boot. Small enough to conceal but plenty detailed enough to matter. Nas. Locations. Dates of ’purification’ events that the Ouras mber had partook in. Skimming past the nonsense coded references and euphemisms, there was even a schedule for the next gathering of this one’s cell.
Unluckily, it was a whole year away from this date.
Anper still added it to his collection - the thirteenth such journal in six months of being released from house arrest. Seventeen stealthy attackers total, but thirteen clear confirmations that his thods worked, even if they weren’t perfect. As far as he had heard through information brokers... the Void Defense Society and that assassin woman chasing after Teovar had co up with almost nothing more than he had.
In fact, he was pretty certain *their* number of captured or killed cultists was less than his within the sa ti fra, as officials had even ’happily’ taken his first seven reported and recovered pieces of evidence. Validating his aggression - his tactic of being such an asshole to those he had the slightest reason to suspect and giving them every reason to want to erase him before he ruined their life... or their mission.
The Ouras cult had made the mistake, to him, of thinking they could hide in shadows with their plan - like he had tried with the Goltbred plot. But the disgraced Yecine elder had learned one lesson that really could have used tempered by more humility. When fear, jealousy, anger, bitterness, anything negative turned toward violence... then those who sched were finally revealing their hand.
Shadows concealed dark Intent, but didn’t erase it. Conversely, calls to noble action could sotis conceal dark pasts. Yet so rarely ever cleared away one’s culpability. At least, to anyone but the person attempting to camouflage their mistakes... as anything other than stepping on others to get ahead.
Just like the very Ouras he hunted. Just like every cultivator linked to ’the Promised’.
He stood up after wiping his blade clean on the dead, affluent man’s fine shirt before polishing it with his own expensive cloth. Sheathing it across his back. he panned his vision around the alley. Still empty despite being full of urchins when he first approached his target.
"Next, then."
Just another forgotten corner of a coastal city far from his holand. Nobody would find or bother the body for hours... especially clearly stripped of valuables. And considering he rarely stopped to go through the headache of filing official action reports now that the guild council made it clear they would prefer he stop what he was doing.
The rats and other animal scavengers were a different story. Certainly never asked him to stop leaving fresh, rich cultivator at. They were fairly grateful, in their own ways...
⟠ ⟠ ⟠
The mortal information broker spread her papers across the table with hands that wouldn’t stop shaking. Nervous in a way that suggested she knew exactly how disposable she was to a man rumored to be on a slaying spree of his own kind. Anper hadn’t even bothered acknowledging the brown haired female’s stamred greeting.
Why would he? She was a tool, a ans to an end, and nothing more. Tools didn’t require the courtesy. Just enough care not to break them.
And in this case, the male brokers he had dealt with very similarly... could have commiserated with her. He had beco quite an equal opportunity misanthrope, the more that ’n’ tried to stab him in the back with poisoned weapons. A strange consequence of his path. But one he was unlikely to recognize in himself.
One that didn’t matter at all to the woman hearing a flat voice that brooked no delay.
"The list."
"Y-yes, of course. It’s here sowhere. I have three possibles from the criteria you provided-"
"Just give the addresses."
Flinching while sliding *four or five* folded papers across the scarred wood and praying at least one of them was right, her eyes darted around. To his blade hilt, to the door, to anywhere but his stupidly handso face - or the steel gray eyes that just might reap her soul if she dared et them again. So people had good instincts for danger even without being a cultivator.
Though as much as she was having an existential crisis about approaching death, she also had a feeling if she made it through the day she might have to apologize and tell her younger sister she ’got it’ now. Black hair, extra tall, *dark aura*...
’If he might kill , why do I want him to stay and call sothing bad?!’
Anper densely ignored the reaction to his stained charisma while unfolding the papers one at a ti - and flinging the one wrong paper he picked up back toward her chest. Scanning the ’right’ locations, he found two suspects were in a rchant district... and knew that ant lots of witnesses. Normally he would avoid those and go for the one further out first... near the docks where traders mixed with less reputable sailors.
However, his pride couldn’t pass up the idea of two for one. It would make it especially great if they both were successful hunts, but just being able to throw out his accusation to multiple people in the sa day would be worth it. He was running out of funds, after all. So much that he actually considered not paying this ti.
Gripping the small pouch he’d taken from his last kill, it contained more than he was absolutely sure the information would be worth. Mortals knowing things that cultivators couldn’t find out was laughable to him - but his peers charged triple. He couldn’t afford that while cut off from his family funds and lacking favors to trade in.
He ultimately flung it on the table while pocketing the three notes and turning around. Fully ignoring the squeak as his toss skipped across her table. He did not care that it managed to hit near her throat, slide into her blouse, and co to rest where her bodice contained her cleavage.
Nor did he think for a mont that, after the mortal brunette began to cry actual tears of relief that she survived... she’d also briefly fantasized. About him realizing he overpaid and coming back... to collect!
"I’m going to kill her. Why would she put these things in my head!? What is wrong with her! What is wrong with ?"
Anper blessedly had no idea what the anguished scream was about back the way he ca from, or else he really might have robbed the woman. Not of her ’virtue’, but any future dealings with himself. For he followed rules and plans faithfully, if not lovingly. Married n of the Yecine would never engage in such passing impropriety.
At least, in his firm traditionalist ideals.
...That allowed him to plan to go kill two n with vigilante rules if they twitched wrong.
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