The assassin stood in place, his chest heaving heavily.
His back was already soaked in cold sweat, and a dry swallow escaped his throat.
The sensation from just a moment ago—of hundreds of Wind Blades locking onto him—still lingered on his skin like prickling needles.
It was not the power of those Wind Blades that terrified him.
They were merely Mid Rank Wind Blades; no matter how many there were, they could not break through his protective battle force.
What terrified him was the ability to conceal hundreds of Wind Blades so completely that no one could detect them.
Was this the power of a Legendary?
The assassin felt a flicker of doubt as he recalled that other powerhouse who possessed similarly formidable concealment abilities and had effortlessly led so many of them into the Withered Wood Wasteland.
That was a powerful mage who had moved along the way as if passing through an empty realm.
Why hadn't that mage's concealment ability exerted such an absolute sense of oppression on him...?
Slowly loosening his grip on the short blade, he flipped the dagger in his palm, pointing the tip downward in a reverse grip.
Then, he raised his hands to show he posed no threat.
Standing up slowly, he tossed the short blade to the side.
The dagger hit the ground with a dull thud, bounced twice, and rolled into a pile of withered leaves.
He looked down at Elvia, who was kneeling on one knee in front of him, and then raised his head, his gaze sweeping past her to look at the black-haired mage.
Or rather, toward the empty air behind the black-haired mage.
The place where he assumed the Legendary mage was hiding.
“I've done everything you asked me to do.”
His voice was hoarse, laced with suppressed gasps.
He paused, his gaze shifting back to Elvia.
“She... is good.”
“To fight me to this extent, I've never seen another like her among High-tier High Ranks.”
His tone was flat, yet it held a trace of genuine admiration.
As an assassin trained in the orthodox Assassin's Court, he had seen countless knights.
Knighthood had always been a class exclusive to nobility.
Those young masters and ladies built up on family resources couldn't last three moves against him.
Yet this woman lacked even a hint of delicacy, striking with ruthless force and nimble reflexes.
Relying solely on her rank of High-tier High Rank, she had managed to contend with him—a High-tier Transcendent assassin—for so long.
What struck him as even stranger was her style of attack.
On the surface, it was wide and sweeping knightly swordsmanship.
In reality, it seized every available opening, with every strike concealing a follow-up move.
In particular, she used the dagger in her left hand with even greater dexterity than the rapier in her right.
That feel was closer to... an assassin.
And her technique seemed somewhat familiar to him.
Suppressing the doubts in his heart, he said no more.
Elvia, however, failed to catch the admiration in his voice.
Climbing up from the ground, she dusted off the dirt and withered leaves on her skirt armor and let out a cold snort.
“Once I break through to Transcendent, I will definitely defeat you.”
Her tone was stiff, filled with an unyielding stubbornness.
She picked up her rapier from the ground, sheathed it back at her waist, and returned to Lin Gui's side.
The atmosphere fell into a deadlock.
Lin Gui was in no rush to speak.
He raised his hand, his fingertips twitching slightly.
The magic circles scattered between the gaps of withered trees, fallen leaves, and branches began to dissipate one by one.
Pale blue light dimmed ring by ring, spreading outward like ripples before vanishing completely into thin air.
Watching those rings disappear, the assassin's tense shoulders relaxed slightly.
He turned, preparing to leave.
“Wait.”
Lin Gui's voice came from behind.
The assassin's steps paused.
He turned back and let out a cold sneer.
“What? Want to go back on your word?”
His body sank slightly as he lowered his center of gravity, the fingertips of his right hand already touching a spare dagger at his waist.
He adopted a posture ready for a fight to the death.
Lin Gui shook his head.
“Rest assured, I only want you to pass on a message.”
Reaching into his robe, he pulled out a map and unfolded it.
It was the Golden Route map Dalton had given him.
Lin Gui gave it a quick glance.
The parchment glowed with a dark yellow luster, densely marked with various routes, demon nests, and dangerous zones.
Lin Gui had originally thought this map only marked the demons to watch out for along the route.
Upon closer inspection, however, it wasn't just the Withered Wood Wasteland on the western side.
Even dangerous demon nests in parts of the eastern region were clearly annotated.
Including that dead wood forest from earlier.
Dalton's notes were written in great detail:
Ancient Dead Wood Tree.
Rank: Low-tier Transcendent to High-tier Transcendent.
Appearance: Giant withered tree over ten meters tall, with an aged human face emerging on the trunk and roots running tens of meters deep underground.
Habits: One of the oldest entities in the Withered Wood Wasteland.
Attack Pattern: Root strangulation; traps within a five-hundred-meter radius, corruptive toxic mist, dealing large-scale continuous damage.
Though there was a slight discrepancy in the demon nest's location...
...a few years had passed, so even for a tree-type demon, it was impossible to remain completely motionless in the same spot forever.
The only ones capable of staying still for long periods and sleeping in their lair were those powerful enough to treat a Forbidden Zone as home... Epic Demon Lords.
Lin Gui's finger moved across the map, finally coming to a stop at the northern side.
A striking red annotation sat marked upon it.
Beside it was a line of text, scribbled messily, yet every stroke exuded a warning.
Throat of the Wasteland, Sathoggua.
Rank: High-tier Epic.
The true sovereign of the Withered Wood Wasteland.
Lin Gui stared at that name, falling silent for a moment.
When he and Elvia crossed the Withered Wood Wasteland, they had encountered two Epic demons locked in combat.
Even across tens of kilometers, the shockwaves from those two demons' battle had nearly swept them in, flipping their flying vessel head over heels multiple times.
And if the Dalton family's description of this sovereign was true,
then the combat shockwaves caused by those two demons would amount to nothing in front of this entity.
At the location marked in red, Dalton had specially drawn a pale red circle indicating its attack range.
Judging by the scale of the map, it extended at least twenty kilometers out...
Meaning once this entity awakened and went on a rampage, a radius of twenty kilometers would become a restricted zone of death.
And that wasn't even accounting for the secondary demon rampages triggered by an Epic demon's frenzy.
Lin Gui looked at Sathoggua's location on the map, then raised his head to look at the almost transparent perception veil in the sky.
The ash-white magic veil flowed slowly high in the sky, its edges gleaming with a faint halo, looking like a massive, spread-out spiderweb.
And the northern edge of that web was a mere few kilometers away from Sathoggua's lair.
He took another glance at the dark red mark on the map.
Lin Gui let out a soft chuckle.
Putting the map away, he raised his head and looked at the assassin.
“Please pass a message to Lord Edwin, Master of the Concealment Tower, who masterminded this hunt. Tell him to meet me at the Ross family's gathering place in two hours, along with his two Mid-tier Legendary assassin subordinates and that young man named Arthur.”
His tone was flat, as if speaking of something entirely trivial.
“Otherwise...”
His grey eyes narrowed slightly, his voice remaining very faint.
“...my High-tier Legendary half-demon mage from the Wall of Sighs will be testing out his new spell right above Sathoggua's head.”
Rate on N.U.
