[POV: Assassin]
“Maintain formation,” I ordered my subordinates through sound transmission. “Ensure you have visuals on your designated second. Don’t let your guard down. There’s something different about this forest.”
The forest was too quiet.
It was eerily still, the kind of silence that felt unnatural rather than peaceful. There was no rustling of leaves beyond what the wind caused, no movement among the branches, and no sounds of wildlife hidden within the undergrowth.
Before I was orphaned and recruited into the Purple Rope Hall, I had been the son of a hunter. My childhood had been short, but that experience had given me something that proved invaluable during my training. I had grown up learning how to read forests from the subtle changes in the terrain, the tracks left by animals, the unnatural disturbances among the trees, and even the sounds that should have been present.
That experience allowed me to stand out among my peers and endure the brutal training that followed.
A great deal of our exercises had been conducted in forests. Great Feng was surrounded by enormous stretches of woodland, after all, and an assassin who could not operate effectively in such terrain would not live long.
I had grown familiar with forests far more quickly than my peers. That familiarity had eventually helped me rise to my current position as captain of my own squad.
“Clear on my end, Captain,” one of my subordinates reported through sound transmission. “No activity.”
“Nothing here either,” another reported. “I haven’t detected any movement.”
A brief pause followed until another assassin spoke. “Captain... there aren’t even birds. No insects either. I haven’t heard a single chirp since we entered.”
“Same here,” another confirmed. “It’s bizarre.”
Given our training, my peers had eventually grown accustomed to forests as well. Even those among us who had not grown up hunting could distinguish between a naturally quiet forest and one that had been stripped of its life.
We had spent the past two years tracking and chasing the Sword General. During that time, we had traversed countless mountains and forests, following his trail through terrain that would have forced ordinary soldiers to turn back.
We had learned the habits of beasts, the signs of human settlements, and how to recognize disturbed vegetation, concealed trails, abandoned campsites, and countless other traces that might reveal our target's movements.
That was why the sudden difference in this forest was so glaring.
Something was wrong.
I stopped and perched on a tree branch, my eyes scanning the surrounding forest.
“Is there a problem, Captain?” My second, the vice-captain of my squad, had emerged from behind me. She maintained a deliberate distance rather than approaching too closely.
That was how we operated.
The assassins of Purple Rope Hall were trained under a two-cell system. Every primary assassin was assigned a secondary whose responsibility was to watch their back. We moved in loose formations rather than clustering together, giving us greater flexibility while ensuring that an ambush would not wipe out the entire squad at once.
It also worked both ways. If an opportunity to ambush our enemies presented itself, our formation allowed us to immediately exploit it.
I raised two fingers. “Everyone, stop.” My order traveled through sound transmission. “Enter stealth. Defensive measures. Nobody moves unless I give the order.”
The response came almost immediately. “Understood.”
I dropped from the branch and landed without a sound. I walked toward the side of the forest where the trees abruptly disappeared. The sight became stranger the closer I approached. There were no trees, grass, bushes, or signs of animal activity. It was as though someone had taken a section of the forest and simply erased everything growing there. A barren patch stretched across the ground like an unnatural bald spot in the middle of an otherwise thriving forest.
I crouched. The ground was completely bare. I placed my palm against the earth and extended my spiritual senses through my touch. The earth was unexpectedly rich with qi. The spiritual energy beneath the barren soil was vivid and abundant, flowing through the earth with a vitality that contrasted sharply with the lifeless surface.
Was this some kind of farm? No. The destruction did not feel deliberate enough for cultivation. Nor did it resemble farmland. There were no orderly rows, no irrigation channels, no signs that someone had cleared the land with the intention of planting anything.
I slowly stood and examined my surroundings.
There was debris scattered across the area. Timber. Broken pieces of wood lay among the barren earth, some of them large enough that they could have come from trees. A woodcutter, maybe? Unlikely. If someone had been cutting down trees here, I would have seen the obvious signs. There would have been stumps, trails, scattered branches, and evidence of repeated human activity.
There was none of that.
Besides, this place was far from civilization.
I frowned. “Second.”
“Yes, Captain?”
“Send communications to the other squads.” My eyes remained fixed on the barren patch, while I thought carefully about our next course of action. “Recommend dispatching an advanced reconnaissance unit. Have them investigate whether there’s a village or settlement anywhere around this area. And report the topographical anomaly we encountered. The absence of vegetation is unnatural. Tell them to treat this entire area as suspicious.”
“Understood.”
My second was a woman with exceptional spiritual ability. Captains were primarily judged by their combat ability and decision-making. Vice-captains, on the other hand, were judged heavily by their spiritual abilities. She immediately took out a small marble. She whispered my orders into it.
The marble lit up as her qi was imbued into its surface.
It was essentially a recording of a sound transmission.
This was a common method of communication within the Great Feng military. It was favored for its efficiency and reliability. Sound transmission talismans possessed greater range and were considerably more convenient, but they were expensive to manufacture.
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
Marbles were much cheaper.
The limitation was that sending the recorded communication still required someone with sufficient spiritual skill. My vice-captain unwound the purple rope around her wrist and tied one end to the marble. Even I could do something as simple as imbue my qi into the marble and record a sound transmission.
Actually sending that communication, however, required considerably greater spiritual control. She lowered the marble to the ground, then she formed a hand seal. The purple rope suddenly moved. It zipped across the ground like a snake, slipping between the grass and beneath the shadows of the surrounding trees. It was fast. More importantly, it was stealthy.
Every member of the Purple Rope Hall wore a purple rope around their wrist. All of those ropes were said to have originated from the same source, so they attracted one another. That was the secret behind one of our most reliable methods of communication.
The rope vanished into the forest, carrying the marble with it.
My vice-captain then took out another purple rope and wound it around her wrist. “Captain, your orders.”
I looked toward the forest ahead and found a narrow opening.
"Watch my back," I said, stepping forward. “I see a path.”
I walked ahead, following the path I had spotted.
The further I went, the more destruction I found. Trees had been broken apart. Timber was scattered across the ground. Entire sections of vegetation had simply vanished, leaving behind barren earth that looked almost diseased.
However, I could feel it through my feet.
I extended my spiritual senses into the ground and immediately sensed the same strange phenomenon as before. The earth was unusually rich with qi. It was so abundant that the contrast between the vitality beneath my feet and the lifeless landscape around me was almost absurd.
“Captain, what is this?”
My vice-captain's voice carried a note of doubt. Even I was left speechless by the sight before us. An entire stretch of barren land spread out before us, extending beneath the mountains. It was not a small clearing or an isolated patch of damaged vegetation.
It was an entire landscape.
I had never heard of anything like this before.
I doubted my superiors would have omitted something so glaring from our intelligence reports. Knowing the terrain beforehand was a prerequisite for any operation, especially one involving assassins. Lord Feng was not the sort of commander who withheld useful information from his subordinates.
If there had been a barren expanse like this in our operational area, I would have known about it. Therefore, this had to be recent. And if none of the other squads had reported it either, then we were probably the first to encounter this change in the terrain.
I immediately made my decision. “Second, send a missive directly to Lord Feng.” I gestured toward the barren landscape. “Inform him of everything we’ve discovered. The destruction, the abnormal qi concentration, and this entire barren region. Tell him that we believe this is a recent development and that we have no prior intelligence concerning it.”
“Understood, Captain.” She immediately got to work.
Suddenly, it began to rain.
I looked up. “What?”
The first droplets struck my face. It was unmistakably rain. It had come so suddenly that I instinctively looked toward the sky for signs of an approaching storm. There had been none. One moment, the air had been dry. The next, rain was pouring down. My vice-captain made quick work of sending the communication despite the sudden change in weather.
Out of nowhere, a transmission reached me from behind. “Captain!”
The voice was urgent. “Ambush! Left flank!”
I immediately turned my head. “Report!”
“There are—”
The sound transmission abruptly cut off, then came the screaming.
“AAAAAGH!”
It was horrid. The scream was filled with pain, but what disturbed me most was how long it lasted. It did not sound like someone had been killed instantly. It sounded like someone was being torn apart, slowly and painfully.
The screams continued for several seconds before finally fading into silence.
I made my decision immediately.
“Our position has been compromised,” I ordered through sound transmission. “All units retreat east. Do not engage unless necessary. Right flank, transition into the rearguard and intercept any pursuers. Keep the formation loose. Do not allow yourselves to become surrounded.”
The orders traveled through the squad.
The Great Feng was primarily a military nation, and a great deal of its military knowledge and methods had been inherited by the Purple Rope Hall. As captain, I had been trained to command in an orthodox manner. That was an unusual quality for an assassin.
Most assassins were taught to operate independently, strike from the shadows, and eliminate their targets before they could react. Commanding a squad under battlefield conditions required an entirely different mindset. But I had been trained for it. And now, I needed it.
I joined the rearguard, moving toward the eastern direction while keeping my senses extended. Part of me was curious about our enemies. That curiosity disappeared almost immediately.
“Captain!”
Another sound transmission reached me.
“The path of retreat—”
The assassin's voice trembled. “There's an ambush ahead!”
Then the transmission was filled with screaming.
“HELP!”
“Captain!”
“Something's—”
The screaming swallowed the rest of his words. I gritted my teeth. This was not an ordinary ambush.
“Join the rearguard!” I ordered through sound transmission. “Everyone in the retreating formation is to converge on the rearguard!”
A subordinate responded almost immediately, his voice was frantic. “There is no more rearguard! The front has been routed! Everyone is escaping! The formation has collapsed! The confusion is only making things worse!”
I felt my stomach tighten at the thought of being surrounded. “State your name,” I ordered. “Give me everything you know about the enemy.”
There was a brief pause. The subordinate's breathing was heavy, sounding like he was on the verge of dying. “Captain... They aren't human. They're monsters. Captain, escape.”
The screaming began again. His transmission was drowned out by the horrid cries of men dying around him. I turned toward my vice-captain. I was about to give her an order when I saw the expression on her face, filled with confusion and wonder.
“Captain,” she said quietly, her eyes directly above us. “We need to leave this place.”
I looked upward, following her gaze. Finally, I saw them. Round, blue creatures hung from the branches above us. They looked harmless. Almost absurdly so. They were small, spherical things, their blue bodies obscured by the curtain of rain. They did not radiate any obvious spiritual pressure.
Yet they were everywhere.
I narrowed my eyes, counting hundreds of them. No. There were probably more than that. Hundreds of these strange creatures were hanging from the trees, silently watching us. I had no idea what they were. But after hearing the screams of my subordinates, I had no intention of finding out by standing still.
“All units, gather on me!” I ordered through sound transmission. “We retreat toward the mountains! Stay together and maintain visual contact! Do not separate!”
My subordinates immediately began moving, then the creatures dropped one after another. Blue spheres descended from the branches. I watched one of my men turn toward them. Four of the creatures latched onto him. His scream lasted less than a few seconds before his flesh began to sizzle.
The creatures clung to his body as though they were starving beasts. His flesh melted beneath them. Within moments, they had eaten through his skin, muscles, and organs, reducing his body to little more than exposed bones. However, they devoured those as well.
The entire process took only seconds.
My blood ran cold.
“Don’t let them touch you!”
I shouted the warning as loudly as I could.
We had been isolated. The realization struck me with terrifying clarity. The battlefield had become chaos. My squad was scattered. The rain obscured our vision. And those things were descending from every direction. A mass of blue suddenly dropped in front of me.
Hundreds of the creatures collided together, their spherical bodies merging into one enormous wall of blue slime. I drew my sword from my storage ring. I wasn't going to die today. I swung, but the blade passed straight through them. There was no resistance at all. When I looked at the mass of blue before me, I realized I had accomplished nothing.
They had suffered no damage.
“Damn it!”
Several smaller creatures lunged toward me. I twisted my body and dodged them, then immediately threw several projectile weapons. The weapons struck their bodies and passed through the gelatinous substance. Still nothing.
I narrowed my eyes and focused my spiritual senses.
"There."
I could sense it faintly. Something was inside them. There was a spherical mass. A core. I poured qi into my sword. One of the creatures lunged toward me. I sidestepped it and swung. The blade struck the spherical object hidden within its body and the blue creature burst apart.
The slime splattered across the ground.
I stared at it for half a second, then I understood.
“Everyone, listen to me!”
I sent the message through sound transmission.
“There is a core inside them! A spherical mass! That's their weakness!”
Another creature descended toward me.
I raised my sword.
“Stay with me!”
My voice hardened.
“Don't let them surround you. Find the core, strike it, and cut through them!”
I tightened my grip on my sword.
“We're fighting our way to the mountains!”