Abe the Wizard

Abel felt relaxed after he killed Wizard Kilmer and Wizard Elliot. With the only two wizards that could use the “instantaneous movement” spell gone, there wasn’t anyone he couldn’t take on within the Assassin Union. Rather, even if others could use the “instantaneous movement,” there was simply no way that they would help. Non-core members were not allowed to break into this area. That was just the way the security system here was built.

Head Commander Acton was still alive, yes, but there wasn’t much that he could do with White Now and Johnson here. The teleportation circle was no more, and without someone to teleport him out of this place with spells, he was pretty much set on making his very last stand here.

Just when Abel was starting to feel a bit more relaxed, a strange promotion qi was emitted from the inside of his body. He was about to become a rank thirteen wizard. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the best timing for a promotion. He was in the middle of a fight, but if he was to make any sudden movement, there would be no telling when the same promotion qi would appear in his body the next time. He couldn’t give up on this chance easily. No one, not even him, would have a lot of chance to slay a rank seventeen advanced wizard and an intermediate wizard at once. He couldn’t let this opportunity go to waste.

After using the last bit of his power of the Will to summon eight spiritual guardian knights, he sent out a very simple order.

“Kill everyone here.”

After saying that, he sat right where he was standing and let his druid spirit handle the rest of it. By the way, this wasn’t the first time that the druid spirit was taking charge during a promotion.

After covering Abel with a mana gathering circle, the druid spirit went to command the battle command spirit. It was giving the battle command spirit full authentication to take charge of the upcoming battle. To answer this call, the battle command spirit deployed battle fort 03 and made it land right on top of the Assassin Union building. From there, small-sized war puppets jumped out of the battle fort 03.

In squads of ten each, two hundred small-sized war puppets began to make way into the Assassin Union main building. Head Commander Acton was not looking down on Abel anymore. He finally started to get an idea of how strong he was. He had no other choice because everything happened right in front of his eyes. Both Wizard Kilmer and Wizard Elliot died before Abel, and as far as he saw it, he wasn’t going to get out of this one either. He didn’t want any revenge. He wanted to escape.

And there, he sensed it. A promotion qi was rising out of Abel’s body. This gave him a slight brink of hope, as insignificant as it was.

Head Commander Acton murmured to himself, “My spirit, the spirits don’t want me to die, do they? Don’t worry; I’ll make sure to rebuild the Assassin Union from scratch.”

He really thought that he was the main character of some legendary stories. His worst enemy couldn’t move in the most critical of movements. More luckily, Abel should have his summon creatures beside him, but he couldn’t really see them.

Or so he thought. The next thing he knew, noises clattered at him. He looked outside. Then he saw steel puppets that were four meters tall coming at him with giant ballistas in each of their hands. These robotic soldiers were neatly marching into the Assassin Union building. They were clearly not humans, but they coordinated with each other so well when they intruded from all the windows, doors, and other entrances.

Head Commander Acton wanted to run when he saw this. That’s right. The only thought that he had was to get out of this situation. The only thought he had was to get away from these puppets, whatever they were, as far as possible. The remaining staff was screaming as they were massacred by the dozens. This was pure annihilation. It didn’t matter how well the staff hid because the war puppets would also find them in the shortest amount of time.

As he slowly backed away, Head Commander Acton headed to the final hiding spot he knew of. It was a secret hideout. There weren’t any magic circles, but there was a mechanism that could safely separate him from these war puppets. It didn’t matter whether it was going to work or not. He just wanted a way out.

With a bit of luck, he came to the hiding spot. He managed to make his way in despite the numerous screams he heard on the way. As he shut himself behind a steel door, he went to open another mechanism that he knew of. The mechanism was supposed to lay a very thick steel board on the door of the secret hideout. After he switched it on, he switched on another mechanism designed to do the same thing. This was a room that only he knew of. He was the one who designed it in the first place, and it was one of the many secret passageways that he reserved for just himself.

After letting a sigh of relief after shutting down the steel board, Head Commander Acton suddenly felt very dizzy. The next thing he knew, a knight in full armor appeared in front of him. The knight had a face shield on, so he couldn’t see his face at all. Still, he could sense death from the eyes that were staring at him. It wasn’t just this strange figure. The weird wolf-shaped mount he was riding was also here. It would make a bit more sense if a wizard found his way here, but this was a knight. A knight shouldn’t be capable of using the “instantaneous movement” to bypass the thick metal wall. Still, Abel was a man that far exceeded what he thought was possible.

“Let’s do it, ugh!”

After letting out a scream, Head Commander Acton took out a knight’s big sword and shield from his portal bag. He got into a combat qi armor set and unleashed flame on his knight’s big sword. Despite being an element fire knight, a blue light flashed on the shield that he was wearing. His ice element combat qi was reinforcing his defense. He was a double element head command knight, one of the selected few elites on the Holy Continent.

“Charge!” Head Commander Acton said as soon as he was ready. Still, the spiritual guardian knight was very experienced with fighting opponents of the same type. It was already gone when the “charge” rune was drawn. Head Commander Acton had no target to hit. He was forced to hit the wall, right onto the very fine steel wall he spent a fortune on.

The impact of when Head Commander Acton hit the wall made his bones shatter. He could feel the most durable parts of his body break. Blood flowed out of his mouth like a squashed tomato. He didn’t have time to treat himself, though. His senses told him that something very dangerous was happening behind him, so he immediately went to block it with his shield.

Clang.

He managed to block a knight’s bid sword. He thought he blocked it, but a dark golden light was emitted from it. Powerful energy was conducted from the blade to his shield, then right towards his body. He felt a pain that was tearing him apart. Long streaks of injury appeared on his body. More blood came out of him. It was the tearing effect of the spiritual guardian knight’s “steel” rune sword. It was activated during the first hit and made Head Commander Acton feel a lot more pain than he ought to receive.

Head Commander Acton used all his remaining power to seal his wound with his frozen combat qi on the brink of death. Then, he turned to face the strange-looking knight that was coming at him. He was starting to realize the death qi that was coming out of it.

Head Commander Acton shouted grimly, “You’re an orc?”

He couldn’t really believe that the knight in front of him was an orc because Abel had too much bad history with the orcs. There was no way that the Orc Empire would ever send anyone to help him. With a bit of more careful thought, he discerned that the knight in front of him must be human. Whoever this was, he probably started training from youth and spent most of his years fighting on the field.

Head Commander Acton had his back to the wall this whole time. He knew that the spiritual guardian knight could perform the “instantaneous movement,” so he must do everything that he could to prevent being stabbed in the back. He was careful, so the spiritual guardian knight couldn’t really make a clean kill on him for the time being. That’s not to say that he could keep this up for too long, though. After exchanging so many hits, his wounds would’ve already shredded even more if it weren’t for the frozen combat qi he was wearing.

It didn’t take too long before he felt the fatigue. Dizziness. Dry mouth. Blanked vision. He knew his life was about to come to its end.

“My honor is my life!”

With his last shout of proclamation, Head Commander Acton used his remaining mana for a charge. Unlike last time, he used it to get close to the spiritual guardian knight instead of trying to strike it. As he was close enough to his target, he activated both his frozen combat qi and fire element combat qi to unleash a powerful suicide attack on his anonymous enemy.

Despite being stabbed into the chest, Head Commander Acton revealed a strange smile on his face. He grabbed the spiritual guardian knight’s hand and the blade that went into him. The death qi was eroding his flesh, but he had no plans of letting go. If he let go, the spiritual guardian knight would just teleport elsewhere, leaving his final attack without any one to hurt.

Boom.

With a standard knight’s movement, the spiritual guardian had a shield in front of him to block most of the explosion. It covered most of its crucial body parts, but the room was too small to make a clean dodge. Besides, Head Commander Acton grabbed onto its other hand, leaving it no space for dodging the combined explosion of two types of combat qi.

Just like that, the spiritual guardian knight was slammed into the steel wall. All the black particles on its body disappeared as even its bones were shattered in the explosion. Its skull was left with an open crack. Still, Head Commander Acton was in a much worse condition. His insides already turned into mush when the explosion just happened.

Head Commander Acton was lucky that he didn’t see what happened next. When the spiritual guardian knight was slammed to the steel wall, a purple light flashed across its body and healed all of its injuries. The druid spirit gave it a “fully recovery vitality potion” when it sensed that its life point went below average. Head Commander Acton just died for nothing. He was lucky that he didn’t notice that. Otherwise, he would’ve died a very sad man when he saw that he didn’t do any damage to even the armor that the spiritual guardian knight was wearing.

The combat continued at the Assassin Union main building. All the working staff participated. None of them were ordinary people. To be more specific, they were all intelligence-type assassins that were selected from different locations. Still, the opponents they faced were by no means the ones that they would meet in a regular fight. They had no real chances of fighting back, so it didn’t take long before they were slain by the small-sized war puppets and the spiritual guardian knights.

Abel already entered into his promotion state. The ability granted to him by the world stone fragment helped him draw a rank thirteen wizard rune perfectly. It took about half a day to get it drawn. When the promotion qi slowly disappeared, his total power of the Will was raised to 360. The modification energy of the dragon crystal was still hidden somewhere inside his body. Every time he promoted himself, his power of the Will gained a new maximum. It was the reason why he would promote faster than the others. Instead of having to focus on his power of the Will every time he entered into meditation, his level would already be so high that the only he had to worry about was his mana concentration level.

As he finished promoting, Abel went to put back the mana gathering circle that was placed around him. He then saw the two hundred small-sized war puppets and eight spiritual guardian knights standing beside him. By scanning his surrounding with his power of the Will, he could tell that there was no longer any living beside him in this whole area.

Abel ordered the battle command spirit, “Put the small-sized war puppets back.”

“Yes, Sir Elder.”

With that reply, the hidden battle fort 03 reappeared and slowly descended towards the ground. When it was about ten meters from level, it stopped and let the war puppets jump onto it. At the same time, Abel was putting the spiritual guardian knights back into his portal ring. He didn’t want to use them, to begin with. Orc priest spells were still taboo in the human world. If he wasn’t trying to promote himself, he would’ve never considered revealing such a dangerous secret of his.

As he made his way inside the Assassin Union building, he saw many corpses lying around. The working staff was shot to death by the consecutive ballistas. Since the arrows were large in size, the bodies became very unsightly since they were shot at point-blank range. Still, the battle command spirit did a very good job retrieving the arrows. After scraping through the gore and blood, almost all the ballista arrows were retrieved in a very short period of time.

Next, Abel saw some of the men that were killed by the spiritual guardian knights. These bodies were dried into mummies as the life force was sucked out of all of them. It was the work of the death qi, something that was typical to the advanced orc warriors. It was because of this that he didn’t want to use the spiritual guardian knights here. Now that the evidence was already here, he had to draw spell runes to create “fireballs” to burn it all up.

When the corpses were burnt into ash, he decided that the basement would be his very next target. He walked and walked, removing all traces of the spiritual guardian knights on his way. As he saw a ladder that was heading down, he used it to head towards a spot with a defensive circle in place. The battle command spirit’s already gained control of the assassin spirit, so it wasn’t very hard for him to bypass all the security measures that were put in place.

With one after one circle being switched off, multiple mechanisms were opened on their own. After that, Abel found his way into the room where the assassin spirit was stored. Since there were too many spell circles that were opened, apart from just one top-level gemstone, all the other intermediate gemstones were already shattered when he found them. In the center of the room, there was a blue shiny pillar that was erected on top of a circular plate. This was the assassin spirit, the entity that was supposed to control all the business deal that the Assassin Union was doing on the entire Holy Continent.

“The assassin union is here to serve you, Master,” a mechanical voice said.

Abel went to ask about what he was most concerned with, “Help me something then, won’t you? Get me the list that contains information on assassinating Abel.”

“Yes, Master,” the assassin spirit replied, “The hit list for Abel is coded 47323743. The one who ordered it is Ambrose.”

“Ambrose? You mean Emperor Ambrose of the Kingdom of St. Ellis?”

“That is correct, Master,” the assassin spirit replied.

It was not the sort of reply that Abel thought of. The Kingdom of St. Ellis was one of his few genuine allies, and even though he never really had much chance to have a conversation with Emperor Ambrose, he did have a lot of pleasant conversations with his eldest son, Prince Derek. To begin with, he wouldn’t have become a duke in the first place if it wasn’t for the Kingdom of St. Ellis. After being granted the duchy of Carmel, he had many opportunities to work with Ambrose on so many policies. There might be a lot of conflicting interests between him, but he’s always thought that the benefits far outweigh the losses.

Actually, it wasn’t all that difficult to explain this situation. Abel’s power grew too quickly for too many people to react. It didn’t matter if he was a wizard or a grandmaster blacksmith. Still, after gaining so much reputation after that war at the Miracle City, his influence became so significant that it could affect even the geopolitical circumstances of the Holy Continent. He was a hero that became a king, much like how the three heroes built the three existing human empires. It would make sense that Emperor Ambrose saw him as a threat that must be rid of.

Of course, Emperor Ambrose wasn’t going to openly declare an assassination on Abel. He didn’t want the Kingdom of St. Ellis to be targeted by Abel’s allies. He only had the Assassin Union to turn to, and make no mistake. The Assassin Union was his very best option. The Assassin Union was like a blade that any important figure was confident of using. To put it metaphorically, no one really could declare ownership over this blade. Still, it was always available for anyone if they wanted to use it for something that they didn’t want the others to know about. Even if a mission didn’t succeed, the Assassin Union would always make sure that they never reveal any information about their client.

Emperor Ambrose had very simple intentions: if Abel could be killed, all the better. But if not, he didn’t really mind either. The Assassin Union was simply his only option. Abel proved him wrong quickly. After just one failed assassination attempt, he managed to pull the entire association from its very roots. He even became the new owner of its main building. For now, while no information about the assassination attempt was leaked, the information that the assassin spirit was sharing him made him an even more frightening figure to make an enemy of.

Murder flashed in Abel’s eyes. He didn’t think that the Kingdom of St. Ellis would do such a thing to him. He didn’t want to see his good ally turn into an enemy, but there really wasn’t much else that he could do. If he was a politician, he would’ve tolerated this kind of foul play, but he never had the time to cultivate himself into a politician. He started off too high. No one taught him to compromise to the dirty deeds his rivals were doing to him, so he obviously had very little tolerance to anyone who posed as his enemies. It was the same even after he became king.

Still, Abel knew to let go of his anger for the time being. It wasn’t the right timing to go after the Kingdom of St. Ellis just yet. On his other side, there was still a magic tower left for him to go conquer. After performing multiple “instantaneous movements” at once, he soon arrived at the outside of the rank seventeen magic tower. Since the master was already dead, the light that was supposed to emit from the Kilmer Magic Tower was no more.

After finding a card from Wizard Kilmer’s corpse, the magic tower opened on its own. Abel then quickly made his way into the second advanced wizard’s magic tower he’s ever been into.