Emperor's Reckoning

"Hahaha," the masked man laughed at Lyon. Like a fish know how to swim, he knew he was no match the moment his eyes couldn't follow his movement. However, weak he might be, a fool he was not.

Lyon furrowed his eyebrows, but he didn't have a moment to spare. He had only one sword in his hand, and it already embedded the masked man's gut, so cutting them both at the same time would be difficult considering his opponent's level.

Lyon immediately let go of the sword before he made a horse stance. (If I can't cut it both in time, then-). His eyes looked at the biceps of his opponent before launching a heavy finger-point thrust on both of them.

"Now," said the masked man. Everything will be decided in this very second, and he chose not to give it up that easily.

"Aargh!" the masked man screamed in agony as his biceps were thorned, not even the specialized clothing of his organization could reduce the force Lyon was throwing. Despite so, he was still standing on his two feet.

Lyon put out a smirk, "I see that you are an assassin, your quick-witted thinking is worthy of your profession."

The masked man's hands were dangling down with blood kept pouring from the gruesome wounds. "I'm not worthy of your praise," he had a smile on his face even though he was going to die.

"Ho? What's the sudden change?" asked Lyon with a smile.

"In this life of mine, I killed a few geniuses in my career. Some even said that I was responsible for a declining world, I took all of that as praise for my work. However, in those that I killed, not even one of them had half of your talent!" said the masked man with a cough in between sentences.

Lyon shook his head with a smile, "Alright, let's get to a more serious topic here. Where can I find your base?"

The masked man's smiled wryly, "With your talent and unknown arsenals, you will find it on your own. Don't you agree?"

"I wouldn't say that I cannot find it in the future but it would be faster if you can just tell me. Besides, I have the means to extract your information and all of your memory, by force," said Lyounus as he crossed his arm.

The masked man stretched his lips wide as he couldn't detect any lies inside those eyes that were looking him down. (How scary, this prodigy, no, this demon!). It was as if the young man in front of him was nothing but a being out of this world and the only thing that's halting his cultivation growth was probably time itself.

"Do you know what I have more than you?" chuckled the masked man.

Lyon furrowed his eyebrows. He felt something was odd with his opponent's confidence.

"Experience!" shouted the masked man as he stomped the floor with his right foot. A broken stone was heard as the jade-colored chunks vanished to thin air. His figure was instantly enveloped by a jade light to Lyon's disbelief.

Lyon took a deep breath to calm himself before saying, "I see, now I understand. In the spare moment of less than a second, before I obliterated your biceps, you let go of the Returning Jade Stone in your right hand and tap it with one of your fingers so that it would fall beside your right foot concurrently with the time the left one fell.

"Then, you talk to me to divert the already clueless me by talking as if you are about to die. It is my mistake."

The masked man who heard this had his eyes opened wide at Lyon's analytic prowess. Behind the enveloping light, he said, "Scary, you are really scary! Despite my profession, I must admit that I fear you more than anyone in the group!"

"Scarlet," Lyon whispered, "feed the blood of your enemies."

The masked man immediately felt his strength was getting weaker. His body was reduced to almost a muscleless state as his eyes dilated. He could feel his bone started to touch his skin from inside.

"Hurry up!"

The light was finally compressed before it launched itself to the roof and beyond, leaving the red sword fell on the floor.

Lyon could only look at the trails it left behind before retrieving his weapon with a single thought. He crouched down before Shen revealed himself.

"Why did you let him live? I know you noticed the stone beside his right foot all along," asked Shen.

Lyon shook his head, "Tsk, tsk, tsk, grandpa. I need him to live in that state so that he could go back to his base."

"Hmm? What for?" asked Shen. In his thought, killing the assassin and extracting the information would be more efficient for his grandson.

"I need him to live so that he knows I am a threat. C'mon grandpa I'm sure you know this already," answered Lyon.

"Hey, I'm not that cunning rat, so I uh, less verse about schemes or poisons... or formations... or talismans. Goddamnit! He knew almost everything but brute force."

Lyon raised his eyebrows at the words his grandfather said. He was sure he was talking about one of the twelve beings that raised him back in his past life. His eyes glimmered with excitement at the thought of such a being.

Seeing his excited eyes, the true dragon sighed, "Alright, alright, I will give you a line you like the most back in the day you were taught by him."

"Eh? There is such a thing?!" asked Lyon as he stood straight with expectation written all over his face and a returning jade stone in his right hand.

"Yeah of course there is, I mean, you always said it all the time. In lunches, dinners, breakfast, now that I remember it, god I swear to the all-heaven I will smack that rat one day!" cursed Shen as he remembered the old days.

After a fake cough, he continued, "Now then, the phrase I think it was 'In front of my wisdom, I don't need my finger lifted to defeat you.' or something along the line."

"In front of my wisdom, you have zero chance of victory," said Lyon with a tinge of pride on his face.

"Uwaah! It's so cool!" shouted Lyon as he slightly squatted his body and clenched his fists.

Suddenly a crack sound was heard.

"Shit," said both of them.