POV Kam Tonghyon, eldest of the Kam Brothers

  This was the second time he and his four brothers had done a job in the Barren Wastelands. It was every bit as dirty and frustrating as he remembered. The people were weak and savage, barely better than animals.

  Still, a job was a job.

  And when sects were desperate to contribute to the Great

  Martial Alliance, they were easy to scam. They were getting paid three times

  their usual rate for this job, although as far as his little brothers

  were concerned, it was only double. It was worth running across the

  dusty landscape of the wasteland. Also, while the sect who hired them

  would take most of the credit, this job would be leverage which could be

  used to finally legitimize their family.

  As trackers and assassins, finding a foothold in the

  upper echelon of the martial society was difficult. The fact that all

  five of them were covered in scars from a lifetime of hard work didn’t

  help them fit in. With the war reaching new heights of intensity,

  however, there was no better time to finally gain the recognition they

  deserved.

  Their family crest, which adorned their dark grey combat

  clothes, was a serpent with a knife in its mouth. As a result, most

  people assumed they were criminals and thugs. Even so, they couldn’t

  change it. It had been their family crest for countless generations, a

  source of great pride. Those hypocrites of the alliance always

  considered it improper during times off peace, but now those pretenses had

  loosened.

  After this job, they would have both the money and the

  connections to finally establish the Kam Family, as their father and

  grandfather had always dreamed about.

  They ran for weeks, during which they confiscated houses along the way to rest every few days. Finally, Mujin was within sight.

  Their gracious hosts who offered up their homes, beds,

  and pantries along the way told them rumors of the city. How it used to

  be an insignificant town but over the course of the past decade and a half or more had

  grown to become the biggest city in the wastelands. The capital of the demonic cult.

  The latest news, told by the most recent host, was that

  the inner cult had moved away from their capital and relocated to the

  mountains north of the city.

  Pride washed over him as he thought back on those

  wasteland savages who hosted them during their journey. He had been able to give their lives purpose in

  aiding a great cause before they fell to his blade. An act of true

  generosity on his part.

  “We’ve reached the city,” Tonghyon said to his brothers.

  “The mountain range should be due north of here. No need to spend more

  time than necessary in this hellhole, we’ll head there immediately.”

  They turned away from the city and ran north. After a

  while, they found the road which connected the two. In an effort to

  avoid detection from any who might be traveling there, they followed

  it at a distance. Most people would have struggled to follow the tracks

  of the road from such a distance, but not them. They were professional

  trackers.

  A few hours later, they came to a stop. Their path forward was blocked by a wall of fog that covered the base of the mountains.

  “First Brother, this doesn’t seem natural. How could

  there be such a dense fog in the Barren Wastelands? The air is far too

  dry,” asked the third brother.

  “Could it be smoke?” asked the fourth. “Though it doesn’t look the part, nor do I smell anything…”

  Tonghyon, the first brother, took in the sight of the fog

  pensively. “It’s likely a trap of some kind, some enchantment to hide themselves some predators. It doesn’t matter. If they

  limit our vision, they also limit their own. I understand their

  thinking. They know the land and have likely trained guards to fight in

  the fog.” He shook his head in disappointment. “It might work against

  lowly wasteland gangs, but against us, it’s a grave mistake. We excel in

  such environments. We’ll turn their trap against them, use it to our

  advantage.”

  They all smiled with confidence. They were assassins and rogues, even pitch black conditions wouldn’t be an issue for them.

  The five brothers dashed into the fog.

  “The fog is dense, but it’s not enough to hinder our

  senses. I can see dozens of meters, more than enough to deal with any

  attack. You were right, First Brother,” said the fourth brother.

  “It’s easy to be right when your opponents underestimate you.”

  Five minutes later, Tonghyon looked over his shoulder.

  His four little brothers had followed him for most of their lives, and

  he knew they could handle most everything that could be thrown at them.

  They were all Experts.

  Not a single brother had succumb to the might of the Major Accomplishment Tribulation. A job like this was nothing to them.

  Still, worry began to fester.

  After 15 minutes, he frowned. Something was clearly wrong, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. It was probably nothing, he was just letting his worry for his brothers get the best of him.

  They kept running.

  30 minutes, and they finally stopped.

  “This doesn’t make any sense!” the third brother called

  out. “We should be half way up the mountain by now, but there isn’t even

  an incline in the terrain yet. What in the hells is going on!?”

  “I don’t know,” Tonghyon admitted. “You’re right, it

  doesn’t make any sense. Moreover, the fog is much denser than before. I

  can barely see a few meters now.” He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter,

  we’ll deal with it when it when there’s something to deal with. We

  can’t stay here, we keep going!”

  They kept running.

  Another 10 minutes went by, and the fog grew denser with every passing second.

  Tonghyon had enough. “Fourth Brother, your [Extended

  Sense] and [Piercing Eye] Skills are the strongest out of all of us.

  What can you see?”

  Silence.

  “Fourth Brother, answer me!” Tonghyon called out again.

  “Fourth Brother!” The other three brothers joined in.

  They all turned around and looked for their brother, but he was nowhere to be found.

  “What the fuck! Where is he? First Brother, this is bad!” The fifth brother freaked out.

  “Calm down! He can hold his own. The fog is getting

  denser, that must mean that we’re getting close to the edge. If we just

  keep going, we’ll get out!”

  They continued running.

  Nobody said a word but they all stayed close so as to not

  lose each other in the fog. After another fifteen minutes lights

  finally permeated through the fog in front of them.

  “Daylight! We did it, we made it through,” Tonghyon said enthusiastically.

  With a puff, they pushed through the edge of the fog and stumbled on the ground.

  The moment they stepped foot outside the fog, it was as

  though the ground attacked them. The entire world flipped and they fell

  face first into the dirt.

  “What the fuck!” The fifth brother shouted.

  The second brother pushed himself up to his feet and

  adjusted his balance against the incline. “The fog must have messed with

  our senses and our balance. We thought the terrain was flat, but we

  just didn’t notice the incline. When we finally stepped outside of the

  fog, our senses adjusted back to normal, and the earth itself looked like it came

  flying at us.” His eyes frowned. “I don’t know how they did it, but I’m

  impressed.”

  “Agreed,” Tonghyon said, his eyes peeled on their

  surroundings. “But now’s not the time to stand around feeling impressed

  by our target. We need to hurry in case they know we’re here.” He turned

  around to face his brothers. “Let’s— Wait… Where’s Third Brother?” They

  all looked around in a panic. “Shit, it doesn’t matter. He’s just gonna

  have to handle himself. Once we’ve finished the job, we’ll come back

  for him and Fourth Brother.” Deep down, he knew he was mostly trying to

  convince and console himself rather than his two remaining brothers.

  “Let’s go!”

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  The second and fifth brothers shared a worried look. Silently, they followed their first brother up the hill.

  There was more vegetation on the hill than expected, it

  was just a few bushes and areas of tall grass but something about the

  mountain felt more alive than most of the Barren Wastelands.

  Their guards were up as they carefully made their way up the mountain.

  After a few minutes, frustration and confusion came back in full force.

  “Brothers, why is it that we can never seem to reach

  those rocks up there,” the second brother said. “We keep climbing but

  we’re not getting anywhere.”

  “You’re right.” Tonghyon looked around. When he didn’t

  see anything out of the ordinary, he activated a Movement Skill and

  dashed forward up the mountain. Upon landing, he looked over his

  shoulder. His two brothers were still right there. Even with his dash,

  he had barely moved. “We’re trapped.”

  “What is this, what kind of trap could do this—“ The

  fifth brother was interrupted by an unusual sight. Everything in the

  distance began to blur and spin. They themselves remained perfectly

  still, as did the area directly around them, but beyond a certain point, the world spun counterclockwise. Slowly at first, but it quickly sped up.

  The three brothers moved closer to one another and positioned themselves back to back.

  Soon, they found themselves in the center of a tornado.

  Distorted wind spun at extreme speeds all around them, stretching up high above them.

  The border closed in on them.

  “What the fuck! What do we do!?” The fifth brother shouted.

  “I— I don’t know…” Tonghyon blinked and stuttered.

  Within moments, the tornado was almost on them, just a few meters away.

  The youngest, Fifth Brother, couldn’t take it. He

  screamed in an attempt to take back some control of his mind, but he

  failed utterly. “I can’t stay here, I won’t!” He dashed with everything

  he had directly into the tornado, hoping it wasn’t as dangerous as it

  looked.

  Once engulfed by the winds, he stopped.

  Not by choice.

  He thought that he had leaped for dozens of meters, but in truth, he had barely moved, just like his first brother earlier.

  The winds cut into him.

  It was as though there were incredibly sharp razor blades

  embedded into the wind itself. They weren’t deep, just surface level,

  but it cut him thousands of times over just a few seconds. He let loose a

  scream that couldn’t quite reach his brothers but they felt his pain

  and fear just by looking at him.

  They just stared in horror at the sight of their brother being cut to threads in front of them.

  The winds cut deeper and deeper with every passing second. Soon, there was barely anything left of the man.

  Kam Tonghyon’s mind went blank. His second brother collapsed to his knees,but Tonghyon just stood there.

  Moments later, the tornado closed shut and covered them

  both. For a moment he instinctively tried to protect himself, but his

  defenses broke down quickly.

  A minute later, the winds calmed down and the land

  returned to its former calm. If not for the red stains on the grass,

  nobody would have known anything ever happened.

  POV Baz

  Words appeared on a glazed section of the wall in the main room of Baz’ temple.

  Five intruders discovered, all neutralized.

  One killed by the [Reversing Heaven Killing Earth Formation].

  One caught and killed by the Azure Mist Demon Squad.

  The remaining three killed by the [Thousand Blades Space Compression Formation]

  It wasn’t the first message of its kind.

  The cult’s mages and formation masters still hadn’t

  recreated the communication badges from the Wandering Wolves, but they

  had managed to reverse engineer certain functions.

  Message boards were installed in important places to

  allow them to send messages to fixed points. Baz didn’t interfere too

  much with the day-to-day, but he did ask for regular updates on

  important topics. In the Formation Hall main building, they had set up a

  unit dedicated to monitoring the [Grand Demonic Mist Formation] that

  surrounded Mansan who kept Baz and the various squads informed of any

  and all intrusions.

  In the years that followed Víctor’s tribulation there had

  been dozens of assassination attempts every year. None as high leveled

  as the first but some were certainly strong enough that they could have

  killed a Master Practitioner if they reached them, and caught them by

  surprise.

  Once the formation perimeter was properly in place, however, not a single assassin made it through.

  The cult’s formations improved by leaps and bounds. They

  were even able to mimic Baz’ [Heavenly Demon Cosmic Steps]—which he

  finally got around to naming—to create the [Thousand Blade Space

  Compression Formation], which also drew inspiration from the heavenly

  winds that assaulted Baz during his Heavenly Tribulation. A truly

  fearsome combination.

  It opened doors previously beyond their imaginations.

  They had only been able to maintain the spacial effects within a limited

  area for the moment, but in time they were confident that teleportation

  formations and storage artifacts would become a reality. Though they had been informed that storage artifacts were known to exists through

  Elder Jaemin, that was only as legendary artifacts for the upper

  echelon of the world. Exceedingly rare and prohibitively expensive.

  Teleportation, however, would be a truly unique creation if the cult

  managed it.

  Satisfied with the success of the cult’s defenses, Baz acknowledged the visitor who approached the Temple of the Heavenly Demon.

  A man in his late twenties kneeled by the temple

  entrance. His robes were simple, the kind worn by most every commoner

  outside of the Red Sea. Compared to the standards of Mujin, however,

  they would still be considered high quality garments, if a bit bland

  given their simple charcoal grey colors.

  “I greet the Heavenly Demon!” the young man called out with reverence.

  Baz smiled and walked past him, following the path toward his flower garden. “Demonic General Joon, accompany me to the gazebo.”

  They walked in silence, both enjoying the serenity of the

  beautiful greenery. Even with the success of the cult, gardens were

  still rare sight in the Red Sea.

  Once they arrived at the gazebo, Baz sat down while Joon remained standing until Baz gestured at him to sit.

  They sat in silence for moment while Baz poured them both a cup of tea.

  “So, how is the situation in the Jeoksa Family?” Baz said, breaking the silence.

  In the past, it would have been difficult, if not

  impossible, to hear spoken words at the mountain peak due to the

  constant extreme winds. As part of the reconstruction of the peak,

  several formations had been installed for various reasons. One of them

  was to deal with the weather. The peak was almost isolated in a bubble,

  shielded from the hurricane winds and any other nuisance brought about

  by the weather.

  “Our preparations are nearly done, Demon Lord. When the day comes, it’ll be swift and efficient.”

  Work on the plans for the coup of the Jeoksa Family had

  begun long ago, but they mostly fell apart with the loss of the cult’s

  Vice Leader, Marion, six years earlier.

  Joon was one of the top graduates of the third generation

  of the Cave of Latent Demons. It was discovered early in his training

  that he was one of the rare few born with a Talent. [Shapeshift] allowed

  him to subtly alter his appearance. It was fairly limited. No matter

  how hard he pushed it, he couldn’t turn into someone else, but it did

  functionally work as a natural ability to disguise himself. Combined

  with an inherent disposition for stealth and information gathering, he

  was a natural spy.

  Baz had promoted him to Demonic General and master of the

  cult’s new Intelligence Hall. For the past year, he and a squad of his

  men had been embedded in Jeoksa Family to work with Elder Jaemin in

  preparation of their coup.

  “Good, we’ll act once we have his son firmly in our

  grasp,” Baz said. “He’s old enough to enter the Cave of

  Latent Demons now. We can’t let the elder become too powerful before we

  have a proper means of controlling him, even if he is willingly handing

  his son over to be a hostage. How is the progress with the other

  contenders?”

  Inclining his head respectfully, Joon answered, “Slow but steady,

  Demon Lord. As you know, Elder Jaemin has climbed in the ranks to become

  a core elder of the Family and as such is that much closer to the seat

  of patriarch. While the current patriarch is one of only two Masters in

  the Family, he is old. He is expected to step down and hand power over

  to his eldest son shortly. A decision not without controversy. The

  patriarch himself is well respected, but his eldest son has a penchant

  for gambling and is known to frequent local brothels. No one is

  particularly thrilled about his ascension, but the traditionalists value

  the Family laws more than their discomfort. The second son, however, is

  gradually gaining support from the younger generations of elders. He is

  playing a more subtle game, though. At no point has he voiced any

  interest in becoming patriarch, though his ambition is clear to see. He

  takes any and all opportunities to point out his older brother’s vices

  and inadequacies while at the same time push for the Family to adopt

  more progressive ideas. Ones supposedly growing in popularity with the

  greater sects of the Great Martial Alliance in the central plains.”

  Baz picked up his cup. “Progressive ideas that might lead

  to the Family becoming more flexible in matters of succession, I

  assume,” he said before taking a sip.

  “Precisely, Demon Lord.” Joon nodded. “As a result, the

  Jeoksa Family is somewhat divided in two factions, the traditionalists

  who support the first son, and the more progressive elders who support

  the second son. It’s a long game, one that will most assuredly grow in

  intensity as the patriarch’s abdication draws closer.”

  “And Elder Jaemin, how are the other elders feeling about his new position?”

  “An even more subtle strategy than that of the second

  son’s is in play. At first, most elders were quite sour about his

  ascension to core elder. They expected that he would interfere and

  complicate their affairs or leverage his new position for personal

  benefit. Their expectations were proven wrong. He chose neither the

  first son’s faction nor the faction of the second son. Instead, on our suggestion, he

  befriended the patriarch’s youngest, his daughter. As she has no claim

  to power in their patriarchal system, she has maintained a neutral

  stance. By ostensibly choosing neutrality and using his well crafted

  political skills, Elder Jaemin has managed to get on most people’s good

  side. He’s liked by the older traditionalists and the younger

  progressives alike. I, along with my men, have spent a considerable

  effort in spreading positive rumors about him to the mortals and lower

  echelons of the Family, as well.”

  Baz nodded, satisfied with the briefing. “Excellent, well

  played. We’ll likely have to eliminate all three, the patriarch and his

  two sons, for this to work so these years of preparation will make the

  transition smoother.” He took another sip. “So, plans are in place for

  how we execute once the time comes?”

  “Yes, Demon Lord. Details will need to be handled when

  the day is closer, anything can change until then after all, but we have

  the outline in place. We escalate the conflict between the two brothers

  and weaken the patriarch’s position and reputation in the process. Make

  it seem as though his care for his own flesh and blood surpasses that

  of his love for the Family. Most importantly, we make it seem as though

  one of the brothers brought in external aid. That a rival Group weaseled

  their way in through the brothers’ conflict. Once the struggle within

  the patriarch’s family reaches a boiling point, we strike and take them

  all out in one fell swoop. Elder Jaemin has retained his role as

  External Elder even with his new status, and to save the Family, he will

  make use of his connections to our Heavenly Demon Divine Cult to bring

  the unrest to a stop. He takes control as the new patriarch, and we

  become the saviors of the Jeoksa Family.”

  They finished their tea as Joon’s report came to a close.

  Once alone, Baz walked up to the edge of the cliff at the peak of the mountain and looked out over the cult like a proud parent.

  Seeing the progress they had made and the thought of how far they would go in the future brought a smile to his face. The coup at hand also played a part, taking down a grand martial Family got his heart racing.

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