Void Realm Assassination

Where was a place where you could kill someone and never be discovered? Where was a place where no one could stop you from murder and arson? Where was a place where everyone was utterly alone? That's right—the Void Realm! Humming a little tune, Amoduo rode his bicycle through the curtain of rain. On the back of his hand was a pale-red mark of crossed swords. As he pedaled along, the mark's red glow grew brighter and brighter. "I'm a thief, I love Lalafell meat. I'm a thief, killing without tears to weep. I'm a thief, my heart is pitch-black." He was an affairs specialist from the Blissful Tranquility Agency—ranked first in Azula and sixth nationwide—which specialized in providing services that were illegal yet exhilarating in reality: murder. Compared to the Family Harmony Agency, which had risen over the past several decades, the Blissful Tranquility Agency boasted a far longer history. In the past, it had stood alongside the Funeral Agency as one of Azula's two greatest underworld syndicates, growing alongside the city itself. Now, as the new generation replaced the old, the Funeral Agency had lost its luster and was even kicked out of the top ten courtesans' ranks, so to speak. Yet the Blissful Tranquility Agency still held firmly to the title of Azula's top star. Clients flocked to it from across the entire country; far from declining, it had grown ever more prosperous, a veritable vintage sauce-aroma agency. The reason the Blissful Tranquility Agency could endure without ever fading was that it had mastered a core technique: Void Realm murder. When the Book of Gospel first appeared, sorcerers' initial reaction wasn't to use it to research grand issues like universal harmony, productivity growth, how best to cook Lalafell, whether the chicken or the egg came first, or whether they were the superior race. Instead, they thought: *How can I use the Book of Gospel to climb higher in the Void Realm?* Sometimes it was truly hard to say whether sorcerers possessed a grand vision or a petty one. Ascending the Void Realm could be broken down into two specific goals: Void Realm Exploration and faction realms. Soon, sorcerers discovered that whenever they hit a bottleneck in their faction realm, they could seek the teachings of the Gospel. In theory, so long as one's talent was sufficient, sorcerers in the Gospel Country could continuously advance their faction realms. If likened to writing, everyone could become normal authors pumping out tens of thousands of words a day, instead of stupid hacks struggling through writer's block to squeeze out a few thousand. Although many sorcerers with vast room for improvement found that even after listening to the Gospel, they still couldn't comprehend it, that was obviously because they weren't trying hard enough. Sorcerers had no sympathy for underachievers who couldn't keep up. Why was the Void Realm divided into so many tiers? Precisely so sorcerers would understand their own class and standing. However, when it came to Void Realm Exploration, sorcerers found that the Book of Gospel was of little help. The biggest issue was that they could not summon the Book of Gospel in the Void Realm. Strictly speaking, the Book of Gospel was a miracle that existed only within the Gospel Country. Once outside it—not just in the Void Realm, but even if one merely went to another country—the Book of Gospel could not be summoned. Unable to consult walkthroughs in real time, sorcerers could only pray for the Book of Gospel's blessings before entering the Void Realm. But such Gospel blessings were absurdly expensive—for instance, a simple pathfinding blessing like "guide the sorcerer to the nearest knowledge creature" cost the equivalent of a whole month's worth of point rewards for the first place on the national leaderboard. The Book of Gospel certainly had the power to grant sorcerers potent blessings such as "guide the sorcerer to the nearest resource point," "knowledge creatures automatically avoid the sorcerer," or "wild sorcery spirits come running to act as the sorcerer's dogs." The problem was that the prices for such blessings were at a national scale; unless the entire Gospel Country supported a single individual, no one could afford such extravagance. Yet a sorcerer's love for the Void Realm wasn't something mere prices could suppress. If the expensive ones were unaffordable, they could simply seek out cheaper alternatives. Over the years, sorcerers had gradually uncovered various affordable blessings that could be applied to the Void Realm. Those who mastered these secret techniques either founded clans, companies, or shadowy factions to train subordinates, or established agencies to give back to the public. The Blissful Tranquility Agency belonged to the latter. They had mastered a Gospel secret technique that could lock onto others in the Void Realm, and developed their "Void Realm murder" business around it. While other agencies also possessed means to kill, most relied on roundabout methods and dared not get their hands dirty directly. Furthermore, if the target was wealthy, powerful, and influential, the vast majority of methods were rendered useless. Money and power, after all, were far sturdier ramparts than the law. For example, the Family Ruin Agency, ranked second in Azula, only destroyed petty households; they lacked the capability to bring down a major clan. Void Realm murder, however, was different. In the Void Realm, all external possessions became meaningless; the only thing a sorcerer could rely upon was their own strength. In the era when Blissful Tranquility rose to fame, more than a hundred tycoons, government officials, Red Hats, and even members of the royal family died across the nation in the Void Realm. Everyone knew they had been murdered in the Void Realm by Blissful Tranquility, yet no one could convict them. Governance by the Gospel was the fundamental national policy of the Isu royal family, and events that took place in the Void Realm were not protected by the Gospel. Whoever dared attack the law-abiding citizens of the Blissful Tranquility Agency was a criminal in the Gospel Country. The office branch of the Blissful Tranquility Agency was situated right next to the Azula Red Hat General Headquarters. On the wall of the agency's front desk hung a list filled entirely with dead people who had already "entered blissful tranquility." They were just that arrogant, and no one could do a damn thing about it. Escaping Blissful Tranquility's hunt was quite simple, however: you just had to not enter the Void Realm. Ordinary mortals, for instance, would never become Blissful Tranquility's targets. But for sorcerers, staying out of the Void Realm was virtually impossible. Leaving aside growing stronger, spending two hours in the Void Realm each day left one fully energized for the entire day, whereas ordinary people required at least six hours of sleep. Factoring this in, a sorcerer's lifespan was effectively prolonged by 12.3% compared to an ordinary person's. Willingly shorten one's lifespan just to dodge assassination? No one would accept such a losing trade. Thus, Blissful Tranquility developed a second line of business: the whitelist. As long as you paid an annual fee, Blissful Tranquility guaranteed they wouldn't move against you that year. The annual fee varied from person to person; if there had been many murder commissions against you in the previous year, your fee for the following year would rise significantly. From the Isu royal family down to the prominent clans, Blissful Tranquility's whitelist covered virtually the entire ruling class of the Gospel Country. Of course, plenty of people didn't buy into it. Cleios, Azula's local Red Hat, had never paid them any mind—what Sanctuary Sorcerer feared assassination? Yet a Sanctuary Sorcerer couldn't just slaughter them either, unless one had no desire to keep living in the Gospel Country. Although Blissful Tranquility generally avoided provoking Sanctuary Sorcerers, back when they had first started their whitelist business a hundred years ago, a Sanctuary Sorcerer constantly provoked them. Blissful Tranquility hadn't assassinated the Sanctuary Sorcerer, but they murdered every single one of his Two Wings and One Wing relatives and friends. By the time that Sanctuary Sorcerer slaughtered all the agency's staff in retaliation, he was wanted by the Gospel Country, turned into a political achievement for the Red Hats, was swiftly arrested, and, under Gospel adjudication, sentenced to death. A few years later, Blissful Tranquility made a comeback and resumed their whitelist business, but this time no one dared provoke them. They weren't bowing to assassins; they were bowing to the Gospel. The Gospel had laid down fair and impartial rules of the game. If you couldn't beat the competition, you deserved to lose. Over the past fifty years, Blissful Tranquility had taken action less and less. Sometimes they didn't even kill a single person in an entire year. Yet merely collecting protection money from the rich was enough to make them number one in Azula, earning even more than when they worked as killers. It went to show that working an honest job couldn't compare to robbing the rich to help themselves. These past two days, the Blissful Tranquility Agency finally received a long-awaited massive commission. "Assassination Target: Yaxiu Heath" "Commission Reason: Yaxiu Heath" There were many clients: the Isu royal family, Cleios, and Red Hats from other regions. The Blissful Tranquility Agency accepted them all. Although Red Hats and agencies were normally bitter enemies, no one turned down Gospel merits. As long as Blissful Tranquility succeeded in the assassination, the Gospel merits would be distributed among the Red Hats who had invested in the assassination fund in proportion to their contributions. Putting up money counted as contributing effort, after all—the Book of Gospel was very fair. Yaxiu Heath was not on the whitelist, so Blissful Tranquility could accept the job with a clear conscience. They dispatched all the Two Wings killers in the agency, thirteen in total, with Amoduo being one of them. All thirteen sorcerers had acquired the blessing "pointing toward Yaxiu Heath." Once in the Void Realm, all they had to do was follow the guidance to find Yaxiu. As for determining when Yaxiu entered the Void Realm, that was child's play. They obtained the utility records of Annan's residence from Cleios and deduced that Yaxiu Heath's Void Realm hours were from 11:00 PM to 5:00 AM. Having taken the job on May 11, they chose 2:00 AM on May 12 to execute the mission. At this hour, Yaxiu Heath would definitely be in the Void Realm and would have consumed quite a bit of soul energy. It was the perfect opportunity to send him his "bliss." Amoduo majored in the mechanical faction and earth sorcery faction, the very two sorcery factions the Earth Empress excelled in; clearly, he too was a victim of the *Sorcerer Duel* franchise. But mastering these two factions granted him considerable perks. For instance, he could construct a bicycle on the Time Continent, which not only cost zero soul energy to travel with, but was also reasonably fast. Yet Amoduo discovered that his assassination target possessed an even faster mode of transport. As he advanced in a straight line toward the target, the guiding mark actually dimmed. At first, he thought he had taken a wrong turn, but careful observation revealed that the target was moving faster than him, causing the relative distance between them to grow. *Strange. I'm already riding this bicycle pretty fast. I'm a cycling master—tenth on the National Cycling Leaderboard and second on the Azula Cycling Leaderboard! My speed reaches seventy kilometers per hour, nearly on par with a hovercar.* *What kind of vehicle is Yaxiu using?* *An alchemical puppet? An enslaved knowledge creature? But none of those are faster than my bike.* *It's not like he could be driving a sports car, right?* Amoduo was completely baffled, but he would soon know the answer—according to the guiding mark, he was already very close to the target, and the target was moving in his direction. *Am I the first to arrive?* he wondered. Without question, Yaxiu's combat capability wasn't much to speak of—that was evident from the fact that he hadn't appeared on any sorcerer combat power leaderboards. To well-prepared assassins like Amoduo, Yaxiu was a fish on the chopping board, a workbook before a top student: ripe for the slaughter. Bounty distribution was also allocated based on combat contribution, so Amoduo had no intention of holding back. He readied the miracles Boiling Quagmire and Thousand Earth Spikes, intending to treat Yaxiu to a blissful hot-water massage bath the instant he appeared in sight. Another crucial question in Void Realm assassination was: how do you annihilate the target's soul? In an ordinary death, a sorcerer would at most lose a portion of their soul. While that caused plenty of inconveniences in reality, a few months of rest was generally enough to recover; between that and true death, there was at least the gap of becoming a vegetative human. This was why the killers of the Blissful Tranquility Agency all utilized specially developed lethal miracles. Compared to standard miracles, lethal miracles consumed more sorcery power without offering any significant boost in raw destructive power. Their greatest effect was inflicting slow, all-encompassing harm upon the target. This was the secret of killing someone in the Void Realm: never kill the target in one blow. Instead, place them in an environment of constant, all-encompassing damage. That way, by the time the target died, their entire soul would be virtually exhausted, leaving remnants insufficient to support a physical body. Even if they didn't die, the target would fall into an unconscious, comatose state, taking a decade or more to recover. It was said that some clients paid extra to request targets be reduced to an unconscious state, apparently to serve as a backdrop for certain depraved roleplay games... The guiding mark grew brighter and brighter. Right ahead! Here he comes! Yet right then, Amoduo sensed something was wrong—why was the ground trembling? According to the dossier, Yaxiu wasn't a multi-ton Kinder Joy surprise egg, so how could he cause tremors like this? Yet there was no time left for Amoduo to think. The guiding mark blazed to its peak. Yaxiu Heath was right behind the curtain of rain before his eyes— *Vroom!—* An open-top sports car whipped right past him. Although Amoduo's professionalism prompted him to unleash his miracles immediately, both the earth spikes and the quagmire were run straight over by the car. Not to mention there was a thin barrier enveloping the sports car. "Another one?" A question echoed from the car before it sped away into the distance. Only Amoduo remained, braking his bicycle violently to a halt on the spot, savoring the dark-green exhaust fumes left behind by the sports car. His mind was in utter chaos, filled with countless questions. What did he mean by "another one"? Why was he driving a sports car? Why were there two other people in his car? Why did those two look like pretty young girls? Why was the sports car's exhaust stinging his eyes and corroding his face? Why was the rumbling getting louder and louder even though the sports car had already driven off into the distance?