Michael stood in front of the assassin from The Deces. He was in quite the fix. The opponent was in late-perfect-realm with a soul-guard. Michael knew that even a mid-saint-realm expert with a soul-guard was impossible to win against normally. The perfect-persona blessing gave him one possible way, but it had to be used cautiously. The backlash for using it was very severe. He could not withstand a protracted battle with it. The only possible way to get out of the situation alive was to kill the person in front of him with a single overwhelmingly powerful surprise attack.

But that was easier said than done. The assassin was definitely much more trained in combat than Michael. Michael had no way to truly kill him like that. In all the dilemma, Michael thought of one possible method - the Flowing River Art. It was a very high-grade martial art that allowed him to use the physical strength from all around his body to attack at a single point. Michael had only reached half completion in the art. If he could reach major completion, it would be sufficient to kill the person in front of him.

Michael was not some martial genius that could make a breakthrough when things turned adverse to him. If he believed so, he would have died many times. Calling Michael quite average in martial arts and combat standards, in general, was quite accurate. If not for this being his second chance at life and his future knowledge, he would not be any more remarkable than prince Ronald. Thus, there was only one possible option, making a forced breakthrough. He would use the perfect persona blessing to gather the energy from beyond his limits in this fight. Michael knew that the backlash from doing so would probably cause irreparable damage to his body, maybe even crippling him entirely.

There were limits to what the life scripture could heal and Michael knew it. If the wound was extremely minute, Michael would truly be ruined. But there was no other method to survive. If he lived, he might make another breakthrough and possibly heal himself. Even after doing so, there was a possibility of death in the wilderness before help got to him. Thus, Michael was aware that he was in true mortal danger this time.

Well, I tried my best. I have already done much more than in my previous life. The plane is informed and ready and my family is also in a much better condition. Even if I die today, I have already made a difference. Though I don't really want to die. I want to live and become the leader of the plane. I want to become a hero and kill the devils. I want to live and let my family live without any fear and oppression.

Michael thought about all his goals and ambitions at that moment. He also thought about all the time he spent with his family and how well they treated him. As the thoughts went through his mind, he gradually calmed down. His eyes turned extremely dense and his willpower erupted with complete ferocity.

I will at least take you down with me. Let Gromjoy know that he should be more careful in choosing his clients.

After that, Michael rushed toward the assassin.

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The man had given Michael time to get into the fighting spirit due to respect in his heart. He could see a remarkable individual who could fight against death. Someone so talented. He also had the right attitude - all the makings of a great expert. It had moved him so much that he almost did not want to kill Michael. But nothing could be done. Fate was a clash of circumstances. Even before him, many geniuses had died unfair deaths.

Luck was a fickle bitch. Even immortals were slain when they were out of it. This was the course of nature. Lord Grimjoy himself was not invincible nither immortal. No one knew when he might face his end. Thus, the assassin did not hesitate any longer. He brought out another curse to his palms. This was an alternate version of the previous curse, capable of killing anyone below the immortal realm. The only difference was that it was slow acting and would not evaporate after death. But this was a way to make sure that the target died. He had seen Michael do things which should be impossible and he was not going to take any chances.

He pushed the curse in his palm towards Michael. The palm landed right on his shoulder. The assassin smiled. Michael's punch landed on his ribs at the same time. He was very close and had no way to dodge as the timing of the attack was perfect. He thought:

Indeed, this guy is good!

As soon as the punch hit him, his expression changed!

The power was completely beyond any emperor or saint. Even perfect realm should not have such physical power. It was almost reaching the immortal realm. His ribs broke and punctured his lungs. This was a heavy injury.

What a scary kid!

He would probably need some days of rest to heal. But before long, an explosion occurred. The strength of the punch was like a river that continued to flow with more and more force flowing into his body!

The physical force went through his lungs into his heart. Both the things turned into much. But this was not the end. The force seemed to have its own mind as it moved up from the heart destroying his windpipe and internals of his neck. It reached the skull and impacted the brain like an explosion.

A horrified expression appeared on his face before his entire face burst open with blood and brain matter scattering everywhere! The most talented assassin of The Deces - shadow-1 was dead.

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Michael too collapsed after the attack. The attack had taken its toll on him. Due to forced breakthrough, most of his meridians and energy passageways were destroyed. His cells were damaged at extremely minute levels causing paralysis on the entire left side of the upper half of his body. One of his lungs was shot with ribcage cracked at multiple places. His right hand was in a situation that he did not want to look at it.

Even surviving this was going to be difficult. Blood was flowing out of his mouth. He was also having difficulty breathing. This was the worst Michael had been injured - except when his body had been totally destroyed by the devils.

Even with life energy, he could only stop the bleeding after many minutes. He was weak beyond compare and only his soul arts could be used at the moment. If left like this, Michael might live but he would be crippled for sure. But the curse was there to make sure that such a thing did not happen. It was expanding slowly but surely. And Michael did not know what to do. There was no way to stop it from spreading.

Michael was dying. He was facing death right in the eyes. But there was a sense of satisfaction deep within him. He had killed the assassin. The chances of him doing so were not very high. When the assassin took out the curse, Michael initially wanted to dodge. But he did not do so. The assassin only needed to touch him once for the curse to latch on. There was no avoiding the curse. Thus, he decided to let the assassin hit him as he timed his all-out attack at the same time.

If the assassin had known the might of the attack, he would have dodged it and gone for another try to curse Michael. But Michael used his illusion methods to suppress the aura of the attack! He made it look like a normal attack.

This tricked the assassin to exchange blows. All the rest was easy. The assassin was dead now.

Michael got up with great difficulty as he moved toward a small mountain slope. He needed to hide for the time being and think of a way to neutralize the curse or else there was no avoiding dying. He was not going to die without trying anything.

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Ashley had been looking for a way to escape ever since she had joined the war. She had been tempted to try several times but there were other saints keeping an eye on her. Thus, it was very difficult. Then, when she heard the plan about the battle at the command centre, Ashley knew that it was a do or die moment.

In the battlefield during evacuation, she was about to try to escape when a man suddenly came flying in and hit one of Ragnar's personally allocated guards. Before she could realize what was happening, the guard was dead and the man was fighting four other guards while many from the light army were cutting off his escape route.

Chance!

She ran away from the battlefield and immediately donned her hood on. It was dangerous to narrow one's field of vision on the battlefield but she had to take some chances.

She reached the edge and took a warhorse from a soldier. Then, she rode in the direction of the neutral-empire. Her plan was clear, she was going to hide in the neutral-empire. She also had to take care of the seal that had been planted in her body. As long as the seal was there, Ragnar could find her whenever he wanted. Thus, she needed to get rid of it after reaching the neutral empire.

As she rode for an hour, she finally saw the carcass of a flying bird. She went closer to it only to find a corpse lying there. But the fluctuations from the corpse were clearly in the perfect realm! She did not know which expert killed the man but there were many blood prints on the ground. She followed the blood to a cave in the nearby mountain. She was a bit scared as the expert who had killed a perfect-realm expert was going to be powerful as well. But she was confident in her beauty. Even the dark races would not hurt her if they caught her - they would rape her.

In normal circumstances, she would be against getting raped but that was not so at the moment. The battle of CC#3 was underway and in the commotion, people had not realized that she was missing. As soon as they notice, they would send word to Ragnar and he would come over to "rescue" her. The seal constantly gave her location away.

And Ragnar had placed the seal on her sex!

That perverted bastard!

Although she was a virgin, it was not like Ragnar had truly left her alone. He had molested her countless times, played with her body, drugged her and tried to enslave her and tried almost everything except short of fucking her. All this was only because she had not reached the required "durability" for full-blown sex. Her days in her castle were hell and thus she would mostly spend her time at the light tower. Ragnar was a man of many fetishes and Ashley was a victim of all of them.

The seal worked in a petty way - same as Ragnar. It was a way to locate Ashley. But, it would get transferred over to the person who took her virginity. This was a way for Ragnar to take his revenge in case someone dared to covet his property. Thus, Ashley was hoping to fuck someone to transfer the seal and ditch the guy to run far away.

Ashley was no strategist like Kandrif and was not meticulous in her plans like Michael either. She was a pretty face with and knew how to use it. Her plans had lots of flaws but this was the best she could do. Sometimes one has to take a leap of faith and leave the rest to lady luck.

When she went inside, she found a familiar face - Michael. His handsome features were covered in blood. He had several injuries visible on his body and several more were hidden. There was a terrifying curse that had blackened the area around his shoulder and was quickly reaching towards his heart. Ashley was shocked for a moment and then felt sad. Michael was a good kid and she had virtually watched him grow up into a young man that he was today.

She knew that he was dying. Michael too seemed to notice her. His eyes widened on recognizing her before he again closed them. It seemed that he was trying to maintain his condition but it was clearly not working. Ashley was now in quite the predicament. She did not know when Ragnar would chase her. She needed to get rid of the seal on her as soon as possible. But she did not want to do it with Michael. After all, Ragnar would kill him for sure. At that time, Michael spoke:

> There is no chance of you saving me. The curse is very powerful. You should get away and leave me to my fate. I don't think that I can last more than an hour.

Ashley was conflicted about the choice. But she finally made her decision. She took out a powerful aphrodisiac pill from her bag. She had stolen it from one of the elven guards in charge of watching her. She told Michael about her circumstances. Michael immediately refused to co-operate.

After all, Ragnar was a well-known maniac. If he found out about this, he would probably kill the entire Rageberg family. Michael tried to fight back but how could he? In the state that he was, his injuries would prevent him from exerting his strength.

Ashley was prepared to commit the deed before she was knocked out by a powerful soul-attack.

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Michael may have feelings for the girl but he was not an idiot. How could he endanger his family he had tried so hard to protect. He had managed to prevent her from trying anything funny. But that did not mean he was out of danger.

He used his toes to engrave a message on the wall:

> I saved Ashley from assassins sent after her. The assassination was ordered by the Atrexia family.

This was Michael's way of revenge. He was confident that his family would be safe in the military base. And while it was not likely that Ragnar would truly end the Atrexia family due to just a dead man's testimony, Michael would die in satisfaction.