“Shiur?” wondered Ficha as he sent away all of the black robed men in the restaurant.

He then calmly stood up and opened the front door to meet Shiur.

“Why has young master come to my place at this time?” inquired Ficha.

“I’m sorry for the disturbance Senior, I know that you’re closed but there’s something I need your assistance with.” Zilan not bothering with Ficha, quickly entered and found a seat for himself. He had no intention of being sent away.

“Oh! If I can help, I will.” were the words he spoke but Ficha’s thoughts conveyed completely different sentiments.

“How long do I have to continue playing this boring role? Even this guy here is looking down on me. Sigh~”

“Senior, for five days I have not slept, my appetite is nowhere to be found, and I think I’m even starting to lose some hair.” Ficha rolled his eyes as he heard this dribble. “Senior, do you know what is causing this?”

“Uh..How could I possibly know anything about young master’s sickness? You can’t think that my place’s food is what caused it, can you?”

Zilan had to admit, this Ficha was truly a Master of deception and word play. Just now, he had been on the offensive claiming to be sick yet he didn’t reveal the cause however, now with Ficha’s words, he had no choice but to switch to the defensive so that the conversation could remain civil.

“No,no,no, Senior is misunderstanding. My problem does not lie here, it stems from the sect where I met the girl of my dreams and the person I wish to make my wife. Your niece, Halim!”

Naturally, Ficha already knew this however he still acted slightly surprised.

“My niece? I haven’t seen her in some time, is she well?”

“Yes, yes...she’s a once in a generation genius, an absolute treasure to our sect!”

“Haha..Good, Good! But I don’t see why you’ve come to see me? The matters of you young people shouldn’t concern me.” shrugged Ficha as he laughed.

“Indeed it is as Senior says but a few days ago I met your nephew and it seemed like he wanted to get in the way of Halim and I’s matters.”

“Oh..Solmo? You don’t need to worry about hi...” Before he finished his sentence, Ficha’s eyes narrowed when he noticed the puzzled look on Shiur’s face. “It was Solmo that you meant...yes?”

Zilan slowly shook his head,

“No. I met brother Zilan a few days ago near the market place. He seemed very confused and he even attacked me the moment he saw me shouting, Hertic.”

A smile suddenly graced Ficha’s lips. Inwardly he was laughing his ass off.

“Jibral has been searching for how many days without anything to show for it and yet the information on that brat Zilan actually came to me, who’s done nothing during this whole period? Ha! The Heavens are too good to me.”

“Was he that badly off? Can you show me the last place you saw him? Oh! and I have a friend of mine who’ll be coming back shortly, I’d like you to have a chat with him first.”

His plan was simple. Keep Shiur here till Jibral got back ,which shouldn’t be too hard if he just promises Halim over to him, then lock down the city, wait for Hertic to wake up which should be sooner rather than later and finally pull out Shiur’s memories.

After that finding Zilan would be a simple matter.

Zilan on the other side was also smiling.

“Heh..At least pretend you’re disturbed. Who smiles when they hear their nephew’s gone mad? But it’s okay, I understand the excitement that you feel. I’m feeling it too...and I guess it’s about time I act on it.”

“No problem. If I can help my future brother-in-law then I’ll stay and answer any questions that you have.”

Zilan then stood up and placed his hand on top of Ficha’s,

“I can’t say I understand how you’re feeling right now but.....” He paused, looking at Ficha sympathetically. “I can say for sure it’s going to get a lot worse.”

“Eh...young master Shiur, this one doesn’t understand what you mean?”

Zilan then sighed as he started counting down,

“3...2....1....”

The instant he reached 1, the veins on Ficha’s face began to enlarge and protrude.

A very comfortable feeling passed all over him.

“I..I’m breaking through...how?”

Ficha knew this feeling very well. When undertaking a major breakthrough, the veins and meridians would enlarge so that they could withstand the increase in energy. But the problem this time was that, he was nowhere near a breakthrough.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

He then turned to Shiur only to see him smiling calmly.

“Is something wrong, Senior?”

“What have you done?...” whispered Ficha.

“Wait a second more and you’ll understand!” laughed Zilan.

A bad feeling washed over Ficha as he tried to scream however, it was too late. The poison was starting to take effect.

Ficha’s pores all opened wide however no energy was being absorbed. His meridians incessantly enlarged to the point that their size now rivalled those earth-shattering experts of legend however, the energy flowing through them remained miniscule.

It resembled a large basin that had only a few drops inside it.

As this continued, Ficha’s body started to de-form. The pressure from the growing meridians kept taxing his body until the point that he could no longer handle it.

An explosion of blood suddenly took place as Ficha’s right arm blew off. Next, his left eye went flying.

Blood splattered all over Zilan’s face however he didn’t flinch. That calm smile still remained on his face.

Two stars then appeared in his eyes, causing Ficha to groan and widen his remaining eye which was on the verge of popping.

Zilan quickly put his hand over Ficha’s mouth, silencing him.

“Your cultivation is dropping at a very fast rate, eh Uncle? But at least this way I can witness it, I’ll be able to experience and savour this moment up until your last breath...so it’s alright. No need to speak and spoil the moment......Very soon your cultivation is going to drop to the point where your memories will be left wide open and do you know what I’m going to do with that information?” laughed Zilan.

“Don’t worry, it’s nothing terrible like genocide but I promise I’ll try my best to follow your Order’s example. Oh!...here we go...Haha..”

Ficha’s body and core continued to be deceived by Zilan’s poison. In it’s perspective, Ficha was undergoing breakthrough after breakthrough and so it needed to adjust so that it could cope with the influx of energy that was sure to come. But there was no energy, it was just a feeling, a trick of the mind that used the custard left in his system to induce it.

 If Ficha had never tasted the custard before, then the poison would have had absolutely no effect on him however that was not the case and since the body was already accustomed to the feeling the custard gave, it didn’t suspect anything thus letting the poison thoroughly invade his entire system.

How laughable it was for someone to die this way, if Ficha really was continuously breaking through, then by now going by the size of his meridians he’d already be the strongest existence on this world. Unfortunately for him, he was instead nearing the realm of being a cripple.

“Advancing at a fast pace, ended up killing him!” was what people would say in the future.

..........

Zilan meanwhile was busy sifting through Ficha’s memories. It turned out to be much more difficult than he expected it to be. The recent memories he could access easily however for the older ones there appeared to be layers of barriers stopping him.

This was probably meant as a countermeasure against Hertic and that spell he mastered that could alter and read memories.

Fortunately Zilan’s methods were divine abilities that were powered by the Universe’s energy, so he was still able to by pass a few lesser guarded memories and find out a few things.

“So that’s where the pocket dimension is! In the future I’ll be sure to pay you guys a visit.” smiled Zilan.

Just as he said those words, the light in Ficha’s eyes went out and that last silent yet long breath escaped from his lungs. He was finally dead and Zilan had felt every second of his pain.

Looking at the corpse, Zilan just laughed as he took out a knife and started to cut into Ficha. The reason for this? He was harvesting those Heavenly meridians that Ficha now possessed.

If he left them there, then it was just like gifting his enemies another weapon.

If Zilan was not under the influence of the second level of the Gift of love, even just imagining himself slaughtering someone to this extent would be enough to make him sick.