Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

---Dark Assassin Valley---

After splitting from the others, Mina continued traveling southeast to the headquarters of the Dark Assassin Valley. The Dark Assassin Valley didn't stand out among the Sect Alliance based on their size or strength, but the mystery surrounding this place.

The organization was a well-known sect of assassins that would bring death to anyone, as long as the compensation was adequate. Their skills had been especially useful to help the Scene get rid of rebels and political opponents as they rose to power in Y-City.

In exchange, they had kidnapped dozens of children and young adults for their sect, even before the Scene had come into power. The numbers didn't decrease after the Scene was in power. All of them had been confirmed to have been brought here.

Mina stood at the mouth of a gorge covered in darkness, despite it being a bright day outside. What made this place so mysterious was that the location of their headquarters was publicly known. Well-known. The info was surprisingly cheap, according to Marco.

This was where the mystery began. As they were assassins, their work entailed making enemies across the whole province, but despite their location being widely known, nobody had yet managed to take revenge on them.

There had been people who came to these people and tried, but they simply vanished without a trace. According to their intel, there had even been a Dao Seeking Ancestor from a sect in the North that had come to wipe this place out, after his great-grandson was killed. Even such a person vanished, while the Dark Assassin Valley kept operating.

Apart from that, Marco and their allies had not managed to get any more information. Their own special operations team had not managed to invade the place. They reported the darkness rejecting them. They had been unable to enter the place, making this the only location where the extraction mission had completely failed.

This was why the shadow assassin now stood at the edge of this abyss. Mina would either end this place for good or be able to bring back more precise knowledge. Not that Mina saw flight as an option. She would be the one to end their legacy. As a shadow assassin, it was a matter of pride to her that she would take care of these contract killers without help. She would simply out-assassin them.

Using her <Stealth>, her presence waned, and she became invisible to most senses. With that, she dove into the shadow of the gorge, entering the dark ocean on the other side of the shadow. Swimming through the flipped world, she found that there was no light in the gorge. None at all.

She was able to freely move through the empty gorge without seeing a single guard. She found some crude traps along the walls, but nothing that would threaten someone above lv.50. In the back of the gorge, she found a massive structure.

It was a huge, intricate temple hewn into the stone face. Rows of carved pillars and abstract statues lined the facade cut into the rock. Many details were weathered by centuries of neglect. It looked more like an ancient ruin than an inhabited place.

Curiously, Mina also didn't find any signs of a barrier on the way here. The simple traps seemed to be the only safety measure. Unhindered, she entered the temple structure. No lights anywhere. Ancient, unlit corridors led straight into the mountain, lined with dark rooms.

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The rooms had no doors. They were simply gaping maws along the walls of stone. The cat assassin spied into the rooms, where she found cultivators frozen in deep meditation. Every room was the same scene.

A person in black robes, hiding all their features, sat on a thin blanket on the ground and was seemingly busy absorbing energy. They were extremely vulnerable. This was what made Mina suspicious. Were they simply sitting around without leaving any guard or something outside?

These had to be the members of the Dark Assassin Valley. Just what was this ominous aura she felt from them? It felt like they were oozing the power of darkness, like the shadow element Mina specialized in.

Mina would have tried to appraise them if she didn't have to leave the shadow to do so. These people were also assassins. There was a good chance that just her stealth might not cut it. She could only observe them from outside.

Curious, the cat got closer to one of the seated figures.

They sat absolutely still. So still in fact...they were not even breathing. What was going on here? The only reason she thought they were alive in the first place was the dark power surrounding them. It felt similar to dark magic, but she couldn't quite pinpoint what it was.

If these guys were dead and it was this force compelling them... Were they even the members of the Dark Assassin valley? Maybe they were something like undead guards? Everything was quite mysterious, and she needed more information before taking action.

If she acted too hastily, she might endanger the children, who might still be held captive somewhere in this place.

Ignoring them for now, Mina infiltrated further into the temple, observing from the shadows. The corridor went on and on until it came to the entrance of a big hall. Only corroded hinges and rotten remnants littered the ground, indicating the existence of gates at one point.

Along the wall, seated on the stone floor, were more people covered in dark robes, and at the opposite end, seated on the pedestal of a broken altar, sat 3 figure enveloped in especially thick dark energy. Was this their sanctuary?

So far, she had seen none of the children this place had kidnapped. Were they in another part? But she had not seen any other pathways or doors. It had been a straight corridor lined with closed chambers from the entrance all the way to this sanctuary.

Mina deliberated how to continue at this point. Should she keep searching for the children? Kill all of these guys and then look for them? She couldn't gauge their strength. The fight may become messy and endanger the children if they were still somewhere in this place.

Ultimately, she decided on the easiest solution: Plant the Guardian Tree Seed. She had not seen any hidden mechanisms that led to a secret room, but the Tree would be able to take down these guys in an instant and find the children.

At the entrance of this altar room, she manipulated the shadows to carve out a small chamber right below the floor tiles. Int his hollows, the seed glowing with green light appeared from the shadows. In the darkness, the seed quickly began burrowing down through the rock on its own.

“Oho? I almost didn't see you there,” Mina heard a hollow voice echoing in the shadow world, the moment she had pushed out the seed. When the shadow mage turned around, she found an overwhelming, formless presence floating in the darkness before her.

It was like facing a dark wall of storm clouds...

<Jiu Yuu Ying lv.--->

“You can already manipulate and move through the shadows. You will make a much better servant than the other fools that come here all the time,” the voice of the shadow announced, amused, echoing across the darkness.

She felt the being's imposing aura as tendrils of shadow clouds rushed at her. Mina was surrounded by the creature. She struck with her dagger and used shadow spells to cut apart the clouds, but nothing had any visible creature

She could feel a foreign energy cast on her, like a curse. In the same moment, she recognized the power as the same energy she had felt from the people meditating in the temple!

<Ding! You have been affected by the Shadow Thrall Curse>

Was she to become a lifeless puppet like all the others in this place!?