Chapter 329 The First Mission (Part 4)
Once the information dealer left the room, Aster opened the scroll which was actually larger than what he expected and contained not only names but even descriptions and drawn portraits of the important targets.
[Dry Bone bandits: a group that formed after the separation of the Skeleton Blade bandits, their main source of income are stolen goods from small sects as well as robbing random targets at the Damir and Rael star clusters, they are known for taking hostages and using them as distractions to flee]
[Current hideout: A mountain range about two thousand kilometers from Naby city in the east area of the new moon planet, they have a concealment formation and two vice leaders watching at all times, the deepness of their den and escape routes are unknown (their presence was confirmed less than three hours ago)]
[Known members]
[Gabriel Ossel, Alias “Dry Bone”: the leader of the bandits and a peak stage Sea of Knowledge cultivator, body cultivation realm unknown]
[Description and traits: 1.8 meters height, short gray hair and tanned skin, skull tattoo on his left shoulder, has been seen carrying a heavy spear around]
…
Besides the information of the vice leaders and other active members of the bandit group, there was a small note at the end of the
[Warning: The Shadow Eye doesn’t reveal fighting styles nor attributes, as well as non-combatant people’s information]
“The Shadow Eye consider itself neutral, while they do provide important about what their informants get, they don’t sell a certain type of information, those “limits” are what allowed them to grow enough to be a recognized organization”.
Aster nodded, being an information dealing organization was profitable business but at the same time it came with a high risk, those who they gathered information about could target them.
And so, they set themselves some rules, making them stand on a gray line, that’s why they weren’t wiped out by the sect, although they had information about some of the most important disciples.
‘A necessary evil huh’, thought Aster.
The thirty-minute period finished and just as the woman told them, the scroll burned itself, leaving nothing that could be reconstructed behind.
“If they are in the new moon planet, then they are prepared to be attacked, the illumination there is so low that you would need to use your spirit sense to see further than two meters around you, it’s perfect for ambushes”, mumbled Agnes.
“Where the bodies of the previous guys who tried to fulfill the mission recovered?”, asked Aster, making Agnes shook her head.
“No, their soul lamps broke but their bodies weren’t found, it’s probable that they were disposed of using a star to burn them, it’s a common occurrence when a Mortal Transcending realm cultivator is involved”.
“They weren’t winged core disciples as well, so their rings who are linked to their soul lamps didn’t leave an indelible mark on the one who killed them”.
“Oh”, Aster found that marking function rather interesting, according to his mother such an advanced technique was also used in the strongest families as well as life saving talismans, but they were reserved for those who were promising talents, since the materials used were quite expensive.
‘I’ll test out how indelible are those marks later’, thought Aster as he stole a gaze at Lilia, who cutely stuck her tongue at him.
“Okay, let’s go to the New Moon planet I don’t want this mission to take more than a day”.
After saying that, the girls walked towards the exit, Aster purposedly slowed down to be the last one to leave, and before he closed the door, glared at the wall from where the veiled woman left and smirked.
An invisible black incomplete sword which consisted in a hilt and a couple of centimeters of a double-edged broadsword’s blade, condensed in front of him and shot itself towards the wall.
The previous might have taken some time to be explained, but Aster didn’t stop closing the door while doing it, so there was no sign of him stopping what he was doing.
At the other side of the wall, the veiled woman was sitting drinking tea, when a figure completely dressed in black clothes wearing a two eyed mask appeared in front of her.
“Young miss, the lord ordered me to spy on your last client, are you going to send…”, before the black clothed figure could finish speaking, his eyes widened before the light of life disappeared from them.
With a dull sound the black clothed figure fell to the ground and didn’t move, just like that a Star Tribulation cultivator trained to sneak around died, making the veiled woman shook her head.
“Cadi”.
“I’m here young miss”, a second black clothed figure, this time wearing white mask separated from the shadows at a corner of the room, before it knelt down in front of the veiled woman.
“Tell that guy, that if he wants to die, he can leave me out of it, also tell the others to not follow him, my white eye faction won’t compile any information about the first and sole male core disciple of the Myriad Occupation sect”.
“I listen and obey young miss”, the black clothed figure blurred before it dived into the shadows, disappearing after a couple of seconds.
‘A Stellar Constellation youth who is able to turn a couple of dozens of thousand of higher ranked cultivators into nothing with a single slash of his sword… I guess that would explain why the Myriad Occupation sect would assign him a Soul King as a bodyguard’, thought the woman as she drank a sip of her tea.
“Still the rumors didn’t make his looks justice, he was way handsomer than what I heard, I would have thought he was a dual cultivator if his rumored battle prowess wasn’t so high”, mumbled the veiled woman as she laid back on her chair.
The walls of the third floor were soul cultivator proof, the only exception was Soul Kings because only the ruler level families had access to the formations and materials, needed to isolate the spirit sense of them.
Contrary to what people believed, the best assassins weren’t the stereotypical skinny, sneaky and hard to notice guy who moved in the shadows, but the incredibly rare people who reached the pinnacle in the soul path.
Because unless one’s soul or spirit energy was above the soul cultivator attacker, or they had an expensive soul protection talisman, someone targeted by an expert soul cultivator was as good as dead.
What the woman didn’t know was that Aster could see and hear what happened behind the wall, even after they left the pagoda, besides the fact that the rumors apparently made him look bad, he achieved what he wanted.
While they were reading the scroll, he noticed some guy lurking in the shadows which then left and entered one of the other rooms in the third floor, after reporting to a black masked figure sitting on a throne, the black clothed guy waited until they were about to leave to go to where the veiled woman was sitting.
He looked at the incomplete black sword soul weapon he condensed for the soul crushing parade, swirling around him, luckily the thing was incorporeal so unless Aster wanted to, it went through the girls without harming them at all.
‘You are quite wild, similar to a certain mother I know’, thought Aster as he chuckled, he lost count of how much soul energy that little thing has taken from him just to condense about four centimeters of its blade, dragon pattern on the hilt became way more detailed than before, and he was now able to control it better than before too.
Lilia snapped her fingers and a concealment formation attached to her dress activated, making them invisible to others, before she transported everyone outside of the city.
Lilia felt her daughter’s gaze piercing her and she giggled, before speaking through the mental connection.
‘The early bird gets the worm… or in this case the dragon hehehe~”.
In this stellar system, there was no one strong enough to make Lilia hide, so it was obvious that formation wasn’t destinated for anything serious, instead its purpose was so that she could “kidnap” Aster when she wanted.
Leaving aside that little interaction, they appeared at an isolated place far from the city and then rode on the spaceship, before they left the Crescent Moon planet, since the veiled woman didn’t go along with whatever the black masked guy wanted, no one besides her, knew what information Aster came for.
Aster looked at Agnes before saying.
“What’s our that New Moon planet like?”.
Agnes made memory for a moment as she put the coordinates to it.
“The New Moon planet is the worse in this star cluster, although it’s “protected” by the rulers of this place, there is no civilization stablished there, only those who wish to hide before disappearing forever stop there, I haven’t been there so I won’t be of much help as a guide, as an elder I shouldn’t help but I can block those who try to flee… if you want me to, of course”.
“Thanks for that, it’s better to eliminate them as fast as possible, so those rats don’t escape”, said Aster, in the scroll there were some of the Dry Bone bandits evil deeds, robbing selling stolen goods wasn’t what made them be considered bandits, but the fact that they also sold other humans as slaves.
Slaves weren’t banned in the Dragon Legacy Heavenly Quadrant, and it was a legal flaw exploited by some mercenary and group bandits, to provide fresh blood for evil sects and the like, of course as long as they weren’t caught red handed then it wasn’t a crime.
‘Speaking of that, I still have those coffins waiting to be tracked down’, thought Aster, with all what has happened he forgot to ask Lilia about his godmothers, the coffins he got from the mercenaries would lead him to an evil sect which he already decided to crush.
Agnes looked at Aster with expectation, since this mission now included going to the New Moon planet, then it shouldn’t be considered an A ranked mission anymore, and if he completed it in less than a day, then… that would be another record down the drain.
‘He really likes to shock others, truly worthy of being chosen as a Lord of a valley~’, thought Agnes.