Chapter 732: A good assassin
"Who? Who killed him?!" Nick barked, his voice tight and harsh as he pivoted on the balls of his feet, eyes darting from shadow to shadow, trying desperately to pierce the forest’s green veil for any trace of an attacker. His face darkened with a furious rage, jaw clenched so hard a muscle twitched in his cheek.
Meanwhile, Blake dropped into a crouch beside Astor’s lifeless body, fingers swiftly checking for any lingering pulse even though it was obvious the man was long gone. His brow furrowed as he inspected the clean cut at Astor’s neck and the faint traces of soul force still lingering in the air like a fading afterimage.
"Be careful, Nick," Blake murmured grimly, rising back to his feet, his face a mask of grim calculation. "I think there’s another party in the Berserk Lightning Region besides us and those from the Great Ruler Empire."
Just as Blake was still grappling with the shock of Astor’s sudden beheading and trying to piece together which mysterious force could harbor such deep enmity as to strike so decisively, he caught a flicker of movement at the edge of his vision—and then his eyes widened in sheer horror as he saw Nick suddenly swallowed whole by a swirling sphere of black flames that erupted around him like a living inferno.
"NICK!" Blake shouted, his voice hoarse and raw with disbelief and terror, but it was already far, far too late to save his comrade.
BOOM!
The black sphere imploded inwardly with a thunderous crack, collapsing upon itself like a dying star. A shockwave of blistering heat rippled outward, and in the same instant, a grisly explosion of blood, flesh, and shattered bone sprayed across the trees and foliage, painting the forest in gruesome splashes of crimson as fragments of Nick’s body flew in every direction.
Blake staggered back, his face draining of color as he stared blankly at the bloody mist that hung in the air for a fraction of a second before raining down upon the leaves. His eyes grew wide and bloodshot, veins bulging in his neck as an unhinged rage took hold of him, smashing through whatever icy calm he normally held as an assassin-class cultivator.
"I will kill you, you bastard!" he roared, his voice ragged, trembling with grief and murderous fury, his gaze whipping around wildly, searching every shadow, every trembling leaf, desperate to catch even a glimpse of the attacker who had slaughtered his companions so mercilessly.
But despite the raw, predatory force of his gaze, the forest around him seemed utterly empty, as if the killer had dissolved into thin air. Yet in that same breath, before he could even begin to move or summon his weapons, a black flaming claw suddenly burst straight through his stomach from behind, emerging out of his abdomen in a sizzling spray of blood and shredded entrails.
Blake’s eyes went impossibly wide as he choked and spat out a mouthful of bright red blood, his breath rasping as shock overtook the blazing rage that had consumed him only seconds earlier.
"Who... are... you...?" he managed to gasp out, his voice a thin whisper as the strength drained from his limbs, his trembling fingers scrabbling weakly at the claw protruding from his torso.