1103 A Single Flaw



"That bastard! My wife isn't like that, she must be forced. I cannot doubt her." Tristan emptied another cup of wine as he thought back to today's events.

He wouldn't drink so much but this wine….it was good. After every sip he took, he wanted to take another. And another.

Even though they tried it sometimes, not everyone here was a drug addict. Tristan definitely wasn't someone who liked drugs. He joined here only because he had nowhere else to go.

After killing his master and escaping, he was blocked by a lot of people. So, he killed them all. The blood on his hands was staggering and no one except a Drug Lord was daring enough to take him in.

"But that bug face, what can he know? He's a degenerate." Tristan's curses grew wilder with his alcohol intake.

Varian sat in the corner of a room and watched everything unfold with an interesting look in his eyes.

The drug would indeed make one more intoxicated and addictive, but only if their emotional swings were high enough. Still, after tonight, the wines would be investigated and the truth of an infiltrator might come out.

So, tonight was the only chance.

Varian carefully nudged packets of mental power and played them around Tristan. These weren't blatant mental suggestions easily detected by Tristan but fleeting thoughts.

If normal, Tristan would've noticed the manipulation at the first moment. But now, he slowly fell into the trap and began to spiral down the layers of thoughts.

Ironically, doing this to a pure body awakener or morphed awakener—Mystic or Famine—would be much harder since their body developed an instinctive resistance to mental attacks.

On the other hand, Spirits fought mental power with mental power. While they were harder than anyone else to defeat with mental power, but in a drained state, they were sitting ducks for mind attacks.

"Don't let a man insult your wife, even if it's your boss." The voice in his mind said. "She loves you and you can't even keep her dignity. You aren't a man! You deserve your situation!"

"No!" Tristan screamed with a snotty nose and teary eyes. "I want to go back to my wife and kids…but they're not mine anymore."

"It's your wife and kids. Don't be a sissy. Snatch them back, you bastard!"

"I don't have the strength! Or influence or anything. I can't fight a rank 2! I'm just a pathetic rank 1! It'll be a decade before I reach rank 2. By then, by then, they…"

"You dimwit! This is why you deserve everything. Didn't you overhear the other day? There's a special material inside the treasury! It can help you advance to rank 2!"

"Huh? But when did I hear it?" Tristan's lost eyes regained a bit of clarity.

"When you were thinking about your wife, dammit! Don't mull over it. You need to get that treasure! For yourself! For your wife!"

"I must!" Tristan walked to the treasury with shaky steps. His eyes were still blurred and he was still drunk.

Looking at him like this, the guards between the Quarters and Temple allowed him to pass after he drunkenly threatened to rip their minds apart.

But for security, they sent one guard to accompany him lest something happen. As the guards saw them off, Varian used the power of Order to form a barrier around them.

Since it was a higher-order power, the guards weren't able to sense when it spread around them.

Varian was still figuring out the uses of the sliver powers. But he figured out that if the slivers individually had one set of applications and their combined powers had another set altogether.

For instance, the power he used now was Order. Using it, he set up a new order within the barrier—anything can pass through—air, water, people—but not aura. The fluctuations of aura would be blocked off within the barrier.

Unless it's a very precious alloy with specific properties, this would be impossible. Even then, powerhouses could sense the fluctuations nearby.

When the guards turned back, an invisible spirit attack struck their minds.

The treasures implanted inside their heads detected the foreign power and were about to reveal the attack.

These were foolproof treasures that couldn't be stopped by any powerhouse. No matter how strong, powerful, or explosive they were, it's useless. Even if they did destroy the treasures, they'd send a signal upon destruction using that energy.

But what the treasures couldn't guard against was the flow of time.

Invisible ripples passed through the treasures and their alarm time stretched apart from one millisecond to a hundred.

If they weren't inside the guard's body, Varian was confident of stretching their time even further. But this was already enough.

The guards' eyes went blank as Varian stretched his hands toward their heads. The space around their skull rippled and Varian's hand passed right through and pulled out the treasures.

But the heads of the guards began to crack and bleed. Even though he succeeded, it was his first attempt after all and it wasn't perfect.

Thankfully, this was a non-issue for him.

Two leaves grew on the tip of his finger and flew to the bleeding skulls of the guards. Like soap melting in water, the leaves melted away and the injuries seemed to have never appeared.

The guards' eyes slowly regained consciousness and they looked around in confusion.

But Varian was long gone.

The Temple was a large building made of a rare orange stone. The specialty of this material was that it could be manipulated through aura by the person it's bonded with. It's also one of the auxiliary materials Varian bought for the artifacts.

Varian silently killed the guard who was sent to follow Tristan and assumed his identity with a near-perfect disguise.

There were a total of six rank 2s in this whole complex. Five of them resided in the Quarters. Only one resided in the Temple. Needlessly to say, this guy was the big boss.

"The treasury is this way…" Muttering to himself softly, Tristan turned right and reached a metallic door engraved with special patterns.

As he inserted the key, a large room with thousands of stacked drug boxes came into view. In addition, there were also several compartments, and one item in a compartment caught Varian's eye.

A small crystalline bottle with shining water. Water of Life!

But before he could make a move, space shook and a man appeared in between Tristan and the room.

He had a young face but his skin was saggy and his life force seemed old, like a human in his sixties. 

The man slammed the doors close and roared with an annoyed expression. "Tristan, what the hell are you doing at this hour?"

'Shit!'

Varian clicked his tongue. This was the ideal plan but even it had only a 50% success rate.

No one knew when the Big Boss was going to the other side and when he was staying in. So, Varian had to gamble that his infiltration would happen when the big boss was absent. The gamble failed.

"B-Boss Hex?" Tristan's eyes regained clarity and his mind fired at a hundred miles per second. Without hesitation, he relayed everything.

"Brainwashing you, a mind awakener? So, he's a Spirit?" The tiles under Hex cracked like a cobweb and the entire complex began to shake.

Varian gulped his saliva and wanted this to end with a punishment so that he could get out of this guy's sight.

Hex was slightly stronger than those Deputy Directors. Varian was weaker than him but he was certain of getting away. But their battle would give away his location and make him a target for more people. No one would like a powerhouse with an unknown identity and past. Even the Duchy would begin to move if he's high profile.

"Issue an order to search every inch of Ubiq!" Hex shouted into his magic-stoned bracelet and exhaled deeply.

Varian stood far away and kept his head lowered, playing as the obedient guard.

"Never mind that, since you're here anyway, let me show you something. I found the clue for the guy who killed the old scientist." Hex's words caused Varian's breath to stop for a moment.

Hex waved his hand and the building's walls began to shift.

A little girl the age of eight or nine, with a small lizard tail, in a school uniform appeared in front of them.

The marks of dried tears were visible on her face and there were burnt marks on her frail hands.

She couldn't stand properly and collapsed as her legs were bleeding heavily from the deep cuts on her ankles. No, it wasn't a cut. They let a wild animal bite her flesh.

Marin's eyes were filled with pain and fear as she looked at them with horror. "W-What did I do?"

Varian closed his eyes and cursed himself.

In his plan, after the auction, he'd return to the slums and start cleaning up people related to the old scientist. Since it'd involve killing many drug dealers, Varian wanted to do it in one go and frame someone else so that the case wouldn't affect Marin or her family.

But that woman's actions screwed his mind. He ended up putting the clean-up plan after the theft out of eagerness to grow stronger.

As a result, Marin…

"P-Please, I…I just want to study…" Marin's voice was weak and her throat was dry. She couldn't even speak properly as her vision continued to grow blurry due to blood loss.

"Study? Why should rats like you even dream of that?" Hex sneered and raised his hand.

As his fist reached for Marin's head, Varian's figure blurred and he appeared in front of her.

But to Varian's utter surprise, Hex's attack was just a feint and the real attack was a glowing sword that shot out from the wall nearby and pierced right into his heart.

Splash!

Varian's heart began to break down and his blood evaporated as the sword flared up with golden flames.

"It would've been harder to kill you if you didn't throw yourself." Hex grinned.

Varian pulled the sword out and blood spilled out of his chest like a water fountain. Panting heavily as his face quickly lost color, he asked. "What gave it away? My disguise was perfect."

"Indeed. Your disguise is perfect. I don't know you how did it, but you replicated the aura, the physical appearance, even the temperament." Hex smirked and waved his hand.

The walls shifted and dozens of glowing golden swords shot toward Varian and Marin from all directions.

Varian pulled the little girl into his arms and a green light enveloped her. All her injuries healed up in a second and she fainted right away.

The swords failed to hit him but using that opportunity, Hex did.

"You tried your best to look like a drug addict, you even added a lot of that smell on your clothes. But."

Boom!

Varian's chest bones crackled as a solid fist broke their defense and sent Varian flying.

"Your flesh…I can smell your flesh, it doesn't have the smell of drugs."