Merchant Of Yliaster

Gendor crouched amongst the many assassins beside him, not very delighted with the thing they were about to do. Being an assassin who worked on the galactic scale, Gendor knew about these things, and he was aware that this could end in only two ways, and he disliked them both.

For one, they might completely demolish the church, as some religions strictly condemned violence, but killing innocent priests while they smiled at you with pity in their eyes was never a good experience.

On the other hand, the priests still standing in the church, and not escaping despite knowing they will attack, could mean that they had a trump card, and that could cause them to die a miserable death.

Gendor found the second option much more undesirable, but life sometimes gave you bad options overall. He noticed a wave of movement among the assassins as they moved to their predetermined positions. The attack on the church was a very intricately planned, and every assassin had a section of the church they were responsible for.

The ideal ending would be the death of all priests with the first sneak attack, but he was not naive enough to believe that would happen. He heard that the former leader of the party he was in was killed by the head priest of this church, and he doubted that such a guy would let his subordinates be killed like flies.

In the end, overthinking wouldn't help, and he too took his position. Killing a few innocent priests wouldn't impact his kill count much, but it would open a way for him to further his ambitions.

They moved slowly, and some of their members entered through the relatively darker openings of the church. The party was composed of members especially gifted in stealth, and they were unsurprisingly all worshippers of that ridiculous shadow goddess. Gendor couldn't imagine himself worshipping a god, but these people were especially insane.

The members of the church they were attacking were benign people, and while they were dogmatic, Gendor wouldn't call them insane. Zeylin's priests, on the other hand, were straight-up lunatics.

Gendor knew his element was superior to the shadow element, but the ease with which the people around him used the element made them almost comparable to him. This proficiency wouldn't be possible for these people if they weren't so devoted to their goddess.

They killed, sacrificed, and even did rituals for the goddess. Before the initiation, Gendor would see them as powerless groups plagued by insanity, but their power was undeniable after the initiation.

People flowed into shadows, their figures blending with them with an uncanny efficiency, and they were soon inside the church. While Gendor lacked the god-given gifts others had, he had no trouble keeping up with the assassins. He needed no god-given gift with his training. He still used darkness as a support, but his movements were unnaturally silent and concealed even without the effect of the mana.

The inside of the church was disgustingly bright, the priests being smart enough to light the place with torches, but he was a bit confused about this plan. Torches were not known for their incredible durability after all.

Still, most of the priests were clustered at the center of the room, and they were looking around them with alert eyes, as if they knew they were here. While it could be possible that this was the priest's general mood, Gendor doubted that. No one could be this alert consistently.

Can one of them detect us? He contemplated as he examined the group of priests. While there were some among the group who were above average, it was not hard to see that this group would be demolished by their attack, even if they had a head-on battle.

Not very surprisingly, seeing the same reality, their leader gave the order for a direct attack soon enough. Communication between different people was achieved through some quite interesting artifacts among the cultists. The artifacts were medallions that received messages from the master medallion the leader carried.

The leader injected shadow mana into the medallion, and the medallion would vibrate in the way the leader wanted. Gendor felt his medallion vibrate, and he was not surprised to see blind loyalty from some assassins, as they immediately charged at the priests.

These first attackers had two possible fates, and they unfolded before him. The weaker ones were immediately killed by the above-average priests, as they received the concentrated attacks of the clustered defenders in their foolish bravery.

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The strangers, on the other hand, dodged and weaved through the attacks shining with a golden light, their figures merging with shadows as they moved. Any attack that could reach them was blocked as their shadow moved, forming a flowing cowl around them, protecting them from the holy light magic.

Gendor found the idea of a group having identical skills uncreative, but this was mostly the case with religious groups like this. He chose to watch for now, as he didn't want to relive the fate of the previous leader in his arrogance. Out of caution, he avoided observing the easily discernible head priest, but he could easily see that the man was unusually calm.

This calmness made him uneasy, as it was a sign that this could evolve into the second probability he thought.

As the stronger fighters finally reached the cluster of priests, the more cautious ones finally decided to join in. The church immediately devolved into chaos.

Gendor saw a priest receive a nasty gash on his chest as the first blood of the battle, but the priests were showing better resistance than he expected. Immediately after they dealt the first wound, the headpriest started to move, and Gendor knew there was something wrong immediately.

The man's eyes glowed with a golden light, and the book, which was hanging from his belt, floated before him, glowing with the same golden light. There was a vibration in the air for a moment, and it was followed by a wave of golden light exploding from the man.

It expanded for a couple of tens of meters, and pushed any shadow out along with any unfortunate assassin who was still too close to the priests. Assassins were launched away with incredible momentum, and Gendor was not very optimistic about their conditions as he saw them punch through the church's walls. The light stabilized after covering the priests and formed a dome of serene golden light.

He did a quick math, as he counted the people who died with the first ridiculous offensive, and the second more unexpected one, and found that they lost eight people just like that. This would put their numbers to 32 now, and meant that they lost eight people without actually harming the enemy in a meaningful way.

He had an inkling that this was the cult's way of weeding the weak out, but it was not hard to see that it was bad for the morale. He glanced at his temporary, and very much mortal, comrades, but his implant immediately pinged as his eyes widened. Why were there 33 people among them?

Gendor was very prideful about his instincts, and he didn't hesitate for a second to use his stealth skill in full power, summoning his darkness mana to get away, but he was confused to feel no activation from the skill.

He tried to activate the skill by manually controlling his mana, as he was no doofus like the other people who just used their skills through the system, but the result was even more pitiful, as the mana completely ignored his commands.

Then, the darkness started to move, as the world lost a shade of color. All around them, darkness started to appear out of nowhere, being more than just shadows. The air itself dimmed, as light was slowly drained away. Even the shield of the head priest lost its luster and started to tremble.

A cold, echoing voice came from a dark figure among them. And Gendor realized in horror that he was ignoring this figure for a few minutes without realizing it. For a trained professional like him, this was completely inexplicable, but the voice made his thoughts halt for a moment, and made his head ache. The voice had a quality he couldn't easily explain, as it pierced into his mind with a mind-numbing intensity.

"So you are the cultists of Zeylin? I see some of you are not very sincere in your beliefs. Are you here for the rush of blood? Ambition? Or are you just confused? In any way, you are on my path, and I find your religion shallow from what I see."

There was a ripple through the air, and Gendor felt control of his darkness mana slip from his hands, even the mana in his blood rebelling against him. A dark wave moved through the air, and the priest's shield shattered noiselessly, harmlessly dissolving into the dark environment. Fortunately for the priests, though, their enemies were in no shape to attack them.

Little by little, all vision disappeared, and light was snuffed. Gendor felt with his sensory skill that his fellow party members still were trying to tame the shadow mana inside them, but he found their efforts laughable. He expelled all darkness inside him with a wave of pure mana, and completely destroyed any trace of darkness mana inside him with another wave. He felt his insides get ravaged by the uncontrolled waves, but he would take care of that if he survived this. With his pure mana, he activated one of his purely physical skills and finally found his body cooperative, as it was unshackled from the darkness it contained.

He dashed outside and found that he was not being tailed. He glanced back, not understanding why this monster was letting him escape without even trying, and found himself staring in the eyes of a mask. The mask was laughing, and for a moment, he had the misconception that the mask covered all of his vision. Behind him, the man spoke once more, as he broke through the illusion, breathing heavily, but not stopping.

"As you think you follow a powerful goddess, I will let you know my name, Drakhabgar," the monster said, and Gendor turned his eyes away. There was nothing to see anymore, as with the utterance of a single name, the church disappeared from his senses, completely becoming a void of darkness.

Maybe Max was fucking right, Gendor thought, as he ran without even looking back for a moment. His worldview apparently needed some readjustment, as he simply could see no way for his masters to beat something like this. His training was the best among the best, yet he couldn't even understand how such a thing could exist.

Deep down, he was aware of something even more terrifying. He was pretty sure that Drakhabgar, despite his godly power, was just a human like him.