Strongest Family System

The leader's saber came down in a powerful overhead chop. Robert's body twisted like a corkscrew, both swords rising to guide the saber's path past his shoulder while his rotation brought his right sword around toward the assassin's exposed flank. The leader barely managed to pull back, his outer robe sliced open.

But the woman was already in motion. Her twin daggers came at Robert from behind in a lethal cross-pattern, their poisoned edges dripping with venom that hissed as it hit the forest floor. Robert's enhanced senses detected the attack just in time.

His Shadow Step carried him sideways in a blur, but the woman had anticipated his movement. Her left dagger shifted trajectory mid-strike, forcing Robert to bring up his left sword in a desperate parry. The impact sent vibrations up his arm as poison splattered across his blade.

"Toxic Fang Technique!" She snapped, pressing her assault with a series of rapid thrusts aimed at his vital points.

Robert's Coiling Scales training saved his life. Instead of retreating, he flowed forward into the woman's guard, his right sword tracing a serpentine path that deflected her right dagger while his left sword swept upward. The woman barely twisted away, but not before Robert's sword opened a shallow cut across her shoulder.

The youngest assassin, desperate to redeem himself after his earlier failure, channeled his spiritual energy into his wounded body. "Piercing Wind Barrage!" He shouted, and in an instant, his sword became six thrusts, each launching from a different angle.

Robert's eyes widened. This was beyond what he had expected from a Spirit Root Level 1 cultivator. The technique created overlapping attack patterns that left almost no room for evasion.

He reacted with both natural instinct and practiced skill. Robert dropped into the lowest Coiling Scale stance, his body becoming like flowing water as he spiraled through the gaps between the phantom blades. His twin swords moved in complementary arcs—one high, one low—intercepting the real sword while allowing the illusions to pass through space.

But the leader had not been idle. As Robert dealt with the barrage, the scar-faced assassin activated his most powerful technique. Spiritual energy erupted around his curved saber as he brought it down in a devastating strike.

"Mountain Splitting Slash!"

The technique carried the weight of falling stone and the sharpness of winter wind. Robert felt the air pressure change as the attack descended toward his skull.

With no time to fully evade, Robert threw himself into a desperate counter-technique. Both his swords came up in a perfect X-formation, channeling his spiritual energy into the Coiling Scales defensive pattern.

Instead of trying to stop the massive attack, he attempted to redirect its force.

The impact was tremendous. Robert's feet slid backward through the forest floor, leaving deep gaps in the ground. His arms screamed in pain as he absorbed the redirected force, but his technique held. The leader's saber was guided past his head, though it left a shallow cut across his cheek.

All three assassins pressed their advantage simultaneously. The woman's daggers came in low while the youth attacked high, and the leader recovered for another crushing blow. They had Robert surrounded, their coordination perfect.

But Robert's breakthrough to the Spirit Root Realm was finally showing its true value. His spiritual awareness expanded, allowing him to perceive all three attacks simultaneously. More importantly, his enhanced physical capabilities let him attempt something that should have been impossible.

Robert's Shadow Step activated at maximum intensity. His form seemed to split into multiple images as he moved faster than the human eye could track. The Coiling Scales technique flowed through his entire body, turning him into something more like liquid lightning than a human warrior.

He slipped under the woman's daggers, curved around the youth's overhead blow, and spun beyond the leader's horizontal cut, each of his twin swords sketching its own winding path between their guards.

The leader's eyes went wide as Robert's right sword traced a perfect spiral around his guard, the tip heading straight for his heart. Desperately, he tried to bring his saber back in defense, but Robert's left sword was already there, deflecting the parry while maintaining his attack's momentum.

"Impossible!" The woman cried out, her astonishment evident as she saw Robert move with a smoothness that seemed to break all the rules of combat.

"But Robert had more to give—his long Coiling Scales training had revealed its full potential. He no longer fought three individuals; he treated them as one complex organism with shifting parts."

"His two swords became conduits of pure intention, each weapon's trajectory enhancing the other's effect. As one blade forced a gap, the second was already moving to fill it. Robert moved through their formation effortlessly, like water slipping around rocks in a stream.

The battle had shifted to pure endurance versus raw willpower. Three Spirit Root Realm assassins converged on one freshly elevated cultivator, their deadly skills colliding under the luminous night sky piercing the forest.

Robert could feel his spiritual energy beginning to wane. While his recent breakthrough had given him tremendous power, he was still inexperienced with sustained Spirit Root combat. The three assassins, though individually weaker, had the advantage of numbers and experience working together.

But Robert had something they didn't—desperation born of protective fury.

As the woman lunged forward with her poisoned daggers, Robert made his decision. Instead of continuing the defensive dance, he would end this decisively. His eyes hardened with killing intent.

"Twin Dragon Technique," he whispered, channeling his spiritual energy into both swords simultaneously.

He uses level 2 of the twin dragon technique, Coiling Scales movement method. Both swords began to glow with serpentine energy patterns as Robert's movement became almost supernatural in its fluidity.

The scar-faced leader sensed the change in Robert's aura and shouted a warning, but it was too late.

Robert flowed forward like liquid death. His right sword traced a perfect ascending spiral that caught the woman's left dagger and flung it wide, while his left sword followed a complementary descending path that slipped past her desperate guard. The blade found its mark between her ribs, piercing her heart with surgical precision.

She collapsed without a sound, her eyes wide with disbelief.

The youngest assassin, seeing his companion fall, let out a cry of rage and channeled all his remaining energy into one final attack. "Soul Severing Strike!" His sword blazed with spiritual fire as he brought it down with enough force to split stone.

Robert's response was poetry in motion. His Shadow Step carried him directly into the attack's path, but at the last moment, his body performed an impossible spiral that took him around the descending blade. His right sword came up in a perfect counter-thrust that met the assassin's exposed chest.

The young man's eyes went wide as Robert's sword pierced his dantian, destroying his cultivation base before ending his life.

Only the scar-faced leader remained.

"Monster," the man breathed, backing away as he saw his companions' bodies. "What kind of Body Tempering cultivator can do this?"

Robert did not answer. His spiritual senses detected something that made his blood run cold—more presences moving through the forest. Reinforcements, perhaps, or other enemies drawn by the combat's spiritual energy fluctuations.

He needed to end this quickly. The leader, picking up on Robert's urgency, misread it as desperation and charged ahead with his strongest technique. Crushing Mountain Seven Strikes!" His saber became a blur as seven overlapping attacks filled the air with deadly steel.

"Robert called upon everything he had acquired. His twin blades moved with seamless unity, following twisting paths that slipped between the seven attacks like smoke seeping through a screen."

"Rather than simply deflecting, Robert pushed the Coiling Scales redirection principle to its absolute limit."

Each deflected strike was guided not away from Robert, but toward the next attack in the sequence. The leader's technique began to interfere with itself as Robert's swords turned the seven-strike assault into a self-defeating trap of conflicting forces.

As the leader's formation collapsed, Robert struck. Both swords came forward in a perfect X-pattern that the assassin could not possibly defend against. The swords crossed precisely at his throat.

The forest fell silent except for the soft thud of the leader's body hitting the ground.

"With three corpses at his feet, Robert breathed deeply but remained composed. The abilities he had recently gained were remarkably powerful, though they took a significant toll on his spiritual energy.

[System Notification]

Mission Accomplished: Assassination Attempt Survived

Enemies Defeated: 3 out of 3

Reward: 200,000 System Points

Bonus: Perfect Combat Performance +50,000

New Total: 330,420 System Points

With a swift motion, Robert drew in the soul energy from the attackers he had just overcome, gathering their storage rings while he sensed his exhausted power slowly replenishing.

All three Level 1 Spirit Root Realm assassins had yielded significant cultivation materials."

But there was no time to celebrate. His enhanced senses detected those other presences still moving through the forest, and now they were converging on his location.

"Robert slid his twin blades into their sheaths and triggered Shadow Step, vanishing into the black spaces between tree trunks. Whatever lay ahead, he had meet it with the upper hand."

Behind him, three pools of blood slowly soaked into the forest floor, a silent testament to the deadly effectiveness of his new cultivation level and techniques.

The night was far from over.