The Eternal Assassin

Only a few hours ago, Kree had witnessed Asher appear next to him covered from head to toe in blood and looking as if he'd fought his way out of a blender. The swarm of mutated rats had done quite a number on him, and Asher would be surprised if he hadn't mentally scarred the young man.

Luckily, Kree was asleep this time around, which Asher silently thanked the stars for as he mentally shifted his class to assassin and stealthily slipped out of the room Draken was lending the thief. He'd been surprised when Draken had informed him that the sole reason Kree was sticking around the manor, despite his innate fear of the gang leader, was because he'd pieced together the fact that Asher was teleporting to him specifically. Apparently, he'd made a decent enough impression on the young thief that Kree wanted to make sure he had the proper resources to treat whatever injuries he picked up during his hunt against Eight.

It spoke to Draken's loyal men and women and the tight ship that the man ran that Asher didn't make it a dozen feet out of Kree's room before he was stopped.

"By the realms, Reap, what happened to you?!"

Thunder, a muscular woman with a deadly mace crackling with electricity, stared at him, her eyes going wide as saucers as they took in his mangled arm. Alongside Crush, she was one of Draken's most trusted elites and was in charge of the defense of his manor. "Did Eight do that?! Draken told me you lost a hand, but that looks a lot worse than I imagined!"

"No, this wasn't Eight," he said, shooting her a strained smile. "If you wouldn't mind, I kinda need to chat with Draken for a bit."

"Forget that, you're bleeding all over his carpet!" Thunder snapped, disappearing in a cracking arc of electricity before suddenly reappearing at his side with a bedsheet. Wrapping it around his mangled arm, she helped him make it to Draken's study.

"He's back, boss," Thunder announced after a quick knock, before whispering in his ear. "Draken said you took off all of a sudden and to send you in when you showed back up."

The door swung open, revealing Draken with a surprised look on his face. The fallen noble wore his usual sharp suit, and he frowned as he took in the bloody sheet wrapped around the missing half of Asher's arm.

"Why is it every time you leave and come back, you seem to be on death's door?" Draken sighed, motioning for Thunder to help him into his study and get him situated on the couch. Ironically, Draken didn't seem to care about him getting blood on any of the fancy pieces of furniture or upholstery nearly as much as Thunder did. "Thank you for helping him in, Thunder, I need to have a few words privately with Asher if you wouldn't mind."

"Of course," Thunder said, giving Asher one last reassuring grin before taking her leave. Thunder had fought beside him when they took down William, the senior assassin with an Ink element, but she wasn't aware of what Asher could do with his Eternal Regeneration. She probably thought he was in shock from losing his arm and hand.

"Care to explain why you took off out of the blue, right as we were in the middle of discussing Owl's proposal that you take over the Guild here in Whikoga?" Draken asked, raising an eyebrow. "…Before returning with one less arm than you left with? I'd offer you another potion of Lesser Restoration, but they don't do much for missing limbs, and your system shouldn't have managed to flush out the remnants of the four you drank during your battle with Eight just yet regardless."

"The Council of Death have made their move," Asher declared, not missing the momentary flash of shock and fear on Draken's face at the news. "They summoned a small army of demons and attacked the village I was staying in. Hell, they attacked every village bordering the Lavash forest. I killed a few of the lesser demons and rescued the people closest to me, but I barely got away with my life from a greater demon."

"A greater demon?!" Draken asked, his voice growing hushed as he stared at Asher as if he thought he were joking. "You're serious?"

"Oh yeah. Identify definitely pegged it as a greater demon. Why, what's wrong?"

Draken all but sank down into his chair behind his desk, looking more disheveled than Asher had ever seen him before. He hadn't even reacted this poorly when it had been revealed the Head of the Assassin's Guild themselves had taken an interest in Asher.

"Greater demons are the third most powerful form of demon in all the hells. Second in all the ways that truly matter, as the ruler of demons itself is too powerful to actually enter the material realm. The Council of Death is toeing the line, it would seem. I doubt even they would dare risk summoning a demon lord, as their presence would call for a multi-nation-wide response in order to put it down, along with whatever group of madmen who summoned it. As it stands, the High Prince himself will no doubt marshal a response from the capital once he catches wind of the existence of a greater demon. There are a few elite slayers who have trained for this sort of thing."

"That bad, huh?" Asher muttered, remembering the way the very fabric of reality seemed to bend to the greater demon's presence. "Yeah, I can see that."

"Your teleportation skill must be truly something if it allowed you to escape," Draken said, looking more than a little impressed. "The elite ranks of demons are a popular topic among noble children, so I'm more than aware of how they are supposed to be impossible to flee from."

"It really is," Asher said, smiling weakly as he looked at his latest notifications.

Recall - Lvl 8

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Recall - Lvl 11

He still didn't quite understand what had happened during his repeated attempts to Recall away from the demon while it held him down, but it seemed the strange sensation of having the skill halted and triggered over and over again as he tried to drag the unmovable demon with him had given him a new understanding of how the world shifted around him whenever he used his skill. He'd never heard of a skill leveling up four times in what must have barely been ten seconds of struggle, and the entire ordeal made him question his entire understanding of how skills and their leveling worked.

Are skill levels really just the sheer number of times you practice something? Or do levels equate more to an actual understanding of what a skill is doing than people think? Filing away that thought for when he actually had time to go over his finding more carefully, he gave Draken a pointed look.

"I told you I managed to rescue a few people important to me, but I didn't explain how. They're in my extradimensional storage you've seen me use a few times now, and I'd like to bring them out if that's okay."

"I didn't know you could store people in it," Draken admitted, clearly surprised.

"Just evolved it after my battle with Eight," Asher explained, before hesitating. He didn't know how to put this tactfully, but he felt like he still needed to say something. "Draken… I know you and I have something of a loose partnership at the moment, and I don't want to rock the boat… But I feel as if this needs to be said, just to be safe. If you or any of your gang members were to hurt Samantha or Brian in any way, respectfully, I will kill you."

"The same goes for you and any of my elites, Asher, such things don't need to be stated so crudely," Draken said, rolling his eyes. "By all means, bring them here. I have a few more spare rooms in the manor other than the one Kree is currently occupying. I can keep them safe while you recover and figure out what's next."

"Thank you." Asher smiled, happy Draken understood where he was coming from. "Alright, I haven't actually tried this yet. Be back in a moment."

Focusing on his Personal Rift, Asher summoned a small, human sized portal, nearly invisible to the eye unless one knew precisely where to look. Curious, he stepped forward, blinking as he found himself within his own rift.

At its current level, the rift had the equivalent volume of a large, three-car garage. He knew the skill was flexible and able to shift and mold itself to utilize every single square inch of space if needed, but since its evolution, he was capable of keeping the shape static, as it was now.

His rift was now a large, rectangular room, filled with ambient light despite the lack of torches or glowing gemstones. The floor, walls, and ceiling were all some sort of opaque, white material that somehow felt both hard and yet pliable to the touch at the same time. Curiously, while storing other people in his rift didn't seem to cost any more energy than objects did, keeping himself within his own rift did for whatever reason. It was only a slow drain, but still a noticeable one. While he was itching to test a number of different aspects of his rift, there were more important matters to attend to.

"Asher!" Brian shouted, jumping off one of the crates Asher had stolen from the Guild safe house before running over to throw his arms around him. "Thank God you're okay!"

"Come on, it will take more than a few imps to hurt me," he said, laughing as he wrapped what remained of his own arms around the boy and pulling him in tight. "I'm just glad I got to you both in time."

"You and me both," Samantha said, giving him a pained smile. Asher couldn't even begin to imagine the hurt she was going through right now. She and Brian had lived in Horntho village their entire lives, and while the realization of what had happened might not have sunk into Brian just yet, Samantha no doubt knew what the razing of their village meant.

For better or worse, their old lives were gone. The cabin she'd fought so hard to keep in their possession for all these years was now nothing more than embers on a hill top.

As if reading his thoughts, she got up off her own crate, walking over and joining their group hug. "The three of us made it out alive, which is what's important," she said, almost managing to conceal a small sniffle. "Thank you, Asher."

"Are you kidding? Thank you for killing three of the demons all on your own!" Asher shot her a wide grin, nudging her as she blushed. "I'm pretty sure there would be slayer teams clamoring all over one another to get you to join their roster if they knew what you'd pulled off!"

"You killed some of the demons?!" Brian gasped, stepping back and looking at his sister in a whole new light. "Like the one that killed Mr. Sonth back in the tower?"

"Yep, exactly like that one," Asher nodded, unable to stop himself from laughing as Samantha turned even more red as she began stammering and trying to downplay her part in the battle. "You should have seen her. Three shots, three kills! It was impressive as hell. I would have been overrun if it weren't for her."

"It was four shots… and anyone could have done it with an enchanted bow," Samantha finally managed, crossing her arms. "…And my arrow didn't exactly do us any good against that giant one with the black teeth and purple skin."

"Ah… to be fair, I couldn't really do much to it either," Asher admitted, not wanting to scare them just yet by repeating what Draken had told him about the greater demon. "Anyway, like Samantha said, what's important is that we're all safe. In fact, would the two of you believe we're actually in Whikoga right now?"

"Really?!" Brian exclaimed, as Samantha looked startled. Asher knew the two of them had never actually been to the city before, and he couldn't help but smile despite everything they'd just been through. Maybe he could distract Brian a little bit longer and keep him from realizing the extent of the tragedy they'd just lived through. He figured it wouldn't be long before Brian started asking after his friends, and Asher wanted to push that conversation down the road as long as possible.

"Yes, really," he nodded. "We're going to be staying with a friend of mine for a bit. He's a little up-tight, but he's a very powerful man, so make sure you're respectful, alright?"

Seeing Brian nod and Samantha give him a questioning look, he mouthed 'Draken,' getting a hesitant but understanding nod in return. He didn't keep any secrets from Samantha, so she knew all about his curious relationship with the powerful gang leader.

"Alright, here we go," he said, opening a rift back out to the material realm. "Everyone, follow me!"