......
A few more hours passed by as Azmodeus continued his hunt for more Spiritual Beasts.
So far, he had killed hundreds of beasts in the Strength Refining and Flesh Refining Stages, dozens in the Viscera Training Small Success and Large Success Stages, and nearly ten beasts in the Altering Muscle Stage.
On the other hand, he had only found one Spiritual Beast in the Bone Forging Stage.
It was a big bear over five meters tall and utterly towered over him, but its massive size didn't stop a sword and a rock from slapping across its head!
And from all this killing that had been conducted, Azmodeus had obtained hundreds of Evolution Essence, and it was at this moment that he felt a few presences not belonging to those of beasts.
Bzzzt...
His Stealth Trait immediately activated as he hid up on top of a tree branch within a few dozen meters of the ground.
The moment he settled down, a few figures in black cloaks emerged from a nearby area of shrubbery.
There were a total of five of these cloaked figures, and all of them had relatively large frames—clearly not your typical assassins.
I mean, these guys are assassins, right? Just one look at their getup and that much is clear...
Although Azmodeus had never seen an assassin in person, after the constant hounding of Elder Chong to allow him access to the lowest levels of the Sect Library, he was permitted to read a few books that mentioned them.
However, what confused him about this situation was that these 'Assassins' were clearly looking for him, and all their cultivation bases were somewhere around the Early Pulse Condensation Stages.
To send four Early Pulse Condensation Assassins after me... Did I really commit such a crime to be deserving of this...?
Well, I did kill a few sect members, but they forced my hand! How can I be blamed for a small thing like that??
Azmodeus felt like he was being unjustly treated by the sect!
However, he soon had a change of mind when he saw the tiger emblems stitched onto the cloaks that these four men were wearing.
The Black Tiger Family...? But why would they be searching for me- Oh wait, that Yang Hao guy was a Young Master of this household, wasn't he?
Azmodeus seemed to remember hearing something about Yang Hao becoming the rising star of his past life, as he had successfully achieved the Bone Forging Realm by the age of 19!
And to have such talent in this part of the Fire Nation, one had to either be extremely lucky or have quite an affluent family.
Which, in the case of Yang Hao, his family was absolutely loaded!
In all of Spirit River City, the Black Tiger Family was firmly planted within the top 10!
The number of experts they had at their beck and call likely numbered in the thousands, and of those, at least 10 had already approached the peak of the Body Refinement Realm!
It looks like I brought quite the troublesome situation to myself...
Even though Azmodeus was thinking things like this, there was a wide grin plastered on his face, as he was truly becoming addicted to the feeling of becoming stronger.
And what allowed him to become stronger faster than ever?
Walking loot bags... That is all they are...
Following this train of thought, his figure blurred as he used his Level 2 Stealth Skill to sneak around the four figures scouring the area for any traces of their target.
Luckily for Azmodeus, all of them were focused on the same general area, which allowed him to get behind the four of them with skillful movements.
He didn't make even the slightest sound as he unsheathed his sword and dashed straight for the throat of the largest and strongest of the Assassins!
Adaptation... To evolve, one must be willing to throw away their humanity... One must be ruthless...
Through these thoughts, a razor-sharp sword edge touched the back of a human's neck and sliced it clean off.
One.
And just as the other three were about to realize that something was off, Azmodeus struck preemptively and leaped up off the ground like a nimble jumping monkey, his sword aiming for the head of the second cloaked man!
SLICE!
Two.
After making such a clean strike to the back of that man's head, he moved onto the next assassin in sight.
"!!!" "!!!"
And by this point, the two who were left alive had already noticed the disturbance, as they shot their heads behind them.
Azmodeus was nowhere to be seen, but...
"Brother Bo and Brother Ming!" Both of the assassins shouted with enraged expressions as they saw two headless corpses sprawled out on the cold, hard ground.
They wished to find whoever was messing with them and kill them right away!
However, when they looked around the area, they saw no one... Not a single trace of an existence could be discerned from the deaths of their two brothers.
"Find that slimy bastard! When you find him, make sure to keep him alive so we can give him the most painful death imaginable!"
After one of the two remaining assassins gave this command, the both of them split up and dashed in two different directions.
And such a rash decision to split up would be their downfall...
*Rustle!*
A slight rustling sounded from a nearby bush as one of the assassins darted in that direction with his dagger in tow!
"I found him, brother Yao! I will cripple him first!" He hollered with the sharp end of his dagger slicing at the bush in front of him.
"!!!"
However, after the bush was sliced up into dozens of pieces and the ground was diced up into x-like marks, there was no one there...
"How-!?" He tried to speak, but he was interrupted by a sword gleam hitting him from the side!
*Spurt!*
"Gurg-!!..." The assassin gurgled on his own blood as his widened eyes caught a glimpse of an emotionless face staring at him like nothing more than mere cattle...
Three.
As system notifications were going off in the background, Azmodeus felt the thrill of a well-thought-out battle and couldn't help but think that it was just as good as fighting someone head on!
......