God Of Crafting

"No mercy."

The man behind those words was a monster in every conceivable way.

Even those words of his didn't come from his mouth but hung in the air through some sort of audiovisual illusion, convincing both my eyes and my ears that as he spoke them, he still stood in place, merely throwing threats.

But the reality I sensed through my spirituality revealed him to lunge forth right as his mouth was supposed to open, tossing his knife-wielding hand forward and sending the tip of his blade straight for my eye.

'So strong…' I thought, watching how even the slightest movements of the man stirred the local spirituality of the place, pretty much marking the path every part of his body took in the approach.

Beyond any doubt, this man's cultivation was leagues above mine. There was no denying how all of my power was merely a droplet in comparison to the lake of his power.

But, at the same time…

'So slow…' I thought, casually stepping to the side while gently striking out with my left forearm. Stepping away from the blade's path was one thing, but I had no plans of letting him just swing his hand and redirect the knife back towards my head.

'This knife, though…' I gritted my teeth as the black metal of the blade shot past my face, 'it feels a bit too weird. It's best not to risk it…'

Even though his power was weirdly mismatched, the assassin of Cassandra's clan clearly wasn't just a newbie with unmatched talent, nor was he a product of some experimentation aimed to give overwhelming power to someone who clearly didn't deserve it.

No.

At the most rudimentary level, this man was a cultivator. A proper cultivator who took his time training his body to accommodate reinforcing it with spirituality. A cultivator who achieved his current stage through the enlightenment of his own discovery.

The strength of his spirituality was overwhelmingly greater than what I could wield from my own reserves, making the very notion of opposing him ridiculous…

But there was something terribly wrong with that man's cultivation. And while I couldn't pinpoint it just yet, it was a feeling that wasn't going to go away anytime soon.

"Tsk…" the assassin clicked his tongue when I managed to dodge his sneaky strike, only to then block his elbow, effectively stopping the easiest follow-up attack he could unleash.

It was also at this point that everyone else finally realized what was happening.

By the doors, Cassandra drove her cultivation into action, weaving her spirituality into some sort of net that I couldn't really see the purpose of.

On the other hand, the officers in the room had no plans of relying on something as ambiguous as spirituality, all opting to either grab their own state-issued blades or pull out their guns, depending on how close they were to the assassin.

"Activate the field!" Dickins shouted an order right as he kicked against the ground, leaping over a huge control table only to then transfer all of his momentum into an unpredictable, half-height lunge.

An attack so low and thus unnatural for a human body actually managed to take the assassin by surprise, allowing Dickins' knife to scrape the man's ankle before he recollected himself and retreated out of the military-issue knife's range.

"Tsk," this time it was Dickins who clicked his tongue. "I blew it…" he muttered as he rose back to his feet from this weird, extremely low and outstretched lunge.

"Good try, though," I commented as I gathered my spirituality… only to then explode it outwards, shattering the fragile spell of the assassin's illusion and finally revealing the true state of the matter to everyone's eyes.

"Shoot at will!" Dickins screamed out…

Right as a huge cloud of smoke suddenly exploded below the assassin's feet, quickly spreading to cover pretty much the whole center of the control room.

'Shit…' I cursed in my thoughts as I retreated from the cloud.

Something… likely my instincts, was telling me that fighting the man right within his domain would not only be stupid but also likely the last thing I would do if I tried it.

"Don't go near it and just give me a moment!" Upholding the communication, I shouted while already gathering even more of my spirituality between my hands, quickly compressing it beyond the limits it could naturally be condensed. And then, rather than unleashing it, I continued to pour more of my Qi into it… as if I were trying to replicate the very phenomenon that made my core so unstable.

"On my mark…" I whispered with my eyes trained on the black cloud of billowing smoke, "chair."

With my eyes locked on the target, I couldn't glance to check if Dickins caught my drift.

"Go!"

Before I could unleash my spell, Cassandra revealed her own hand, manifesting her spirituality through a net-like spell… only to grab it with her own delicate hands, before tossing it right into the black smoke.

"Wha…"

Some officers groaned in displeasure, watching a potential new weapon enter the domain of the assassin.

Whatever it was that Cassandra did, however, was just what I needed.

Not by the nature of what she did, which I didn't really care about.

What mattered was how her attack — or whatever this net toss actually was — bought me just enough time to properly establish the anchor points within the singularity of mana between my hands, connecting this already overly condensed ball of raw power to the criticality of my very own spiritual core.

"On my mark…" I repeated right as I stood back and, after grabbing this small ball of raw energy, stretched my right arm out, before tossing my own spell straight into the smoke as if it were a baseball.

"NOW!"

At this point, I could only hope Dickins caught my meaning.

Seeing a random metal chair fly through the air, seemingly following the path of my spiritual ball, I could breathe a sigh of relief.

On its own, my ball of spirituality could hardly be considered an attack. If anything, the assassin was likely to just shrug it off, given that despite its critically unstable state… the amount of spirituality I expended was merely a considerable fraction of my cultivation base, making it an easily snuffable amount for someone wielding as much spiritual might as the man in the smoke.

For the next second, I just watched as the two projectiles, one shapely while the other anything but aerodynamic, traced their path through the air only to then sink into the black smoke.

Half a second passed in silence, with the officers either readying themselves with their knives or securing their aim, worried about friendly fire and opting out of shooting into the smoke, given that they could easily end up hitting their companions standing on the other side of the black cloud.

'Rupture.'

A single snap of the spirituality from my core carried the intent of the power word straight from my cultivation to the very center of the ball I'd tossed. With the conflicting orders of contain and rupture effectively canceling each other out, all of the energy I'd infused into the ball did what it was trying to do all this time and… expanded to restore the balance of spiritual pressure in the air.

POOF!

The curtain of black smoke suddenly lifted when a strong current — an explosion? — suddenly blew it out from the inside.

Following slightly behind, the chair Dickins tossed then crashed into the running assassin…

No, he cut at it with his black dagger, severing the item in two… only for one of the parts to slam into his knee while the other one bonked him right in the middle of the forehead.

'Wait, that actually worked?' I thought, baffled, when I saw the man stumble in his charge, as if suddenly disoriented by the trauma to his head.

It wasn't the level of injury a cultivator of the man's level would suffer seriously from. It was far from it, in fact.

Nevertheless, for just the slightest moment, it took away the assassin's focus, forcing him to alter his path and thus slow down, delaying his charge by a fraction of a second.

It didn't really matter whether I was surprised or not, for I'd rushed into my own charge even before rupturing my spell and dispelling the assassin's cover of black smoke. And now that he stumbled, I allowed the momentum of my dash to carry me forward as my shoes slid over the bloodied floor of the control room, allowing me to twist my body sideways.

The assassin regained his composure right as my feet finally found grip against the floor, bringing my glide to a full stop… and leaving me in the one position that I knew more intimately than any other.

The position I assumed daily for five years straight, with my legs just a hand-width away from the lines drawn directly from my shoulders to the ground, my hips locked and my right hand cocked to the back.

"Die…"

There was no emotion in the assassin's voice as he overcame his momentary stumble and slashed at me with his knife.

With how close we were, I had no hopes of avoiding the cut aimed straight across my chest. But as long as I leaned back, then maybe… just maybe...

Gritting my teeth, I allowed my instincts to take over.

The assassin's eyes lit up as he suddenly twisted his wrist, changing the angle at which his blade approached, effectively removing the option of leaning away from the attack.

I mean, I could still do so… but it would simply be too little, too late.

That's why, rather than leaning away, I closed my fist and, right as I breathed out, I decompressed my entire body while unlocking my hips.

My feet were firmly rooted to the ground, with some of my spirituality ensuring I could reliably draw strength from it.

My legs were just far enough apart to keep me stable while allowing for a degree of free movement.My hips, my upper body, and my right arm, however, all worked together toward a single purpose—a single, swinging motion that blossomed into a simple, crude act of throwing my fist forward.

The assassin cut down on my chest while I struck squarely into his solar plexus with the technique I had honed to perfection over the years.

A technique that, now that I had proper cultivation to back me up, inadvertently drew from my core, infusing my strike with simple, unadulterated Qi.

The assassin's knife struck down, cutting through my outerwear, then my shirt, and even reaching as far as my skin...

Only for my fist to finally connect.

BOOM!