CHAPTER 846: THE HIDDEN CARD

Darkness covered the entire floating land, shocking everyone within it. The absolute darkness caught all the people on the manor grounds off guard, as none of them were prepared for it.

This darkness was not an ordinary one where light simply could not reach. Its very properties were suffocating, restricting everything within. The cultivators inside found their senses dulled, and this did not only apply to their spiritual sense.

Their sight was completely obstructed in the darkness, their hearing sensitivity greatly reduced, and their sense of direction thrown into chaos. Their capabilities were severely limited here.

This was the Domain of Darkness belonging to Pedro, master of the Silent Reaper. As a peak pseudo-immortal stage cultivator, his domain was naturally powerful. But Pedro stood out even among pseudo-immortal cultivators.

His comprehension of darkness laws and their derivative, shadow laws, was the strongest. Once he used techniques based on the darkness laws, he became extremely difficult to defeat. Moreover, his Domain of Darkness, which he named the Domain of the Dark World, was a truly terrifying domain.

The domain could greatly weaken any cultivator within it. Within his domain, he naturally became far more powerful.

There were even stories claiming that he was truly invisible inside it, and that once someone was trapped within, they could never escape or survive. Though those stories were questionable, since no one had ever seen his domain directly and their origins were unclear, many still believed them.

The size of the domain was immense, covering the entire floating land that spanned a thousand square kilometres.

In this world of darkness, he was both king and reaper.

The people trapped within the darkness fell into panic as they could not sense anything around them. Even someone standing right beside them could not be sensed. The only thing they could rely on was physical touch.

Some tried to light their surroundings with flames formed from their fire laws, but the light from the fire only illuminated their hands. It was as if the darkness itself blocked the light from spreading.

As for the pseudo-immortal stage cultivators, they could still do more than rely on physical touch. However, their capabilities were greatly reduced, as they couldn’t effectively use their elemental techniques. The Domain of the Dark World caused all elemental energy within it to become corrupted by darkness.

The avatar looked at the darkness with a calm expression. Inside this darkness, his spiritual sense was indeed obstructed by an invisible force. He was truly like a blind and deaf person. He knew he would have to exert more effort if he wanted to break free from the domain’s effects, which would consume even more of his energy that was already less than half.

However, despite the disadvantageous situation, he did not panic. Instead, he smiled.

’Well, let’s use the hidden card,’ he thought.

After creating his domain, Pedro could feel his energy depleting at great speed. This was the weakness of his domain. Although it seemed overpowered, there was always a price to pay for such power, and that was its immense energy consumption.

Even a normal domain already consumed a large amount of energy, but this one was special—it drained far more. Even as a pseudo-immortal stage cultivator, he could feel his energy being absorbed rapidly.

That was why he did not want to unleash his domain recklessly in battle. He would only use it when he believed there was no other choice. Once activated, he had to ensure that he achieved his goal and escaped as quickly as possible, or he would be left drained of energy.

At that point, anyone could kill him easily.

’I have to finish this as soon as possible,’ he thought.

He had to make sure that all targets were dead. At this moment he had no choice. The mission seemed to have gone wrong, and many of his men already appeared to be dead. It was a pity, but at least he was still alive, and his group could still stand in the future. As long as he remained alive, the Silent Reaper would endure.

If he went back now, the situation would become much worse.

Even Munez was still not dead.

Inside the darkness he could see and sense everything within his domain clearly. He used his senses to locate the targets that were still alive across the manor grounds.

But then, as he marked each target, he sensed someone approaching him.

He knew who was approaching, so he did not care. He thought the figure only wanted to gather beside him after he activated his domain. The figure could still move in the darkness and seemed to know where to go, but Pedro did not seem surprised.

The figure knew how to adapt inside the darkness, and was the only one he knew who could move without much trouble inside his domain.

He thought that he could order the figure to kill the other targets to shorten the time.

"I will kill Munez and the other targets on the northern and western sides, while you take care of the eastern and southern sides," he sent through voice transmission.

The figure was already standing beside him and replied softly with moving lips.

"Alright."

Stab!

"But I think you should be the one to go first," the figure added.

Pedro’s eyes widened in shock as a dagger pierced straight into his heart. He could not comprehend what had happened, his trembling eyes slowly fixed on the dagger in his chest before he looked at the figure before him.

The domain Pedro had created trembled violently before shattering apart as he lost control of it. The people around were stunned once again when the darkness shattered, allowing them to see their surroundings. Confused, they looked around in disbelief, unsure of what had just occurred.

Realizing they were still in the middle of a critical situation, they quickly took up ready positions once more, preparing to face the assassins who had already disappeared.

"They must be hiding nearby when we lost sight of them in the darkness just now! Find them!" one of the elders shouted to the others. Without hesitation, the others scattered to search for the assassins.

Back in Munez’s destroyed room, Grand Elder Javier and the other grand elder widened their eyes in astonishment at the scene not far from them. What they saw was Pedro being stabbed by what appeared to be one of his own men.

They did not know who this figure was, but from his attire, they were certain he was one of the assassins from the Silent Reaper. However, for Grand Elder Javier, it seemed he was already somewhat prepared for this scene, even though he was still in shock.

Aldrian the Great had already told him that he possessed a hidden card he could use, though he did not know what it was. The only thing he knew was that this hidden card would be useful if the Silent Reaper ever attacked the Baverisk family. Now, he finally understood that the hidden card was actually someone from the Silent Reaper itself.

The other grand elder who witnessed the scene also did not make any move, as he could not grasp the situation before him. How could there be a traitor within the Silent Reaper? This was the first time he had ever seen someone dare to betray the master of the Silent Reaper.

Pedro, whose heart had been stabbed by the figure, was already vomiting blood. It dripped from the gap in his mask and down his chin. Enduring the pain spreading through his chest, he opened his trembling lips.

"Luvier... what are you doing?" he asked with a strained voice and shaking body as he tried to grasp Luvier’s hand. But Luvier did not answer. Instead, he drove the dagger even deeper into Pedro’s heart.

"Uwokh..." Pedro vomited blood again, his breath growing shallow as suffocation set in. He could feel his strength leaving his body. He sensed that the dagger was laced with poison, making it even deadlier for him. At that moment, he knew his time had come.

He was going to die, and there was nothing he could do about it. He couldn’t even end his own life, as the spreading poison had already crippled his ability to control energy.

"Why?" he asked one last time before his body collapsed, the poison spreading rapidly through his internal organs and even his soul.

The special poison that Luvier had prepared for this moment was a deadly toxin he had discovered long ago in the Poison Valley during one of his ventures.

There, he had found a small pond filled with a strange poison that possessed a lethal effect on both body and soul. He believed it to be a mutated poison formed by the valley’s environment. He had taken it, thinking it would be useful for assassination missions.

Now, that same poison was claiming another victim.

Luvier watched as Pedro’s body lay on the floor, his limbs convulsing violently. His breathing grew weaker and weaker until, after a few seconds, his body finally went still. His eyes turned lifeless as his soul departed from his body.

At that moment, one of the most feared figures in the Akares Star met an anticlimactic end—betrayed by the very person he trusted most within his own organization.