Published: February 12, 2025
Ye Zhongming did not stop Xia Bai, not only because he had confidence in his loyal guard, but also because of the anger he felt from the earlier encounter with Nine Dragons.
The sky piercing dagger technique might have seemed easy to block just now, but in reality, it was a very insidious skill. As one of the most famous assassination techniques in the apocalypse, the defining characteristic of the sky piercing dagger technique is its suddenness. Its most notable ability is to appear suddenly from the space beside the target, leaving no time for a reaction. The daggers used are also extremely vicious, embodying the very essence of the technique itself.
This ability consists of two aspects. The first is the cultivation of the weapon; after learning the skill, there's no need to prepare a weapon because the skill will automatically generate daggers within a mysterious space—sharp daggers imbued with potent toxins.
After a period of cultivation in that space, the dagger can be activated. Once it reaches a certain threshold, a second dagger will be cultivated. The number of daggers is related to the skill level. According to Ye Zhongming's understanding, the maximum number of daggers that can be stored with the sky piercing dagger technique is five; at the beginner level, only one dagger is available. This means that Nine Dragons currently possesses at least an intermediate skill level.
The most terrifying aspect of the sky piercing dagger technique is its sudden lethality. One can only imagine how many people Nine Dragons, as a Lone Wanderer of the apocalypse, has killed using this skill.
Of course, this insidious skill has its limitations; each dagger can only be used once. Once deployed, it disappears and can only be regenerated in the skill's designated space. This means the cultivation time of the dagger serves as the cooldown time for the skill. The longer the cultivation time, the greater the dagger's power, peaking at the maximum cultivation time.
The power is reflected in the position of the dagger's appearance, its flight speed, the toxicity it carries, and the distance from which the skill can be released. The dagger that struck Li Daqian appeared almost right next to his neck, at high speed and with severe toxicity, which is why an eight-star evolver could fall prey to it without much defense.
However, being an eight-star evolver, Li Daqian was not killed instantly by that assassination attempt.
When the target was Ye Zhongming, during the second attack, it was evident that the dagger had not been cultivated well. Nine Dragons had to pretend to move forward to close the distance in order to release it, and the dagger appeared slightly further away from Ye Zhongming, making its power incomparable to the earlier attack on Li Daqian.
A person like this had to be eliminated. The assassination technique might not pose a significant threat to Ye Zhongming, but it would spell disaster for others in Cloud Summit. If Nine Dragons were to escape, who knows how many lives would be lost in the future.
The mood of the red dress guard was similar to their captain's, and they watched the water steward and others with apparent caution. It was likely that if these individuals made any sudden movements, they would be met with a storm of attacks.
"You know I won’t attack you; your people needn’t treat me this way," the water steward said with a wry smile. She couldn’t comprehend how, in the apocalypse, there could be such a group of oddities whose loyalty to others surpassed their own lives. Standing there doing nothing, being blamed for someone else's actions was hard to understand.
Ye Zhongming did not respond but looked at Xia Bai. Although he had absolute confidence in her, he still needed to guard against unexpected events.
Regardless, Ye Zhongming and the water steward were still in a passive position. Since those people had already known they would come, they would naturally be prepared.
Just as Ye Zhongming and the others were focused on Xia Bai's battle, the entire space suddenly darkened, and then they were transported to another location.