Chapter 601: Chapter 601
Seated in the scarlet chair, Cassius raised his face with a faint smile, his unreadable eyes fixed on the hall's tightly-shut doors.
"Amos... Do you think what I just said was correct?"
With a crack, the iron door swung outward, allowing sunlight to spill inward. An elderly figure in a black-and-white butler uniform strode inside. Amos, who had arrived unnoticed, adjusted the white glove on his left hand, and kept his eyes locked on Cassius.
Amos cast a wary glance at the thirteen manuals that radiated warped power upon the table, then said gravely, "It's only been days, yet you seem stronger again... I can no longer see through you at all, Cassius..."
Half an hour later, the meeting inside Baichuan City's hall had concluded. It ended so quickly because it was not a forum for ideas but a vehicle for Cassius's plans. He dictated what must be done, by whom, and to what effect. Everyone merely nodded and obeyed, offering no dissent.
Cassius already possessed incredible prestige within the Golem Sect, having founded the whole sect single-handedly. Moments earlier, he had revealed another vast leap in strength and laid out thirteen formidable Covert Martial Arts manuals for his followers to study.
Thus, when he declared he would sweep the world's Covert Martial Arts community, not one listener thought him arrogant; all simply pondered the feasibility. In short, the sect's mission had been newly set. It was mad growth and expansion to amplify their influence. As for the thirteen manuals Cassius produced, everyone believed them treasures.
However, they hesitated to discard the core abilities on which their lives depended. They chose to test them first, to see whether the results were truly astounding... Abandoning their "wife of one's youth" that had carried them so far wouldn't be too late then...
Everyone possessed flexible principles and very practical boundaries. When the meeting ended at noon, many executives stayed for lunch, yet Cassius and Amos vanished from sight.
Far off in an abandoned park on Baichuan City's outskirts, weeds thrived beside cracked concrete paths. Black lamp posts had shed their paint, wearing rust-red scabs. The marble fountain brimmed with moss piling in its corners. Yet nature remained beautiful beyond man-made neglect.
Rows of crimson maple trees bathed in the noon sun. With each autumn gust, their leaves rustled and danced like flitting sprites of flame.
Amos and Cassius walked side by side along a white-stone path strewn with maple leaves.
"I can feel it. You're even more dangerous than half a month ago," Amos remarked. The elder wore a black-and-white waistcoat, white gloves marked with a sword emblem, and polished shoes. Though advanced in years, he still carried the elegance of a dashing old gentleman with his slicked-back hair.
Cassius wore a loose black overcoat and stiff leather boots. He had pale-gold hair, handsome features, and lake-blue eyes. A chilly aura warned strangers to keep their distance.
The two figures followed the path toward a distant lake.
"Cassius, have you broken through again? I'm envious... So young with such strength. The whole world holds no equal." Staring at him, Amos added, "You were already at the peak of top-tier combat artist; this leap must place you at the legendary extreme combat artist realm, yes?"
Amos shook his head in awe. "Now, perhaps only one or two Covert Martial Arts Practitioners can rival you. You surely have no foe in the federation's eastern scene..."
In truth, Amos felt both pleased and uneasy. His joy lay in Cassius's clear grudge with the Gate Organization. His new height would spell disaster for them. The worry was that Cassius's ambition might swell, turning the Golem Sect into a force like the Gate Organization.
At that point, the Black Ops Agency would face mortal peril.
Beside him, Cassius stayed impassive under Amos's gaze. "Amos, you were only right about the last half."
His tone held no arrogance, only plain fact. "At present, I truly have no opponent, whether in the Hongli Federation or anywhere on Earth."
"Oh?" Amos raised a brow in doubt.
Cassius halted beside the sapphire lake and looked at Amos. "Confused? Very well... Would you like to take one punch from me?"
Amos's brows knit tighter. His aged eyes sharpened, searching Cassius's face for clues but he found nothing. So he tested the waters, "Then... one punch?"
The instant his words fell, the environment changed in a flash. It was no longer an abandoned park. Instead, they stood on a vast, level grassfield. Wind ruffled the grass, herds grazed, and white-capped mountains towered in the distance.
Amos sensed something terribly wrong. Had he been shifted miles outside Baichuan City without noticing?
"Th-this... this isn't an illusion!"
He knelt, removed a glove, and pinched a blade of grass, studying it before replacing the glove. Then he sprinted, streaking away with speed fit for a top-tier combat artist. In a blink, he stood atop a black-and-white cow several kilometers away.
He dashed again and soon reached a mountain's foot. Now he felt sure Cassius had shifted him leagues away by some unknown means, not by illusion. So where was Cassius himself?
"Cassius! Where are you? Weren't you giving me a punch?!" Amos shouted, trying to draw him out.
"I'm above you..." A voice echoed overhead.
"On the summit?" Amos muttered and gazed at the lofty peak.
"Is this necessary? Choosing a peak so high?" He spoke while metal cutting threads unfurled from his hands. The wires bit into rock, retracting in sequence to haul him skyward.
In moments, he reached the steep summit, yet no one was there.
"You tricked me, Cassius? Playing hide-and-seek?"
Amos let his arms hang, the wires swaying like jellyfish tentacles behind him.
"I haven't tricked you, Amos. I am above, right here..." A thunderous voice boomed over Amos's head.
Amos felt his scalp prickling. A shock raced down his spine as every muscle and cell trembled. He snapped his head up.
There was a colossal human face in the sky!
It loomed amid swirling white clouds. The sky bore human features, magnified countless times until they filled the blue dome beyond sight. The sight was even more horrifying than a face on the moon.
Most crucially, the face was Cassius's!
The titanic visage spoke.
"Amos, take my punch..."
Take his punch—what a joke!!!
Amos felt his scalp splitting. In sixty-odd turbulent years, he had met many strange things, but never such a terrifying sight.
"Wai—" he tried to say. However, a giant fist was already falling, blasting clouds apart as it hurtled toward the mountain!
From afar, the fist was so vast the snowy peak looked like a toothpick before it. This blow aimed not only to flatten Amos but to turn the entire mountain and grassland into a chasm.
Atop the peak, the ever-elegant, aristocratically trained Amos cursed crudely for the first time in his life.
A raging will to live hammered his heart, and power flooded his limbs. He immediately burst into the final state of Violent Storm! Thousands of wires spewed from him, turning him into a metal sea-urchin.
The dreadful filaments shredded the air as they shot outward. They draped and covered the summit's snowscape.
But what use was that?
Even if his wires numbered in the hundreds of thousands and blanketed the mountain, one outcome awaited beneath that heaven-splitting fist.
"Arrrghhh!" Amos screamed as the fist of heaven crashed down.
"Huuh... huuh... huuh..."
Then they were back at the emerald lake in the abandoned park, the exact same spot as before. Amos panted like a bull, the thousands of wires lashing uncontrollably through the air, carving crazed scars into the ground, woods, and water.
But everything within a meter of Cassius remained pristine, as though shielded by an unseen force.
"C-Cassius!!! Gah!!!" Get full chapters from novᴇlfire.net
Amos whipped around and retreated back like lightning. He landed on the lake's far side in a flash. As his feet touched down, a black shadow appeared exactly the same distance away from him.
Cassius's posture never changed as he gazed at Amos. At last, Amos calmed down and retracted his wires in confusion.
"You! I—I'm not dead? That punch—that punch was too..." His lips quivered. "Too.. too terrifying. Why am I still alive? Still in the original park... Was it an illusion?"
Amos was clearly badly shaken. His lips had gone pale and his face was ashen. There was a sheen of sweat on his brow.
"Not an illusion," Cassius said calmly. "Merely methods you might not comprehend. If you doubt it, I can demonstrate again right here with another punch?"
Amos coughed hard; cold sweat had soaked his butler's uniform. "N-no... no need. You nearly frightened this old man to death..."
The white hair at his brow stuck to his skin in clumps. Clearly the ordeal had been overwhelming.
"C-Cassius, give me a moment to recover." He rasped, breathing hard.
Cassius nodded considerately and waited in silence. Strangely, he now seemed calmer, even polite. Amos could scarcely reconcile him with the horror of that heaven-shattering punch.
About ten minutes slipped by.
"Cassius, be honest. What realm have you reached?" Amos stared hard. "Extreme combat artist?"
Cassius shook his head.
"Peak of extreme combat artist? Number one alive?"
Cassius shook his head again.
"Ho—Holy Fist!" Amos uttered the words, his emotions surging.
"Wrong, Dominator Fist," Cassius said, turning to face the tranquil lake.
"Extreme dominance..." Amos murmured. He plunged into shock, yet his thoughts whirled on.
Cassius had just granted him a punch, letting him taste the power of a Dominator Fist firsthand. He had also revealed he now stood in the legendary realm of Dominator Fist. Clearly it was neither for show nor out of boredom. It was related to what Amos had overheard half an hour earlier outside the hall. It concerned Cassius's new goal for the Golem Sect.
"'The planet's Covert Martial Arts community is already in our pockets..." Amos murmured the sentence aloud.
That single punch had been a warning for him, the man at the apex of the Black Ops Agency. Cassius would lead the Golem Sect to conquer the Covert Martial Arts world, and the Black Ops Agency had best stay out. Otherwise, one punch would fall, and everything would be annihilated in an instant...