Returning to the Mysterious Era

A silver arc sliced through the air.

The sheriff realized that only half the cigar in his mouth remained when the smoldering end rolled to the ground.

Fear gripping him, he took two steps back, the sharp clack of his polished black leather shoes echoing against the road.

The person who stepped out of the car was, indeed, a young boy around fourteen years old and roughly 1.5 meters tall. His short black hair was trimmed in an unremarkable style. A pair of round glasses rested on his nose, catching the light with a faint glint. He wore a black and white suit that was neither formal nor casual. The tapered waist gave it the air of a waiter or butler's uniform.

A brass badge, the symbol of a certain organization, sat on his left chest. It depicted an inverted sword, gripped by a hand wrapped in thorny vines. The same emblem adorned the back of his white gloves, surrounded by seven or eight black symbols and letters. Their meaning was unclear.

Behind him, the car shook again as a plump, fair-skinned man with a thick, prominent mustache stepped out in a black police uniform. The Special Operations Team Leader immediately recognized him as the chief of Beiliu City's police station, Alan Kruger.

"Good day, Chief." Fritz and his partner bowed respectfully.

Kruger nodded somewhat dismissively, then walked quickly to catch up with the boy. A smile was plastered on his face as he explained the situation. Fritz was also called over to add details.

The boy appeared indifferent while he listened. Perhaps it was simply his natural personality, but he asked no questions as Fritz and Alan did the talking, and continued walking briskly down the street. It wasn't until they reached a corner that the boy halted and looked down at the ground.

There, in a half-human-sized pit, lay a severely dehydrated arm. The skin was so dried and shriveled it resembled a twisted branch. The boy extended his gloved hand, and from the tip of his finger, a silver wire shot out as if the glove were woven from metal threads. The wire coiled around the arm, lifting it into the air.

Beside him, Fritz's pupils contracted. The team leader had been right—these were professionals. No wonder it was necessary for all members of the Special Operations Team to sign confidentiality agreements.

The black-haired boy carefully observed the arm as the wire wrapped tighter around it. With a sharp tug, the arm was sliced into dozens of pieces, releasing a faint red vapor that soon dissipated into the air.

"Blood Race—and a high-ranking one, too…" the boy muttered as he pulled out a notebook from his front pocket and jotted something down on a page. In the span of a few minutes, the notebook, which was about the size of half a palm, was filled with words. Several of them had been circled.

"High-ranking Blood Race dead," "Totem Shaman," "Mysterious dark aura,"and "Monitor the activation of the Black Ops Agency in Beiliu County."

***

It was the afternoon of June 11, the second day since Li Wei had lost control of his body. In an abandoned house on the outskirts of Beiliu City, a transformation like that of a butterfly was occurring. The metamorphosis had begun the previous night and hadn't stopped since.

Cassius floated in the air, observing the entire process.

The previous night, Li Wei's body had gone berserk, killing all the enemies in its path. Based on Cassius's assessment, Li Wei's exhibited strength was nearing the realm of a combat artist, and in some aspects, he had already surpassed that threshold. Li Wei had even beat and killed Count Andrew who was a high-ranking Blood Race combat artist.

After the fight, Li Wei had taken some of the valuable remains and, an hour later, arrived at a dilapidated house. Just like before, he greedily absorbed the lingering dark essence from the corpses. With already two-thirds complete, the transformation of his body into a dark creature was near completion.

The black veins erupted violently, intertwining and merging to form a giant cocoon, enveloping Li Wei entirely. The cocoon was hidden in the shadows, pulsing rhythmically, swelling and contracting like a giant heart for more than ten hours.

Cassius could do nothing to intervene. He hovered above like a ghost, watching the large black cocoon in the dim room.

Two critical questions kept circling in his mind—how to return his consciousness to Li Wei's body and how to stop this terrifying and unnatural dark creature transformation process.

Unfortunately, he had no answers.

Currently, the only thing Cassius could influence was the Wisdom Rune. Since Li Wei had killed Count Andrew and two other Totem Shamans, the progress bar of the Wisdom Rune had suddenly filled up, absorbing an ample amount of the essence of calamity.

The problem was that Cassius wasn't sure if he could still use the Wisdom Rune. The dark creature transformation happening in Li Wei's body was internal, manifesting from the soul to the physical body.

In simple terms, Cassius's soul had split in two—one part was undergoing the dark creature transformation, while the other part remained normal.

His normal soul possessed the power to reverse time and also allowed him to see the symbol of the Wisdom Rune. In theory, he could still use it, but he couldn't be sure what would happen. What if using it accelerated the transformation instead? This uncertainty left him conflicted.

Would the Wisdom Rune even help? And if it did, who would benefit from it? What if the dark creature transformation really accelerated…

Crack, crack, crack…

Suddenly, the large black cocoon began to shake violently as parts of its surface, lined with black veins, started to peel off like burning ash falling to the ground. The cocoon's heartbeat-like pulsations grew faster.

Cassius knew he could no longer hesitate. He immediately activated the Wisdom Rune. In an instant, countless faint red patterns appeared before his eyes, covering his entire field of vision.

Inside the room, the black cocoon quivered intensely. The humanoid figure inside radiated a burning heat, as though something within was constantly secreting ominous power. The Ouroboros symbol started to spin rapidly, and a droplet fell from the infinity loop.

The Blood of the Spirit took effect on Cassius's consciousness almost instantly, but it only acted on the part of his mind that hadn't undergone the dark creature transformation.

His thoughts raced faster than ever before, and Cassius felt as if he was beginning to understand everything.

Details he hadn't previously noticed or comprehended, vague and unclear relationships, became clearer. From the Wind Elephant Covert Martial Arts, the Stone Armor Technique to various other Secret Techniques, as well as the abilities that Li Wei's body had gained after the dark creature transformation—it was all coming together.

Now, Cassius was beginning to understand the true power of the Blood of the Spirit. In moments of crisis, it allowed him to find solutions incredibly fast, coming up with an effective plan within a short timeframe. He couldn't fully grasp the underlying principles or processes, nor did he know what the exact results would be, but his rapidly quickening thoughts gave him a clear, instinctive certainty.

This is the right way to do it!

It was pure instinct—a deep, unspoken knowing of how to act for one's own survival!

Cassius's mind was filled with terms from various martial arts disciplines. As his gaze swept over each one, all the techniques and combat stances from Wind Elephant Fist to other advanced arts emerged in his mind, floating like pictures in the air. The more techniques he reviewed, the more they began classifying themselves, each skill fitting into a category.

Instinctively, Cassius sought to create the perfect solution.

However, just one progress bar of Wisdom Rune's essence wasn't enough to provide that much energy. There just wasn't enough essence of calamity!

What to do?

In his heightened mental state, Cassius came up with an idea—he would extract it from himself!

The essence of calamity came from within the dark creatures, something even more mysterious than dark essence itself. Since Li Wei's body was undergoing dark creature transformation, wouldn't it contain a large amount of essence of calamity? Could Cassius extract it from himself without his body fighting him back?

If Li Wei's transforming body couldn't resist him, and the Wisdom Rune was imprinted on Li Wei's form, it was possible!

There was one last factor to be considered. A fully charged progress bar was merely the minimum requirement to use the Wisdom Rune, and also the safest way to use it. However, just because he could use the Wisdom Rune once a year didn't mean that he was limited to only one progress bar each time. In fact, it was possible to use multiple progress bars simultaneously to achieve greater boosts of varying difficulty.

Of course, enhancement wasn't a guarantee. The easier the challenge, the higher the likelihood of success, and vice versa. After all, the amount of essence of calamity required to break through from the second to the third stage of the Stone Armor Technique wouldn't be the same. The same logic applied.

The black cocoon trembled even more violently, something within was sucking out the very essence of its being. If dark essence was the source of the dark creature's strength, then the essence of calamity was its core, its very identity.

Simply put, the essence of calamity allowed one to become a dark creature, while dark essence endowed that creature with power. As a comparison, if one became a government official, essence of calamity would be like their official rank, and dark essence would be the authority they commanded in that rank.

In his vision, Cassius watched the Wisdom Rune's progress bar fill up rapidly. Then, just as quickly, it was consumed again. A massive amount of the Blood of the Spirit kept his consciousness racing at a terrific speed.

He began dissecting all the knowledge he had acquired through multiple time-travels, even analyzing the ongoing dark creature transformation in Li Wei's body. Using Wind Elephant Covert Martial Arts as the foundational framework, he started to combine the piecemeal fragments to create an entirely new Covert Martial Art where it would not only retain the core essence of the Wind Elephant Covert Martial Arts but also incorporate other techniques to address Li Wei's dark creature transformation.

Cassius was inventing a martial art to solve his current crisis.

Such a complex and specific requirement naturally consumed an immense amount of mental energy. Even with two fully charged progress bars, it might not be enough. Fortunately, Cassius could continue extracting the essence of calamity from himself. With Li Wei's transforming body unable to form much of a resistance, he could continuously draw out the essence of calamity.

What surprised Cassius, however, was the sheer amount of essence of calamity within him. Even a high-ranking Blood Race member like Count Andrew had only filled half a progress bar. But now, Cassius had already extracted enough for two bars. Furthermore, from the looks of it, there was still more to take!

After a mere ten minutes, Cassius had already discarded seven incomplete forms of the new Covert Martial Art and had extracted enough essence of calamity to fill four progress bars from Li Wei's body. Now, the black cocoon in the corner was starting to fade, as if it was covered in dust. Its black veins appeared old and withered.

But Cassius didn't care. His thoughts were racing with ideas that needed testing. He had to maintain his heightened mental state with the Blood of the Spirit.

The arrow had been drawn, and there was no turning back. What was more, at the end of the arrow stood his nemesis.

In the blink of an eye…

[Rune of Wisdom∞：▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆]

The Wisdom Rune's progress bar was filled again, now for the fifth time.

The black cocoon trembled even more violently, and its outermost layers peeled away, as something struggled to emerge.

Cassius ignored it, continuing his work on the Covert Martial Art. Once again, he rejected two frameworks, consuming the newly gathered Blood of the Spirit until it was drained once more. He didn't hesitate, immediately extracting more essence of calamity.

The black cocoon swayed precariously, its surface densely covered with cracks like a spider's web. From the fissures oozed a viscous, transparent liquid. However, Cassius remained focused.

His thinking had reached the final critical stage. Countless dense thoughts fell like torrential rain, and he absorbed them like a sponge. The various disassembled puzzle pieces recombined, forming a more stable and efficient combat system. Many techniques, such as the Midak Balance Destruction Technique, were incorporated into this combat system.

Finally, when all his inspiration accumulated to a certain limit, his thoughts, compressed to the extreme, erupted like a volcano. An endless stream of fragments automatically assembled, and under Cassius's own incomprehensible gaze, they were suddenly reborn.

After a moment of frozen silence, his thoughts resumed. A powerful Covert Martial Art quietly emerged in his mind.

[Golem Covert Martial Arts]

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