The Jester of Apocalypse
Chapter 107: Owners of Life

A block of shattered obsidian lay scattered around the room as the intruder failed to get up.

Marven panicked. "That won’t be enough, Neave!"

Before the old cultivator could say anything else, Neave had already teleported on top of the enemy and wrapped his snaky limbs around the intruder.

The assassin groaned as his arms and legs tightened with extreme force, and now he found himself restrained and incapable of doing virtually anything. As a diamond-path cultivator, he was superior in strength, but his limbs were now at a horribly awkward angle, and he could not exert any force.

He barely opened his mouth and said, "Kill me, you demons!"

Neave’s face lit up like a candle. "No!" Sᴇaʀᴄh the N0vᴇlFirᴇ.ɴet website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of nøvels early and in the highest quality.

"You won’t get anything out of me if you torture me."

"Bahahaha, that's what they all say!” Neave teased in an ominous voice. “You were sent here by Astrador, right? What’s your name?"

The intruder’s eyes widened, and he refused to speak further. His face grew resolute, and it was clear that he had accepted death.

The others panicked and kept trying to say something, but they weren’t sure what should be done. Should the intruder be killed? Interrogated? Held as a prisoner?

Before they could settle on a suggestion, they heard the sound of bones cracking, and the intruder screamed in agony. His limbs were bent at odd angles, and his neck was broken, but he wasn’t dead.

However, moving was out of the option now.

Neave uncoiled himself and got up. "I rate the assassination attempt a nine point nine nine nine nine nine and so on out of ten. The only thing that’s missing is my death!" He clapped. "Good job!"

The resigned look on the intruder’s face was still there.

"So, uh… I’ll be taking that nasty saber you brought," he said as he picked it up and examined it, feeling the intense strain on his spirit. "Ew, merely holding this feels gross. What are these letters, some sort of curse? Bleh.”

He haphazardly threw the diamond-rank saber to the side and spoke to the assassin, "So, what’s your name?"

But the young man stayed silent.

"Tsk, aight, whatever. So, the next time you come here, I suggest you prepare for a more open combat type of assassination. I don’t really dislike what you did here, but it’s not very fun. You gotta leave at least some havoc behind to have a proper fight, you know? If there isn’t a single crater, did you even fight at all?"

The others opened their mouths, and Harel was the first to speak, "Neave, don’t tell me you’re going to release him! He’s an enemy!"

Neave snapped his fingers and pointed them at Harel. "Exactly! He is also quite a powerful enemy! We need those. Hell, that’s the only reason we’re here! Why would I let him go to waste?"

There was a sort of logic to Neave’s reasoning that wasn’t wrong per se, but absolutely nobody would accept such an argument.

Marven stepped up after shooting the assassin a glance. "Look, Neave, I understand your reasoning, but he appeared out of nowhere and even cut you into pieces. You said it yourself. He was likely sent here by Astrador. This means he will probably return, and tell him the details of what we’re doing here. This isn’t a mere challenge. This is a threat to our plans!"

Neave nodded sagely. "Indeed. But you forget one thing," he said as he pointed at the assassin on the floor. "Where the fuck did he come from?” He asked. “I don’t know, you don’t know, I’m pretty sure not even he knows. The thing with Astrador is that he is a fucky dude. A real basty bastard of bastardly bastardations. Frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised if this dude was rigged to explode when we kill him.”

Everyone, including the intruder, opened their eyes wide at that. It seemed like a ridiculous proposition. But… was it?

After a confirmative nod, Neave added, "Think about it. This dude came at us with a damn near-perfect plan. Do you think this kid came up with it on his own? Hell no, that was Astrador’s doing. And knowing that bastard, he must have accounted for the possibility of failure. So if we kill him, I’d say there is a solid seventy to eighty percent chance he will explode, and we will all die. I know of at least one type of explosion that could kill even me instantly. I’m sure that asshole knows of at least two. At least."

Marven bit his lip slightly at that. "That doesn’t mean releasing him is the best choice. Perhaps keeping him prisoner…"

"You want to keep a potential bomb as a prisoner?"

"We can restrain him far from where we are."

"Which will probably allow Astrador to free him anyway.”

“Neave, please…”

“Shut up,” Neave said in a chilling voice. Something about how he said that and the look in his eye told them that saying anything in response wouldn’t be wise.

He then turned to face their assassin, and everyone else followed his gaze—landing on the mangled kid lying on the ground. There was panic in those eyes, resolve, fear, a cocktail of emotions and expressions.

Before anyone could say anything, Neave picked up the distressed intruder and his weapon and rushed outside. Everyone else reluctantly followed him.

They soon reached the surface, where he flung the assassin’s body into the air. The force of the swing sent the kid flying far into the clouds and, as they estimated, likely out of the range of the glass shrub’s domain.

Seeing its inscriptions, he wasn’t willing to take any chances with the weapon. While the material was fantastic, it wasn’t worth the risk. It also didn't seem to be metallic but rather crystalline in nature. This reduced the number of theoretical uses drastically. Not worth the risk at all.

He lobbed the saber into the air before him, then struck its pommel with the hammer, flinging it far into the sky, likely off the planet entirely. Where it would end up, or whether it would even end up anywhere, he didn’t know. It went away, for now, at least. If it blew up, it would do it at a safe distance from them.

Then, after, he merely just stood there, with the others uncomfortably shifting behind him. he stared in the direction where he had flung the intruder.

Dukean was the first to gather the bravery to step forth. "I heard my father say something once. Owners of life own the death. If your blade beheads a slave, the master’s tongue holds the blame."

"Sick rhymes, Dukey boy,” Neave said, chuckling a bit. “And, I think that you’re right, but…” Then he turned around and, to everyone’s surprise, showed tears flowing down his face.

That left them speechless. It wasn’t the first time they saw him cry. But whenever he did, it was for impossibly stupid reasons and seemed more like a deliberate joke. What he showed them at that moment… didn’t feel funny.

“It’s cruel, isn’t it?” He asked as he turned back around. “In that person’s eyes, I saw…,” but he was weeping too much to speak properly. Taking a deep breath, he sniffled and continued, “I think that kid doesn’t exist outside this place. Somehow, that bastard… He had made an entire person. And then… he probably tasked him with an impossible mission as the only way to get out.”

Only after he said that did it all make sense.

After all, in this realm… This was the exact place where he himself had gone through the very same thing. And now… it was he who presented that impossible challenge. And he had to crush someone’s hope and send them into despair.

Fists clenched tight, Neave glanced at the sky. “Do you now understand what we’re fighting against!?” He asked them. “Gods, devils… they’re ready to commit the same atrocities if it means getting what they want. The difference is superficial—there is no lesser evil.”

Before anybody could continue the moral argument, the glass puppet floated before them and began doing its usual charade routine.

Gabrias’ eyes widened. "What!? How many!?"

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