A Novel Concept - A death a day, MC will live anyway!-Chapter 317: Thus spoke the Shadow of the Juggernaut

“You seriously leveled up just because you thought of wall-jumping?”

“[Art of Movement] is only a rare skill,” Priam defended himself as he strode down the corridor toward the elevator.

“It’s mostly embarrassing that you didn’t think of it sooner. Think you could snag another level by running on the ceiling?”

That kind of stunt was well within Priam’s reach, thanks to his kinetic mastery.

“Doubt it. I’d use [Kinetic Control] to keep from falling, not [Art of Movement]. But chaining wall-jumps? That could work—though it’s pretty unnecessary.”

“How so?”

“I’ll naturally unlock the last three levels of [Art of Movement] through the Tribes.”

“Oh right, the ideal upgrade you plan to swindle out of them. I’d almost forgotten about that.” Jasmine frowned as the elevator doors opened to reveal two men dressed in black.

“Twilight Jasmine!” The men bowed swiftly at the sight of her and hurried into the room marked “Zenith” without sparing a second glance.

“I swear you’re famous around here,” Priam remarked. “That’s the first time I’ve seen a guy look at you with more fear than lust.”

Jasmine glanced down at her evening gown and plunging neckline. “It is odd. I thought I was officially declared MIA, but they don’t seem surprised to see me alive—and they know about my promotion…” She shrugged and pressed the call button. “Still, it’s less important than this Arkana Research Center for Shadows and Darkness—what a mouthful. It annoys me to leave it in the hands of this guild.”

“They’ve had it for two thousand years. A few months won’t make much of a difference.”

The elevator dinged open, and Priam stepped aside, letting Jasmine go first. He refused to let chivalry die.

“A few months?”

“As soon as my internal world is large enough, you bet I’ll steal the cube,” Priam grinned as the doors opened into the guild’s reception area.

“Twilight Jasmine, good morning,” said a young man behind the counter. The female secretary who had worked the night shift was now off duty.

“Hm,” Jasmine replied absentmindedly, following Priam toward the exit.

“Excuse me, sir?”

Priam grimaced, sensing the question was directed at him. He took two more steps, hoping the young man’s survival instincts would prompt him to shut up.

“Sir, I’m afraid I don’t recognize you. I need your name.”

The exit was less than three meters away. Priam sighed before turning around. “Let’s just say I’m Jasmine’s guest.”

The clerk scrutinized him. With his suit jacket shredded from the shadow trap he had triggered and Pyro’s flames occasionally licking at his hair, Priam didn’t exactly look like an assassin.

“A guest?”

Seeing the young man’s hand creep toward something under the counter, Priam overclocked his vivacity. The ability he had gained from exceeding the first threshold of the attribute let him think faster. It was almost as good as slowing time, but it didn’t stop it. He had to decide.

The eternal question surfaced again: did this young man deserve to die? Priam wasn’t a judge, but he was willing to end the lives of those guilty of crimes he deemed unforgivable. Being overzealous about protocol didn’t qualify.

The clerk’s hand was mere centimeters from the counter’s underside when Priam leapt. Propelled by the strength of eighty-nine men and his kinetic mastery, he practically teleported to the young man’s side. [Kinetic Control] froze the clerk in place.

“Couldn’t you be lazy for once in your life?” Priam sighed.

The petrified clerk, of course, didn’t reply. Only his frantic heartbeat and wide eyes distinguished him from a statue.

“What are we going to do with you?”

Despite his casual tone, Priam didn’t forget they were in the heart of an assassin’s guild. The test he had just passed proved the masters here were far from incompetent. While the Champion could make Prometheus’ knights look like clowns, the same couldn’t be said for Tier 3s trained by the System.

“Kill him,” Jasmine said.

“He’s just a clerk—”

“He works for an assassin’s guild. He’s no angel. If your roles were reversed, he wouldn’t hesitate.”

“By that logic, I would’ve killed Kazuki,” Priam countered, knowing how weak the argument sounded.

Before Jasmine could retort, a second elevator opened, revealing two women deep in conversation. One spotted Priam holding the clerk in place and froze.

“Fu—” Priam began.

A dagger blossomed in the first woman’s eye as the head of the second tumbled from her shoulders. Emerging from the decapitated body’s shadow, Jasmine caught it by the hair before it hit the floor. The assassin held a bloodied blade in her right hand, leaving no doubt about what had happened.

“—ck.”

“The first rule I was taught is that indecision increases the amount of blood spilled,” Jasmine said, pulling the dagger from her first victim’s skull. The suction sound made Priam grimace as the corpse collapsed to the floor. “Still, I understand that taking action is hard,” she continued, stepping closer.

“I’ve killed plenty,” Priam defended himself as if accused of cowardice. In a duel, he amended silently. Executing the weak is another matter.

The young woman invaded Priam’s space, stopping only when her breath brushed his skin. “You’ve killed monsters,” she said, pointing to the clerk. “And you’re afraid of becoming one if you stop seeing life as sacred.”

Priam opened his mouth but found no reply. She was right. He wasn’t an angel, but he refused to become a demon.

“Your role is to be a warrior,” Jasmine smiled. “Mine is to be an assassin.” With that, she slit the clerk’s throat. “I’ll judge our enemies so you can focus on the Zenith.”

Thus spoke the Shadow of the Juggernaut.

The dawn broke, casting a soft light over the world. With its cold hues, lingering mists, and the roar of engines, Arkana defied the tranquility. The immense shadow of a tower, half-obscuring the sky, only heightened the city’s unrest. Skyscrapers were plentiful here, but ten stood out—those of the Barons.

Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

“Just over one and a half kilometers tall,” Jasmine noted as Priam craned his neck, trying to glimpse the top. “It was the tallest private tower on my planet, owned by Ugo dal Cal, the crime Lord.”

“The guy’s compensating for something,” Priam quipped, though he couldn’t help admiring the feat of such a construction. He could sense the incredible amount of aether emanating from the enchantments that kept the steel, glass, and graphene standing against their own weight, raging winds, and attacks from flying assassins such as himself. “Dal Cal is the Baron currently heading the Arkana Council?”

Arkana’s politics were convoluted, and killing the wrong Baron wouldn’t earn Priam any System rewards. He had to kill the leader.

“He was elected barely a few hours ago,” Jasmine confirmed. “He succeeded Charls dal Sallan—the father of that kid you traumatized by killing his Tier 2 bodyguard.”

Priam groaned, recalling the boy who had wet himself. “Right after I announced my arrival? The timing seems a bit too convenient.”

Jasmine shrugged. “Charls is using us to kill his rival.”

“Doesn’t seem to bother you.”

“No one becomes a Baron without spilling blood or enslaving the masses, but Ugo dal Cal is the worst of the ten bastards,” Jasmine explained as they approached the tower. “Originally, Arkana’s underworld was ruled by three Barons—drugs, gambling, and prostitution were separate, with the rest of the illegal activities divided among these three titans. When Dal Cal inherited his father’s drug empire, he got greedy. He started organizing underground fights and took bets through his own bookies. It worked: those bored with the tokens and card games could now bet on life and death in the cage.”

One didn’t become a drug Baron without being greedy.

“Wasn’t that someone else’s turf?”

Jasmine nodded. “The gambling Baron didn’t appreciate it and applied pressure—asking the police to raid drug dens, torching warehouses, kidnapping fighters… In response, Dal Cal offered free doses to junkies willing to trash his rival’s casinos, threatened cops’ families, and bribed high-ranking officials. Their war dragged on for a decade until my guild assassinated the gambling Lord.”

“The other Barons let it happen?”

Arkanians didn’t seem like a united bunch, but the assassination of a Baron should have alarmed the rest.

Jasmine shrugged. “They should’ve stepped in, but they didn’t. I don’t know why, but Dal Cal got them by the balls. They sat on their hands even when he started dipping into prostitution…”

With Ugo dal Cal reigning as the sole kingpin of the underworld, his last crime rival must have met the same fate as the first.

“Drugs and prostitution? That mix scares me,” Priam grimaced as they approached the base of the tower.

“It’s worse than you think,” Jasmine muttered, pushing open one of the heavy doors. A massive lobby sprawled out before the two Champions, exuding a formal atmosphere that felt more fitting for the headquarters of a multinational corporation than a drug lord’s den.

“I thought we were sneaking in, not waltzing through the front door.”

“If you wanna wingsuit off a nearby skyscraper and slip in through an open window on the forty-fifth floor, be my guest,” Jasmine quipped.

“Pretty sure that’s the plot of at least one action movie… Anyway, I take it there aren’t any stairs here, either?”

Jasmine just smiled.

With a resigned growl, Priam strode confidently through the lobby, his confidence enough to dissuade the security guards from asking questions. As if on cue, the elevator doors slid open, and the pair stepped inside.

“Shit,” Jasmine swore under her breath.

“Mmh?”

Visit freewebnoveℓ.com for the best novel reading exp𝒆rience.

“Dal Cal’s office is on the top floor. The three-hundredth.”

Priam scanned the elevator buttons, noting they stopped at two-ninety. Worse still, only the first hundred floors were accessible without a pass.

“You don’t have a pass?”

“Nope.”

A decision had to be made quickly, and Priam put his wits to good use.

“... I’ve got an idea.” He pressed the button for the first basement level and stepped out as the elevator doors began to close. A second later, the cabin began its descent.

Jasmine arched an eyebrow.

“Trust me,” Priam said with a grin. “I know how to get up there.” Closing his eyes, he focused on his least-used attribute: charisma.

According to his phoenix mentor, it was the trickiest mental attribute to master. Charisma didn’t just quantify Priam’s appeal to others—it was a weapon, one he could wield through his Aura… or directly.

Eyes shut, he tried to make himself insignificant, recalling the countless times he had stared at his desk in school, willing the teacher not to call on him. It had never worked then, and it wasn’t working now. He could feel the gaze of at least two security guards boring into him. They weren’t acting yet, but if he and Jasmine lingered too long, they would come over.

“You’re frowning like you’re constipated.”

“Shut up. I’m trying to go unnoticed,” Priam muttered.

“You mean invisible?”

“Nah, I mean unnoticed. [Phantom] could make me disappear behind a flowerpot, but the security guards wouldn’t forget my presence. I need them to.”

“Like this?” Jasmine vanished from his Domain, her breath invisible, and when Priam opened his eyes, he struggled to look at her directly. It was as if a part of him instinctively wanted to ignore her presence. [Free Will] shielded him partially, but no one else in the lobby even glanced her way.

“Exactly. How did you do that?”

The assassin puffed out her chest, clearly proud.

“I’ve got a few skills for this. One comes from my training in blending into crowds. The other uses my Aura to… kill the attention people give me.”

“Interesting. Explain how the second one works.”

Even if Priam burned through a mountain of Potential, he didn’t have the time to make up for years of training in stealth. Any skill he created now would be too weak for what he had in mind.

On the other hand, if he could lean on his Conquest Aura…

“I’m not entirely sure what an Aura is,” Jasmine admitted. “Except that it has something to do with Micro, and most people have to progress far to unlock it.”

Priam nodded. He had earned his Conquest Aura as a System reward tied to [Horseman of the Apocalypse], a Title granted for surviving a quadruple Tribulation.

“What I do know,” Jasmine continued, “is that it’s an expression of our charisma, shaped by a noun—Death, Conquest,... I think of charisma as the link between me and others. When I ‘kill’ that link with my Death Aura, people stop paying attention to me.”

It was a subjective explanation, but if any attribute rejected objectivity, it was charisma.

Closing his eyes again, Priam tapped into his Potential and summoned his Conquest Aura. Rather than manifesting it as a sheath around Promesse, he tried diffusing it around himself. The process was as nebulous as it sounded, but with the guidance of Potential, Priam made progress.

POT -10

A divine fluid coursed through his soul, enhancing his abilities while guiding him. As though reality itself was bending to accommodate him, his Aura obeyed, forming a cloud of energy around him. Linked to his own Charisma, the ability sought the connection between Priam and the onlookers. For a few seconds, he fumbled in the dark until inspiration struck.

POT -10

He invoked [Primogenitor], the Title he had earned for creating Homo Elysian. One of the four pillars of this new race was the Arkanians, and that connection resonated. With the grace of a jackhammer, Priam attacked this karmic link with his Aura. The difference in attributes was so great it was laughable, and Conquest Aura managed to seize the attention of every nearby Arkanian before severing it entirely.

For a fleeting moment, Priam became invisible, forgotten by the security agents present or monitoring the surveillance cameras.

Lvl Up: [Phantom] Lvl …

[Event detected: Skill level-up.

Reading pre-recorded conditions set by the administrator…

Condition met: Agility about to exceed 1200—next Tribulation threshold.

"If next Tribulation threshold is in range, then use Potential to temporize the level-up."

Executing procedure.]

POT -3

[Phantom] level sealed.

“Get in my shadow.”

Jasmine darted into it just as Priam rode his mist. Their disappearance from the lobby went unnoticed by all.

Reforming as an invisible fog within the elevator shaft, Priam extended his senses downward. The elevator car rested one floor below, where he had sent it earlier. Before anyone could summon it back up, he began ascending, bypassing the tower’s security systems.

Next arc already complete on Patreon if you want to find out what happens next!

/ANovelConcept