Fidwud Family Home...

The whole place was tossed into chaos. For some reason, they all felt fear, Fear that made them run helter-skelter.

And even as they ran, they would suddenly hear a scream as another Plebeian met his or her death.

The guards were trying their best to curb the unrest but that was made even harder by the fact that they could not pinpoint the location of the perpetrators.

"Secure the main gate!"

"They're are no longer there"

"What? Then where the hell are they?"

*Slash*

*Thud*

The guard turned back and saw the head of his fellow guard rolling away from his body. The one standing above the body was someone shrouded in a dark fog that gathered where his hand was supposed to be to form what looked like a scythe, or more accurately, a large curved blade.

The guard was frozen from the fear this being radiated and before he could make a move...

*Slash*

*Thud*

...his lifeless body joined the corpses and another Dark fog-shrouded person was standing behind him as well.

The rest of the guards saw this and tried to drive feeling into their legs but found it impossible to do so. Just like that, as they stood paralyzed from fear, the Emissaries struck and cut them all down.

They hardly had a chance, the strongest of them all was at the Late Cosmic Pearl realm or even weaker. The lieutenants who were at the Cosmic Armament Realm were all at Hal's mansion.

That said, the troops that filled the Fidwud Family home, apart from the guards, numbered in the thousands and as sneaky and terrifying as the Emissaries' presence were they could not possibly win against such a mighty force and were bound to be overwhelmed soon enough.

And this was why they were not here mainly for a frontal assault. From the start, they (The Emissaries) radiated immense fear and scared all the inhabitants, the chaos was perfect for them to make use of the Devil shroud's abilities.

Occasionally, they would turn it off and mingle with the crowd, who even with the absence if the fear-inducing fog still followed the craze of panic, providing the Emissaries (Formerly referred to as the Marked Brethren) avenue to sneak up on the guards or any other targets.

Once they got close enough they would reactivate the Devil shroud, creating the illusion that they appeared out of nowhere.

They had been doing this a lot and all the guards had now fallen to the Devil shroud attack ability; Shroud-Blade.

There were only Five Emissaries at the Fidwud Family home. As there were at least twenty notable Plebeian homes and there was only one hundred of the Emissaries, they had split up so that they could attack them all simultaneously.

This was good too because Hal only wanted them to deliver a message and they were to deliver it by killing as many as they could.

However, for the Fidwud Family, they were also to deliver a Rune letter.

Once they had taken care of the guards, they once again deactivated the shroud and mixed in with the panicking crowd to look for where a small number of Plebeian forces stood.

Large numbered gatherings were dangerous and opened up routes for sneak attacks. After all, a frightened animal can be the most dangerous.

Once one of the Emissaries found one such gathering, she reactivated the Devil shroud while blasting out her radiating fear to the extreme.

The sudden appearance of the Dark fog quickly caused those around to dash away and only leave a wide berth, but once it was graduated to the extreme, even those who had begun to dash away froze from the fear.

And then she stepped forward, stretched her arm and formed the shroud-blade which did not heighten her battle power but could cut through cultivators as can be inferred since it has done so multiple times.

"What the hell are you?" Asked the Plebeian at the forefront of the group.

The Emissary cocked her head and said in a feminine voice (As she did not bother to disguise her voice),

"Were you deaf when we introduced ourselves? We're the Emissaries of the Malevolent one."

Despite the fear he was feeling, the Plebeian narrowed his eyes,

"You talk as though that should mean something to me"

As soon as he said that, another guard poked him in the ribs,

"Have you already forgotten the one that came here a few weeks ago? Called himself the representative of the Malevolent One?" He asked.

The one who he poked in the ribs turned to him,

"Of course I remember, you dope. I meant that it doesn't mean anything to me as I'm going to die soon"

The other one blinked,

"Oh, that makes sense. You've already given up, Eric"

Eric looked shocked,

"You haven't?"

The Emissary shook her head from within the fog and attacked suddenly.

Cosmic Attacks rained down on her from all sides because other than Eric, none of them had given up.

That said, the Emissary tore through their ranks despite the attacks and slaughtered them all. She was bringing the shroud-blade down on Eric who had fallen backward without attempting to fight back, when...

*Boommmm!*

...Cosmic Attacks blasted towards her and she leaped back to avoid them. The force of them when they hit the ground tossed Eric far back, where he lay with aching body parts and mulled over being a survivor.

When the Emissary looked to where the attack had come from, she found a great number of Plebeian forces glaring at her. Of course, those at the front line, who felt the effect of the fear she radiated the most, shivered slightly, but even then they glared.

Soon, her fellow Emissaries stood by her side as well and they had a face-off with the Plebeian forces which considering the disparity in their numbers, looked quite silly.

"It seems they finally realized there's strength in numbers" said a male voice by her side.

She chuckled,

"It was fun while it lasted, Dev. I think Master will be pleased"

"He sure will, Dana" Dev said.

And then, from somewhere in the middle of the Plebeian forces, a voice spoke up and it did so clearly,

"You've only been able to run amok because our Armament Realm cultivators are absent. Well, I have some bad news for you and it's that they are on their way back. We've sent a message ahead."

Those at the front line nodded for good measure. While it was true that a message had been sent ahead, it would still take a while before the reinforcements arrived.

And while they did outnumber these Five by thousands, there was a certainty that they would not be able to take them down without sacrifices and at the moment...

...No one wanted to be those sacrifices.

The Emissaries of course no longer had any intention to continue. It would be suicide if they did.

"Oh is that so? Good. Once they get back, give your family head this letter" Dev said and tossed it at the forces.

The letter shot forward like a dart having being accompanied with Cosmic energy and one of those in the front line caught it by reflex.

"Okay then. This has been fun. Let's do it again some time" Dana said and the other Emissaries nodded with a chuckle before they turned towards the gate and ran off.

The moment the Plebeians lost visual of them, the Devil shroud did its job and concealed their presence such that none of those at the Fidwud Family home could detect them with their senses.

And just like that, on that day, the Fidwud Family home and all other notable Plebeian homes lost hundreds of men. They considered it a great loss but little did they know that compared to what they would lose in the future, this was nothing.

....

The Mansion...

*Clang* *Clang* *Clang*

Hal and San were crossing blades and attempting to get the upper hand on each other through pure weaponry. It was not that they had decided on doing this, it was just how things were playing out and,

The longer it went on, the more San's Pride was wounded.

He was at the Peak stage of the Cosmic Armament Realm and while he had not made use of the entirety of his prowess, his reflexes and heightened senses should have guaranteed him the upper hand already.

If only he knew Hal was frustrated as well. He also felt HIS reflexes should have been more than enough to trump San's thanks to his Bloodline.

If he was barely holding on now, what would happen once San began to make use of his Cultivation base. It was while he was having these thoughts that San did just that...

*Bang!*

...with the might of his Cultivation base he struck down on Hal's sword and it forced the younger man to one knee.

Seeing himself falling to a disadvantage, Hal let out his Cultivation base as well, Alas while it was capable enough against someone at the Mid Stage and someone at the Late-stage, against San who was at the Peak...

...it was inadequate.

Hal groaned in his mind. Greedy as he was, he failed to take into consideration that he was merely at the Early stage and attempting to cross Four stages (If you count the Early stage).

San smiled and raised his Saber and struck down again swiftly but Hal rolled away just in time, only for the Fidwud Family head to send a Cosmic Attack in his direction.

Hal sent one of his own to counter it,

*Boommmm!*

While they did cancel each other out, the force of the Collision still knocked into him and would have broken his bones had he not being particularly sturdy.

It was still painful though.

San could not help but relax at the sight. Experienced as he was, he knew how dangerous the resultant explosion was and since it had not affected him that much, Hal must have felt its full force.

And then Hal dashed out of the dust cloud the explosion had erupted and brought the serrated edge of his second down In San's shoulder.

The teeth dug in and Hal pulled the sword out and in the process, he sawed through San's shoulder blades.