Chapter 5: Travel to the Future

“Eric?”

No one answered.

At some point, all the assassins inside the temple had already withdrawn. The torches lining both sides extinguished one after another.

The entire underground gradually sank into eternal night, silence pressing closer with every passing second.

Zong Mi’s eyes began heating up again.

The burning sensation spread from deep within his sockets, sweeping through his vision. Countless crimson streaks of light drifted through his gray eyes.

Yet the scene before him remained shrouded in darkness, making it impossible to tell whether this was the future or reality.

【The temple was pitch-black.

Suddenly, Zong Mi sensed something wrong. He abruptly turned and sprinted toward the way he had entered.

Although he could not see in the darkness, he still remembered the route he came from and rushed toward the underground passage in his memory.

“Swish—”

A sharp sound tore through the air behind him. His instinct for danger screamed wildly inside his head, allowing him to barely tilt his head aside as a dark dagger grazed past his shoulder.

The sharp blade sliced through his thin clothing, leaving a streak of blood across his skin. Perhaps something had coated the dagger, because for a moment Zong Mi could no longer tell whether his shoulder hurt or not, nor determine whether this was reality or a future vision.

But the attack did not stop him from running.

Golden light flashed in his hands as he summoned his seven-stringed harp. His slender fingers plucked several rapid notes.

“Ding ding ding—”

Enhanced by spiritual power, the soundwaves carried a strange force. Whether it was the flying daggers or whatever else lurked in the darkness, everything seemed briefly disrupted, buying Zong Mi precious seconds to breathe.

Zong Mi’s eyes were extremely special. The heat behind them did not necessarily mean he was seeing the correct future. Sometimes it was an unpredictable possibility; sometimes merely fragments rather than a complete future.

Because of this, Zong Mi occasionally confused the boundary between reality and future visions.

But this time was far too deceptive.

The Assassin Temple was already buried deep underground beneath Gazi, completely cut off from natural light. The only illumination came from the torches.

And now the torches were gone.

Without them, Zong Mi had no way to distinguish reality from vision.

To say his eyes merely allowed him to glimpse the future was not entirely accurate.

After being washed by the Resurrection Spring, his eyes had gained an even more shocking ability. Whenever Zong Mi observed the future, it felt more like he temporarily exchanged places with another version of himself from a parallel world.

Until now, Zong Mi had never experienced dying inside one of his visions—and he had no desire to test whether death there would affect reality.

After all, dying once in Descending meant losing three levels and reviving at the Resurrection Spring. Zong Mi had worked hard to raise his level. If he lost levels just like that, his heart would ache.

Still, fighting an assassin in total darkness was not exactly anyone’s idea of a pleasant experience.

Especially when that assassin was an Assassin Grandmaster.

Against a master proficient in Stealth, Eagle Eye, Backstab, Leap of Faith, Shadow Kill, and Night Vision, Zong Mi felt his countdown toward becoming a corpse could practically be measured in seconds.

But what exactly had future-him done to make his companion Eric try to kill him?

Zong Mi felt he might not be a particularly good person, but surely he wouldn’t leave himself absolutely no room for retreat.

Unfortunately, there was no time left for wandering thoughts.

He finally reached the entrance tunnel.

Without night vision, Zong Mi could only barely see by the faint glow of his harp and nearly slammed headfirst into the stone wall.

The next instant, however, the world spun violently.

A rough hand calloused from years of dagger training gripped his throat and pinned him hard against the wall.

“Cough—cough cough…”

For a moment he could barely breathe. Only when the grip loosened slightly did he begin coughing uncontrollably.

A cold dagger spun sharply through the air before its blade pressed against Zong Mi’s jaw, slowly sliding across his skin like the footsteps of death drawing closer.

This situation was becoming very bad.

His eyes still burned—and now even hotter than before, like heated metal plunged into boiling water.

“Clang—”

The seven-stringed harp was violently knocked to the ground.

Using the faint light from it, Zong Mi struggled to look upward.

The passageway was extremely narrow, barely wide enough for two grown men to stand side by side.

The distance between them had long crossed the boundary of personal space and become dangerously intimate.

Most of the assassin’s face was hidden beneath a gray-black hood. Even this close, Zong Mi could only see those deep violet eyes, like blooming irises in darkness.

These eyes were completely different from the still, emotionless gaze he remembered.

Now they resembled a hunter locking onto prey—dark, dangerous, enough to make Zong Mi’s scalp tingle instinctively.

“E… Eric?”

Breathing unevenly, he spoke in broken fragments, confusion and bewilderment filling his voice.

No one answered.

Only the hand around his neck loosened slightly again.

The assassin’s palm was rough with weapon calluses, painfully abrasive against Zong Mi’s skin.

Since the grip had eased, the tension in Zong Mi’s chest relaxed just a little.

The dagger still rested against his jaw. A faint sting spread from its tip through his nerves all the way down his spine, making him shiver.

Within the darkness, the cramped space felt both suffocating and dangerously tense.

They were pressed tightly together.

Worse still, Zong Mi realized the assassin’s body beneath the stealth uniform had reacted physically.

Any adult man would understand what that meant.

Desire.

The people of the Descending Continent might not understand love, but that certainly did not mean they refrained from indulgence. In fact, judging from countless travel records and books, they were remarkably open about such things.

Awkwardly, Zong Mi tried shifting his position.

But in the next second, the assassin’s actions nearly made him jump.

The dagger suddenly tilted upward with force. With an assassin grandmaster’s perfect understanding of the human body, Zong Mi was compelled to raise his head, exposing the most vulnerable part of his throat.

The assassin lowered his head and bit fiercely into Zong Mi’s neck.

Sharp fangs pierced thin skin. Crimson blood trickled from the wound before being completely swallowed away.

For a fleeting moment, Zong Mi almost felt as though he were being force-fed by a vampire.

But Eric was clearly a dark elf—completely unrelated to vampires.

Since when did dark elves drink blood?

While Zong Mi remained unable to resist and instinctively drifted into thought again, the assassin finally lifted his head.

Blood stained the assassin’s pale lips. Combined with those violet eyes, he looked both beautiful and terrifying.

“I should have killed you long ago.”

The assassin spoke quietly, fingers brushing over the wound on Zong Mi’s neck, his expression dark and unreadable.

But now—

…he could no longer bring himself to do it.

Eric swallowed the rest of his words. His fingers slid intimately along the edge of the blond man’s jawline, sending tremors through him.

In the flickering harp-light, the exposed half of the assassin’s face remained cold and impossible for Zong Mi to understand.

“But it doesn’t matter anymore… Right now, what I want more is to have you here.”】

At that exact instant, the burning heat behind Zong Mi’s eyes suddenly vanished.

The entire scene shattered like broken glass, fragments scattering into countless streaks of light before dissolving into nothingness.

He had returned from the future.

Zong Mi truly felt wronged.

Back when he first met Eric, he had never foreseen any future where this man would try to assassinate him.

When they parted years ago, their relationship had still been good. Zong Mi had even encouraged Eric to challenge the Hall Master of the Assassin Temple someday, joking that he would rely on Assassin-Bro to protect him in the future.

The assassin sitting silently beneath the eaves had paused, setting down the hidden blade he was polishing.

Just when Zong Mi thought he would receive no response, Eric lowered his gaze and quietly answered:

“Okay.”

Naturally, Zong Mi had taken that as proof Eric had joined his side.

During his travels across the continent, Zong Mi had deliberately used his future-seeing eyes to locate those most likely to become favored by the gods. Only after repeatedly confirming their futures did he establish legendary quest relationships with them.

Sometimes he helped them accomplish something. Sometimes they fought side by side. Sometimes they simply became friends.

Or, like with Cyril, they cooperated to overthrow a regime.

In exchange, Zong Mi needed their support to complete his own legendary quest and achieve his ultimate goal.

All of them knew that goal.

He wanted to ascend the throne of the Sky City within the Inner Domain.

His ambition was obvious, and Zong Mi himself had never cared to hide it.

Yet unexpectedly, after the expansion update arrived, he hurried back to reconnect with his former companions—only to witness a future where one of them turned against him completely.

Zong Mi: ???

Could ten years really change someone that much?

Had Eric seriously forgotten everything?

And to think Zong Mi had painstakingly traveled the map before the update precisely to build ties with these future powerhouses.

Once the heat faded completely from his eyes, Zong Mi instantly returned to where he had originally been standing.

Still beneath the stone throne in the center of the Assassin Temple.

Even his slightly turned posture remained exactly the same.

The nonexistent wounds on his shoulder and neck reminded him clearly:

This was reality.

“What’s wrong?”

The assassin stood before him exactly as before. Beneath the hood, his face looked unchanged, though slightly puzzled by Zong Mi’s brief moment of stillness.

“Nothing.”

The moment Zong Mi saw those violet eyes, he instinctively wanted to step backward.

But once he realized he had already returned to reality, he quickly stopped himself and forced his foot back into place, finding a topic to cover the awkwardness.

“It’s been a long time, Eric.”

“Back then, circumstances were urgent, and I couldn’t come say goodbye properly. I’m truly sorry.”

“Mm.”

In response to his sincere apology, the assassin merely gave a quiet acknowledgment. Beneath the hood, his lips pressed into a rigid line.

In darkness, assassins possessed the sharpest vision.

Zong Mi’s tiny movement had not been obvious at all.

But to them, it was more than enough.

Stepping back.

A classic gesture of distrust.

📚 Also on NHV Novels

Night Has Fallen, Mafia—Send Your Text Messages

BLDramaModern

Read Now →
Not interested