The Thorne of Destiny-Chapter 138: What If It Was Him?

Seeing Wraith No. 4’s vulnerable state and the fact that Bella didn’t seem like she could finish the job, Adrian became a bit ambitious.

’What if...’

’What if he could kill him?’ As this thought anchored itself in his mind, it refused to be dispelled. At first, he immediately rejected this idea. He was only a Foundation Establishment realm cultivator. There was no way he could kill a Nascent Soul realm cultivator.

But taking another look at Wraith No. 4, he ultimately decided it was worth a shot. Adrian was not an indecisive person. As soon as he made a decision, he began working on a plan to kill him.

He initially wanted to use another talisman, remembering how much damage it dealt to Wraith no 4 in the first place. However, he ultimately decided against it.

While he had quite a few of them, he couldn’t recognise them. The Sage of Slaughter was not a Talisman master, so there was no knowledge about talismans left in the inheritance.

He didn’t know if the next one he would put out would also be a fire talisman, or whether it would douse Wraith No. 4 with a stream of water. It was too much of a gamble, one that he was not willing to take.

He also didn’t want to needlessly waste one of them on a matter he could solve a different way. For the current Adrian, they were his trump cards. Last-ditch tools to help him get out of tough situations.

While he was listening to Wraith No. 4’s rambling, it suddenly hit him.

"This guy isn’t paying attention to his surroundings at all." He muttered quietly to himself. His whole concentration was on Bella, and he wasn’t even thinking that there could be another threat somewhere else.

Heck, the guy wasn’t even checking his surroundings with his spirit sense. How did Adrian know he wasn’t using his spirit sense? It’s simple, really.

If he were using it, he would have already discovered Adrian hiding in the rubble. That was how close the two of them were. Seeing the defenseless back of Wraith No. 4, Adrian simply decided to take the risk and attack himself.

Using the Astral Steps, Adrian slipped into the void and in the next moment, appeared right behind Wraith No. 4. With a swift thrust, his sword pierced through his back and came out of his chest.

It wasn’t only Wraith No. 4 that was stunned by the attack. Adrian was also very surprised. Somewhere in his mind, he was half expecting Wraith no 4 to dodge or for him to counterattack.

He was already preparing to slip into the void at a moment’s notice. However, it seemed that things went well this time.

******

Back to the present, the whole street was silent. After Adrian had killed Wraith No. 4, everyone who was fighting stopped. The remaining Wraiths who witnessed Wraith no 4’s final moments could only glare at Adrian in anger and disbelief.

Even Bella’s guards were staring at him with expressions of shock and wariness. Now that his disguise was no longer in effect, everyone could see that he wasn’t a Golden Core realm cultivator.

Rather, he was a Foundation Establishment realm cultivator, much weaker than they initially thought. However, it was this same weak cultivator who killed the Nascent Soul realm demonic cultivator. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎

They were wary because they didn’t know what his purpose was. Whether he was friend or foe. Even if he did kill the demonic cultivator, that wasn’t enough for them to put their trust in him. They were even preparing to attack Adrian if he made any sudden movements.

Luckily for Adrian, his bamboo hat was tilted forward a bit, so they couldn’t see his face. Only Bella, who was still on one knee, could see part of his face. Even then, she could only see from his lips and lower.

All of this seemed like it took a while to describe, but in reality, it only happened in a few moments. From the serpent dissipating to the death of Wraith No. 4, not even an incense stick’s worth of time had passed.

Seeing that his task had been accomplished, Adrian didn’t waste any time and simply bolted away. He didn’t want to expose his martial skill to them, so he didn’t use Astral Steps.

As soon as Adrian started running, the remaining Wraiths wanted to stop him.

"Stop right there, you bast- ugh!" Wraith No. 2 was about to yell profanities at Adrian while trying to catch him when he was suddenly attacked by the guard in front of him.

It wasn’t just him. The rest of the guards, after seeing that Adrian wasn’t going to harm their Young Mistress, took the opportunity to launch sneak attacks at the rest of the Wraiths.

The battle ensued once again, leaving only Bella on her knee, watching the back of that man disappearing into the distance. Unlike others, she was no longer in battle and was free to chase him.

However, she couldn’t. Her Qi had been severely depleted, leaving her exhausted. She didn’t have the energy to keep chasing someone whose figure was becoming tinier by the second.

’Wow, he’s fast,’ She thought to herself. As soon as she had that thought, she froze. He was indeed very fast. Much faster than a normal Foundation Establishment realm cultivator.

When Julian had first told her about the mysterious Foundation Establishment realm cultivator, she didn’t believe him. Not one bit. She could immediately see through his whole nice guy act and was pretty sure he was hiding something.

However, when she found out his identity, she decided to let him search for this so-called person. Partly because she wanted to watch him make a fool of himself and partly because she wanted to use the opportunity to keep the Richards family in check.

After the death of her parents, a few of their vassal cities had been behaving abnormally. Believing that the House of Vyre had weakened, they became a bit bolder and audacious in their actions.

One of them was Stonehold City, or more specifically, the Richards family. They had started with small things like increasing the prices that the House of Vyre had set for them.

Those little things weren’t enough to warrant attention, but over time, they had slowly become more and more unruly, until they began acting like tyrants inside Stonehold City.

Bella’s grandfather, Maximus Vyre, didn’t pay much attention to it. Since their actions didn’t really affect the House of Vyre, he let them be. However, Bella was of a different mindset.

She wanted to remind them of who was really running the show in this city. She had even been contemplating removing the Richards family as the ruling power in Stonehold City and placing one of the other large noble families in charge.

However, doing something like that wasn’t so simple. Of course, it wasn’t because of opposition from her grandfather. The old man didn’t even bat an eye when she proposed this to him. He had always let his granddaughters do whatever they wanted.

The issue would be within Stonehold City itself. Simply removing the ruling family and replacing them with another without any just cause would cause an uproar. She didn’t want the House of Vrye to seem like tyrants, controlling their every action.

The beast tide was like an opportunity sent from the Heavens for her plan. She was going to use the excuse that they were not able to provide tangible results that could cause harm to the city.

A bit of a flimsy excuse, sure. But it was better than nothing. However, all those plans had to be scrapped when the beast tide mysteriously began dispersing on its own.

The stronger beasts were going back to their own territories, deeper into the Misty Mountains, and the situation was going back to normal. She would have had to come up with a different idea entirely if Julian had not appeared in front of her.

After listening to his bogus and frankly unbelievable story, she decided to modify her plans and instead use Julian to get her wishes. When Julilan failed to find the mysterious Foundation Establishment realm cultivator who was seemingly the culprit, she would find a way to rope in his family into his mistake.

However, as luck would have it, Julian did that all on his own. All she had to do was wait for them to fail. Depending on the situation, she would either sanction them or remove them entirely.

Bella knew that her plan wasn’t exactly foolproof. There were many things that could go wrong, but she was prepared to deal with all that along the way.

Even though a few guards were dying in various parts of the city, she thought it was an elaborate plan orchestrated by City Lord Richards. However, with what she was witnessing, the description that Julian gave came to mind.

’He was a Foundation Establishment realm cultivator, but he was much faster than one.’

Now that someone matching the description was right in front of her, she could no longer dismiss Julian’s words.

’What if it was truly him?’ She asked herself this question.