Reincarnated with a lucky draw system

Chapter 503: MORE ENEMIES

"It would have been wiser to remain discreet," Chen Mo muttered, fighting to keep his voice steady.

The old man chuckled, a sound like dry leaves scraping stone.

"Oh, there’s no need for discretion when facing someone so far beneath me."

The words barely left his lips before he vanished.

One instant he stood twenty paces away; the next—

"Urgh!"

Pain exploded through Chen Mo’s leg. He dropped to one knee, blood welling from a clean slice across his ankle tendon.

The assassin reappeared in front of him, cane still raised, a cruel smile splitting his wrinkled face.

"I think I’ll enjoy playing with you for a while," he said, voice dripping with malice.

Chen Mo bit down on the agony, forcing it into a distant corner of his mind.

Sword still clutched tight, he lunged, swinging in a desperate arc aimed at the old man’s throat.

The strike never landed.

The assassin flickered aside with mocking ease, the movement so fast it left an afterimage in the dark.

"Don’t be foolish," he taunted. "There’s no way you can be faster than me."

Chen Mo knew it was futile. The gap in realm was a chasm.

Yet surrender never crossed his mind. He refused to die groveling.

"Got you," the assassin whispered, suddenly behind him.

The cane now revealed as a concealed sword, rose to pierce Chen Mo’s thigh.

But the strike never connected.

"Urgh!"

The old man staggered backward, shock widening his eyes.

A thin line of blood bloomed across his chest shallow, barely more than a scratch thanks to protective qi, but impossible.

Chen Mo whirled, staring in confusion at the stunned assassin.

The old man touched the wound, fingers coming away red.

His cruel smile vanished, replaced by genuine bewilderment.

"You... what technique did you use?"

Chen Mo blinked, sword still raised, heart pounding.

He had no idea what had just happened.

He hadn’t swung. He hadn’t even moved.

Yet the assassin bled.

Confusion mirrored on both faces as the night wind howled through the valley, carrying the distant rumble of something ancient stirring far below.

"Give me the handbook to your technique, and I might spare your life," the assassin demanded, voice thick with greed. He stared at Chen Mo like a starving wolf eyeing fresh meat, convinced the impossible strike had come from some forbidden art.

"What are you talking about?" Chen Mo rasped, confusion swirling in his mind like storm clouds.

The old man’s eyes narrowed to slits.

"I warn you. Hand it over... or suffer pain worse than death."

Chen Mo couldn’t make sense of the nonsense.

The assassin spoke as though Chen Mo had deliberately struck him with secret knowledge, yet Chen Mo had done nothing.

No qi flare.

No hand seal.

No technique.

Just pain in his leg and blood on the ground.

He pushed the confusion aside and attacked again, lunging with his chipped sword in a simple, desperate arc.

"Your cheap trick won’t work twice," the assassin mocked, flickering several steps back with contemptuous ease.

But before the words fully left his lips,

Another thin line of blood bloomed across his chest.

Deeper this time.

A perfect slash, as though an invisible blade had carved through qi armor without resistance.

"How are you doing that?" the assassin snarled, annoyance twisting his wrinkled features into something feral.

Chen Mo had no answer.

He stood there, ankle throbbing, sword trembling in his grip, utterly baffled.

This was his first true fight against someone realms above him.

He hadn’t even noticed the phenomenon before, too caught in survival, too numb from pain, but now he felt it: a strange, latent pulse deep in his arms, the golden inscriptions from his awakening stirring faintly beneath his skin, unseen and uncontrolled.

"What technique are you using?" the assassin pressed, voice rising. "I won’t ask again."

Greed burned in his eyes.

A technique that struck without movement, without warning, it could elevate him beyond elder status.

Perhaps even to sect master. Power like that was worth killing for.

"I’m not using any technique," Chen Mo said honestly, forcing himself upright on one leg.

He pressed his back against the cold, sealed rift of the Tomb for support, the obsidian surface humming faintly against his spine.

The assassin’s patience snapped.

"Then be my guest and die!"

He surged forward in a blur, sword-cane thrusting straight for Chen Mo’s heart, aimed to end it in one clean pierce.

Chen Mo’s mind raced. No tricks left. No escape. Only one card remained.

"Sword of Heavens," he whispered.

The technique he had learned long ago as a prized disciple of Heaven’s Ascension Sect.

Slow.

Cumbersome.

Full of openings.

Rarely used in sparring because any competent opponent could exploit the wind-up.

But its power, when it landed, was legendary: a single strike that summoned the weight of celestial judgment.

"You fool!" the assassin laughed, already closing the distance. "That will never—"

Boom!

The air cracked.

An invisible force erupted from Chen Mo’s blade, like a divine sword descending from the heavens itself.

The usually sluggish technique moved with impossible speed, striking the assassin square in the chest before he could even register the threat.

The old man flew backward, robes tearing, blood spraying in a wide arc.

Bones cracked audibly.

He crashed against the cliff wall, sliding down in a heap of dust and shattered stone, qi armor flickering wildly.

"You stupid bastard," he coughed, blood bubbling at his lips. "I’ll make sure to—"

His threat died unfinished.

A flash of steel.

His head separated from his shoulders in a clean, brutal arc.

It rolled once, twice, then stopped at the cliff’s edge, eyes still wide in shock.

"We’ll take it from here," a cold voice declared.

A boot kicked the headless corpse aside like refuse.

Chen Mo tensed, sword still raised despite the fire in his leg.

Ten figures emerged from the darkness black-clad, masked, moving with the silent precision of trained killers.

Their leader stepped forward, hood shadowing all but a sharp jaw and cold eyes.

"Who are you?" Chen Mo demanded, frown deepening.

The leader tilted his head.

"If anyone claims your head," he said evenly, "it should be someone from the Heaven’s Ascension Sect."

The words landed like a blade.

Chen Mo’s grip tightened on his sword. No allies here. Just more enemies wearing familiar colors.