Timeless Assassin

(Juxta Military Base, Prison Cell, Leo's POV)

After killing about two dozen prisoners, Leo finally felt like his tattoo could not hold any more essence, and hence he paused with his killing and focused on utilising it instead.

Sitting cross-legged on the cold prison floor, he placed his blood-stained dagger beside him and shut his eyes, allowing the residual screams of the dead to fade into silence.

The tattoo on his back pulsed faintly, as though eager to release its harvest, while Leo himself focused on guiding it gently, as he circulated it along the tattoo'd pathways.

He sent the first streams of gray fog upward, behind his eyes, where he pooled mana on the regular to sharpen his ability to perceive aura.

The sensation was strange, like pouring liquid fire directly into his vision, but instead of pain there was clarity.

Threads of intent began to unravel before him, as suddenly, threads of maroon, blue, red and blue burst before him.

Each thread shimmered uniquely, and each carried its own story.

The maroon thread was dense, surrounding him like a cloak of suffocating weight, as there were at least a couple dozen Maroon threads in his vicinity.

"Woah…. What is this?" Leo wondered, as he followed one of the Maroon threads to its source and found out that it shot out of a dead prisoner's body.

"Hmmm…." Leo mused, as he reached out and tried to touch the intangible thread with his hands.

*Swoop*

Naturally, he could not hold the thread as if it were a physical object, however, when his hand briefly passed through it, he could feel a bit of the frustration that the prisoner felt right before dying.

Frustration with his superiors at the Righteous Faction who never came to rescue him after he was captured.

Frustration at himself for being caught.

Frustration for not having lived a fulfilling life.

As he could feel the man having died with a lot of regrets.

"I see it now ….. I can see their frustration." Leo mused, as he saw the dozens of Maroon threads around him, and as he touched each one, he could feel a sliver of the emotions that the thread owners felt.

However, while all other victims that he killed felt either Frustration or Killing Intent during their last moments.

There was one particularly sickly and pale prisoner that only felt relief, his body being the only one to give birth to a blue intent cord instead of a red or maroon, and as Leo touched it, he could feel the joy the man felt at finally being set free.

The joy of not having to wake up with aching bones and empty stomach everyday.

The joy of finally gaining eternal sleep, as Leo couldn't help but squat down and close his open pupils when he felt his story.

"Sleep well my friend." Leo said, before turning his attention to the pink thread in his vicinity, which connected prisoner number 10 and 11 that he killed.

He was oblivious to their love affair when he killed them individually, however, he could see it now when he touched the pink thread connecting their dead bodies.

A love affair that began in prison, with the guy sliding some of his food into her prison cell after she received a rough beating from the guards, as a gesture to show that he cared.

And her reciprocating the same a week later when it was the guy who was beaten black and blue.

It was an unlikely love story.

One that started when nobody was watching.

One where the two lovers had never even held hands.

However, the love they felt for one another was still true, and it pinched Leo's heart to have killed such a cute couple.

'My mastery of this skill has definitely gone up a notch….. using just a little bit of a life essence, gave me a breakthrough in understanding the Codex that would have taken me a year or more to otherwise achieve,' Leo concluded, as he finally realized just how powerful the Second Elder's forbidden method really was.

The drawbacks were obvious, however, for the first time one used it, the improvement it provided was truly unparalleled.

"A forbidden skill for sure…." He mused, as he pulled out the [SevenFold Revelation Codex] from his storage ring, to get a confirmation on his progress.

*Shine*

Golden ink began to shine at his face the moment he opened the manual, as new text began appearing on the blank pages.

—----------

> "You have witnessed the threads of Joy, of Frustration, and of Love… and have hence taken another step beyond the veil of aura into the shadowed realm of intent."

—----------

Leo smiled slightly, it seemed like using life essence did not count as cheating in the eyes of the Codex which still acknowledged his achievement.

—----------

> "Intent is no longer hidden from you. You do not merely see what they feel… you now see what they mean. And meaning, once revealed, can never be unseen."

—----------

The Codex said ominously, as Leo tightened the grip on his dagger without thought.

—----------

> "Now comes the question… What will you do with this sight? Will you ignore the cords you draw from others, pretending they are not yours to bear? Or will you let them coil around your spirit, letting them shape you into something that belongs more to them than to yourself?"

—----------

—----------

> "For every thread you glimpse, you drink a portion of its truth. The joy you see may not be yours, yet it seeps into you. The frustration you sense may not be yours, yet it rattles in your chest. The love you uncover may not be yours, yet it weighs upon your heart as though it were."

—----------

Leo exhaled sharply, annoyed at how the Codex always twisted revelation into accusation.

—----------

> "If you claim mastery, can you remain untouched by what you witness? Or will you find, in the end, that you are nothing more than a tapestry of stolen cords… intent not your own, yet shaping every motion of your hand?"

—----------

The golden haze thinned, the script curling into its final riddle.

—----------

> "You see intent now. But intent also sees you. Will you remain as you are, or will you be rewritten by the very truths you claim to perceive?"

—----------

The Codex warned before turning blank once again, as it gave Leo a serious warning to think upon.

'Will I be rewritten by the very intent I see and feel?' He wondered, as he thought about how he felt a pinch of regret about killing those two lovers after he felt their story versus how he felt nothing beforehand.

For him it was easy to kill people he wasn't attached to, or whose story he did not know.

But if in the future, he was going to be shown a part of the memory of all those he slayed, then maybe he wouldn't be as indifferent to killing them anymore….

"We'll see how this affects me later…. For now what's more important is to perceive the three remaining intent cords and chasing that promotion to Transcendent Tier." Leo reminded himself, as he rushed out of the prison, eager to share his progress with Charles and make a plan on how to perceive the remaining intent cords.