Chapter 2248: Manhunt
The moment the Masters sensed a second breakthrough in the Master Realm, they knew that there was no hope that they would be able to kill the Void Prince. The mission was a failure in every sense of the word.
They had failed to attack Kandria.
They had failed to defend their honor, suffering losses and casualties to a bunch of Martial Seniors.
They had failed to kill the Dawnbringer.
Now, they could only grit their teeth and run away a second time.
"Retreat!" The interim leader bellowed to his fellow Masters as he glanced at the kneeling Kane with fear. "Get out of here while his attention is still away from us!"
The Sekigaharan Masters grew grim as they clenched with rage and frustration.
Yet, what choice did they have?
They could not fight a proper Master in their current state.
They swiftly abandoned the onslaught on the Gatekeeper before turning around and running away, hoping to get home as soon as possible. In just the blink of an eye, they were many kilometers away.
Alas, Kane wasn't merciful enough to let them get away scot-free.
"You're going nowhere."
Chills began crawling down their spines as Kane's powerful voice reached all of them.
WHOOSH!
In the blink of an eye, he arrived before them, impeding their path as he drew, activating his Martial Mind at full power as he surged forward with unimaginable speed.
At that moment, Kane ceased to be as his very existence seemed to change as his Martial Embodiment.
The shadow of lightning.
That was what his victims saw before he butchered them.
SPLAT SPLAT SPLAT!!!
His daggers became arcs of death as he hunted them down with overwhelming speed and lethality. Nothing could impede the destruction they unleashed upon their target. Nothing could impede the Shadow of Lightning that flashed from one victim after another.
"AAAARRRGH!!!"
SPLAT SPLAT SPLAT!
Kane shredded a Martial Master before him while his cold gaze turned to the ones that desperately escaped from him.
Their fates were sealed.
"ARGHR!!!"
"RGGGHHH!!!"
"NO, STO—AARGHAR!!!"
That day, the screams of agony and the silence of death echoed throughout the entire region.
One after another.
It didn't matter where they hid.
It didn't matter where they ran.
It didn't matter what they did.
Kane found them and bestowed death upon them.
A feat so significant that it would go on to become Kane's new epithet. Kane the Reaper.
His sparkled with bloodlust as he resolved not to let a single one of them live.
Not just because he wanted to get revenge for putting him through what they did but also because he knew that he couldn't allow them to get away alive after seeing Rui break not just one but two Martial Seniors to the Master Realm within a relatively short amount of time.
He knew that Rui would be in a lot of danger if he let them get away.
His eyes steeled with bloodlust as he fought with every ounce of power he could wield. He had already been quite tired and hurt prior, but he wasn't tired to the point where his Martial Heart and Mind were waning.
He could easily consume a potion and continue fighting with his Martial Mind if he truly wanted.
Pursuing the escaping Martial Masters was not nearly as easy as he expected it to be.
They split up, dispersing across the entire region as they pursued different routes.
The sheer amount of distance that each individual Martial Master could travel, even without their Mind, in a single second was unimaginable. With each Master headed off in their own direction, Kane needed to pursue them, kill them, identify the closest other Martial Master, and then hunt them down as well.
It was tough work, but Kane fulfilled it quite well.
"Huff...Huff..." Many Sekigaharan Masters eventually found themselves atop a certain mountain as they gazed around themselves with shock.
"Is...Is this how few of us there are left?"
A meager twenty-seven had managed to escape the Shadow of Lightning that pursued them as they arrived at the rendezvous point with the Martial Sages.
"Damn...!" The interim leader cursed as his eyes grew bloodshot with rage. "Damn it all...!"
The operation was a horrific nightmare of a fiasco. Never had he imagined that they would suffer such a horrific failure in this operation. Such a thing had never happened in the history of the Sekigahara Confederate.
"Where..." A choked voice emerged from one of the Masters around them. "Where did it all go wrong?"
A chilling silence overtook them all as they found themselves revisiting the entire battle.
"From the start..." one of them gritted their teeth as they clenched their fists, "...everything went wrong."
For one, the Kandrian Empire had far more Martial Masters on standby than they had expected.
Somehow, they managed to get another twenty or thirty extra Martial Masters to break through in time for the Sekigaharan assault, massively reducing the numeric advantage that the Sekigaharans had over them.
"It's the damned brat..." The interim leader's voice grew murderous. "He must have broken them through."
Yet, that wasn't all.
"They were strong."
It was painful to admit, but it was true. In hindsight, the Masters of the Kandrian Empire proved to be impressively powerful, able to fight with not just numeric disadvantages but also the disadvantage of needing to protect the Kandrian Empire.
It didn't make sense how a smaller force was able to neutralize a larger force despite facing such disadvantages.
"Are we...weaker?" The question was shocking even to them.
The Sekigahara Confederate considered itself to have the strongest Martial Artists due to how much war they refined themselves through.
Yet, today, they were confronted with unshakable proof that the Martial Masters of the Kandrian Empire were just superior.
"We need to make it home alive no matter what...!" He gritted his teeth. "We need to tell everyone about the crucial secret that the Dawnbringer is responsible for the breakthroughs...!"
"I'm afraid that's not happening."
SPLAT SPLAT!
The Sekigaharan Master slowly gazed down, finding two daggers sticking out of his chest.
He died before he could feel the fear that the others felt.