The lead assassin lunged forward with a sharp hiss, the blackened curved blade whistling toward the hollow of Caleb’s throat.
The strike carried the full, poisonous velocity of an operative who expected his blurred steel to bewilder a fourth-level cultivator. Caleb did not flinch, nor did he shift his weight backward to surrender the ground he had secured on the mossy rock. Instead, he drove his front foot into the dirt, stepping directly inside the arc of the weapon before the blade could gather its maximum kinetic force.
Caleb raised his left forearm in a short, rising block.
Deep within his dantian, the crystalline golden root pulsed, flooding his skin and marrow with hyper-condensed liquid aura. His flesh took on a dark, burnished luster beneath his sleeve, hardening his skin into s
