Chapter 281 - Time To Clean Up The Trash
Valentina smirked as she instantly moved herself to the entrance of the building, thus stopping Roy and Dennisa from escaping.
Her picturesque rosy-pink hair swayed in the air, making her look like a bloodthirsty demonic queen but at the same time incredibly alluring as well.
Before they could react, using her slender snowy limbs, Valentina sent a punch towards Dennisa's face, crumbling her mask, and kicked Roy's chest in quick succession.
The air rippled as two figures were sent flying towards the other side of the hall with blood spraying over the air in a beautiful arc, making one wonder if Valentina killed both of them with just a single move.
*THUD*
But as both of them crashed on the floor, their bodies still jerked, showing that they were still desperately clutching onto their pitiful lives.
Valentina indeed held back. In fact, she held back a lot to the point that she didn't even use her cultivation and even lowered the intensity of her punch so that she wouldn't kill them both accidentally.
She knew Damien had plans to kill them in the perfect way.
She used her ethereal blood arts and conjured two blood-red chains. She sent them both towards Dennisa and Roy, bound the chains across their bodies, and moved them over to the metal beams where she and Damien were previously chained.
Roy and Dennisa hung their heads listlessly after getting the shit beaten out of them with just a single move.
Dennisa's hood already came off, and her swollen and bloody face only made her look ghastlier.
Roy looked like his soul was kicked out of him, and saliva continued to dribble out of his half-open mouth along with blood.
Now they both, like criminals, were chained to the metal beams as Damien looked at them with a sneer. He knew these two would try to take revenge on him and Valentina out of their rage, hatred, and despair.
However, he only smiled more, thinking about these things since he had been hoping for them to do such foolish things!
Otherwise, how could he hope to clean up the mud in the road? Now, Roy and Dennisa gave him a perfect chance to get rid of both without worrying about the consequences.
They even indirectly helped him set up the stage to get rid of them. A golden opportunity, and at the same time, he also got to learn about the most deadly assassin.
He never really heard about the Veiled Mamba and wondered if she was an assassin only the people at the top knew or if people were too afraid of her to speak about her.
But he found her assassin title apt for her skills, considering how she could disguise her face to anyone's face and poison her targets secretly without letting them feel any suspicions.
"As deadly as a mamba indeed but not enough to put me down," Damien mumbled as he looked at the bloodied figure near his feet.
Veiled Mamba was slowly becoming lucid. However, that made her feel more pain from her injuries.
Her reddened eyes slowly moved towards the kid, looking down at her indifferently. When was the last time she was looked down upon by a kid and got fooled by the same person? Not even once!
In fact, she wouldn't even in her nightmares dream about a kid besting her, especially when their cultivation was lower than hers.
Looking at the huge winged ethereal beast standing obediently near Damien, she wondered how he was able to tame such an ethereal beast unless he got the help of an expert beast tamer.
However, even with his status of being an Elite disciple, he wouldn't be able to procure the services of such an expert beast tamer unless he used his girlfriend's connections. That's the only conclusion she could think of.
If Damien knew Veiled Mamba's thoughts, he would cough in embarrassment, thinking why everyone assumed he was mooching off Valentina.
However, when she looked at its frightening jet-black eyes, she felt chills passing down her back, remembering how it left her body with lacerations without giving her much time to fight back.
An assassin like her, who was very proud of her skills, felt a heavy blow to her pride, realizing her current situation.
"How-w?..." Veiled Mamba asked in a sluggish manner as she tilted her neck towards Damien. She knew she was probably going to die, and there were no more tricks she could use anymore since Damien had already sealed her cultivation.
No, it seemed more like her soul was being clutched by a demon. Indeed, Damien didn't want to take any chances and used his Shackles of Death to keep her soul hostage so that he could absorb it anytime he wanted to and even stop her from trying any tricks.
Since she was already weakened, he had no problems in using his Shackles of Death on her.
He also used it on Roy and Dennisa as he already once learned not to be too complacent even if the other party is weaker than him.
Despite being indifferent to most of the things in life, Veiled Mamba at least wanted to know where she went wrong and how things ended up so bad.
Even Roy and Dennisa tried to clear their heads upon hearing Veiled Mamba asking how she got found out. Even they wanted to know where it all went wrong and how someone as young as Damien tricked the deadly Veiled Mamba.
Valentina walked over towards Damien as he curled his lips and said, "How? You might have studied Yara's mannerism, but you don't know about her relationship with us. You already gave yourself away the moment you told us that you would treat us. Because Yara is the shameless type to ask her friends for treats instead, there's no way she would be that generous."
…..
Somewhere else…
"Achoo!" Yara tilted her head as she thought, 'Did someone just badmouth me?'
…..
Veiled Mamba was shocked to know that such a simple thing gave her away. Since she usually involved herself in assassination missions, she only had to thoroughly learn the mannerisms of the person she wanted to disguise into and would only learn their basic attitude towards their close ones.
Since she usually wouldn't have to interact much with her victims, she wouldn't have to learn about their interactions with their close ones much.
However, even if she wanted to, there was only so much she could learn of Yara's interaction with Damien and Valentina since they mostly interacted inside the Xeton Ethereal Foundation.
Damien continued, "Even if I thought Yara took the wrong drink this morning, why would she try to poison us so blatantly? If anything happened to us and since we were in such a public place, it would easily be tracked back to Yara."
Veiled Mamba frowned as she asked stiffly, "How...did you...know about the...poison?"
Damien smirked, "Heh, that's easy for someone who is a genius in alchemy like me. Do you know that I spend at least a few hours every day researching alchemy? And I have never broken this habit since my childhood. How could I not know that the venom of the Poisonspawn changes the taste of anything that it comes into contact with slightly, making it a bit sweeter? It's even used as an ingredient for some pills to improve resistance to poisons. I am sure you know that."
Veiled Mamba never thought Damien would be this knowledgeable in the field of alchemy. Of course, if she knew he was also the prodigal Alchemist Azrael, her mind would shut down in disbelief. Nor did she expect him to be so careful while eating.
Roy and Dennisa's expressions twisted despite hearing rumors of him being a genius in alchemy and earning the favor of Reva. They thought those were just exaggerated rumors, and even if he was really a genius, how could they know that his knowledge in alchemy already reached a whole new level to the point of even providing tips to Reva.
Damien went on, "And not only that, you even answered me that the pill I gave you last week was still with you. How would that be possible when I never gifted you one in the first place? I am sure things couldn't get more obvious than this."
"But you...ate the food…" Veiled Mamba clearly remembered Damien and Valentina eating them. She had meticulously tracked each and every actions of Damien and Valentina, to make sure they ate at least a morsel of the food placed before her and there was no way they could have fooled her eyes.
Of course, Damien was only able to prevent the poison from taking effect because of Luna while he slipped Valentina a bottle of healing cream to counteract the seal on her cultivation.
Because of Valentina's imprint, he instructed her when and how to use it while they were eating and also to pretend as if nothing was suspicious.
By spending all these months with Damien, even Valentina had learned to act along with him and fool others. Everything she did from the time she entered the restaurant and till she got free of her chains was an act.
Since it was not a mental transmission, not even cultivators more powerful than Damien would be able to listen in on their conversations. That was one of the advantages of Valentina's soul imprint.
Of course, Damien didn't want to tell these things, so he replied with a mysterious smile, "Some things are better left unknown."
He continued with a severe squint, "Now, time to clean up the trash."