The sun hid for the day and darkness shimmered around in its place. Today was a special day, a day to remember, a day to mourn. An end to an era, a time of change.

“Oh, come on don’t sulk around that way.” The old man protested, not without coughing a few times along the way, his heavy steps being ignored by what should have been the powerful echo of the stone corridors.

“I mean, you are dying.” The young man added impassively.

“I may be dying, but I’m not dead yet, Tareek.” The old man coughed once more, now blood came out. “Safe all that skulk when I’m dead, don’t ruin the mood now. Remember what I say.”

“’Fear the man that grew old in a vocation where they die young.’” He quoted by memory. “But of course, Grandmaster Umar,” Tareek said with a huge grin. “Today is but a day of exaltation. A day of rite. The day of your death, or...”

“My ascension.” Umar finished. “Come on, lead the way, young one.”

The catacombs were narrow and dark, a chilly and humid place quite different from the shining Sadina, courtesy of the Eyana River. The subterranean river made the place way more humid than it had the right to be. It made it quite harder to store drugs.

Even if Tareek led the way, the one who walked with confidence was Umar. He had trod these passages for decades, and even though his life was expiring, that didn’t diminish his ability.

Their steps were silent, true assassins learned to use their abilities even when lacking in substances. Tareek needed a bit of stimulus to keep his wits sharp and his feet flat, but Umar was different. He was completely clean, yet he surpassed him in every single quality. Except health, of course.

Such were the abilities of a Grandmaster Assassin.

A body used to such damage and abuse that its consequences and effects still lingered.

The old assassin’s body was faulty, he was hunchbacked and slightly trembled with every step, yet for every step Tareek took, Umar moved two.

He barely walked one, though.

Soon the silence of the catacombs was broken as the wall vibrated; seconds later, the echoes of people talking could be heard.

“Hush!” One voice prevailed above all. “The Grandmaster is coming.”

The voices died out with that alert and then Tareek and Umar entered a circular, open room. Unlike the claustrophobic corridors, the room was spacious, more than any room they may have in the palace. Though it had no name, the room had been carved by assassins and hosted their operations. This had the advantage that no one besides the assassins knew that existed, and if someone got captured, well, there was no name to reveal. That was assuming an assassin could get caught in the first place.

Umar overtook Tareek and slowly descended the flight of stairs leading to the center of the room. It was ominous how an old man walked without making a sound in a room where the echo should have been overwhelming. Even tens of meters away, Tareek could hear the shallow breaths of the other assassins, yet the moving dying man was undetectable.

The old man made it to the center of the room, where a single wooden table lay with multiple dusts and poultices on top. He started readying them, Tareek took this time to talk.

“Brothers and sisters!” He announced with a powerful voice uncharacteristic of an assassin. “We are joined here today to witness the last breath of the Grandmaster Umar of our local order of Sadina.”

The assassins stayed silent, but their gazes said it all. Contrary to popular belief, assassins didn’t go out there with their faces hidden and donning hoods. That would raise a lot of suspicion. They dressed like normal people, and they were in all social spheres. It was uncommon to see a noble assassin, as that meant opposing the hand that lent you that power, but not unheard of. The reality was that assassins were always present, always hidden in plain sight.

They could be your boss, your coworker, your friend, your father, your mother, your sibling, or even your child. It was hard to tell. The difference between a drug addict and an assassin was that they hid their craving, instead pushing it into more productive subjects.

It was hard to describe the mood of the room. The pressure was outstanding and looming, their glorious Grandmaster was nearly dead, but there was a sense of expectation.

Of what could happen.

And also of bloodthirst.

Tareek turned to face Umar, who was carefully combining substances in a certain order. Drug consumption may seem trivial to outsiders, but any physician with half a wit could tell you that different builds and ages were affected differently by drugs. Only the assassin themself knew which drugs worked better. In what order and in what amount. It wasn’t an art, but a careful science in need of plentiful knowledge.

The other assassins digested carefully with their eyes the movements of the Grandmaster. They may not be able to use the exact same quantities, but Umar’s techniques were practiced. A medical understanding that could only be explained with age. The old man had long surpassed the title of a common apothecary, his knowledge of plants and psychedelics was greater than any assassin, nay, any person in the world.

If something was going to come out with the last breath of an assassin, it would be with Grandmaster Umar.

Snake tongues even say that he fought the very Aaliyah-al-Ydaz the Kinslayer hand-to-hand when he was younger. And that woman tore mountains with her fists and birthed forests with her blood. Umar hadn’t told him the full story, but from what he had heard, yes, the Sultanah and the Grandmaster Assassin had fought before.

It was still surprising that both of these apices of power were still alive.

Well, not for long.

“I’m ready,” Umar whispered, his pupils dilatated with consumption and power. It was easy to tell that the trip the man was going through wasn’t a safe one.

Tareek nodded. He moved out of the center of the room; he wouldn’t like to be there when the process started.

The ambiance quickly changed, and the gloom was blazed by expectation and agitation. No one was looking at Tareek, every assassin focused their gaze on the Grandmaster, but he could feel how they were paying attention to him.

Just waiting for the signal.

“Let the Apotheosis begin!” Tareek raised his hands in a mighty cry that shook the walls.

And all hell broke loose.

The tens of assassins charged at the old man at the same time, with perfect synchrony underlying their movements. Umar, on the other hand, did not move. Tareek chewed on his molars, his very perception expanding, time slowing to a crawl as wetness caressed his tongue.

He knew he would need that.

There were five strides from the circle of assassins to the center where Umar stood. The first one was dictated by inaction.

On the second one, light disappeared from the room.

All the candlelight faded into nothingness with an invisible sweep, but that didn’t deter anyone. Assassins were used to darkness; they were the dagger that pierced it.

There was no movement from the Grandmaster’s part in the third either, but his presence became far smaller if that was even possible. The old man was directly in front of Tareek, yet he had difficulties seeing him, and it wasn’t because of the absolute darkness.

On the fourth step, as the assassins entered melee range, Umar disappeared.

Tareek wasn’t a novice, not by a longshot. Not only he was trained since birth thanks to his hashashid blood, but he excelled at the arts of the mind and life. Of course, nothing could compensate for a full lifetime of experience.

Two assassins collapsed on what should have been the final step.

He didn’t see the culprit, even if the cause was obvious. Now, after having had a fraction of a second to think, the assassins regrouped. This was the hardest mission they had ever faced. They were twenty-seven – well, twenty-five now – trained and fit murder machines against a single dying old man.

The odds were against them.

They pressed their backs against each other, looking for the old assassins, but they found nothing. Tareek himself could almost guess his position, but he was forbidden from fighting. It wasn’t out of inexperience, but foresight. Bad things could happen in an Apotheosis.

“Ah!” A female yelp reverberated across the room as another fell down. That one was green, no assassin should make a noise, no matter how awful the situation is.

Even though Umar had dwindled their numbers, he had revealed his position with that move. Another assassin evoked fire, his hands becoming two lances of fire that shot forward. They missed, but the light highlighted a silhouette, and the embers followed it. Tareek would have called it an awful move – he was supposed to be an assassin, not a cultivator, such explosive effects had no place here – but the tracking property of the attack saved the man a future reprimand.

The twenty-four remaining assassins jumped on the Grandmaster.

Correction, the twenty-one. Somehow, Umar had knocked another three as the embers trailed him. A blink was enough for Tareek to have lost that. I should have had more hashish. The young assassin pondered over his lack of reaction speed.

Sensing the danger, the assassins dived into different tasks. Half of them turned into shadows themselves, prying on Umar's movements as he had just done a few instants before. The other half teleported in every direction to close escapes.

A wrong move. Umar wouldn’t try to escape.

The remaining last one did the best he could do and charged at Umar to distract him.

Now, charging into an assassin was actually a good strategy. Unlike cultivators, they didn’t have strong builds and they were better at ambushes than direct combat. The problem was, the lone man wasn’t facing a normal assassin.

Tareek didn’t say that because Umar was a Grandmaster, but because he was unrestrained.

A gust of shadow shot at the man and he fell to the ground. Five more assassins charged at the Grandmaster whilst he was occupied attacking, four from the cardinal directions and one from the top. Umar grabbed the one on top from the ankle and swayed her like a club towards the north and west assassins. The movements were too shallow to knock them out of combat, but it would get free of them for a few seconds. The remaining two, he just punched in the head, his fists becoming stardust.

Whilst not as strong as the Sultanah he had fought, Umar had enough opium in his body to run a hospital for a month, meaning his strength was unparalleled against normal assassins.

Four more drew their daggers, clear intent on killing the Grandmaster, yet he – still with the stardust clinging to his fist – punched one in the throat, spat fire at another one, and teleported behind another two and bonked their heads together.

All of that in a single second.

It was exquisite how twenty-seven people were hellbent on killing him, yet instead of doing the same, Umar could afford to knock them down.

That was pure skill.

Nineteen remained, the windows of opportunity were dwindling for the underdogs.

Two charged at him, teleporting out of sight in the last step. But teleportation was detectable for a trained assassin, let alone a Grandmaster, so Umar had no problem jumping in the air and kicking the esophagus of the pair in his back.

As he remained in the air, Tareek could see it.

Those dilatated eyes.

Assassins had to be careful with their consumption, too much drug usage and they would cause irreparable damage to their body, or even die. But in an Apotheosis? Umar was dying, nothing of that matter. They weren’t fighting a dying old man; they were fighting a Grandmaster Assassin at the peak of his power. There were no limits, no lines uncrossed. Right now, enough drugs flowed in Umar’s veins to drive a city in its entirety to a high for a week.

His body was a maelstrom of power, his movements sure and powerful.

This was the first time everyone present in the room saw this display of power, even Umar himself. Even if it was for barely a few seconds, Tareek believed with his heart that the assassin in front of him was the most powerful human in the world. Even beyond Aaliyah-al-Ydaz.

Growing uneasy, three assassins threw themselves at him. The Grandmaster twisted his elbow one-hundred and eighty degrees to slap two assassins and choke the other one with his free hand. The elbows snapped back into place with a gruesome pop.

Tareek doubted the old man could even feel pain in this state.

Only fourteen left.

They knew the opportunity to slay the Grandmaster escaped their clutches. Even if everyone wanted him to reach his true apex, they coveted the prestige of killing a Grandmaster even more. Especially someone as powerful as Umar. He probably was one – if not the one – of the most powerful assassins in history.

The pace of the fight accelerated even more in the coming seconds, the speed growing even blurry for Tareek. He could only empathize with those in the middle of the chaos.

A burst of reality threw his balance off.

What the... Tareek fought to recover his equilibrium. What was that? He looked back at the battle, suddenly seeing two Umars and six more assassins on the ground. What in...

He felt something in his back.

Tareek didn’t turn. He knew, that even if he did, it wouldn’t be fast enough. Nine assassins remained, himself included this time. Nine shadows overwatched them. Echoes of Umar. Is this... The real Umar lingered in the center of the room, unmoving. Has he reached the zenith of Enlightenment?

Everyone lingered still for half a minute, not out of surprise before the display of skill and impossible abilities, but out of fear. The shadows stalking them – unmoving as they were – contained a killing intent so potent that threatened them to pass away out of sheer pressure.

One of the assassins – foolish or brave – decided to move and approach the real Umar, his shadow staying still but the glowing red eyes following him.

“He...” The assassin’s voice trembled. “He’s dead.”

Tareek already knew that; the problem was why weren’t the projection disappearing. He was scared to death.

Nine seconds later from the revelation the shadows vanished.

Everyone sighed in relief.

“One minute...” Tareek muttered to himself. “He remained in this world one minute after passing away...”

If that wasn’t raw skill, Tareek didn’t know what that was.

He walked toward the center of the room, his legs threatening to buckle at each next step. Sure enough, the Grandmaster lay dead, his eyes whited out, as his body was standing up. Not even death could knock him down.

“Brothers and sisters!” Tareek shouted to the assassins. Some of the ones who had been knocked down already having recovered, their eyes bloodshot and maddened from their higher-than-safe dose used to even survive. “Grandmaster Umar has perished. But don’t lament his death. What we have seen tonight will be remembered by the annals of history! Tonight, we saw the closest step anyone has ever reached to the zenith of Enlightenment! Engrave this memory in your mind, for this failed Apotheosis will be studied for centuries to come!”

The assassins had lost a Grandmaster today, but they had stepped closer to supremacy.