God Of Crafting

"Nobody fucking moves."

In the moment when everyone was shocked by the bloody sight of the powerplant destruction, it was no one else but Dickins who managed to snap everyone back with a cold, perfectly pragmatic instruction.

For a moment, everyone held their breath as they raised their eyes to the man.

Maybe they expected some further orders? Or maybe it was just an instinctive attempt to find someone who could lead them through the mess they all found themselves in?

Down on all fours and still retching whatever acid was left in my stomach, I couldn't really care enough to bring my head up, not unless I wanted my nausea to grow even stronger.

"Somebody, get those two civilians out of here before they contaminate the crime scene any further!"

Wasting no time, Dickins issued further orders, no longer keeping up with the act of cooperating with me or Cassandra.

Up until now, this all appeared as either a fraudulent business refusing to comply with the police while claiming the whole inspection to be an attempt to exert pressure and foil the development. A situation that was, thus far, perfectly manageable, all the more when Cassandra appeared just at the right time to pretty much back the claims I'd made about this all being just a result of corruption and directed power harassment.

Now, however, the presence of the anti-terror unit turned from merely a pressure to an actual necessity. For who else was to deal with a disaster of this scale if not the most elite local units of the law enforcement within the city?

"It's their scene now," I thought as two officers grabbed me by my arms and helped me up. "That is, only until the forces from the central arrive, but..."

I gulped my saliva down, trying whatever I could to wet my now parched throat. It wasn't before those two officers pretty much carried me all the way to the doors when it suddenly clicked.

"Stop," I called out in a weak, hushed voice.

A voice that the two officers promptly ignored, carrying me beyond the door's frame.

"STOP!" I called out again, this time much louder and more decisive.

"What?" The officer on my left jerked my arm up, lifting me just enough so that I could look up to his face.

"Shut your crap and bring me back," I requested as fire started to burn in my eyes.

It was one thing for me to lose my grip when faced with all that blood and gore... But when I sensed the cold breath of legitimate threat and danger on the back of my neck, all the sense of nausea left my body, replaced with nothing but cold determination to see today through.

"What, bring you back so you can throw up all over the crime scene again?!" the man shouted, clearly annoyed by how he was the one who had to deal with this unruly civilian.

"You can either bring me back, or I can kill you two and go myself, saving you the pain you will otherwise suffer from another hand!"

Raising up, I stared right into the man's face, perfectly ready to unleash my cultivation and prove to him why even a rookie fighter like me, at this distance, could do worlds more than a trained elite like him with nothing more but a long gun and still sheathed combat knife.

"Joe," the other officer finally butted in, limiting himself just to calling his partner's name.

"The fuck do you want now?!" clearly agitated, Joe snapped his eyes back to the other man.

"Just bring him back in," the officer requested with a voice so strangely tense, he most likely caught on the meaning I infused my words with. "Worst case, we will just drag him away again, right?"

For just one more moment, Joe simply stared into his partner's eyes, only to then sigh in a sigh of defeat before nodding his head.

"There's only one thing I don't understand," I said as soon as we turned around and started walking back in. "I've just threatened to kill you, so why can't I feel the tip of your gun pressing against my back?"

Looking over my shoulder, I caught Joe with quite the look of surprise on his face. Thankfully, however, his partner appeared to catch on my clues a lot swifter.

"Move it," he hurried me while shoving my shoulder, like a prison guard would do to an unruly prisoner. "Whatever it is that you want to do back there, hurry it up and leave so we can actually get working."

The nameless officer's voice changed drastically… but still within the limits of what I, or anyone else for that matter, would consider believable.

The same change happened to Dickins' voice when we nearly crashed into the two other officers who attempted to escort Cassandra out.

Her state… was far worse than mine.

There was no life left in her eyes, proving that while the sight was shocking for both of us, I was the only one who could somehow handle it once the initial shock passed.

"Why the hell are you back?" Dickins asked as soon as he saw me, with the look of displeasure on his face that only matched the sound of scorn and dissatisfaction in his voice.

"To ask you one question," I replied while already driving my cultivation to its limits, stretching my perception as far as I could while keeping it as detailed and outright inquisitive as I could.

For a moment, Dickins simply stared into my face while upholding the same expression that I saw him with, only to then sigh and allow his shoulders to drop a bit.

"What is it?" he asked, while crossing his arms over his chest… only to then relax and unwind them, allowing his arms to fall down along his sides when I glanced at his face, then at the pistol hanging on his hip before looking back to his face and raising my eyebrows a bit.

"If everyone in this place is dead and the whole thing was destroyed to such a degree…" I started, while getting myself ready to repel any attack that was most likely to come right as I was about to reveal the one thing that bugged me so much. "Then who the fuck did we talk with back at the gate?"

The gate's guard… was the only living human we saw in the entire power plant.

There was no one in the cafeteria to serve us coffee, forcing us to invite ourselves to some of the empty cups all on our lonesome. There was no one in the control room either, save for all the scattered parts of corpses of people who were supposed to be there.

The one and only exception was the gate's guard with whom we interacted heavily enough to ensure he wasn't just our illusion. And since he was not a part of this great deception then…

Then, he was the answer to just how the hell did the timelines for everything could work.

Cassandra arrived at the factory mere moments after her grandfather ordered the hit. Excluding the few moments of deliberation, we've departed from the factory pretty much right away, riding as fast as it was possible, only ever slowing down as we approached the power plant's direct proximity.

In other words, with how quickly we've arrived on the scene… just how far ahead could Cassandra's clan hitman be of us?

What of the time he needed to destroy the factory? The time he needed to slaughter all those innocent people before disrespecting their corpses?

"We didn't give him enough time to escape. Only to then walk right past him, more worried about playing out our act than we were about who he actually was!"

Revealing this out loud felt extremely annoying.

I was one of the men that this fucker tricked, after all!

Still, hearing my words, Dickins quickly looked in the direction of the cameras, the only part of the whole power plant that remained unaffected by the illusion, save for what the illusion in question replaced their feeds with what its caster desired.

Following the man's eyes, I soon confirmed that, just like expected, there was no one at the power plant's gate, indicating that the terrorist behind this massacre either ran away already…

"He's still here," I stated, basing this thought on nothing but my own instincts.

"He has to be," Dickins agreed without even a shred of hesitation, only to shrug when he caught my surprised stare. "If he ran, the reinforcements would nail him. And since there was no urgent message from them…"

Before the man could finish his words, the air in the control room grew… thicker?

Having no time for words, I looked right into Dickins' eyes before closing my own, fully focusing on my spiritual perception of space as opposed to mere vision of it.

And just like I thought… the gate's guard was here. No, Cassandra's clan's hitman was here, just a few meters off to the side, with a threateningly-looking, long, black knife in his hand.

I slowly turned, more than willing to directly face the man behind this whole massacre.

A man who, as I could easily sense through my spiritual sense, was several leagues stronger than me, even with all the benefits of perfected cultivation I could boast.

Realizing his cover was blown, the man dispelled the illusion, revealing the familiar face of the gate's guard to everyone's eyes as he suddenly appeared right in the middle of the room.

"Hilbert! Stand down!" Suddenly appearing in the doorway, Cassandra screamed out in desperation, clearly hoping to stop the man's rampage before it could start again.

But the words he uttered left everyone around free of the illusion that this confrontation could still be stopped.

"No witnesses."

Hilbert's wrist moved, pushing his dark blade slightly to the side as he looked around, only for his eyes to lock on the girl's desperate face.

"No exceptions," he said in a hushed, extremely low voice, only for his eyes to snap right back to me as he raised his hand and pointed the tip of his black knife right to my face.

"No mercy."