All five of his clones were easily killed without any resistance. He was only able to avoid the same fate by pretending to be a tree.
His acting was so good that he managed to deceive the white hammer. The white hammer moved past him and searched the area for any living thing.
He didn’t dare to breathe when the hammer came close to him. He held his breath as if his life depended on it, which in this case, it did. And when the hammer moved away from him, he also didn’t dare to exhale or sigh in relief.
The two rank 5 cultivators remained in a stalemate like this for a while. The silent atmosphere worked together with the absence of light to create an atmosphere of chilling death where one misstep could lead to damnation.
The deceiver thought about converting the cloud of darkness into blades of darkness that he could use to slowly chisel her body into bits. But anytime he tried to activate any Metac, the phantom hammer would swivel towards and come looking for him.
The white hammer was like a hungry beast in the darkness. There was no light, but it was able to sense and find its prey in the pitch darkness with only its sense of smell.
In this kind of situation, there was nothing he could do to kill her. In fact, preserving his life and making sure that she wouldn’t kill him became his priority. So he decided to give up.
He waited for the hammer to go to the other side of the cloud of darkness to make a move. When the hammer was far enough, he activated the Clones of Darkness.
He created five more clones to cover for him. The clones scattered in various directions while he escaped the cloud of darkness and went down into the pit.
The hammer sensed him as soon as he created the clones and was already rushing over to put him down. The hammer also split into six to deal with every clone and his true body. But by the time the hammer left the cloud of darkness after him, he had already turned into a rock lying in the pit.
The white hammer looked around for him for a long time, but couldn’t find him. When it couldn’t find him, it returned to the cloud of darkness.
After a while without his active support, the cloud of darkness dispersed. It became thin before it scattered and disappeared.
With the cloud of darkness gone, the rank 5 forger became free. She looked around for him.
When she didn’t see him, she knew that her gamble had won. This brought a smile to her face.
She was still smiling as she said, "I know that you’re not dead. If you’re dead, I should see your body. And I know that you’re still around since you wouldn’t be able to run far to escape my hammer."
But there was no reply. There was only silence in the pit.
However, this wasn’t enough to discourage her. She continued to speak, saying, "I won’t kill you. I promise not to."
"In fact, I don’t need to promise you this for you to know that I don’t want to kill you. If I wanted to kill you, I would have done so when I initially attacked. I wouldn’t have wasted so much time talking to you."
"That attack was just to teach you a lesson, not to underestimate me. My true goal here is to do business with you. If I didn’t prove that I was worthy of respect, you wouldn’t take me seriously."
Then she asked, saying, "So what do you think?"
This time, there was a response. The deceiver activated the Clone of Darkness Metac to create a copy of himself. As for the stone he was pretending to be, it flew away from the pit as fast as it could.
He believed her partially about her claim that she didn’t come to kill him. He couldn’t believe her because she could have been lying and might have been trying to kill him with that meteor strike.
The truth was still likely to be that since he survived that meteor strike was enough to prove that it was unlikely for her to kill him, which was why she gave up on trying to kill him.
So he was still suspicious despite everything that she said. This was why he took the opportunity to escape while he could.
But he did leave a clone behind to see what she was up to. At the very least, he could spare a clone. If she were to change her mind and attack the clone, he wouldn’t lose much.
The rank 5 forger shook her head when she saw this. Then she chuckled and said, "It seems my hammer scared you. What do you think of it?"
As she spoke, she threw the hammer up and caught it in her hand. She did this again and again with a carefree attitude.
The clone was also carefree since he wasn’t the true body, so he didn’t mind saying, "Your hammer was dangerous. What is this mutation?"
She smiled and said proudly, "I call it Soul Hammer. As for its capabilities, you should be familiar with it."
"Very few people know about my Soul Hammer. Most of the people who know about it have died. I’ve managed to keep it a secret ever since I advanced to rank 3 more than 15 lifetimes ago."
Her voice was full of pride as she spoke. The deceiver didn’t have any problems with this because, to be fair, she had many reasons to be proud.
Not only had she awoken the mutation at rank 3, unlike the vast majority of rank 5 cultivators who steal their mutations at rank 5, but she was able to survive to rank 5, and she did so while carrying a mutation that grants forgers the only way to create spiritual attacks.
----------
A/N: Please, don’t forget to vote with your power stones and golden tickets. Thank you for your support.