Life Association

Bai Luo had a rule.

Every weekend, the clinic closed.

One day was an indispensable time each week for leisure and relaxation.

The other day,

was because Bai Luo had to do something entirely different from what he normally did.

After bidding Huo Yun'er farewell,

Bai Luo arrived at a tavern in Shrek City.

He changed out of his usual attire.

He put on a loose black hooded robe.

An ornate vine-patterned mask covered the upper half of his face, leaving only his thin lips exposed.

Bai Luo made his way to the counter with practiced ease.

Upon seeing the familiar outfit, the bartender immediately stopped what he was doing and bowed respectfully.

"Boss."

With practiced familiarity, he led Bai Luo into a room inside the tavern that was not open to the public.

He poured him a glass of mixed liquor.

Under the lights, the drink shimmered with dazzling colors in the glass.

Bai Luo gently swirled his glass.

The ice cubes clinked crisply against the glass.

Like some peculiar melody.

The bartender expertly took out a file from a hidden compartment in the table.

He respectfully placed it on the table before Bai Luo.

"Boss, these are all the commissions from this week."

Bai Luo took a light sip of the drink, the alcohol mixed with the chill of the ice sliding down his throat.

He set the glass on the table.

Bai Luo picked up the file, opened it, and began reviewing the documents one by one.

Every file bore a black dark-gold wheat stalk emblem.

Any Soul Master with a bit of knowledge would recognize it at once.

In recent years,

an underground organization known as the Life Association had emerged out of nowhere.

With unstoppable momentum, it had made a name for itself throughout the underworld.

And what this association did was simple.

Take money, kill people.

It sounded no different from an ordinary assassin organization.

But the difference was that this organization had a rule unlike that of any other assassin organization.

Before killing someone, they had to clearly understand why the employer wanted that person dead.

Only after their review would they accept the job and carry out the assassination.

They were absolutely an anomaly among assassin organizations.

Because before this, there had been a common understanding in the world of Soul Masters.

Assassin organizations were simply groups of people who worked for money.

They asked neither right nor wrong, neither reasons nor causes, and only completed the mission.

But the Life Association was an anomaly.

Its rules completely shattered the conventions of assassin organizations.

As long as the reason was sufficient, these people would even accept a single copper soul coin to assassinate an influential figure of extraordinary status.

They sought neither wealth nor profit.

No one knew what they were doing it for.

Nor would anyone know

that the boss behind this top-tier assassination organization, famous in the underworld for killing countless experts and powerful nobles, was actually the young divine physician renowned for healing the sick and saving lives.

That was right.

The underground assassin organization known as the Life Association had been founded by Bai Luo himself.

As for why he had created this organization,

the reason was also simple.

The Life Aeon's feedback did not come solely from healing the sick and saving the dying.

It also came from fulfilling wishes.

The Medicine King's mercy answered every plea.

Although Bai Luo was not like that original Aeon, answering every request without condition,

fulfilling wishes was indeed a path to greater strength.

There were many wishes in this world.

Some stemmed from greed, some from pure sincerity, and some from hatred...

Bai Luo had understood one truth from the very beginning.

Healing the sick and saving the dying could not solve every problem.

Much of the time, illness and injury were merely problems of the body.

The more serious problem lay in the darkness lurking in every corner of the world.

That was unavoidable.

Where there was light, there would inevitably be darkness.

This was not merely human nature.

It was an inevitable result produced by every intelligent living being.

Even gods high above had darkness hidden in unknown corners.

Such darkness could not be cured by medical arts.

It required vivid blood as a sharp scalpel to cut away those "tumors" one by one.

That was Bai Luo's original purpose in creating the Life Association.

It was also why, despite being an assassin organization, the Life Association had rules entirely different from other assassin organizations.

Because the Life Association had never been a pure assassin organization that simply worked for money.

It was more like an organization that walked through the darkness, using bloody means to fight violence with violence.

They had their own standard of good and evil.

Only when a client's commission matched their judgment of good and evil

would they accept the mission.

That was why outsiders had never been able to understand their purpose.

Why would a perfectly capable group of assassins seek neither fame nor profit?

Because they had never been a group of pure assassins.

The assassins within the Life Association were more like a group of idealists.

They raised the banner of Abundance high and carried out the ideals Bai Luo had given them.

They walked through the darkness beneath the light, dealing with what they deemed evil in the simplest way possible.

Many of them had once been Bai Luo's patients.

They had lingered at the edge of life and death because of unjust evils.

Yet Bai Luo had pulled them back.

And through that passage between death and life, they had experienced a spiritual sublimation.

Thus, they had embarked upon an idealistic path they might never reach the end of in their entire lives.

Like fireflies,

in that boundless darkness, they might not have stood out.

Yet they still did their utmost to give off their own light.

Many times, Bai Luo felt that he might not deserve the position of leader.

Because within the Life Association, some idealists were even more pure than he was.

That was also what Bai Luo set aside one day every week to do:

personally handle an assassination commission.

It was also the primary source of his combat experience.

Combat experience gained amid true life and death was far more effective than any teaching.

So even though Bai Luo had no teacher and had never entered any Soul Master Academy to learn combat techniques,

his practical combat experience was beyond comparison with that of other Soul Masters his age who had undergone systematic training.

Bai Luo stopped flipping through the documents.

His gaze fell on a commission.

"This one."

He put down the file in his hand.

"Leave the rest to the others in the organization."

"Yes, Boss."

The bartender took the file and turned to leave.

Bai Luo slowly rose from the sofa.

A sharp glint of cold light flashed beneath the emerald-green vine-patterned mask covering his eyes.

A phantom holding a wheat stalk and wearing a hood flickered indistinctly behind him.

Her eyes remained slightly closed.

Yet she no longer possessed her usual holiness and gentleness.

The eyes growing from her arms were bewitching, carrying a killing intent that sent chills down one's spine.

Bai Luo had never been a pure healing-type Soul Master.

Abundance had never represented only healing the sick and saving the dying.

He saved people, and he killed people!