I Hate Systems

"Shit! Shit! Shit!" The sole surviving individual of the Spirit Sword Sect, the Sect Leader's disciple collapsed to the floor weakly after arriving at an inn. He had to throw off his Sect's precious garments and change into a casual set of clothes, not to mention cut off his hair which was a signature style of his Sect.

Until he became strong enough to avenge his Sect, he had to live in hiding. He understood that, for he was considered intelligent. But, he disliked the thought, which was why he was wallowing in self-pity.

Most of all, he was confused. The attackers led by Rass were just normal people. Heck, they even seemed untrained in comparison to the regular soldiers.

But despite that, thanks to the demonic weapons and armour they possessed, they began to kill Martial Artists like helpless chickens.

'Worst of all, when he killed a few in the past and snatched their demonic weapons, it was strange.' He gritted his teeth, for the guns—demonic weapons in their eyes—simply vaporised after being in their possession for a couple of days.

Before they could properly investigate them, they vanished. This resulted in their understanding of the demonic weapons being minimal at best.

And considering the information-gathering capacity of the Murim World, not much was known as the Sects fell one after another.

"Shit! Does that mean our methods are just useless?" This was the primary reason for him being vexed, experiencing a sense of powerlessness that for the first time in his life, he came to realise that his decades of earnest efforts amounted to nothing.

The killers of his Sect brothers and sisters were just regular people with frail bodies. But one click from the demonic weapon, and a life was lost. It painted a despairing feeling.

'Master trained for over a century. But even he only managed to take down a dozen attackers before he lost his life.' Tears streamed down his face as the disciple was unable to endure the chaotic emotions exploding out of him. Eventually, he cried himself to sleep.

On the other hand, in the same city, having booked the entire building of the most luxurious restaurant was Rass and his men. There were over two hundred of them in total, those left over from all the wars he had waged.

From the initial number of 250, they had fallen to just around 200. But considering how they had destroyed all the major Martial Arts Sects, everyone was jubilant.

After all, these people were just living lives with no purpose before, having lost their families to Martial Artists for one reason or the other.

"Phew," Rass muttered as he removed his bullet-proof combat suit, wiping his sweat as he slumped on a table in exhaustion, raising his hand to order, "Give me some cold water first."

"In a moment, sir." The staff nearby said as he quickly brought over a glass of water, along with some simple refreshments, mostly fruits, and simple fried items.

"Ohh, you're good. As expected from a luxurious restaurant. You know I can't eat heavily in my exhaustion and hence you have brought appetisers." Rass nodded in delight as he stared at the staff, frowning for a moment as he tilted his head, "Do I know you?"

"If you had come to this city before, you might have seen my running around. I have done odd jobs for a lot of establishments here." The staff said as he bowed and stood a fair distance away, intending to arrive at Rass's service when necessary.

"Strange, I feel like I've seen him just recently…" Rass muttered but didn't put much thought into it and just focused on the treat. He stood up after having a glass of water, raising the empty glass as he shouted, "We've completed our major objective. Food and drinks are on me tonight. Waste yourselves!"

"Glory to the leader!" His subordinates shouted in joy as they began to tear through the luxurious feast laid out before them. They had already set aside their combat suits and wore casual clothes, looking no different from the common folk around them now.

As for the combat suits, they began to vaporise slowly, vanishing after a few minutes.

"No matter how many times I see this, it's always mystical." The subordinate seated next to Rass said, glancing at Rass to finally raise his curiosity, "I didn't wish to ask about this before. But leader, can you tell me more about your power?"

"Are you curious?" Rass asked, smiling contently as he began to drink mild alcohol. He then glanced around, noticing that none of the other subordinates were paying attention to him, busy tackling the food before them.

Only the subordinate on his table was within audible range. Everyone else was situated far away. Rass glanced at the staff, 'He's more than five metres away. In this noise, he wouldn't be able to hear my discussion.'

He simply nodded at the staff's professional smile before looking at his subordinate to ask, "What do you think is the source of my power?"

"I'm…not sure?" The subordinate shook his head.

'As expected, he's pretty dumb.' Rass thought but didn't voice out aloud as he smiled, "Then, where do you think Qi originates from?"

"Isn't Qi present in all living beings?" The subordinate spoke in confusion.

"Dumbass," Rass snorted in disdain before saying, "If it was present everywhere around us, then why do you think we couldn't learn Martial Arts?"

"Now I'm confused…" The subordinate looked sullen. He was already nervous to ask his leader's secret, for it was an offense in the martial world. But even after summoning all his courage to ask, only then did he realise that he was lacking a truckload of braincells necessary to understand his leader's train of thought.

'This is interesting. He's neither a System Host nor a transmigrator or reincarnator. He's genuinely someone from this world and is just experiencing his first life.' Compass Carburettor thought as he flashed a professional smile at Rass.

Of course, he was acting as the staff here. He changed his eyes to brown and his hair to black, also morphing his facial features slightly to appear like a native. And that was more than enough to blend in with the crowd.

The reason he was following Rass was simple. After all, this individual was specially planted by the combined efforts of Martial and the Waning Essence System. And his success guaranteed Martial's escape from his pitiful predicament.

And as he heard Rass's explanation, Compass Carburettor was pleasantly surprised while at the same time, his eyes curled up a little, turning cold as a feeling of disgust welled up in him.