Clash of Assassins

“The blood is fresh. And they’re from the Order.”

In the pitch-black, suffocating forest, Hicks stared down at the mangled remains being torn apart by wild beasts. From the tattered, blood-soaked scraps of their black robes, he deduced this was the team Taylor had sent to find the enemy’s family. A failure.

Hicks gazed into the distance. Not far off, a small town glowed with the warm, inviting light of torches. That had to be their target. But for some reason, the very beasts they were meant to control had turned on them and torn them to shreds.

Hicks didn’t believe for a second it was an accident. For this operation, every man had been handpicked from the Order’s elite. They wouldn’t make such a foolish, amateurish mistake. If it wasn’t an internal error, then someone had deliberately, and skillfully, caused it. Could it be that mysterious powerhouse?

Hicks decided to infiltrate the town and assess the situation himself. Without further hesitation, he moved with the incredible speed of a phantom, his eyes scanning the perimeter, absorbing the town’s defensive layout in a single, sweeping glance. This was not just due to his own sharp eyesight and judgment; Hicks’s unique Blessing, ‘Hawkeye’, was the main reason he could so easily gather intelligence far beyond the normal five senses. The more he concentrated, the more information he received, and the wider his field of vision became, a panoramic view of threats and opportunities.

The guards were tight, their patrols professional and overlapping. They were likely seasoned military scouts, as every key point was well-covered. Hicks continuously absorbed and analyzed the incoming flood of information, consciously adjusting his speed and trajectory, exploiting the fleeting, paper-thin blind spots in their surveillance. He finally came to a stop in the deep shadows of a bustling granary.

After carefully observing the movements of the townspeople and the guard patrols, he stepped out from the shadows at a moment when all eyes were turned away. He blended into the crowd with practiced, seamless ease, helping the locals move heavy sacks of grain from the storehouse, casually joining their conversations as if he had belonged there from the very beginning.

Hicks moved from group to group, a ghost in the crowd, absorbing details and information like a sponge. With each interaction, his cover became more perfect, his role more natural, until he was indistinguishable from the locals he mimicked.

He steadily made his way closer to the Marquis’s wife’s location. All the while, no one noticed that a deadly stranger had slipped into their midst. He now knew where she was staying, and that the eldest son’s fiancée was with her.

Hicks carried a wooden crate into a storage room not far from the Lady’s temporary residence. His eyes, now cold and deep as a winter lake, fixed on his target’s lodging. He pressed a small, black button in his hand.

BOOM!

The granary where he had been moments before, along with several other key locations along his path, erupted in a series of fiery, deafening explosions.

The town’s guards and residents were thrown into chaos, their attention completely diverted by the sudden blasts. Panic spread like wildfire. Even the well-trained soldiers couldn’t restore order immediately. People rushed to put out the fires, their unease at being away from their homes now exploding into full-blown terror as they ran about like headless chickens.

Hicks melted back into the panicked crowd, becoming one of them, a face of fear and confusion, consciously moving toward the Marquis’s wife. The guards around her were now struggling to control the frantic populace, their defensive formation weakened and in disarray. The Lady, hearing the commotion, came out to see what was happening, with only the terrified Elienla by her side.

This was the perfect opportunity. Hicks feigned disorientation, allowing the push and shove of the crowd to carry him closer and closer to the Lady and Elienla.

Just as he was about to strike, a phantom in the chaos, the unexpected happened. A silver-haired maid appeared out of nowhere, silently blocking his path, standing protectively beside the Marchioness and Elienla like a statue carved from ice. Her golden eyes, glowing with a cold, imperious light in the darkness, were fixed on him.

A chill, colder than any winter night, ran down Hicks’s spine. He slowly, deliberately, melted back into the crowd, his direction now away from the maid. Yexi watched him go, her expression calm and unreadable, making no move to stop him.

The Lady, who knew Yexi well, looked at her tense, ready stance with confusion. “What is it, Xi-chan?”

“Old Master Hepo,” Yexi said to the old butler nearby, her voice low and urgent. “Take care of the Lady. An enemy has infiltrated. I’m going to deal with him.” She then looked at her mistress and Elienla. “My Lady, stay safe. Do not leave the old master’s side.”

Seeing the serious, deadly expression on Yexi’s face, the Marchioness nodded solemnly. “You be careful too, Xi-chan.”

“Yes.”

After bidding them farewell, Yexi began to hunt for the deadly assassin, her own form melting into the shadows.

Hicks, moving away through the chaos, wore a grim expression. His plan had likely failed. He was the mantis stalking the cicada, unaware of the oriole behind him. In his intense focus on the target, he had completely overlooked the most terrifying opponent of all.

His Hawkeye had provided him with a wealth of information, allowing him to distinguish guards from civilians, and to pinpoint his targets. Yet Yexi’s appearance had been a complete surprise. He hadn’t even noticed her, lurking in the shadows like a patient predator. Hawkeye hadn’t failed to see her, but the information it had gathered had led him to misjudge her as a non-combatant, a simple maid. This time, his gift had not only failed to help him, but had caused him to ignore his most dangerous adversary.

But Hicks had no intention of giving up. First, however, he had to shake the tail that was now glued to him. He scanned the area with Hawkeye, but could find no trace of Yexi’s movements. Yet his assassin’s instinct, honed over a thousand deadly encounters, screamed at him that a master hunter was watching his every move, its eyes fixed on his throat. The feeling followed him, a cold, prickling shadow he couldn’t escape, no matter how he changed his appearance or identity.

To be a hunter who could not track his prey, but was instead being tracked himself—it was a fatal position.

No, I have to deal with that silver-haired maid first. Otherwise, I can’t proceed with the plan.

With this thought, Hicks began to move toward the edge of town, his speed increasing exponentially. He no longer cared about maintaining his cover. The guards who spotted him were too slow to stop the blur of his passage.

Yexi noticed his change in tactics and, after a moment’s hesitation, gave chase. From this brief, silent exchange, she could already sense how formidable Hicks was. His ability to switch identities in an instant was seamless, his movements designed to deceive the senses. If she hadn’t gotten lucky and seen the flicker of killer’s intent in his eyes when his focus was entirely on the Lady, and if she hadn’t been watching him with her full, undivided concentration ever since, she would have already lost him.

Hicks’s sudden, reckless dash out of town gave Yexi pause. Should she stay and protect her mistress, or follow him? She decided to follow. If she let him disappear from her sight, this assassin would be like a fish in the sea, and finding him again would be nearly impossible. Yexi knew what she did best. She was an assassin. Eliminating all potential threats was the surest way to ensure safety.

One after the other, the two of them left the town and plunged into the deep, dark, silent expanse of the Beast Forest.

The forest was a maze of obstacles and shadows. Hicks, who had been in her line of sight, suddenly dodged behind a massive, ancient tree and vanished. Yexi was about to investigate when a primal sense of danger screamed at her, stopping her dead in her tracks.

As she froze, she flicked her silver dagger upwards in a blur of motion. SNAP. A taut steel wire, less than five centimeters from her throat, was severed. If she had taken another step, she would have been decapitated.

Yexi scanned the dark, silent surroundings. The forest, seemingly devoid of any life, was now a web of deadly, invisible traps. The places where Hicks had paused had all been rigged with wires. These were not pre-set traps, but had been laid with incredible, inhuman skill as he moved, a flick of the wrist in the instant his feet touched a branch.

A duel between top-tier assassins. It had been a long, long time since Yexi had faced such a challenge.

Though her opponent had failed to kill her with the trap, he had succeeded in disrupting her rhythm and forcing her into the open, while he melted back into the shadows.

But Yexi did not panic at this sudden, deadly reversal of roles. She stood perfectly still, a picture of calm, a silver statue in the moonlight, as if inviting him to strike.

Hicks, hidden in the darkness, did not think so. With his Hawkeye, he could easily track her position and movements. But Yexi made no superfluous moves, offered no openings, giving his Hawkeye very little information to work with. Frustrated, Hicks had no choice but to risk exposing himself to observe her directly, searching for a needle-thin opening. He watched her with extreme caution. The roles of hunter and prey were not absolute; a single mistake could be fatal.

Suddenly, Yexi moved. It was a simple, elegant turn of her body, but it created a fleeting, fractional blind spot. Hicks seized it. It could be a trap, but a clever hunter could turn his enemy’s trap into a fatal blow.

Like an arrow loosed from a bow, Hicks shot into her blind spot, his blade a streak of black lightning aimed at her heart.

But Yexi seemed to have anticipated the deadly strike. With a light tap of her toes, her body floated away like a piece of paper caught in the wind, her waist bending into an impossible, graceful arc as Hicks’s thrust met only empty air. Hicks didn’t give up. He twisted his blade, slashing at her in a vicious, horizontal arc. But Yexi was like a feather, dodging his attack with an unnatural, boneless grace. The moment her feet touched the ground, she launched a frontal assault.

The two top assassins had abandoned their preferred method of stealth, and instead engaged in a fierce, open battle. Their blades, wreathed in shimmering Ki, clashed in the darkness, sending a shower of brilliant, deadly sparks into the night, each one a potential death knell.