While Ye Xi was infiltrating the underground chamber, a hunched, elderly figure furtively emerged from the back door of the Baron’s manor. The area surrounding the door was deserted, shrouded in dark, silent tranquility.
Just as the old steward was about to sigh in relief, deeming the coast clear, a howl, akin to that of a wolf, suddenly pierced the stillness.
“Awoo!”
Startled, the old steward, whose conscience was far from clear, spun around. There, a ‘dog’ with black and white markings squatted, its fiery blue eyes gleaming brilliantly in the darkness as it fixed an unblinking gaze upon him.
“You beast, get lost!”
Infuriated that a mere dog had nearly given him a heart attack, the old steward stomped forward, intending to kick it. However, the dog deftly dodged his foot, vanishing into the shadows.
“What rotten luck.”
The old steward cursed under his breath, dismissing the troublesome creature from his mind, and turned to attend to his pressing business.
Unseen by him, the ‘dog’ had darted to a dimly lit corner. There, it settled before a man who produced a meatball, feeding it to the creature before gently stroking its head.
“Has that old fool set off already? It seems Sixth Master’s intelligence was accurate after all. What a ‘kindred spirit’ he is. Very well, let’s cooperate and have some fun with the old fellow.”
The speaker was Adair. Upon receiving Sixth Master’s intel, he had rushed back without delay, initially intending to greet Ye Xi. Discovering she hadn’t returned, he decided to proceed directly to the inner city to make his arrangements, fully confident in Ye Xi’s capabilities.
To divert attention, Adair had enlisted the accompanying Yuzu for paid surveillance, offering a meatball for every hour of work. Such a pure-hearted ‘dog’.
“Awoo, awooo! [That old man cursed me. I must get my revenge.]”
Adair chuckled, patting Yuzu’s head as he glanced in the direction the old steward had departed. A smirk played on his lips; today, the old man would not escape his fate.
****
The old steward continued along the shadowed path. As he rounded a corner at a crossroads, a pair of glowing blue eyes suddenly appeared in the dim alley, staring intently at him.
The old steward’s heart leaped into his throat again, causing him to involuntarily stumble back a few steps. Steadying himself, he realized the owner of those blue eyes was none other than the same ‘dog’ that had startled him earlier.
The old steward was utterly incensed, having been bested twice by a dog. He strode purposefully towards the ‘dog,’ ready to deliver a solid kick or two.
This time, Yuzu had no intention of fleeing. Instead of retreating, it charged forward, delivering a ‘Wolf’s Headbutt’ that sent the old steward staggering back several paces before he landed with a thump on the ground.
“Ouch! You damned little beast!”
The old steward cursed vehemently. Just then, someone helped him to his feet, asking with concern, “Old man, are you alright?”
The old steward froze, astonished to encounter anyone out at this late hour. He turned to see a stranger, a young man, assisting him.
Adair offered a slight smile, then spoke, “Are you alright, old man? I’ve been waiting for you for quite some time. If you had fallen and hurt yourself, my wait would have been in vain.”
“Waiting for me? Waiting for what… Ugh!”
The old steward’s heart pounded. A sense of unease settled over him, but before he could even cry out, Adair clapped a silk scarf over his mouth. The scarf was laced with a fast-acting anesthetic. The old steward’s eyes rolled back, and he promptly lost consciousness.
“Mission accomplished.”
Adair wore a triumphant smile. Yuzu scampered over, delivering two fierce kicks to the old steward’s legs with its hind paws, finally sating its desire for vengeance.
“Now, it’s time to get him out of the city,” Adair declared, clapping his hands. Just as he was about to leave, a commotion erupted from the Baron’s manor, drawing his gaze.
“What’s going on? Don’t tell me Ye Xi finally understood the true essence of an assassin and went berserk, slaughtering everyone in her path.”
Adair’s expression became conflicted. He knew Ye Xi well; despite her seemingly detached demeanor, she possessed an abnormal tenacity for completing missions, always acting decisively. When he found she hadn’t returned to the inn, he knew she had encountered some difficulties.
Out of trust in Ye Xi, Adair hadn’t considered returning to the manor to check on her progress, instead focusing directly on abducting the old steward. Yet, it now appeared events had spiraled beyond both Adair’s and Ye Xi’s expectations.
What kind of enemy could force someone so focused on stealth to create such a massive disturbance? Of course, it wasn’t yet certain that it was Ye Xi.
“Sigh.” Adair dared not rush to investigate. Given his current strength, if he were discovered, he would be unable to defend himself. However, he couldn’t simply abandon Ye Xi. No matter how powerful she was, everyone made mistakes.
Adair altered his original plan. He needed a contingency, an individual whose strength was at least capable of intervening in a battle of Ye Xi’s caliber. There was precisely such a person in the city, though Adair held no particular affection for them.
****
Rewinding time slightly, our focus returns to the Baron’s underground chamber.
“What are these?”
Ye Xi had never heard of such ‘ant-men.’ A sense of dissonance emanated from these creatures; her martial artist’s intuition told her they simply did not belong in this world. Baron Quentin, though not seeing these ant-men for the first time, still felt an instinctive fear, shrinking back.
The black-robed figure sneered with disdain, “What are you afraid of? These ant-men were once your servants, after all. We have merely granted them new forms, ha ha ha.”
Ye Xi felt a flicker of understanding. “Are they mutations?”
She noticed that the ant-men’s gazes were fixed, dull, as if they were soulless husks. Ye Xi quietly activated her radar, which showed the target’s position overlapping with the constantly speaking black-robed figure.
‘Is it on him?’
The ‘Desire Gene Amplifier’—from its name alone, it was difficult not to link it to these mutated beings. “Go, take these away,” the black-robed figure commanded with a wave of his hand. The ant-men obediently moved, effortlessly lifting the boxes one by one. Boxes that would typically require two people to carry were easily handled by a single ant-man.
Ye Xi silently observed the scene, concentrating all her attention on the black-robed figure carrying the Desire Gene Amplifier. She was as calm and composed as a leopard stalking its prey. The sleeve arrows in her hand were ready. She had crafted them herself, and with the augmentation of her Qi, their lethality was comparable to a small pistol from her previous life. They were also tipped with poison.
Ye Xi waited, biding her time for the moment her prey would completely drop their guard. The ant-men had already carried all the boxes into the hidden door, and the black-robed figure was preparing to leave. The instant he turned, two sleeve arrows, imbued with ‘Existence Deprivation’ and Qi, shot forth.
Blood splattered as two headless black-robed figures collapsed. The Baron, who had thought the ordeal over, was utterly terrified by this sight. As he turned to see what had happened, a cold voice, laced with bone-chilling killing intent, reached him.
“Bury your head in the ground if you don’t wish to die.”
The cowardly Baron, with the heart of a rat and the girth of a pig, immediately pressed his head deeply against the floor, trembling and daring not to move an inch.
Ye Xi did not pause. In swift, decisive motions, she used her Qi to shred the clothing of both black-robed figures, revealing their hidden items. With the aid of her radar, Ye Xi quickly pinpointed her target: a dim, rhomboid crystal. She took it into her hand, toying with it. ‘Is this what created those ant-men?’
Ye Xi momentarily lost her assassin’s vigilance, and it was in that instant that the unexpected occurred. A sudden sense of danger surged through Ye Xi. Without time to ponder, she immediately leaped backward. The moment her feet left the ground, the bodies of the two black-robed figures abruptly exploded. Blood mist erupted, and several blood-Qi condensed arrows shot towards Ye Xi.
“Tch!”
Ye Xi condensed her Qi around her, forming an invisible shield. The blood arrows slowed as they penetrated this Qi shield, allowing Ye Xi to calmly use the silver dagger in her right hand to slice them out of the air. However, the alarm bells in Ye Xi’s mind did not cease. The attacks in front of her had clearly been neutralized. ‘Wait, in front? What about behind!’
Ye Xi was suspended in mid-air, and turning around couldn’t be accomplished instantly. By the time she noticed the anomaly, a blood dart had already sliced through her Qi shield. Ye Xi twisted her dagger, flicking it with her finger like an arrow. It successfully struck the blood dart, but what Ye Xi hadn’t anticipated was that this wasn’t a single projectile, but a two-part iterative attack. The dagger only blocked the first, having minimal effect on the second blood dart, merely altering its trajectory slightly.
Facing the blood dart that was about to pierce her abdomen, Ye Xi enveloped her left arm in Qi, using it as a shield to block the dart. This was not without cost. Blood streamed down Ye Xi’s arm, and the numbing sensation forced her to immediately circulate her Qi to staunch the flow of blood from her left arm to the rest of her body.
Only three short seconds passed from Ye Xi’s suspension in mid-air to her landing, yet to her, these three seconds felt longer than three days as she evaded two deadly attacks. The instant she landed, Ye Xi shot out of the underground chamber like a piercing arrow, closely followed by a blood-shadow whose speed was in no way inferior to hers.
The tunnel above was closing, but not fast enough to intercept Ye Xi. She escaped the passage just in time, throwing a smoke bomb behind her. However, the smoke bomb seemed to have no effect on her pursuer. He accurately pinpointed Ye Xi’s direction, chasing after her without the slightest hesitation.
This time, Ye Xi’s exit from the internal alarm barrier was far more violent. She enveloped herself in domineering Qi, directly smashing through the barrier. The collision of Qi and magic particles erupted in a tremendous sound.
The commotion startled the manor guards. The Baron’s two bodyguards were the first to rush over, attempting to intercept the two figures. But Ye Xi was clearly not a character they could restrain. Her speed remained undiminished as she deftly dodged their attacks, treating them as if they were nothing as she bypassed them.
The blood-shadow that followed likewise paid no attention to the two bodyguards, merely sticking relentlessly to Ye Xi. The bodyguards’ faces were grim. They were rarely treated with such blatant disdain, yet they dared not act rashly. From the two figures, they sensed mountains of corpses and the depths of hell—certainly not opponents they could hope to confront.
“This is getting a bit troublesome.”
Ye Xi, currently trying to escape, was somewhat vexed by her predicament. She already knew the identity of the person behind her: the assassin she had fought during the Pecoin incident. However, the situation had now reversed; she had become the prey, and that person, the hunter. That fellow seemed to possess an ability to lock onto enemies. It wasn’t ‘Awakening,’ as Ye Xi felt no resonance, so it was likely a powerful blessing.
Last time, her advantage had been somewhat fortuitous, as she had only gravely injured him through close-quarters combat. This time, however, Ye Xi herself was already injured and poisoned, reducing her frontal combat capability by a significant margin. Just as Ye Xi was getting a headache over the situation, circumstances took a turn.
I hate when the tables turn.