The sounds of rushing water filled the air as a river ran over the edge of the cliff crashing into the land below with the force of stampeding horses. Sitting right on the edge of the waterfall was a mansion hidden from the rest of the world.

The two-story house that mixed rustic old wood with the clean look of glass remained silent in the night. The lights from the property were on illuminating the guards as they patrolled the perimeter wearing black suits and carrying assault rifles.

A small army of these guards patrolled the yard the size of a football field, carefully checking any and all disturbances.

Large dogs walked alongside their handlers adding another layer of security around the mansion. No personnel stood still, even the ones stationed in the house were always in motion. From above they looked like a swarm of ants.

Through the second-story window, you could see a pudgy Latino man sitting expensive plush leather chair wearing nothing but a white robe and slippers. In his hand, he held a glass full of an alcoholic brown liquid. This greedy man sat alone in his office, relaxing in his little world, surrounded by his wealth stained in blood. Gold and silver objects glowed red by the fire's light as the greedy man basked in its warmth.

Not knowing that the entire time he had the crosshairs of a sniper’s rifle lined up perfectly with the back of his head.

Hidden in the trees Issac stared with unblinking eyes through the lens of a rifle as he sat there overlooking the whole estate. As he watched Manuel Issac began to wonder just how many times he had found himself doing this over the years. Sitting, watching, waiting as the night drifted toward the light.

Really Issac would have preferred to be anywhere else but here right now. The fun of it all had begun to wane on him. The Hunt was supposed to be something exciting, something that hooked you by the seat of your pants and took you for a ride.

There were supposed to be wild chases, harsh elements on your backs, and the desperate struggle of your prey's last stand.

And yet Issac was bored.

This hunt was boring. These last few hunts were boring.

Issac had been actively hunting Manuel for over a month, not because it was so difficult to find him. If Issac had wanted to he could have gotten the wear-abouts of Manuel and been hear within a week.

But because his regular hunts had started to get a little bit too easy Issac had begun setting hurdles for himself. Letting the prey know that he was coming, working covertly, not using his magic, all of it just to make the hunt a little bit more interesting.

And truthfully this was more satisfying.

To the untrained eye, an assassin and a hunter are the same thing, and while in many ways their actions overlap, their goals never intersect. An assassin is a force of nature, like a disease, killing only what it needs to with no mess or fuss. Always bound by the job, always maintaining the target in its mind.

But to the Hunter the prey is always second nature to what really matters, the hunt. To Issac, the hunt was like an adrenaline high. In that moment when Issac becomes apart of the hunt nothing else in the world matters, everything else fades into the background, leaving only Issac and his prey. Both of them know that at any point the roles can be reversed, that one shot can decide the course of their lives.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Every skill the hunter deploys is only ever to drive its prey into a corner for the final shot, knowing that there will be no mistake.

That’s why Issac is sitting here, waiting, for just the right moment and that moment will be when Manuel moves his head a little bit to the left.

“ Hey Bro, how are you doing?”

Like a light in the dark, a voice cut through the canopy of forest noise, a boy no older than nineteen walked out of the house talking on his phone.

He looked as out of place as anything here, with his blond hair glittering in the dark, acting like a teenager walking out of an arcade complete with dark tight pants, a leather jacket, and a t-shirt with sneakers.

The only thing that didn't go with his pre-teen rebellious getup was his rings that he carried all along his fingers, each one of them different styles and sizes.

He couldn’t make out what was being said on the other side of the phone but Issac could hear perfectly what was being said on this side.

“Yeah, nothing but animals shitting in the woods out here, Hey do we really need to go out of our way to be here.”

“--- -”

“I got it, I got it, I’ll watch out for our fat cow, make sure he’s fed and watered.”

“--- — -”

“ But how long do we have to do this, I don't even think that this guy is in any danger at all. This Hunter is just some normie waving his dick around and scarring these simple-minded animals, there is no reason at all for the house to send us man.”

“--------- - — —”

“I don't care about that, I want to be home where this filthy air isn't choking me.”

“-- – – - -”

Walking around the estate the boy acted as if he owned the place. Not stop for the guards in his way, in fact, these trained men seemed to be actively jumping out of the way, making sure that their paths stayed out of this boy's way.

“ Hey, so have you grabbed that little rabbit I told you about, good let's find out why it's been tailing us, if she’s like us then we can make her into our own maid, if not then oh well.”

Truly the most wonderful thing can happen for those who lie in wait. The kid drew too much attention to himself, and Senhor Manuel is leaning to the left trying to look at the boy in the yard.

“WHAT THE HELL”

Hearing the sound of a crash above their heads everyone looked up to see that Manuel had stumbled backward, knocking over his table of alcohol into the fire sending all of its flammable contents into the blazing fire making a fireball erupt from the mouth of the fireplace.

A bullet hovered in mid-air in line with the area where Manuel's head would have been. Lights flashed across the surface of the glass, and the bullet, unable to continue forward eventually lost its momentum and dropped to the floor with a metallic clink. The sound rang out like thunder over the heads of the guards causing them to jump in shock.

Surprised by the attempted assassination everyone stood stock still, unsure of how to proceed. No one knew what to do, nothing like this had ever happened, and no one had ever been brave enough to actually take a shot at the head of the Southern Angels. The only one that reacted was the boy, Still with a bored expression on his face he quickly hung up his phone.

Not even looking back at Manuel he scanned the tree lines trying to locate who had shot the bullet. After a few seconds of no result, he got so bored that he decided to just smoke the rat out of the trees.

Swinging his arm an arc of fire launched itself towards the trees immediately lighting everything in its path alight. The flames lit up the night painting everyone in a red glow. The boy stood there smirking, his smile viscous in the orange glow.