"So I would like to say, but it seems that you are now dead." The assassin laughed as he turned around and looked at Nicole, "Come now, I may have failed in extracting him but he was optional, you are not."

"Herr Peter" Nicole ran after Isaiah but the assassin caught her hand, "Unhand me! Gah!"

The assassin cut a wound on her shoulder that caused her to fall to the ground,

"Let-let her go!"

"Oho..."

Lightning raged around Isaiah's body as he got up from the ground,

The assassin threw away Nicole and fixed his collar, "Peter, do you know that people call me Nightstalker, for I fight well during the night... Let us dance,"

Isaiah threw a punch, slow as it was, Nighstalker dodged it easily before launching his jab at his chin.

"Ghhk!"

"You're a mage, and you thought you could beat me in physical combat?! What a stupid mage you are!"

Nighstalker struck three more times as Isaiah retreated, the lightning around his body then disappeared as he pointed his fingers at Nighstalker, launching a huge geyser of white light.

"I cannot dodge light, yes... But I can dodge your aim!"

As lightning struck from Isaiah's finger, Nightstalker easily avoided the bolt and struck at Isaiah's face. Isaiah was thrown off balance as Nightstalker struck again,

"Surrender now!"

"Never!"

"Oho..."

Isaiah leaped as far away as he could whilst Nightstalker brandished his knife,

"Let's end this quickly."

Isaiah once more aimed at Nightstalker who got ready to dodge but then felt his leg as hard as rock. Looking down, he saw that his whole body was now wrapped with earth. He gritted his teeth and braced himself,

Zzzzzt boom!

Having healed herself, Nicole grabbed Isaiah and left without waiting to see if the assassin survived or not. Nightstalker meanwhile emerged from the cloud of smoke, his body charred from the attack and his clothes mangled to such an extent as if he was attacked by a wild animal. He roughly removed what remained of his vest and patted down his shredded pants, despite his tense muscles he forced himself to smile,

"Troublesome, it seems he knows what he is doing,"

He then took out a long but thick stick from his sleeve which can turn into a miniature crossbow, loading it with a custom-made cartridge that can fit four bolts at once. He held onto the weapon as if he was holding onto a baby,

"Capture the girl and the mage, they said. Make sure she is unharmed they said, well, let's see." He then bent his body in a sprinting position, his eyes glowing blue as he scanned his immediate surroundings. "She only needs to live after all. Accidents happen after all!"

His search didn't take long as he could feel Isaiah's mana source not too far from him. Despite having made quite the distance between the two parties, to Nightstalker, it didn't matter how far his targets had run, the assassin's main arsenal was his speed after all. It would only take him a few seconds to reach his prey. The air around him grew heavy as his pants stuck even closer to his legs, to which they began to harden.

Boom!

With a soft explosion, his body struck towards the direction as if he were a heat-seeking missile, despite the literal jungle of obstacles in his path Nightstalker easily slithered through all the trees and stones that blocked his path as he closed in on the pair. In no time at all, he was in front of them. Hanging on top of a branch, he then aimed his crossbow at Isaiah who didn't even notice him.

He squeezed the trigger, but it missed its target. Nevertheless, he had expected this to happen hence why he had his crossbow come with a custom-made magazine. He quickly emptied the cartridge, firing three other bolts at once.

Tssw tssw tssw,

All three bolts missed their shots making him frown at his skill, that said the shots had managed to frighten them enough that they began to franticly look around the place trying to figure out where exactly those attacks had come from, and in that, Nightstalker smiled as it was best to have them exhaust their energy first before striking.

Isaiah shot a bolt of lightning blindly, hitting a tree far away from where Nightstalker really was,

"Excellent,"

He reloaded his final cartridge onto his crossbow and leaped from one tree to the other as he leisurely chased them down,

Tssw,

He took one more shot at Isaiah, which managed to pin him down at his foot, causing him to fall down whilst his second shot was blocked by a wall of earth. This was followed by a counter-attack of lightning which struck Nighstalker's last location,

"Ohh, getting accurate I see?"

He leaped for the tree in front of them and fired another bolt but was blocked when two massive branches fell towards its path, as those branches fell away from sight a bolt of lightning struck not too far from Nightstalker.

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Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!

The trees around Isaiah were struck by bolts of lightning as Isaiah began to saturate the area until smoke covered his surroundings. Whilst the attack stopped, Nicole quickly went to apply her healing magic on Isaiah, placing her hand on his shoulder,

"Let my faith be his shield, Heal!"

White light surrounded Isaiah and quickly his wounds began to fly away, even his legs which had been struck by the bolt had now returned to normality, he stood up and stomped his foot to test its effects,

"That's great, you really are convenient."

"Thank you..." She waved her hand in relief when she pointed to his back, "Watch out!"

An object came flying at a fast pace toward his face, which Isaiah managed to shoot down with a bolt of lightning, however...

"Got ya!"

Nightstalker leaped out of the smoke and struck at Isaiah's neck. The knife only managed to create a shallow cut as Isaiah caught the knife just in time, blood pouring out of his hands.

Lightning then raged on his arms as Nightstalker kicked himself free from Isaiah's grasp. The bolt of lightning that was raging on his body was then redirected to his left hand as Isaiah defused the lighting to the ground directly below, electrifying everything around him, even tensing Nicole's muscles so that she fell to her knees. Nightstalker leaped up to dodge the attack but realized that it was all a ruse, a bolt of lightning shot out of Isaiah's right hand and struck him down, causing him to drop his knife as his body rag-dolled a few meters away before he stood back up in a defensive manner.

Isaiah took a deep breath as he wiped the sweat off his face. Behind, Nicole applied a weaker healing magic to remove the cut in his neck. But as Isaiah continued to look at Nightstalker, he felt his vision getting more and more blurry. As he was wondering what was happening, a status bubble popped out.

[Low Mana!]

'Okay...' Isaiah bit his lip as he looked around.

Nightstalker was still faring far better than he was, sure he had Nicole to heal him up anytime but if his mana ran out then he was only going to become a punching bag, plus Nicole herself has a finite amount of mana, so it wouldn't take long before she could no longer use recovery magic. Nightstalker meanwhile still looked great, although he looked beaten up he was still capable of launching those devastating attacks.

As he looked around, he then noticed the knife just below them.

'Stab him...' As those thoughts popped out of his mind, fear began to consume his heart. 'Should I stab him?'

But before he could think out his thoughts, Nightstalker raised his fist and attacked, Isaiah quickly raised his and struck first. He unleashed a left-uppercut followed by a right jab, but both his attacks were half-assed, thrown in a panic, and easily dodged by Nightstalker who countered with his own left-uppercut and a right, ending his combo with a spinning kick, with all three attacks putting him in a daze as he blindly threw around his attacks in an attempt to fight back but these too were easily dodge by the assassin who countered with a straight punch to his nose, following it up with a right upercut.

The attacks knocked Isaiah out of his mind as he stumbled to his back, his nose bleeding profusely. Nicole tried to heal him up but Nightstalker struck again.

One, two, three...

Nightstalker was relentless with his attacks as he continuously unleashed jab after jab, all aimed at Isaiah's face and stomach, he could not even mount an effective defense let alone an offense. Isaiah struck back as quickly as he could, but the blinding pain in his face now tanked his already abysmal agility as a punch to his guts blew him down to his knees. Trying to catch his breath, Isaiah opened his mouth and looked up, there he saw Nightstalker kick him in the face, blowing him away,

"Her Peter!" Nicole once more tried to run after Isaiah, but a swift kick to her foot brought her down kicking her in the stomach to immobilize her., whilst Nightstalker leisurely made his way over to Isaiah, dusting off his shoulders.

"What is wrong with you?" He laughed as he struck Isaiah in his stomach, causing him to hurl around, "You are slower than me, yet you engaged in a fistfight against me!" He once more kicked Isaiah in the stomach, causing him to lurch onwards, catching him by the hair, he then looked at Isaiah, "You are a fool!"

Isaiah spat at his face and flashed a grin, but this was instantly quashed as Nightstalker kneed him in the face.

"I see."

Nighstalker struck again and again and again until Isaiah's face was a bloody mess, he was about to launch his fourth strike when Isaiah suddenly lunged his hands onwards, there Nighstalker felt something rip through his fist, his eyes turned to his hands, and their he saw a knife.

Isaiah had hidden the knife underneath him, but as it penetrated deep into Nightstalker's knuckles, he felt guilt wash through his entire body. His hands began to shake while his eyes quivered in fear.

Nightstalker saw his reaction and grinned,

"Oho... Ahahahaha!"

Seeing that he was mocked, Isaiah's guilt was suddenly washed away and replaced with an unbridled amount of anger.

"AAAAAAAAH!"

Fueled by anger, his entire body went into overdrive mode and he pushed onto the knife as the two began to wrest control over the weapon. Isaiah powered up his legs and began to stand little by little. Nightstalker found himself losing in the battle for strength and struck Isaiah in the face, his punch however lacked the strength as he was more concerned about the knife, and thus, Isaiah managed to take over his hand and bite it as hard as he could.

"Aaaar!"

Isaiah then stood up and pushed Nightstalker onwards, the two having crashed into a tree.

Unrelentless, Isaiah tried to remove the knife by pulling it, but Nightstalker, not wanting to be stabbed any further, pulled his hand, and the two were engaged in a short tug-of-war. Isaiah eventually managed to remove the blade but was thrown away by a swift kick, meanwhile, Nightstalker leaned his body onto the tree,

"Haaa... You stupid." He fished for his crossbow but found it to have been destroyed in the scuffle, he pulled out the bolt instead whilst Isaiah pointed the blade of the knife to him.

The two then charged. Nightstalker was of course the fastest, but all of a sudden, he felt his whole body tense up and froze momentarily. He couldn't understand what had just happened, but by then it was too late. He felt something sharp strike his hip, looking down he saw Isaiah bury the knife.

The rage that clouded Isaiah's eyes had disappeared and now he saw the knife buried deep into Nighstalker's hip. He walked back, his eyes quivering in fear, and felt himself vomiting.

"I..." He shook his head, sweat pouring down his face, "What..."

Nightstalker meanwhile felt no better than Isaiah. The man's face turned completely white as he fell to the ground. Though such an attack wouldn't normally kill him outright, the paralyzing poison the blade was coated in completely arrested his lower half. Simple healing magic could heal him up, but being that he was in front of an enemy, he knew he had no other choice. He saw the fear in Isaiah's eyes and grinned maliciously.

"If I will die..." With his tongue, he took out the glass capsule hidden underneath a hollow tooth, "I at least will haunt you forever." He bit onto the capsule as hard as he could as the poison inside then entered into his mouth. Isaiah, realizing what had happened tried to stop but there was little he could do as Nightstalker fell to the ground, his eyes rolled up and his mouth now filled with foam. Isaiah's eyes locked on to the knife now stuck in his hip.

"Fuck... Fuck, no, fuck..." He began to vomit profusely as he fell to the ground, "I... I did not. No!"

"Her Peter!" Nicole once more applied her heel onto Isaiah as the latter began to calm down. She then saw the now-dead body of Nightstalker lying not too far away. "It's no time to mourn or regret, we have to get going."

Isaiah looked up and shook his head, "Right... Right." He slowly got up and looked at Nightstalker, "I..."

"You only did that to protect yourself."

"Pro-protect..."

Isaiah gulped his saliva as he took a few deep breaths, calming the nerves of his shaking hand. But as they were just about to leave, the dreaded sounds of dogs barking filled their ears.