POV Cameron

Cameron and the rest of the assasins sent by the headmaster of the branch, ran through the night and all day. They first came upon the half eaten corpses of two naked men. Upon Inpsection by the group, they knew it was the previous duo sent to finish the job. They later found footprints of a trio walking away from the scene.

"The headmaster told us he was alone, but it seems he may have had outside help. That's how the assasins were taken out so quick." Cameron thought to himself.

Later they found the ruins of a small camp that belonged to goblins, blood and bones remained. They had to take care of wildbeasts trying to fight them for the remains. Once they inspected the site they were once again completely baffled, leading west they found tracks of a sizeable group of sixty or more.

"Cameron this doesn't add up, first 3 tracks that lead to the goblin camp then the bodies of more than 200 goblins, and now tracks made by sixty plus soldiers. This was suppose to be one target, alone" One of Cameron's companions added.

Everything about this job was starting to feel wrong to him and the group.

"We should head back and report this to the headmaster, I'm starting to believe another party is involved." Another member of the group said.

"We can't go back without any evidence, otherwise the assasins guild will just demote us or worse will be killed for failing." Cameron said with a serious tone. "We have to at least see who the other party involved is and report back. That's the least we can do and retreat."

Agreeing on this, they started following the tracks. The more they traveled, the more they started to feel like the forest had its eyes on them, but they couldn't spot anyone or anything around the tall trees. Suddenly Cameron stopped dead in his tracks, making the rest look at him and their surroundings.

"The forest.....it's gone quiet" One member said.

After a painful few seconds of silence.

In perfect synchronization, more than 200 black figures dropped from the trees to the forest floor surrounding them from all directions, all wearing black with a weird glass helmet, staring at the helmet only reflected a black abyss one can get lost in.

"How did I not notice their presence, they must be all silver rank or above, both options are impossible. The only forces who might have this many would be the Kalimbor empire on the other side of the endless forest, but I've never seen such outfits before even in the empire." Cameron thought.

Weapons drawn and ready to fight to the death, both parties stared each other down. Until a pair of footsteps were heard casually walking towards their location. Cameron saw the figure of a slender youth wearing black armor, with his arms behind his back, two more of the strange black outfitted figures walking behind him. He couldn't see the other parties face since they wore a black helmet with a black visor.

"Well well well who might you fine people be?" The voice of a young man was produced.

"That might depend on who exactly we are talking to right now, we arent here to pick a fight. We are simply doing a job." Cameron said trying not to sound intimidated.

"Let me guess, you're all assasins?" The young man said.

Some of the assasins widened their eyes. That gave Sam enough information of their identities. Thinking of his next words carefully, Cameron decided to give it a shot, since he had only one option.

"We are from the black souls guild, if you keep interfering in our business their will be consequences. Leave us, if not the guild will not forgive you for this." said Cameron hoping the name of their organization will give them a way out of this mess.

"HAHAHA! OH MAN! Only the weak and cowardly would use their status to make others fear them. Tell me what you're here for and who sent you before my patience runs thin." With a cold voice said the youth.

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From Samuel's memories, Sam knew that the black souls were a well known and feared assasin guild all throughout the continent. So now he wanted to know who was the one, who put a target on his back.

Cameron started to sweat, the threat he said didn't work and just agitated the other party more, he even laughed. Having no other choice, he braced himself for the fight.

"GO ALL OUT AND USE ALL YOUR SKILLS TO BREAKTHROUGH THE ENCIRCLEMENT! GO!!!" Cameron ordered.

"Don't let them through, kill all of them except the leader! I want him alive and knocked out." Sam ordered.

"WIND SLASH!"

"SHADOW CLAW!"

"TRIPLE STAB!"

"DARK WHIP!"

"CRESCENT OVER SLASH!"

Using their strongest attacks together in desperation, the assasins found out that the hanzos wouldn't be easy to deal with as they thought. They only manged to push the group who intercepted them a few feet.

"SILVER RANK! THEIR ALL SILVER RANK!"

"IMPOSSIBLE WHO ARE THEY TO HAVE THIS MANY!"

With the situation finally setting in, they all were starting to feel the fear of death looming over them.

"Don't give up, Only one of us has to escape and head back to gather backup and report this to the headmaster!" Cameron said trying to bring the morale back up. Then he heard laughter from the back.

"Hahaha! You ain't going nowhere johnny boy. Come on put your weapons down, let's have a chat." Said the youth.

Cameron just ignored him and kept fighting, but the situation was looking bad. The assasins tried their best but the hanzos were extremely precise and skilled with their blades.

Shadow slash

A hanzo seeing an opening used one of its skills and the head of an assasin flew off, with the headless corpse dropping to its knees and a small fountain of blood erupting. Another hanzo used piercing shot on another assasin fending off two hanzos at the same time, the arrow hit their knee making them lose balance. Using this chance the hanzos finished them off by stabbing them through their heart and the side of their head.

[DING 2 TIER 2 CORE SHARDS COLLECTED]

Sam smirked at the notification.

Noticing two of his comrades go down in a brutal fashion, Cameron took out a crystal. He spent almost his entire life savings getting this one time use item, in case his life was in danger. Not hesitating he injected mana into the crystal.

From the back, Sam saw him take out the item and knew he shouldn't hesitate now. Taking out his pistol he fired three rounds at the leader, before a white light engulfed the guy and he disappeared in thin air.

Reappering in the headmasters office, Darvin drew his daggers only to be surprised that a battered and bleeding Cameron appeared.

"Ambush! We were ambushed!" Cameron managed to spill out before he coughed blood and dropped to the ground dying.

Darvin ran to his side and tried giving him a healing potion, but as he looked down at his chest. He noticed three holes through his chest, no matter how good a healing potion is, it can't heal a damaged brain, heart or regrow a lost limb. Knowing he had seconds to live, Cameron grabbed onto Darvins collar bringing his ear close to his mouth.

"We were ambushed by 200 plus silver rank- cough..Kalimbor..."

He was gone.

Slowly getting up he called for someone to get the body out of his office. He checked the other groups life signatures, dead. All except one, he didn't hesitate and injected his mana into the device. Then he put his hands on his face sighing.

"Ugh.. this just got more complicated."

He stood up and left towards the Viscounts residence.

Back at the forest the hanzos eliminated all targets except one, bringing him to Sam, before the man started convulsing and dying on the spot.

" They must have a way to kill their own if they get captured. The one who escaped died, but somehow still managed to pass to whoever a message."

Otherwise he wouldn't have 50000 exp for 5 kills.

Plus he found out that he can get core shards from humans. So it wasn't a complete failure. Still he's going to have to ramp up the farming until he has at minimum a 10k plus army with a Mark 3 protecting him. He looted the bodies and returned to his temporary base.

POV Viscount Conner

At the Viscounts residence, Conner was in his study working until he felt the presence he knew very well of. A shadow in the corner of the room started forming into shape.

"Finally some good news, the prince will be very happy with this." Conner said looking at Darvin walking up to him, but noticed that he had a solemn expression.

"They failed an-" before he finished saying the rest. The viscount was glaring at him with a blade at his throat cutting the skin and drawing a line of blood.

"I've said it before and I'll say it again. You better have a damn good reason for this failure." Conner said with malice in his voice.

His face turning pale, Darvin continued with his words.

"One of the assasins came back using a teleporting stone, reporting what he knew before he died. Saying they were ambushed by a group of 200 plus silver ranked troops from the Empire of Kalimbor." Darvin said seriously.

Darvin continued to stare into Conners eyes, not wavering for a second before Conner put his sword in its sheath. Although he was angry at Darvin he wasn't going to punish him for something out of his predictions. Who would have predicted that the bastard prince would have allies, especially Kalimbor.

"Leave, I will request for you when I need you." Conner said turning his back towards Darvin. Using the opportunity he left quickly.

He requested for his right hand man. A tall burly short dark haired man in pristine armor came into his office kneeling in front of Conner.

"I've answered your summons my lord"

"I want you to start recruiting and training as many soldiers from all the nearby territories, do it in the shortest time span possible, you may leave." Conner said turning around and looking outside the window.

"This loyal servant will follow without failure."

Finally alone again Viscount Conner knew that he may be the first to take the hit of a possible invasion from the Kalimbor empire. He then wrote a letter requesting reinforcements and what he found out to the second prince. If he asked the king directly, he knew that he would have to explain how he came to this information, and get executed for paying assasins to kill a prince, even if it was a bastard prince. In the kingdom, infighting and assassination attempts would be punished by death. It had to be done behind the shadows.

He sat down and started thinking, until an idea came to him. He called for the head butler. Requested him to get in contact with the adventurers guild and to put up a request of scouting the forest for anything abnormal. This way he can get more information on what's happening in the forest, and not wasting any of his own men.

"Let's see who falls first, bastard prince."