I didn't have a choice when I entered this line. After all, I was born into a family that dealt with the stealth arts. Some might call us ninjas, but we are simply mercenaries with unique abilities. And attire if I may add. The only difference between us and the normal soldiers is that we are destined to live in the darkness forever.

Our actions are judged as sins, even when it turns out to be for the greater good. Unlike soldiers who are celebrated despite taking lives, we are only feared as people call for our heads every day. I really dislike killing, but I could only curse my potential which has drawn the eyes of special clients linked to my family.

Eventually, my father forced me to sign up with Night Wing, a dark guild led by my cousin, Kageru. Sorry, here, he's known as Shadow but I simply address him as Boss as I can't be bothered with codenames. He calls me 'Violet' but my real name's Fujika. It's been so long since someone called me by my real name. Under Night Wing, I've gone for various assassination missions with my partner, Boss himself, but I've always left the killing blow to him.

Boss has ever scolded me in private before for being weak, but I guess he still keeps me by his side for 2 reasons. One, my family connections and next, my Enigma Ability. It's a terrible ability if you ask me, I've always felt that it was a curse. Who in the right mind would be willing to accept injuries or even die for another person if they are not family?

Sadly, yes, my ability, [Body Substitution], allows me to connect 2 individuals, one, the protected and the other, the sacrifice. I don't get how the minions under Boss can be so insane to offer their very lives for him and the other senior executives. I mean, they're all nuts, if I were to put it simply.

If you ask me why I've yet to escape for so long despite my abilities, all I can say is, how do you escape from your cousin, whose very Enigma Ability allows him to appear next to you instantly? Yes, Boss has the Enigma Ability [Summon], which grants him 2 related sub-abilities.

One, he can summon those that he had marked by touch to his current location. Of course, the consent must be mutual as the target must pour his own mana into the mark to get transported to Boss' location. Next, he can teleport himself to anyone he has marked by touch. This doesn't require mutual consent which explains why he is a pain in the ass. Literally.

I still don't have a clear method to counteract his Enigma Ability, but I did notice that he had an effective range when he jumps. Sadly, he's breathing down my neck all the time, so I don't have a good opportunity to pull off such a great distance between us.

Another observation from me is that every jump/summon from him is actually more exhausting than he makes it look. One time, when we had to travel a really long distance, around 30 km, he actually had to take a break after making 7 consecutive jumps and summons.

That experience also enlightened me to the fact that he can mark objects too, though the mark on those objects are clearly visible unlike those on our bodies, which only appear when he activates his ability. I've made sure I don't have any such creepy objects on me.

Back to the present, I'm currently facing against an old geezer who seems pretty adept at fire magic. His mastery of fire is probably equal to my mastery of water. I may have an advantage over him in terms of youth and energy, but he has combat experience to support him.

After I'd blocked his attack with my [Wave Wall], he's been eyeing me cautiously, afraid to make the first move. I'm in no hurry to make the first move too since my job is simply to prevent him from helping the other school staff, if they'd managed to resist Moon's [Stasis].

Not many people would be able to do so, though. I still don't understand why Boss is so flustered regarding this assignment. With Moon's ability that takes most people out of action, there are only a handful of people left to fight. Is that Headmaster Zilean really that scary?

Anyway, it seems that the old man's finally ready to fight. He takes in a deep breath, and blows out a gigantic fireball towards me! Such a flashy attack, he's probably trying to disguise a more lethal spell. I quickly think of a spell with sufficient strength to counter his attack and cast it.

I chant, "[Water Shark Bullet]." as I gathered a huge amount of water in my left hand before releasing it towards the fireball. My water spell takes the form of a shark and upon collision, they both cancel each other out, creating steam. The steam clouds my vision, but it also clouds my opponent's. As a proficient water mage, I seize the opportunity to utilise the steam created.

I muttered silently, "[Mist Shroud]" as I increased the thickness of the mist surrounding us, obscuring myself. I was trained in the arts of stealth after all. The first principle I learnt is to cut off your opponent's senses, especially sight, which is the dominant sense for most.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Thanks to my training, I've learnt not to rely on my physical senses to detect my opponent. Through hours of meditation, I've learnt to feel the flow of mana in the air surrounding me. Living things disrupt this natural flow as they unconsciously emit small amounts of mana while absorbing a similar amount back into their bodies. By paying attention to these disturbances, I can accurately pinpoint my adversary's location even without my sight.

I can almost sense his fear and apprehension as I simply dance around him gracefully. I decide to take this opportunity to scan my surroundings. Looking up, it's just as I expected. He'd launched a sneak attack after launching that huge fireball at me.

I observe several fireballs plummeting towards our location. They sure are big! Not wanting to waste any mana to extinguish those fireballs, I simply decided to turn them against their caster as I increased the mist density above him. To tease him out of his current location, I fling some [Ice Spike] spells at him.

Despite his old age, my opponent has pretty good reflexes, having dodged all my icicles while attempting to hit me with streams of fire. Of course, due to my constant movement, these attacks fail to hit me.

BOOM! The first large fireball has landed from the sky. At this point of time, I prioritise dodging the fireballs over engaging the enemy. The fireballs rain upon us like a meteor shower as I avoid every incoming fireball by a hair's width. I can see that my opponent is unfazed by his own attack, since every fireball headed his way is redirected away from him. That's totally cheating! By the end of the shower, my [Mist Shroud] is completely dispersed with several craters in the ground.

Fortunately, the smoke resulting from the attack earlier provides me good concealment to continue my hit-and-run tactics. I continue pelting him with several icicles from [Ice Spike] spells, but somehow he's able to withstand my attacks. To my horror, I realised too late that he's actually created a dome of fire surrounding himself, which explained the ineffectiveness of my previous strikes.

All of a sudden, the dome of fire expanded outwards in all directions. Trying to hit me with an omnidirectional attack? The weakness of such spells is that they can be easily broken through since they compromise focus for wider coverage. Against the wave of flames flying towards me, I gathered mana in my right hand and thrust it towards the flames, casting [Whirlpool Lance] that punches a hole through his attack.

To my surprise, what awaited me was intense heat as I could sense him gathering an enormous amount of mana. Looks like he intends to finish it right here. The old mage shouts, "[Volcanic Meteor]!" as a gigantic meteor made of fire charges towards me.

Compared to this, his giant fireball earlier was nothing! I quickly gathered all the mana I could. This is a match of power after all, to fling a Grandmaster tier spell my way. I respond likewise, as I say softly, "[Tsunami Surge]." Immediately, an enormous amount of water appears before my hands before surging towards the fire meteor like a gigantic tidal wave.

BOOM! The two fearsome spells clashed against each other, but unlike earlier collisions, they don't wipe each other out immediately. Seems like he has the exact same thoughts as I do, since we are still following through with our attacks by pouring in more mana.

At this rate, it's going to be a battle of attrition. In such battles, there are 2 reasons for victory. One, the victor simply has more mana and two, the victor suddenly increases the rate of his mana output. Knowing that I probably do not belong to the former, I decide to lower my opponent's guard by lowering my mana output. This causes his fire attack to push my spell slightly back.

Eating the bait, my opponent tries to push for victory by increasing his mana output only slightly. Sensing the perfect opportunity, I turn the tides against him (literally) as I increased my mana output so quickly that my tidal wave gobbled up his flames in an instant as it rushes through him. I could see him struggling as he got swept by the extreme current.

As my attack subsided, I quickly make my way to him to utilise my special 'assassination' technique. Before he could recover, I had already encased him in my [Water Prison] spell. In this sphere of water, my opponent is immobilised while his stamina is drained since he can't breathe inside my prison. He's no fish after all.

I could see anxiety spread across his face as he attempts to break free of his prison by vaporising the water around him, as seen by his glowing staff. This causes some violent effervescence around his staff but that's no issue to me as I simply increase the volume of water present. Soon enough, he runs out of oxygen and his face displays a resigned expression as he loses consciousness.

After ensuring that he really lost consciousness and it wasn't a trick to fool me from deactivating my [Water Prison], I released him from my spell. After all, I wasn't required to kill him, only to hold him back. I check his body for any important possessions like how I've been taught since young.

Apart from some money (which I took as payment for my effort) and a few keys (not useful to me since I'm not entering the school compound), there was nothing worth mentioning on him.

Taking pity on his old age, I carried his body and placed it under a tree which I feel would be far away from any crossfire within the school. Besides losing consciousness due to a lack of oxygen, his body was relatively free of any injuries. Now that I've dealt with my opponent, I had time to think about my next move. Should I continue to stay here to delay any enemy reinforcements as instructed, or should I make use of this chance to escape?

Weighing several important factors, I decided to pursue the latter. Firstly, despite not being seriously injured, the fight with that old mage took quite a toll on my mana. I probably won't be able to face a similar level opponent again. Next, given how scared Boss is of Zilean, now's indeed the perfect time to escape to the South, where Boss does not operate at all, which means that if I achieve the required distance away from him, he won't be able to find me ever again.

I smiled at the idea of how perfect my plan would be when I notice a pair running into the school compound. They were teenagers, one boy and one girl. Suddenly, they turned and faced me. Instinctively, I jumped away and quickly exited Zion Academy, heading towards my destination at full speed…