Ren’s eyes snapped open, his systems coming out of the temporary hibernation he entered during human sleeping hours. Habitually, he had left some functions running in a reduced capacity while he rested and one such function had been the cause of his current alertness. About five doors down the hallway, his enhanced senses picked up a muffled gasp followed by a soft thud.
His mouth quirked up in a small smile as the sequence of sounds brought back fond memories. Years of experience helped him identify exactly what was happening: someone had just gotten permanently decommissioned!
On his chest lay Kala, fast asleep and drooling. Her hair tickled his nose and the steady cadence of her breath informed Ren that she had not been disturbed by the distant sound. For a few breaths he watched her sleep before carefully trying to slide out from beneath her sleeping form. Kala, it turns out, must have been a light sleeper, because she jerked awake from the minute movement.
Ren was irritated with himself for waking her up, because he had wanted to leave the room to silently stalk the professional operating in the building. Now that she was awake, his chance was ruined because he would either have to explain himself, or wait for her to fall back asleep, potentially costing him the chance to observe a fellow tradesman at work.
As the sleep cleared from her eyes, he contemplated formulating an excuse to leave the room, but then a pain filled cry from the floor below reached his ears making him re-evaluate the situation. At this rate, she would eventually be alerted in minutes.
“I think someone is attacking,” he whispered.
To her credit, Kala asked no further questions but simply nodded, and quietly started dressing up for battle. She had her sabers strapped to her waist in no time and addressed Ren as she adjusted the hilts for an easier pull.
“You should find somewhere to hide. The attackers are most likely cultivators,” she began, buckling her bracer as she spoke and turned to Ren. “And since you don’t have –”
She swore, noticing her empty room with the door slightly ajar. Ren had snuck out while she had been changing, completely ignoring her advice. She spared a moment to hope that he didn’t get himself killed, before centering her mind and focusing on her duty as an Acolyte of the Temple. The hallways were starting to fill with the sounds of clashing weapons and Kala resolved herself to protecting the Temple from any and all attackers. Leaving her room, she raced down the hallway to join the burgeoning battle.
Ren watched as Kala ran past, staying perfectly still as he clung onto the beams of the hallway’s ceiling. Once she was far enough away, he crawled forward with his camouflage function active. He had about thirty minutes before it would need time to recharge, so he used it in bursts as he darted between shadowed portions of the ceiling, to stretch its duration.
An almost inaudible patter of footsteps coming down the hall caused him to pause in place and press his camouflaged form against the beam he had just been reaching for. Below, a black clad figure darted into Kala’s room but emerged seconds later having found no one there. Ren’s eyes sharpened in excitement as he looked upon his first professional tradesman in this world.
Finally! Clothed in black robes, the figure below him was someone of shared experience. Who would understand the difficulty of washing blood stains off clothes, or the drudgery of stalking your mark for days on end. However, his intense stare seemed to have given his position away because the figure flicked a wrist sending a tiny needle flying towards Ren’s position without even looking.
It would have caught him off guard if he didn’t have centuries of experience. Or if he hadn’t been watching the man closely in the first place, enough to see the twitch before his hands move. Or if he only had human reflexes. As such, Ren simply leaned slightly, allowing the needle to bounce off the hardened wood of the ceiling and clatter back to the floor. The assassin’s eyes narrowed as he looked up at an empty ceiling, unable to see the camouflaged Ren.
Ren averted his eyes from the assassin, and reigned in his bloodlust. It worked because a few breaths later and the assassin moved onwards heading towards the stairs.
‘Curious. The energy flowing within the man was nowhere near Estrid’s. Maybe a few notches below Kala’s.’ Ren compiled his thoughts.
After waiting for a hundred breaths, giving the assassin time to find his next victim, Ren moved towards the stairs to follow and observe his skills. The sounds of fighting were getting louder as he got closer to the stairs and silently let go of the ceiling, dropping onto the ground with nary a sound.
Peering over the bannister, he did not see anything fun, only the shadows of a fight happening somewhere below. Not wanting to miss all of the action, he crept down the stairs, avoiding the creaky boards and slowly making his way to the second floor. The closer he got, the louder the sounds of fighting became.
Ren frowned as he realized that this was a large-scale operation. He originally thought a lone hitman was carrying out the killings but he could hear ten separate clashes of steel close by, with a few more happening further out.
Just as he rounded the bend leading to the second floor landing, he came across his first clash and stopped to observe. He had temporarily deactivated camouflage but he quickly turned it back on as he blended in with the stairwell. A few steps away, an acolyte dressed in loose sleeping garments was hacking at his black-clad opponent with a heavy axe. The assassin slipped the wide attacks easily, sending a storm of needles into the axe wielder’s face.
The man let out a cry of agony as the needles pierced his eyeballs and briefly glowed green. In seconds, the man’s scream cut off as he was petrified into fragile stone that crumbled into pieces when he fell lifelessly to the floor. A woman from the room closest to the stairwell opened her door to investigate the noise, only to get blasted with another cloud of needles from the assassin.
She tried to jerk back and shut the door, but her dodging attempt was only partially successful. Just like the man, she screamed, filling the hallway with the ear piercing cry that signaled her permanent departure from this world. She died in pain and confusion, never having the chance to properly defend herself.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
Ren watched the exchange with cold eyes, appraising the assassin's methods and skills. From what he saw, he was only mildly impressed. Apart from the magical needles themselves, the man did not seem to possess great talent. His reflexes were not that impressive either and Ren could see multiple ways he could have taken care of the targets faster than the man had.
He just hoped the assassin would lead him to more skilled colleagues of his, who he hopefully could learn something from observing. Per usual, he waited a few breaths for the man to move on, before dropping camouflage and stepping out onto the floor. He made sure to step around the bleeding corpses, before sending his dagger flying towards the mage stone in the lamp illuminating the hallway.
His dagger flew true, dislodging the mage stone from its inset and plunging the section of the hallway into darkness. Before the falling stone or dagger could hit the ground, Ren dashed forward and caught them both. He gently placed the stone on the ground and was moving to follow his muse for the night when he heard footsteps coming from around the corner. In one great leap, he bound towards the ceiling and hung onto the beam as a pair of acolytes ran past with their swords drawn.
Deciding to explore the other fights on this floor, Ren followed in the directions the acolytes had run. He soon came across the pair fighting a different assassin. The taller acolyte engaged the dagger wielding assassin directly, while his companion tried to flank him. It was clear to him that the acolytes were similarly skilled to this assassin, but their weapons were limiting their movement and attacks in the hallway.
Despite this, they had the numerical advantage and soon the assassin had a deep gash cut into his thigh and left shoulder. Ren shook his head at the overall lack of skill being displayed in this fight and was slowly crawling away to find more interesting battles, when he heard a twang of a crossbolt being released behind him.
His danger-sense blared as his scanners picked the trajectory of the deadly bolt, aimed directly at his head. He dropped to the ground, rolling aside as a second bolt pierced his previous location as well. Jumping up to his feet, Ren looked up to find two additional assassins reloading their weapons, while the original third kept the Acolytes occupied.
He must have disrupted their pincer trap on the clueless Acolytes still struggling against one opponent while he had to deal with these two. Rather than being annoyed, Ren whistled happily as he sent two daggers flying towards the torso of the leftmost crossbow assassin, interrupting his reload while racing forward in a zigzag pattern.
The assassin's eyes remained calm as he blocked Ren’s daggers by activating a buzzing shield across his torso. Unfortunately for him, Ren was a strong believer in overkill so the third dagger he had sent flying on the heels of the first two, flew towards the man’s unprotected face. The dagger spun through the air with extreme speed before piercing through the man's skull, liquifying his brain.
The dead assassin's partner was raising his reloaded weapon trying to get a clean shot at Ren who slid forward towards him. The moment between breaths, when the assassin’s trigger finger twitched, Ren dove and rolled away from the bolt that flew harmlessly past his head. A maniacal grin crossed his face as he raced forward again closing the distance between himself and the quickly panicking assassin.
“Ready or not, here I come,” he sang in a melodious voice while charging forward.
The crossbow wielder, seeing Ren gaining on him and not having enough time to reload his weapon, tossed the bow at him, while attempting to pull his saber from its scabbard.
Just as Ren pulled his shortsword from its sheath, parrying the tossed bow, he sensed imminent danger from behind. He ducked avoiding the sharp point of the silver dagger that had been tossed from his blind spot. His hand however shot out, grabbing the dagger mid-air, and sent it flying back to its owner at double the speed it had been thrown. He didn’t have to look to know that the dagger had sunk deep into the neck of the surprised assassin that had been keeping the two Acolytes busy.
Useless.
Ren glared at the 2 Acolytes who had not only failed to dispatch their single enemy but allowed him the time to send a sneak attack at him. ‘Completely useless,’ he thought in irritation, as he turned back to face the remaining saber wielding assassin. He heard a sword swing through the air behind him as the assassin whose neck he had used as a dagger sheath, was bisected by the Acolytes. He snorted at the late help but ignored them as he focused on the remaining foe.
He dashed towards the last assassin aiming to end the fight quickly. The assassin was fast though, as he managed to shuffle back a few steps and meet Ren’s attack with a sweeping parry of his saber. The hallway was filled with a piercing shriek as their blades clashed together and Ren raised his left hand to block the counter of the assassin's knees.
The black-clad man activated a technique sending kilojoules of lightning through his knees into Ren’s body. He however did not expect Ren to be unaffected with the excess electricity running through his nervous system. His momentary shock gave Ren the chance to head butt his nose, stunning him and shattering the cartilage and surrounding bones. Ren then drove his sword directly through the man’s rib cage, piercing his heart.
The assassin's eyes met Ren’s, as the last dregs of life fled him. Ren let the man drop to the ground and walked over to retrieve the daggers he had used during the fight. As he retrieved his weapons he noticed that there were no longer any sounds of fighting within the building. He still picked up the sounds of battles but they all came from outside the building. Timid steps sounded behind him as he worked, but he ignored it.
“Thanks for saving us,” the shorter acolyte said and Ren sent an absent nod as he inspected the silver dagger one of the assassins had wielded. He flipped it a few times appraising it and decided to keep it for now.
“We can see that you are not Temple Staff, but your battle prowess is unmistakable. Would you join us as we go help our brethren?” The taller acolyte asked politely.
“No thank you. I have to find my friend,” Ren replied with a lie, hoping the dead-weight would leave him alone.
“Listen, the floor is quiet. If he was alive he –” the tall acolyte began but was stopped by his taller colleague.
“Amitabha, benefactor. May Kringle keep you and yours safe,” the short Acolyte bowed, pulling his ungrateful friend towards the stairs to the first floor.
Good thing too, because Ren was moments from reaching for his daggers to slit their throats and be done with it. Saving them? Ren scoffed at the idea. He only joined the sorry excuse of a fight because the crossbow wielding assassins discovered him even in active camouflage. That puzzled him so he quickly replayed the log from the past engagements of the night.
The first assassin he saw tonight, used needles but didn’t notice him standing eight steps away. The second assassin that he encountered fighting against the acolytes didn’t detect him either. Only the crossbow wielding assassins saw him. After analyzing all the data, he realized that the main difference was that the white haze of energy he saw around the crossbow assassins was denser than what the others had.
They must have been at a higher tier of cultivation. Specifically, they must be towards the higher Tiers of Essence users since the haze was white. He remembered the haze he saw around Diviner Estrid, his sole Qi user, was blue. Now, how was he to determine at what Essence Tier, his camouflage became useless?