Chapter 19: The Black Short Blade (Part 1)
Day fifty-one of entering the Warcraft Mountains.
“These assassins all think I’m an easy target?” Linley looked at the corpse of a black-clad woman before him. This woman’s strength was only around that of a fifth-stage warrior, and with the aid of magic, Linley had managed to kill her single-handedly.
Delin Cowart chuckled. “If they take a few more glances at you, they can tell you’re just a youth—a brash kid wandering alone in the Warcraft Mountains. Who wouldn’t want to pick off an easy mark like you?”
Linley felt helpless inside.
He was only fifteen this year. Though his height matched an adult’s, there was still a trace of childishness on his face.
“This woman, even in death, had to give me a scratch. A few more scars on my body are fine, but this clothes of mine are ruined too. Now I only have one set left.” Linley looked at his torn garments, not knowing whether to laugh or cry.
Along the way, Linley had scavenged several sets of clothes from some assassins, but in the Warcraft Mountains, the thing that got damaged most was his clothing.
“Boss, the magic crystals in this assassin’s pack are worth several thousand gold coins. Can a single set of clothes be worth that much?” Bebe retorted.
Hearing this, Linley smiled.
In the month-plus since entering the Warcraft Mountains, the scars on his body had grown more numerous, but the magic crystals in his pack had also multiplied.
“Forget it. I’ll go without a shirt. I’ll save the last set for the trip back. In the Warcraft Mountains, there’s hardly anyone to see me anyway.” Linley tossed aside the tattered clothes, bared his upper body, and gripped the black short blade as he continued forward.
This black short blade had been a considerable help to Linley during these days.
After walking a certain distance, Linley naturally began to chant a magic spell. Soon, a gentle breeze spread outward from him in all directions—it was the “Wind of Detection.” Any magical beast or person within two to three hundred meters couldn’t escape Linley’s perception.
Linley usually used the “Wind of Detection” cautiously after every long stretch of travel. After walking for a while, he cast it again—
“Huh? A group of people? What are they doing hiding in that tree?” Linley grew puzzled.
At that moment, on a massive ancient tree about a hundred meters to his south—so thick it would take seven or eight people to wrap their arms around, and who knew how many years old—more than a dozen people were concealed among its branches. Curiosity compelled Linley to quietly approach.
Moving very slowly and carefully, Linley crept into a patch of tangled brambles and weeds, finally getting a clear view of the dozen or so people on that ancient tree thirty meters away.
Each of them wore a full set of black clothes, and at their waists hung a black short blade.
“A black short blade?” Linley’s gaze fixed on one of those blades.
In both style and color, it was identical to the black short blade in his own hand. Moreover, the dozen people hiding in the ancient tree gave Linley a sinister feeling, very similar to the first assassin he had encountered.
“All in black clothes, all with black short blades, and—” Linley also noticed a slight bulge on each of their backs.
Linley couldn’t help recalling that the first assassin had strapped his pack tightly against his body, hidden inside his clothes. It was only when Bebe tore open the back of that assassin’s clothes that they had found the pack.
“They’re from the same organization.” Even a fool could see that now.
Linley’s heartbeat quickened involuntarily. At that moment, the dozen black-clad figures on the ancient tree were still speaking in low voices.
“Why haven’t Number 18 and Number 7 arrived yet?” one of them complained.
“Maybe they’re dead,” another said coldly.
“According to the schedule, we wait until dark. If they haven’t shown up by then, whether they’re dead or alive, they’ve failed the test,” one of them stated flatly. The others fell silent upon hearing this.
Linley, hidden in the weeds, guessed that the speaker was probably the leader of this squad. He thought to himself in alarm: “The assassin who tried to kill me before was a sixth-stage warrior practicing dark-attribute battle qi. This squad leader is likely even stronger.”
He immediately decided to retreat, but as he took a few steps back—
The speaker suddenly furrowed his brow and shot a sharp gaze toward Linley’s hiding spot.
“Swish!”
A black streak shot toward Linley’s position at incredible speed. Startled, Linley realized: “I’ve been spotted!” He instantly cast the wind-type auxiliary spell “Swiftness” and bolted at top speed toward the depths of the Warcraft Forest.
In Linley’s mind, the deeper parts of the Warcraft Forest were more dangerous, and the enemy might hesitate to pursue him if he ran that way. He planned to dash a few miles inward before veering off in another direction.
The black-clad man saw the pack on Linley’s back and the black short blade in his hand, and his expression shifted.
“Number 2, deal with him,” the black-clad leader ordered.
The lower the number, the stronger the fighter. From Linley’s evasive reaction just now, the leader had already judged his strength.
“Yes, sir.” One of the black-clad men immediately dove down from the ancient tree and chased after Linley at astonishing speed. However, Linley had a head start, and they were already seventy or eighty meters apart.
But this black-clad man was incredibly fast—even a bit faster than the first assassin who had tried to kill Linley.
“Such terrifying speed.” Linley weaved nimbly through the forest, sometimes climbing, sometimes leaping.
The black-clad man behind him pursued relentlessly, closing the distance rapidly: sixty meters, fifty meters, forty meters, thirty meters… The more Linley fled, the closer the assassin got.
Ten meters, nine meters, eight meters, seven meters!
Linley seemed to be fleeing in panic, but he was deliberately heading deeper into the Warcraft Mountains.
“Wind-type auxiliary magic?” The black-clad man noticed Linley using it. “Even with wind-type auxiliary magic, his speed is this slow. He must be a fourth-stage warrior, at most a peak fourth-stage.” Confident in killing Linley, the man continued to close in.
Linley appeared flustered on the surface, but inwardly he was calm and collected.
“We’ve run a few miles now. Those other assassins are too far away to notice.” Linley, who had been acting panicked, suddenly flashed a cold gleam in his eyes. At the same time, the shadow mouse Bebe, who had been clinging to his shoulder as if terrified, suddenly moved—
Whoosh!
The black shadow mouse grew larger in the black-clad man’s pupils, reaching him in an instant. The man could even see the sharp teeth of the shadow mouse.