8. The Duchy of Felicity

At the noiseless assault, the surroundings were completely immersed in silence. Split! The assassin split in half, not even realizing why he died. He collapsed onto the floor while spewing blood. Squirt!! The blood squirted everywhere from the pressure.

Davey ignored the mess and lightly shook the blood off his twig. ‘They say there’s more than one way to skin a cat, right?’ He didn’t have an adequate sword in hand, so he just had to make do with a twig.

Heavenly Destroyer Dokgo Jun, who was Davey’s second swords teacher, once said, “No matter what it is, anything you hold in your hand becomes a weapon. Remember, there are no rules in battle. Essentially, weapons are just an extension of your physical attacks. Depending on your attitude, even a piece of cloth can become a powerful sword.”

Maybe it was because of Davey’s sudden attack, but the men in black uniforms, who were moving while hiding their presence, could not bear his shock wave and stumbled. Although Davey held a mere twig in his hands, the assassins’ skill level was almost disrespectful compared to Davey who learned the technique of assassination from Hermeisha.

Even a light strike from a twig could become as strong as a mountain if the ‘Landing Technique of a Thousand Weights’, taught by Heavenly Destroyer Dokgo Jun, and Ares’ violent and destructive sword technique were combined. And if some ordinary assassin was to take on such an attack, which was meant to pierce them, they did not stand a chance. Their skills and great teamwork were useless too.

“Attacking me the second they got the chance. How boring.”

The assassins should have spread out into groups by now, but their physical bodies didn’t seem to be listening. Glaring at Davey anxiously, they stood still in silence, as if playing a game of ‘Red Light, Green Light’.

“I’m only asking, just in case, but did Queen Lynesse send you?” Davey asked, but there was no response. He never expected an answer in the first place, so he felt no disappointment. In fact, he couldn’t even hide his slight excitement, because it had been a while since he trained. “Crawling in here and ambushing me… You didn’t know that it’s a trap even after waiting for an opportunity.”

Davey clicked his tongue and lightly flicked his twig. With that one flick, a number of assassins couldn’t catch their breath and just collapsed.

“Keugh!!”

“Anyways, what was that woman thinking when she planned this?” Davey muttered to himself. Davey was a little curious, because the targets of this assassination attempt were three members of the royal family. If they were killed during their trip to another country, the palace would inevitably be shaken up. Even Queen Lynesse would have a hard time handling that matter.

Davey could only think of two possibilities: Queen Lynesse was either absolutely confident that she would leave no trace of her part in this assassination, or she had set something up to put the blame on someone else. Both were equally useful to her, since she, who had the most power in this country, probably had experience doing both.

“Hm? You haven’t run away yet?”

Davey’s words incited doubt in the assassins’ eyes. They were bound to be confused. According to their information, the target in front of them—Davey—was supposed to be nothing more than a sickly prince who could barely move. It should have been nearly impossible for someone like that to find them and sneak closer to them, especially since they had been waiting for an opportunity hundreds of meters away in secret.

To them, this situation made no sense. The most shocking thing for them was probably that all Davey had was a mere twig from a tree branch. His weapon wasn’t a strong and sharp sword, but a plain old thin twig that could be found anywhere on the mountains.

In the blink of an eye, Davey applied pressure on his surroundings and easily sliced the targeted assassin in half. Even an idiot would notice that his attack wasn’t possible just by force alone.

“Assassination is patience. Take that to heart.”

Although he couldn’t see the assassins, Davey felt their faces turn somber. ‘Man, these are some sensitive assassins.’ He stopped attacking and pulled back his unknown aura, which placed pressure on the assassins.

The assassins exchanged worrisome looks with each other. Davey could read their emotions just from looking at their faces. They all thought, ‘The information is wrong. This mission is a complete failure.’

“Go and pass this along: you don’t have to beg for me to take you down, I’ll destroy you slowly.” After speaking, Davey stood still without attacking anymore.

The assassins scanned their surroundings, then squinted at Davey to figure out his intent. They were probably thinking that Davey would let them go.

‘Yeah, escape if you can.’

Realizing that it wasn’t a trap, since Davey put down his twig and did nothing, the assassins slowly backed away. Then, they quickly turned and tried to get away from him.

‘Ha! Gotcha, you dumbasses.’

[Reckless Slasher.]

[Explosion.]

Stab!! In an instant, a flash of black light pierced through the few assassins. As if something thick had penetrated right through them, the assassins all went stiff. They witnessed such a ridiculous situation taking place, even though nothing was holding onto them at all.

“Sputter…Moan…” One of the assassins trembled, going into a seizure. Then, he glared at Davey with bloodshot eyes. He was probably thinking something like… ‘You said you would let us go, you fxxcking asshole!’

Since he saw that look, Davey couldn’t resist giving an answer. “How could you fall for that? Dumbass. I just told you that assassination is patience, but it seems like you’ve forgotten it.”

“What… Assassination…” The assassin must have found the answer absurd. He spluttered, gushing blood at Davey before going silent. His words weren’t even clear, since his voice was almost gone.

“It’s an assassination if no one saw. This is also a famous quote, so take it to heart.” With that, Davey took a step forward.

The remaining assassins instinctively felt danger. They fled, leaping off trees and scattering. Some lost their sense of judgment and actually came at Davey.

‘It’s still a gamble even if you ambush me, but you’re going to come directly at me?’

This time, the attacks were certainly quicker and more precise. It was a threatening attack that felt different from before. But facing this, Davey just calmly swung the twig in his hand.

Slice! Splatter!! As the dull and thin twig flashed, a black fire mixed with a white light flickered along the twig. The assassins rushing towards Davey were all instantly cut into two. They were people, but they were almost like chunks of meat simply collapsing to the ground.

Davey immediately put his other hand on the ground and drew up devil mana. Black magic and devil mana were the most effective in chasing, interfering with, and destroying the enemy.

It was similar at the Hall of Heroes as well; the one best at finding Davey, who hid to escape from hateful training, was [Rho Aias], the ‘Death Lord’ in a different world called Pesrissa continent. Even while repeatedly apologizing with tears in her eyes, her chasing skill that could completely block every retreat route was so outstanding that most of the other heroes admitted it.

Perhaps [Rho Aias] was too nice. Considering that the first saintess Daphne liked alcohol and had a personality that would curse the hell out of someone if she started to cuss once, it was nothing new since [Rho Aias] was an oddball necromancer. She tried to bring black magic mages into light for coexistence with other people her entire life.

Anyway, Davey didn’t want to remember exactly what happened after he got caught.

[Chaser.]

[Blind.]

Whoosh! From the ends of Davey’s fingertips, black whip-like things started flowing out everywhere. It was a one-circle curse-type black magic that robbed the enemy of their eyesight. This curse could be easily endured with a little resistance, but it was quite effective on the enemy, who was in extreme fear.

“Kaaagh!”

“Keugh!”

From the moment Davey faced them, the lock-on was completed. Unless they instantly got to the other side of the continent, these assassins had no way out.

As the effects from the magic spells started showing, Davey intensely felt many presences from all over. The blinded guys were struggling to escape from him, and they forgot their initially secretive movements.

‘Is this why you chased people?’ Davey suddenly seemed to understand why Rho Aias seemed to be strangely delighted even when she was apologetic. The fearful assassins struggled to run from him, and he had no intentions of letting them escape alive. He now had them in the palm of his hands. Davey would choose who to show mercy to, so it was his choice whether anyone lived or died.

‘If you intended to kill someone, you should’ve known that you could die as well.’ After lightly pulling the black string of devil mana with his hand on the ground, Davey connected the string with the assassins lying on the ground. Then, without controlling the overflowing devil mana, he spread it along the string like an explosion.

[Confuse.]

[Lower Resistance.]

[Soul Explosion.]

Davey caused confusion, lowered their resistance, then finally exploded their souls. It was a little harsh, but he had to kill them to finish the job well and to not show any mercy. This was what all of Davey’s teachers taught him.

Boom!! The undefined, unscented, and colorless souls exploded, becoming a faint vibration to the surroundings. As the majority of their souls exploded apart, the assassins instantly died with no chance for revival, and they became silent. In an instant, the quiet forest had become a scene of a horrendous killing.

“An assassination well done.” Davey wondered if it was necessary to cause such a big scene, but he quietly shook his head. He turned away without regret. Whatever it was, if no one traced the killing back to him, it was a perfect assassination.

* * *

In a dark room, a dark figure slowly appeared like a fog. “Your Majesty.”

“So, how did it go?”

“We failed.”

Slap!! The cheek of the lady-in-waiting, Shari, who gave the report, turned as soon as she finished. Queen Lynesse slapped her so hard that her pale cheek became red, and her lips became bruised.

“How are you going to take responsibility?!” Queen Lynesse gave a hysteric cry. Her hysterical personality was nothing new to the helping hands, since all of them were used to seeing it.

“All the mana stones that were designed to turn off when my subordinates’ hearts stop has been extinguished.”

“A failure… The details of the story?”

“I haven’t been able to look into it, but it seems that someone is helping him.”

Slap!! With another loud sound, Shari’s cheek turned once again.

But as if that didn’t calm her anger, Queen Lynesse threw everything she could get her hands on at Shari. Shatter!! The small vase in Queen Lynesse’s hands cut Shari’s forehead, but Queen Lynesse only glared at the latter viciously. Her breath was ragged.

“Hmph! I guess this is all the Dark Moon Guild can do!”

“...”

“They were annihilated because they couldn’t get rid of just four knights and three kids? How could twenty of your people do nothing to just five knights?”

Shari could become angry at Queen Lynesse’s roaring, but she just stayed silent with her head down.

“Find out who is helping him! Show them what happens when they dare get in the way of my plans!”

“I will keep that in mind.”

“Yes. Remember, I didn’t hire you and watch your back to see you fail. You must kill them. If you fail again this time...” Queen Lynesse, who was glaring at Shari with a cold stare, continued, “The contract is over. I will bury the Dark Moon Guild, even if I have to use the power of the Bariatta family and this entire country.”

“I will take that to heart.”

As Queen Lynesse harshly sipped her tea with nothing more to say, Shari, who had her head low, slowly closed her eyes. She had a faint smile on her face. There was a subtle, eerie red hue, like blood, in her eyes.