Chapter 266: A Premonition Close to Certainty
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 266: A Premonition Close to Certainty
The assassin disguised as a middle-aged noblewoman felt her mouth go bone-dry.
Every time the dark-haired, blue-eyed man indifferently cast his gaze toward her from behind, a shiver ran down her spine.
Right here.
She planned to vanish the moment they entered the reed field. Once she shook him off, it would be her turn to show off her specialty.
At that very moment—
Boom!
A roaring sound echoed. Instinctively, she drew her dagger, holding the poison-coated blade out in front of her. Then, a shadow suddenly loomed over her.
It happened right after a sound like a drum skin rupturing, or perhaps a clap of thunder. Her reaction to the sudden roar had been excellent, but that was all.
"This is the spot, right?"
At the incomprehensible question, the woman looked up.
Flash!
Lightning struck from above. The woman's thoughts cut off there. A person whose head had been split in two could no longer think.
Activating the Heart of Monstrous Strength, Encrid kicked off the ground to close the distance and brought his sword down vertically, splitting the assassin's skull. It was simple, but it was an act of sheer decisiveness that none of the hidden assassins had anticipated.
Wasn't this the moment to catch one's breath, stay alert for hidden threats, and worry about traps? Yet, at that exact moment, he had charged in and cleaved her head.
Blood sprayed everywhere, splattering red across Encrid's clothes. He marveled anew at the sword in his left hand.
And this was just a sword he carried around?
He realized once again that the dwarf's craftsmanship was extraordinary. While it lacked the razor-sharpness of a masterpiece, it was sturdy and reasonably sharp. Moreover, he liked the thickness of the blade. It was thick enough to deflect almost anything with the flat of the steel.
Beyond being to his liking, its practicality was overflowing. He wouldn't even need to carry a separate guard sword. This was a weapon that could be used in an immense variety of situations.
Standing in the reed field, Encrid admired the blade before letting his sword-hand drop to his side. At the same time, he drew a sword with his right hand.
Shring!
A sword glowing with a blue light emerged. He now held Tutor as well—once a magic sword, but now simply a masterpiece blade sturdier and sharper than any other.
With both hands hanging low, he scanned his surroundings. They had hidden themselves so well that not a single soul lurking in the reeds could be seen.
Was that a problem? Not at all. He was merely curious. What gave these bastards the confidence to attack like this?
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
Three round, ball-like objects flew through the air and exploded directly above Encrid's head.
Pop! Pop! Pop!
As a dull gray powder rained down onto the dry reeds, the stalks collapsed and scattered in heaps. It was poison powder.
But Encrid had already moved. This was precisely why he had made such a loud noise when kicking off the ground to dispatch the female assassin. In terms of individual tactics, Encrid was already top-tier.
And why wouldn't he be? Valen-style mercenary swordsmanship was, after all, an illusion sword style based on individual tactics. On top of that, he possessed physical abilities and perception that had developed on an entirely different level, vast combat experience, and the lessons learned through his repeated "todays."
Above all...
They're clumsier than Sachsen.
Among his sparring partners was Sachsen, a prominent figure in the field of assassination. Sachsen's blade was always silently fast, lunging without a trace of presence. Because the days he had spent striving to capture that presence within his senses had not been in vain, Encrid's terrifying senses encompassed everything around him.
He instinctively detected any sign of life within his range of perception. If he felt someone was there, an enemy was indeed there. If he felt something was flying from a certain direction, it actually was.
He lightly trod the ground and threw himself forward. All sorts of projectiles rained down on the spot he had just occupied, but they were useless now.
Jack, a bandit of the Black Sword who had just gripped a whistle dagger in each hand, gaped in shock.
When did he get here?
Encrid thrust his sword.
Thuck!
He pierced the assassin's throat, pulled the blade out, and briefly sheathed it.
Shlick!
Grabbing the man by the collar, he threw him aside. As the man flew through the air, a stream of blood sprayed from his neck in a long arc. This was far outside the range of the spreading poison smoke.
Encrid immediately sprinted, curving to the side. His body dashed forward with terrifying speed, completely silent.
Rustle!
The sound of reeds flattening echoed like a turbulent wave.
"Fuck!" one of the assassins cried out. The mouth of an assassin, who was supposed to remain silent and execute the mission at all costs, had opened of its own accord.
And why wouldn't it? The thing before him was a literal monster. No matter how much they prided themselves on being the elite of the Black Sword, they were simply no match. To kill a monster like that, wouldn't they need the master of the Dagger of Geor, the greatest assassin guild on the continent?
His questioning was short-lived. The broad blade that had approached in the blink of an eye sliced through his neck.
Swish, thud!
The severed head floated into the air. Amidst the reeds that concealed them from the waist down, the group of assassins felt a chilling dread.
Boom!
Yet, their hands did not stop. To survive, they had to kill him. That fact remained unchanged. They detonated poison smoke, threw poison darts, knives, and axes. Several pouches designed to burst and release poison needles under pressure were also triggered. Everything had been prepared solely to kill this one man.
Encrid deflected what needed to be deflected and dodged what needed to be dodged. His superhuman senses practically forewarned him of his next moves.
Half a step back.
Twisting his waist, he delivered a sharp elbow strike to the head of a bastard who had crept up silently behind him.
Crack!
The impact resounded. The skull of the assassin, whose specialty was silently taking the enemy's back, shattered. Unable to withstand the pressure, an eyeball popped out and rolled on the ground, and the split skull leaked brain matter and blood.
Encrid didn't spare even a glance at the man he had just elbowed. He knew from the impact alone that the opponent was dead. After swinging his elbow, Encrid threw his gladius forward with all his might.
The moment Encrid's left hand drew a half-circle in the air, the sword—spinning like a disc—embedded itself with a wet thud into another assassin's head.
Seeing an opportunity, two assassins coordinated from the left and right and threw a net. The moment the net unfurled to block the sky, Encrid was already pulling out the sword he had thrown.
It was the harmony of the Heart of Monstrous Strength and his advancing steps. He used a lunge, mixing a slope step into it. Originally, it was a large diagonal step forward to evade an attack, but he simply blended them together as he pleased.
Along with passing steps and gathering, he didn't discriminate. To this, he added near-absurd strength and the thigh muscles capable of withstanding it. Consequently, his advancing step became a sprinting thrust that drove deep, and his horizontal slashes drew long lines that mowed down the surrounding reeds.
To put it simply, Encrid was executing swordsmanship against the entire group of assassins. He had merely expanded its scale significantly. Though he didn't realize it himself, this was a tactic used by an associate knight-level swordsman to face a crowd. It was the method employed when committing a slaughter based on swordsmanship.
And this was an entirely natural outcome. In the first place, Encrid had reached his current state through the methods he had learned and mastered. Therefore, he moved and fought based on the various swordsmanships he had practiced. To this, he mixed the Soft Sword Style he had learned. He compensated for any lack of strength with the excellence of his weapons.
Of course, physical strength was relative.
"Gah!"
To the assassin caught by his smoothly advancing blade, it was nothing short of a strike from the Grim Reaper. Despite wearing armor enchanted with a shock-absorption spell, the assassin felt at least two of his ribs shatter. Encrid had broken the spell with pure physical force. It was a level of strength that transcended mere brutishness.
Encrid's strength grew day by day, and now he even had the Heart of Monstrous Strength. He had no reason to envy Frok.
What absurd strength...
Encrid casually followed up with a second attack. With the harmony of his steps and his heart technique, his body instantly vanished from the assassin's sight. What would normally be a simple step to flank the side became a ghost-like teleportation.
After vanishing with a soft pop, a blue bolt of lightning struck down upon the crown of the assassin's head. With that, another died.
Poison mist spread everywhere, but Encrid paid it no mind. He held his breath, charged straight through the smoke, and killed an assassin with a Zimmer-style thrust.
"Ugh, you... crazy bastard..."
To force his way through poison smoke and pull off something like this? The assassin, who had been holding out inside the mist with an antidote in his mouth, left "crazy" as his final words before departing to the side of the gods.
Encrid let his two swords hang toward the ground and kept moving.
Shhh... Rustle, rustle!
Countless reeds caught by his blades were sliced apart. It was practically announcing his exact location. It didn't matter. In fact, he preferred they see him and attack. It was much easier to pinpoint their locations when they threw something rather than just staying hidden.
The outcome of the battle was clear. Out of the group of over fifteen Black Sword assassins, only two remained.
"We picked the wrong target."
The first-rate assassin and their leader spoke. His name was Barcello, a man who had drifted from the Eastern Continent into the Black Sword. At one time, he had been called an assassin comparable to those of the Dagger of Geor. He was the elite of the elite. His specialty was using claws to take the opponent's back and rip open their skull.
Yet, even Barcello could not find a single opening in Encrid. Every time he moved around him and changed positions, Encrid's gaze would subtly drift toward him.
He's looking at me?
What kind of absurd perception was this? To detect the presence of a first-rate assassin like himself? How?
Thus, Barcello's feet were bound. The other remaining assassin was already fleeing. He was the one obligated to widen the distance and report what had transpired.
As he fled, something suddenly caught around his neck. With a choked groan, his cervical vertebrae snapped, killing him instantly.
Tanned leather, oiled, heated over fire, and treated with special chemicals—repeating this process several times yielded a thin but durable tool. The fleeing man's neck had caught on it, sending his body airborne. Unable to bear his own weight, his neck snapped, and the person holding the leather strap twisted and pulled it, completely shattering his spine.
The assassin's body collapsed with a limp thud. A man emerged from the shadow of the fleeing assassin, as if rising from it. It was Sachsen, with his reddish-brown hair.
"I'm a bit late," Sachsen said as he moved. He headed toward where Encrid was running wild.
And there was an elf who had arrived here a step ahead of Sachsen.
"Am I late? Or is my love simply too fast? Love is always swift, striking and passing through my heart without a sound. I do not believe I am late."
The Elf Company Commander spoke, standing on one side of the reed field. Encrid felt her presence, but he left her be for now and turned to face his last remaining opponent.
It was the leader, standing blankly. Encrid had recognized him from the start. This bastard was on a completely different level from the other assassins. His steps, his skill in concealing his presence—every single detail was different.
Finding the opponent was not difficult. Encrid's intuition had already surpassed ordinary levels. Even if he couldn't hear any breathing or feel a presence, he had a sixth sense that told him someone was there. He could feel it the moment they directed their killing intent toward him.
It was purely the realm of intuition, thanks to the skill known as Sensory Technique. From the opponent's perspective, it was practically cheating. But what could they do? Sachsen, who was by Encrid's side, was a mad genius who had added relentless effort on top of his natural-born talent. What Encrid had learned from such a genius through his repeated "todays" had now fully matured.
"He's mine," Encrid told the elf. He had left him alive on purpose. He was like a final special treat. The opponent was a decent assassin; surely his skills would be exceptional.
The leader of the decimated assassin group equipped his weapons. With a series of clicks, the man equipped claws on both hands and stepped forward.
"Promise me that if I kill you, you'll let me leave alive."
At the response that came without even a breath of hesitation, Barcello realized there was no path to survival. Even so, he kept his final trump card hidden. Would that bastard be able to block this as well?
Tap, tap, tap.
Barcello began to run through the reed field. To his left, poison smoke hung thick, and the ground was littered with corpses. His target sheathed his shorter sword and began to approach, gripping a single longsword with both hands.
He wasn't particularly fast. There were none of the lightning-fast steps he had shown earlier. He merely closed the distance with his sword raised.
Tap, tap, tap!
The footsteps of the Grim Reaper and the rustling of the reeds played a duet. Barcello increased his speed, lowering his posture. The surrounding reeds whipped past him. Keeping his posture low and thrusting his claws forward, he staked everything on his opening move.
Victory or defeat will be decided in a single strike!
He unleashed his hidden trump card.
Flash! Crackle!
A third hand erupted from his chest, tearing through his collar. His chest had seemed unusually thick, and now a hand had burst forth from it. It was the exact moment Encrid's sword and his claws were about to clash.
This was indeed his ultimate trump card. The third hand was something implanted through Mystery, and the moment the elongated piece of metal held in that hand thrust toward Encrid's chest—
Huh?
Barcello felt his claw-equipped right hand refuse to move as he intended. The moment it clashed with the opponent's sword, the opponent's sheer force pressed down and pushed his claw, forcing a specific movement. Thus, the dagger held in his third hand clashed with his own claw.
Clang!
Simultaneously, his left claw swept toward the opponent's head, but the opponent ducked and evaded it. Having slipped into a posture lower than his own, the opponent looked up.
Barcello saw a blue light. Two streaks of blue light left long trails, like falling meteors. A dark mass, enveloping the two blue lines from above, brushed past him. He tried to pull his arms back in resistance, but he couldn't.
Slash!
The opponent's sword, which had deflected his claws, had already severed both of his arms—and even his third hand. Then, something like a red-hot poker gouged into his torso and ripped upward.
"Aaargh!"
Barcello screamed. But it was a scream no one could hear. His head screamed, but it was merely a thought inside his mind.
Encrid had been startled when he saw the third hand. What the hell is this?
Fortunately, his body and senses moved on their own. The moment he saw the third blade, he used the Soft Sword Style to deflect the claw, blocking the opponent's dagger, and ducked. It looked simple, but during this movement, his eyes felt as if they were burning, and his head grew hot. It was an overload caused by his brain processing all the incoming information in an instant.
Encrid swept his deflected sword upward from below. It was an extension of the first form of his Soft Sword Style, which he had created after observing the Snake Walk and the flexible sword of the Swallow Blade.
Though there was no violent force behind the flowing blade, its masterpiece-level sharpness supported it. It sliced straight through the three arms. He then dug his toes into the ground, took a step to spin his body, and thrust his sword forward.
Encrid moved without hesitation, slicing upward with the sword that had pierced the opponent's abdomen. The subsequent movements were incredibly smooth, though to his opponent, it must have seemed like a monstrous strike that severed his arms and cleaved his body like a bolt of lightning.
It was over.
"What is this?" his soldier, Sachsen, approached and asked.
"A bloody tryst?" the Elf Company Commander babbled.
"Whew."
Encrid exhaled a long breath, glanced at the men he had killed, and said, "Guests."
"You certainly gave them a fiery welcome," Sachsen muttered as he drew closer. A small leather pouch was visible in his hand, and holding it, he casually searched the pockets of the corpse.
He pulled out something they had seen before. He held identical pouches in both hands. When he untied the string and let a bit spill, a glittering powder scattered. It was a powdered medicine.
"A familiar drug," Sachsen said.
At this moment, Encrid recalled the powdered drug he had found on the Black Sword messenger in Martai. He also remembered the drug that bastard Frok had swallowed. In Encrid's memory, those two drugs were almost identical. Both the feel and the strange smell. It was a fact he had realized thanks to his habit of never overlooking anything around him.
And if he knew, his subordinate before him would know as well. For he was a sharp fellow who never let anything slide easily.
"Did you interrogate Frok?" Sachsen asked.
Everyone knew that Encrid had beaten Frok down and captured him. He must have also known that Frok had run wild after taking the drug. There was no way Krais, who loved to wag his tongue, would have kept quiet about it.
And all of this seemed connected. It was purely a feeling, but it was a premonition close to certainty. With that premonition, Encrid shook his head. The interrogation was what he had to do from now on.
"I want to join this conversation too. If you leave me out, I'll pout," the Elf Company Commander chimed in.
Encrid nodded. She had shown interest from the very beginning. Her tone was light and laced with jokes, but the aura radiating from her green eyes was not light at all. It was proof that this was no ordinary matter.