Chapter 209: A Pitch-Black Night (5)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 209: A Pitch-Black Night (5)
Kort gritted his teeth.
He wanted to scream at the top of his lungs, but knowing his opponent was the Kronos Empire, he barely managed to suppress his boiling rage.
"...Did you use us as bait?"
[Bait? What a disappointing way to put it. There was not a shred of coercion in this deal. You reviewed the mission to assassinate Roman Dmitry and readily accepted it for a massive reward. If you had executed the mission perfectly as planned, we would have paid the promised reward in full.]
It had been a fair transaction.
However, Baron Charlton needed to ensure the job was done with absolute certainty.
[Think about it. The assassination of Roman Dmitry is a matter publicly declared by His Majesty the Emperor of Kronos. Everyone on the continent knows we want his head. If it fails, what would happen to the empire's prestige? We simply made a rational choice. We sincerely hoped Écorché would complete the mission, but the problem was that this matter was far too important to rely solely on you.]
Roman Dmitry was no easy opponent.
He had displayed overwhelming martial prowess when he killed Count Fabio and Knight Commander Gustavo. Considering his past actions, they couldn't rule out the possibility that he was even stronger than he appeared. Therefore, they needed to devise a thorough plan. While their primary option was to leave the task to Écorché, they had prepared their true weapon separately.
[I hope you understand our position. We couldn't leave a matter concerning Kronos's prestige entirely in the hands of Écorché, could we?]
"...Son of a bitch."
The curse slipped past his lips.
He understood the logic behind the Baron's argument. But if they had prepared a separate weapon in the first place, they could have joined forces with Écorché from the start to attack Roman Dmitry together. It was nothing but plausible-sounding bullshit. They had used Écorché as a meat shield. To preserve the empire's strength, they had pushed the assassins into the jaws of death, knowing full well that Écorché's power alone wouldn't be enough.
Right then, just as he was about to speak, a surge of blood welled up from deep within his throat.
"Cough!"
He collapsed to his knees. His body trembled violently, and his face turned deathly pale.
The liquid Lucas had forced him to drink. It was definitely poison. And the fact that its effects were manifesting only now meant one thing.
Did they calculate the exact minimum time it would take for me to report what happened in Dmitry?
It was certain.
He had given up on fleeing on foot and chosen to use the magic communicator instead. Dmitry had anticipated he would act exactly this way from the very beginning. Thinking back, he could find a hint in Lucas's words. They wanted to show the world the price of touching Dmitry. Dante, who was watching him die right now, would serve as the witness to remember this precedent.
He felt his mind collapsing.
Faced with Baron Charlton's cold words and his own impending doom, Kort glared at the communicator with bloodshot eyes that looked ready to burst.
Perhaps... the Dmitry he had experienced had even anticipated Kronos's moves. They were far more dangerous than anyone could have imagined. But listening to Baron Charlton, Kort had no desire to tell him the truth.
Let them figure it out themselves.
His eyes widened in agony, and his face slammed into the ground.
[My, my.]
Baron Charlton clicked his tongue in pity.
Kort. It was a pathetic end for an assassin who had once dominated an era.
*
Roman Dmitry left the city.
It was time to return to Cairo. After traveling for a while, Roman suddenly stopped in his tracks.
"Come out."
At his words, mysterious figures emerged from the darkness, as if seeping straight out of the shadows.
"Since when did you know of our presence?" a raspy, unpleasant voice asked.
More than a dozen figures stood with black cloth wrapped around their faces. The eyes visible through the gaps were so pitch-black that no whites could be seen, making it impossible to tell where they were looking.
In front, behind, and up in the trees. They surrounded him from all directions. Crouching low, they held their daggers in a reverse grip, ready to pounce at any moment.
Their appearance... In the Kronos Empire, there existed a force that perfectly matched this description.
Those who feed on the darkness of Kronos. If the Ten Swords represent the shining glory of Kronos, the Three Shadows represent its ugly reality. Just as expected. The Emperor of Kronos has mobilized his most dangerous force to kill me.
The Shadows.
They had no names, yet no one denied their existence. Forces opposing the Kronos Empire were always attacked by the Shadows, and the brutal deaths left in their wake served as proof of their existence. In truth, even the existence of the Three Shadows was not an established fact. It was merely speculation born from an incident in the past where Shadows had appeared simultaneously across the continent. Their actual scale and strength remained shrouded in mystery.
The situation before him was exactly as he had anticipated.
Kronos. Those who wished to be second to none.
The moment the Emperor they revered like a god declared an assassination, there was no way they would leave the success or failure entirely to an organization like Écorché. It was not a difficult concept to grasp if one understood the mindset of the powerful. If it was a task that absolutely had to succeed, the involvement of the Shadows was inevitable.
Even so, Roman Dmitry had crossed the border.
Even though he knew his enemies wanted him to leave Dmitry's territory, and even though taking revenge on Écorché was not his ultimate goal, he believed it was necessary to set a clear precedent right now.
He had set fire to Écorché's headquarters. He had hung Brakan's head in the street, and through Dante's testimony, the world would know this was Dmitry's doing.
It was a clear message. He wanted any assassin guild that dared to oppose Dmitry in the future to remember the price. And now, it was time to prove to the Kronos Empire what it meant to wage war against him.
Answering the question of how long he had known they were there, Roman Dmitry smiled.
"From the very beginning."
At that moment, the Shadows lunged at him all at once.
*
He drew his sword.
A flash of his blade cut down the first Shadow to rush him, but the figure's body dispersed like smoke.
Swoosh.
It was not magic. It was a bizarre, inexplicable power.
The Shadow's body reassembled a few paces away. A dark-stained Aura flared from its dagger as it attacked Roman Dmitry once more. A fierce clash erupted in an instant. The Shadows took turns pressing the assault. While blocking the attacks raining down from all directions, Roman Dmitry watched for an opening.
Lightning.
A flash. He slashed the enemy's throat.
It was a strike delivered with a speed that was absolutely impossible to react to.
If the technique of turning into smoke was triggered by conscious will, the enemy shouldn't have been able to escape death this time. Yet, the result was the same. The body dispersed like smoke around the neck, and the Shadow's pitch-black eyes remained fixed on Roman Dmitry. Their priority was not their own safety. Even against fatal attacks that would claim the lives of ordinary people, they simply swung their weapons back at Roman Dmitry.
Boom!
Rumble!
Their Auras clashed violently.
When Roman Dmitry continued to push forward despite being outnumbered, the Shadows retreated and executed a new maneuver.
Whoosh!
Darkness surged. It wrapped around Roman Dmitry's body like the tentacles of a monster, but he channeled his mana to instantly dispel the invading Dark Aura. It was a highly unpleasant power. It differed from ordinary Aura, displaying an absorbing property that drained energy upon contact.
Once, in the Murim, there had been similar existences. Beings who used powers forbidden in the mortal realm to drain the life force of living humans. While he couldn't tell where the Shadows' power originated, he knew it was far from normal.
The Kronos Empire. They have compromised with evil.
The Emperor desired continental conquest. As a man who had reached the pinnacle himself, Roman had no intention of condemning his ambition. However, the Kronos Empire had crossed the line of humanity. Take the matter of the Hector Kingdom, for example. They had drained the vitality of the land with the intention of starving Hector to death. This had caused countless people to starve, forcing the Hector Kingdom to choose war just to survive.
Black Magic.
That was the power used back then. If the true identity of the Shadows was related to it, then Kronos undoubtedly possessed Black Mages.
History dictated that Black Mages, who manifested demonic powers, were beings who had abandoned their humanity. Their very existence brought ruin to the world. After all, wasn't the foundation of Black Magic built upon blood and death?
A clear evil. Evil had taken root in Kronos.
Yet, Roman Dmitry simply accepted the reality before him. Whatever power the Shadows used, and whatever its foundation was, it didn't matter much to him.
To him in his past life, evil was familiar. And he who had trampled over evil to rise to the top was called the Heavenly Demon.
Swish.
The Shadows lunged. It was a reckless attack that disregarded their own lives. Seeing them charge with absolute faith in their immortality, Roman Dmitry drew upon his mana.
Then—
Thud!
A violent, explosive sound rang out.
The Shadow's body was brutally shattered.
*
The Shadow was torn apart.
Reduced to chunks of flesh, it scattered across the ground, and a dark energy writhed as it attempted to piece itself back together.
It was a persistent vitality.
Roman Dmitry stepped forward, trampling over the writhing flesh.
Crunch.
During the previous exchange, he had needed time to analyze his enemies. The Shadows had attacked him from both sides, and after exchanging a few blows, his flashing sword slashed across their chests. Smoke scattered like blood. Just as the unknown power attempted to intertwine and reform, his flashing blade cut through the smoke once more—and this time, it wasn't smoke, but dark red blood that splattered.
The Shadows. They were not immortal.
They, too, couldn't escape death. Faced with consecutive deaths, they hastily retreated from Roman Dmitry.
"How on earth did you do that?"
Their expressions were hidden, but their voices were laced with bewilderment. Cutting down their bodies was impossible through ordinary means. Even though they were not in a physical state, Roman Dmitry's attacks had torn their bodies to shreds. It was a situation entirely beyond the Shadows' comprehension. They realized that, at this rate, they couldn't defeat him.
Roman Dmitry was far beyond their calculations.
Without even exchanging a signal, a powerful Dark Aura flared up from the remaining Shadows simultaneously.
Whoosh!
Their very existences seemed to burn. It was a power similar to using Primordial Energy, which he had experienced before.
Facing their momentum, which had grown twice as strong as before, Roman Dmitry met them head-on.
Individually, they are weaker than Knight Commander Gustavo. But in a group battle, the Shadows possess enough power to easily handle someone of Gustavo's caliber.
They were strong. In his current life, he had never met anyone stronger than them. This operation—crossing the border alone—was an incredibly dangerous choice.
Although people like Chris had expressed their desire to accompany him, Roman had rejected their requests. Aside from his intention to prevent Écorché from escaping, he wanted to face whatever weapon Kronos had prepared by himself.
The Dmitry Duchy. The friction with Kronos.
The scope of what he had to handle was growing. Since he didn't know the limits of Kronos, he needed an opportunity to gauge their best right now.
The Shadows were the empire's best. Kronos had declared the assassination, believing that playing the card of the Shadows was the best way to resolve this matter. That was exactly why he had stepped into this death trap.
He faced his enemies and raised his sword.
Over the past year, Roman Dmitry had continuously progressed. Through all the major events he had experienced, he had never once revealed his full strength, nor had there been any need to.
Whoosh.
His senses expanded.
The Heavenly Demon Divine Art.
Among the stages of Heaven, Earth, and Man, Roman Dmitry had broken down the wall and entered the Earth Stage.