Chapter 18 Swapping Blades for Murder <TOC> Chapter 20 The Rayne Who Triggered a Great War
Translator: SumTLMan
Rayne had a huge advantage over Pythius throughout the game.
It was the fact that “the opponent was in the open and he was in the dark”.
He had guessed almost all of his opponent’s cards, but the opponent always treated him as if he were a weakling who they still had control over.
This “belittling of the opponent” will cost the enemy their life.
……
At least until a second before he was grabbed by the ankle, the assassin lurking above the ceiling was extremely confident in his stealth ability.
It was too easy for a veteran assassin to hide from a recruit who was brought up by his own hands in his mind.
The fact that he had gone undetected by the boy during the past few days of continuous surveillance was the best proof of this.
Besides, Wolfe felt that he knew everything about Rayne.
He was the “Crane’s Tail” during the recruit training regiment assessments, barely passing all his professional skills tests. And he had just advanced to transcendence a few days prior with having taken the [Trickster] genetic potion…
His overall personal assessment of Rayne was that he was a youngster who could only last two or three rounds against him.
But the unbelievably confident man fell on his face and look as if he had eaten some dog sh*t on the side of the road.
……
The assassin who fell out of the ceiling was naturally known by Rayne.
The teasing seen in his eyes seemed to speak volumes.
Wolfe Bilge, Captain of the 19th “Demon Weasel Bandits” Regiment. He was one of the instructors of the recruit training regiments responsible for teaching the recruits the skills related to stealth, tracking and spying. He is part of the stealth assassin sequence.
In fact, as early as a few days prior, Rayne had already deduced this guy’s identity from certain details and clues he had found.
At this moment, he was naturally not surprised at all.
But Wolfe, who was utterly stunned, was in a state of complete shock and horror.
Being pulled down by the ankle from above the ceiling with such precision meant that his assumption of self-perceived perfect stealth was simply his delusion.
The hair on Wolfe’s back stood up as he looked at Rayne, whose gaze was piercingly cold in front of him.
Part of the reason was from the shock of receiving a successful sneak attack from a recruit, but more from wondering how he had been exposed!
Even if this 9527 had advanced to transcendence, [Trickster] was clearly a magic potion in the stealth assassin sequence. How could he have such an exaggerated increase in his power and perception?
He thought Rayne was just a random sheep that could easily be corralled, but he never expected this was a hungry wolf in sheep’s clothing.
This 9527 in front of him wasn’t the same recruit he remembered. This man doesn’t match the boy in his mind who had no presence at all!
What the hell was going on?!
……
Rayne ignored Wolfe’s utter shock, and after slamming the man heavily on the floor, and with a flick of his wrist, tightly grasped a sharp scalpel in his hand.
The assassins of the “Demon Weasel Bandits” were all desperate outlaws, and even though he couldn’t stand up with a broken leg, this veteran thief who had crawled out from among many corpses fought back with a dying blow.
“Hmph! Boy, don’t forget daddy taught you how to hold a dagger!”
Although Wolfe’s face was appalled, his hands weren’t slow to react. As he fell, he drew the cold dagger from the leather sheath around his waist at the same time.
This is the true ability of a veteran assassin of striking back in a desperate situation.
The dagger cut through the air at a tricky angle, coming from a blind spot in Rayne’s vision. This was Wolfe’s signature killing move!
He was very confident that this slash would definitely fill this recruit with regret!
On the other hand, Rayne’s ears twitched slightly, his expression solemn with no visible signs of panic or confusion on his face.
He keenly caught the opponent’s movement and silently mumbled in his mind: Next blow, left-handed dagger-wielding, backhanded ankle slash.
In the next scene, something amazing happened…
As if enchanted by magic, Wolfe actually drew his blade exactly as Rayne had “foretold”.
The sharp dagger was curled around his left hand, locking the blade’s trajectory with his body and then slashing at Rayne’s ankle with his backhand…
This sequence of exquisite movements was explained in seven words: Left-handed slash with backhand ankle slash!
Since the move had already long been predicted, how could Rayne have been caught?
As the dagger slash came, he suddenly lifted his foot and stomped, and with a cracking sound, Wolfe clutched his left wrist in pain as his dagger fell to the ground.
“How could this be…”
Wolfe was shocked silly when he felt the pain!
Being struck hard by the recruit he had personally taught had given him an instant sense of horror at having the sickle of death pressed up against his neck, making all of his hairs stand on end.
Holy sh*t…
How could his own movements have been predicted like that?
……
Once could be a coincidence, but there had to be something fishy if it happened twice.
Wolfe admitted that this recruit’s strength was too powerful, but only to the same extent as his own. Having been ambushed earlier, even with a broken leg, he was confident that he could wrangle for a couple more rounds with his veteran combat experience. By then, Pythius would’ve noticed something was amiss…
But now, given this sudden turn of events, he had even broken his arm?
He knew that he was dying.
With the transcendent perception from the caster sequence, the strength from the fighter sequence, the neural response speed from the assassin sequence, and the eerie ability to anticipate… No, predict his next move…
Is this really something a newly advanced [Awakened] can achieve?
Is this really what a master transcendent in the assassin sequence can do?
In this dangerous situation, Wolfe’s mind flashed through countless doubts he had.
In the next instant, he was sure of one thing.
This 9527 wasn’t a [Trickster] magic potion [Awakened] because… He had personally awakened using this superior black iron sequence!
Vaguely, Wolfe guessed a possibility.
As Pythius’s close associate, he naturally knew about “Baron Maureen’s Treasures”…
But at this moment, whatever the truth was, it was too late.
As the thought crossed his mind, Wolfe’s gaze instantly turned from horror to despair as he looked at Rayne once again.
“So, I was completely under that boy’s control…”
Haha, he thought he had “the situation completely under control”, but it was all a ruse with their roles being reversed?
What a terrible mind!
…….
Wolfe was still trying to fight for his life, but after losing his dominant hand, one of his arms and a leg, he couldn’t possibly make any effective counterattack.
Rayne didn’t speak, with only indifference in his eyes. The killing strokes in his hands did not stop.
In his dream world, this instructor had trained with him for countless nights.
Left-handed dagger-wielding, the exquisite ankle-cutting backstab, the spinning blade backhand, the slight thrusting movement with the shoulder armour retracting…
He knew all of Wolfe’s attack patterns and breakdown of stances.
Rayne stomped Wolfe’s wrist and didn’t give his opponent any chance to fight back. Stomping and sidestepping, his scalpel slicing a half-moon incision against the man’s neck.
This is a basic assassin skill—[Slit Throat]!
In an instant, the skin split open, and a large amount of blood burst out from the carotid artery.
Learning basic anatomy had given Rayne an even better understanding of the human body.
There was no chance of survival from this dagger slash.
Wolfe felt the intense sensation of the passage of life as he tried to stymie the flow. His consciousness was already too far gone as it began waning like the tide.
At the last moment of his life, it suddenly dawned on him that he hadn’t lost unfairly.
This recruit, who had been hanging on for dear life as the “Crane’s Tail”, had used a perfect [Slit Throat] skill that was no less than his own.
No one in the “Demon Weasel Bandits” could’ve done a better dagger slash than him.
Wolfe thought bitterly as his eyelids drooped helplessly…
……
The whole ambush outcome was expected, but still a close call.
“Phew… Finally, it’s done.”
Rayne let out a breath of air as he killed Wolfe.
Even if he had hidden some of his strength, he was still a newly awakened transcendent. So, if he wanted to fight Wolfe directly, the outcome would’ve probably been 50-50.
However, a successful sneak attack followed by a heavy killing blow left the veteran assassin in a pool of his own blood before he could even use twenty per cent of his skills.
From the moment he struck to the moment he killed, the whole process took no more than three or four breaths.
Rayne glanced at the corpse lying in the pool of blood and didn’t dare to stay any longer but immediately turned and left through the door.
Chapter 18 Swapping Blades for Murder <TOC> Chapter 20 The Rayne Who Triggered a Great War