Fate Online: Shadow

Ten minutes later.

Michael successfully tailed them towards a small but open land in the middle of the mountain through a hidden path, where he is currently facing a cave mouth surrounded by a makeshift wall, and from the looks of it, three fireballs from a Wizard is enough to destroy it, with two watchtowers with both having two lookouts, where one tower is facing the direction where the two bandits that Michael followed towards here took earlier, while the other one is facing a wide road that probably leads to somewhere in the mountains.

’I need to look for a blindspot around the watchtowers so I could sneak in without fighting a head one battle with them’

Being an assassin, Michael’s preferred way of killing someone is by assassinating them, be it they are real humans or just computer generated beings.

Michael sneaked around the small camp from a distance, while making sure that the tower guards wouldn’t spot him, and the good thing for him is that it’s already dusk and there’s only a few minutes left before the sky darkens, so tower guards would have a hard time spotting him.

Michael then went to look for a good place to pass the time until the sky fully darkens, not knowing that Solitary Tempest had already led a group of players to the path he had taken, as the distance between the two groups are shortening as the minute goes by.

Even Michael would be hard pressed when he faces off against Solitary Tempest and the team she had brought with her to hunt him down.

He sat behind a huge boulder, while he devoured a couple of breads to restore some of his missing health when he was being chased by some of the monsters before, and didn’t have the time to restore his health.

*****

A shadow is fleeting through the gaps of the rocks, as it moved around the small hideout of the bandits, where the only illumination of the place is the moonlight and the torches on the crude wall of the mountain bandits.

A pair of glowing eyes peeked through the side of a small rock formation, while gazing towards the direction of the illuminated bandit hideout.

"It seems that place is just enough for me to crawl through without getting spotted by the tower guards"

Michael mumbled to himself as he stared at a particular direction, where there is a crawl space just below the wall caused by some kind of a rock mineral, and the bandits just built over it, without even thinking about what would happen when someone discovers it.

Michael then slowly made his way towards it with stealthy steps, while using the rocks, boulders and the blanket of darkness to hide himself from the eyes of the bandits manning the watchtowers, while at the same time, he also activated his [Stealth] to increase his covertness.

He also discovered that he wasn’t alone anymore, as he had already found out that Solitary Tempest along with a group of players are camping below the valley, but the good thing is that they still hasn’t discovered the hidden entrance of the bandit’s hideout or else, they would’ve already stormed towards this place.

Meanwhile.

A group of six players, three females and three males are sitting around a campfire as they discussed what their next plan is.

All of them aren’t even worried that the monsters whose abilities were enhanced during night time would attack them. It was because they are surrounded by a cliff wall on their backs, and at both sides are rock formations that would protect their group as they acted as natural walls, leaving only one exit and an entrance that would be easier for them to defend in case a monster does attacks them.

"The rest of the members would arrive at this place after three hours. It would have been less than an hour if the path isn’t blocked off by the territory of the Mountain Trolls"

"And that bastard is surely hiding around here, and probably watching us already"

"Hmmp! The moment that everyone gathers is the day that he dies, and we can finally finish off those bandits!"

"Of course, I’m pretty sure that there’s a path somewhere around here that leads towards the other mountain, and those Bandits must be hiding somewhere around there!"

"But we can also treat this place as our secret hunting ground! We can treat this place as our own backyard where we could raise our levels easily without any interference from the other guilds! They probably wouldn’t expect a great monster map hiding in between these two mountains! This place is practically a treasure grove for EXP, and items!"

"Hmmp! Don’t count your chickens before they hatch! We need to find and kill Shadow first, or else it would be too late if he finds out the purpose that we are relentlessly trying to hunt him down!" Lone Sparrow snorted at the side, his comment felt like he had just poured a bucket of cold water over their heads, even Solitary Tempest is looking at them like they were some kind of dumbassess, where they are already expecting a lot of good things to happen when they haven’t even taken care off their current problem at hand.

And at the same time, Lone Sparrow is already growing worried as the other guilds are already starting to get suspicious about their large scale movements around Dosier Mountains, and some had even dispatch some of their men to find out the reason behind Golden Shield’s large movements around this particular monster map.

After all, no guild would waste their time combing through almost an entire mountain if there’s no treasure or something important buried somewhere in that place, right?

But the good thing is that this guild leader has a good head over his shoulders as he purposely made some of his members leak some information about the reason behind their endeavours around the mountain.

And when the rivalling guilds heard they were just hunting a player that caused them some losses, most of them retreated, but there were also some who are still suspicious, especially when they noticed a group of NPCs coming in and out of the mountain, looking really battered.

But their suspicious are only at that because the levels of the NPCs aren’t that far off from them. Lone Sparrow should thank his good luck that those nobles could only managed to send their ordinary men over, and the reason behind it is because of the army watching their every movement, or else the treasure map would have been long gone and landed in the hands of some noble.

But while Lone Sparrow and the others are taking their time.

Michael had already infiltrated past the mouth of the large cave, and was already heading underground, and around him are stalactites, he could even hear multiple sounds of dripping water hitting the rocks or the ground below his feet.

And with how eerily silent the place is, Michael could also hear some people talking with each other deeper inside the cave.

’This cave must be really deep that their voices have tuned into whispers’

Michael thought as he continued moving forward, his only illumination inside the cave are the few torches that is mounted at the walls, where there is a ten meter distance between them.

A few moments later, when Michael had already started descended quite deep underground inside the cave, he stumbled upon a drunk guard taking a piss at the cave wall, and the bandit didn’t even notice Michael had already arrived behind him.

Michael immediately executed a [Backstab], followed by [Vital Strike] and then a normal attack by slashing the bandit’s throat which produced a critical hit!

[CRITICAL HIT!]

[CRITICAL HIT!]

[CRITICAL HIT!]

Then another multiple stabs through the bandit’s heart! And all of these attacks happened within the span of over three seconds!

Thud!

Then the body of the bandit slowly fell on the ground with confusion written all over his face, before he disappeared into nothingness and was replaced by items and coins.

’That was...still too slow’

Michael sighed inside, because if he executed those movements and killing techniques in real life, then he could have finished his target within a span of two seconds, and even during his peak, one second is already enough for him to perform multiple deadly attacks.

But those results are also thanks to his mutated DNA, and if he didn’t undergo genetic engineering, then the fastest he could do would be over two seconds at best.