The Martial Unity

Senior Jeanno and Senior Kaylin got into position as they focused on their target. A well-protected duke accompanied by a Martial Senior.

It was time.

BAM BAM!

One of them appeared before the guards stealthily distracting them for just a moment with an attack, while the other appeared behind the target.

SPLAT!

The target's head fell off in a matter of microseconds. The two of them disappeared as the Senior-level guards were stunned both by the appearance and their failure to protect themselves.

They immediately retreated, racing away together.

Ordinarily, they would undertake such a mission alone, but they had been one of the first Martial Seniors to pair up when the Voidreaper began killing their peers a season ago. They had faith that being together would ensure that the Voidreaper would not dare attack them for fear of revealing his means of killing.

"Good job." Senior Jeanno glanced at Senior Kaylin with a smile sometime later.

It took merely a millisecond for that smile to turn into an expression of horror. Senior Kaylin's eyes were rolled back, and his head and body were already on their way down collapsing.

His heart was not beating.

The emergency reflex passively boosted by the Martial Heart kicked in within microseconds, activating into full glory out of pure reflex with passive techniques. Senior Jeanno instantly activated a breathing technique to barricade himself.

THWOOM!

The man's eyes widened as he felt a soft sound projectile crashing into his Senior-level defenses harmlessly, aimed at his head.

'Sound...?'

He realized he may have inadvertently figured out the most important secret of the dreaded Voidreaper.

His survival instinct kicked into full force.

He needed to survive.

He needed to survive no matter what.

His Martial Heart blazed at full power as he maintained his air defenses before sprinting away at to speed. He employed a maneuvering technique that allowed him to sharp turns and curved trajectories without much of an impact on his top speed.

And yet.

THWOOM THWOOM THWOOM!

"Argh!" He grimaced in shock and pain as three Senior-level attacks landed on him with the precision and accuracy of a surgeon. Yet despite his swiftest efforts to get back and lash back into retreat.

WHOOSH

His eyes widened as he beheld Rui's figure stepping before him. A soft grace accompanied his movements. A calm aura of power radiated from him as his Martial Heart burned from within.

The man's Martial Heart was dimmer than his own, yet Senior Jeanno instinctively knew.

He felt it in his heart.

'I can't win.'

And yet he couldn't run.

He wasn't allowed to.

BAM!

An incredibly swift kick to the head dizzy.

BOOM!!!

A remarkably heavy blow to the gut with Reverberating Lance crippled his ability to breathe.

POW!

And yet, the finishing blow was a swift uppercut, crashing into the man's jaw.

THUD

The man collapsed to the ground, losing consciousness as the blunt force trauma to the brain exceeded a critical threshold. Yet Rui was not content, he used Death's Sympathy to push it further, crushing it from the inside out.

Instantly, he disappeared.

As much as he would have enjoyed sticking around, he couldn't. His sharp senses had already picked up vague hints of a flurry of Martial Seniors converging on their location. He immediately activated his Mind Mask, before quickly heading to the nearest population collection.

He had purposely worn ethnic attire that was common to this region so he would not have any problems blending in. He had also avoided his mask because it would draw too much attention.

Thus there were risks taken. However, they were calculated risks, and the probability that he would succeed was high enough to warrant taking the risk. And it turned out that he was right.

Not only had he prepared a solid predictive model, but the state of mind of his opponent in addition to the fact that he was not strong in head-on straightforward combat allowed Rui to dominate even though he was younger in the Senior Realm.

Just minutes later, several Martial Seniors had arrived at the scene.

Some of them bore the emblems of assassination organizations in the Shadow Isles, and some of them bore the crest of the duchy whose duke had just been assassinated.

They regarded each other with hostility.

Yet, they stayed their hand.

None of them wanted to get into a meaningless brawl at the moment. The Martial Seniors from the duchy inspected the corpses of the assassins who killed their duke with vindictive satisfaction.

The assassins of the Shadow Isles happened to be not too far away, by Martial Senior standards, and had come to check up on the conflict that had ensued, in hopes of having struck gold and run into an assassination attempt from the Voidreaper.

Yet, they merely ended up with the worst outcome. They stared at Senior Jeanno's corpse with grave expressions, and their senses picked up Senior Kaylin's corpse some distance away.

This was bad.

Really bad.

The Voidreaper didn't appear to care even the slightest that they had grouped up together.

Not only did he not care, but he had the power and the ability to kill both Martial Seniors in a remarkably short timeframe. It wasn't just the fact that he was good at assassinations, it also meant that he was incredibly strong in combat.

They immediately began racing in the direction of the Senior-level pressure and vibrations. And yet it had only lasted a few seconds. In a matter of seconds, the assassin confronted Senior Jeanno, beat him down, and then killed him.

This meant that there was an incredibly large gulf between them in overall power. The theory that the Voidreaper was a powerful veteran Martial Senior held even more credence. They knew that none of them were capable of defeating and killing Senior Jeanno that quickly and dominantly.

It meant that the assassin was an extremely powerful Martial Senior who had taken decades to hone himself in all regards.

"Damn..." They gritted their teeth as they considered the consequences of this event.