By the time Shun Yin and Glen reached the Porter manor, they were too late. The entire estate was ablaze, and they could see a lot of corpses lying on the ground. Some were smoldering from the flames, immolated by spells, but the vast majority of them had been slain through some other methods. Glen was somewhat relieved to see dead a.s.sa.s.sins intermingled with Porter mages.
At least his family and the staff serving them had put up a fight.
Then again, Glen wasn"t that bothered. Even though he was technically part of the Porter clan, the elders and the current leader had never treated him or his father as part of the family. He rarely interacted with them, mostly dealing with the servants and staff they dispatched to give him orders or a.s.sist him, but he wasn"t very close to his cousins or relatives. Honestly, he didn"t feel anything, even as he continued to see the death toll mounting up.
"We"re too late."
Shun Yin looked grim. If anything, he was more disturbed than Glen was at the death toll. He was clenching his fists, his eyes flaring up stormily as he took in the scene. He held back the urge to howl, to rage at the excessive deaths.
"Why?!" He growled. "Why are they doing this?! What do they want?!"
"In all likelihood, it"s not the a.s.sa.s.sins themselves who want this but the people who hired them." Glen maintained his calmness as he looked around. He shrugged. "Unless we find the mastermind, we"ll never know. The a.s.sa.s.sins will never spill the information of their clients. They"re trained to withstand any forms of interrogation."
"Most of them kill themselves upon capture." Shun Yin could feel his fingernails digging into his palms. "What sort of inhuman organization brainwashes them and then treats them as expendable, discarding them like p.a.w.ns?"
"There are worse things in the world," Glen reminded him quietly. "I know you don"t like the way they operate and take lives…but they are not necessarily evil. The a.s.sa.s.sins Guild have been used to a.s.sa.s.sinate corrupted politicians, end tyrannical regimes, and destroy overly ambitious CEOs set on monopolizing the world market. Yes, they often act in their own economic interests, but they are not evil. Sometimes they sacrifice their own people because they cannot afford to put their organization at risk."
"Revolt against the government, and you are a freedom fighter." Shun Yin felt deflated. "But why would anyone want the Porter clan dead?"
"Did you think the Porter clan was some kind of benevolent ent.i.ty? An innocent family?" Glen snorted cynically. "No, our hands have been stained with the blood of others. We haven"t been very innocent ourselves. The elders have killed people they thought were threatening their power. We just have been pretty discreet about it."
"What…?"
Shun Yin turned to stare at Glen in shock. He shrugged indifferently.
"I don"t know the details, but how do you think the Porter clan maintain their position as one of the top ten great families? We shut down other families before they can grow larger than ours. Of course, I"m not saying we resort to something as blatant as a.s.sa.s.sination or hired hitmen, but I"m aware that the Porter clan has bankrupted small and medium family businesses before, and driving those promising entrepreneurs or businessmen to suicide. Bullying tactics, hiring gangs to hara.s.s and displace families from their homes so that we can buy up their land for our own industries and businesses. Using the law to steal patents and products from others. We may not stab people in the back with knives and blades, but we use money to kill them. Driving people to suicide is the same as murdering them, don"t you agree, Shun Yin?"Shun Yin fell silent for a moment. He wasn"t sure how to answer that. The world was twisted. The world was cruel.
The world should just get destroyed…
No.
Shun Yin suddenly stiffened. Just what was he thinking? Swallowing, he forced the dark thoughts from his mind and scoffed at himself.
What the h.e.l.l am I, an edge lord?
Yeah, only edge lords would say such stupid stuff like the world should just get destroyed, or that everyone should die, or that they would kill every single person on the planet, or that the human race should perish.
Shun Yin was not an edge lord. He was a hero. The whole purpose was to save the weak and the innocent, not to engineer the extinction of humanity.
"They"re still fighting over there!"
Glen"s voice snapped him out of his stupor. Shun Yin raised his head and glanced around. Even though much of the estate had been destroyed, he could still sense people fighting somewhere in the distance.
They were…faint, but still barely hanging on there. Judging from the power, they had to be the clan elders. Perhaps the most imposing figure in the center was the clan leader, but Shun Yin couldn"t tell. He had never met the clan leader or the clan elders before, so he recognized none of the mana signatures that they emanated.
However, he could make a calculated guess, based on the type of spells they were casting. The darkness type spells…the ones that sent chills up his spine, those had to belong to the a.s.sa.s.sins. There was one in particular that was emitting a violent bloodl.u.s.t that caused him to shudder. There was no way he could fight that single a.s.sa.s.sin head-on…
"…eh?"
There was a single presence that felt extremely familiar to Shun Yin. He narrowed his eyes as he tried to home in onto it, but it proved evasive. Even so, he had a feeling that he knew the person. A tinge of nostalgia…
"Hurry!"
Glen"s tone was urgent. Shun Yin understood why. The life-signs of the people he guessed were the Porter clan members were rapidly fading away, weakening under the onslaught of murderous spells. For a moment, Shun Yin hesitated. He and Glen were just high school students. Even if they reached the place in time, just what could they do? There was no way the two of them would be able to stop an entire team of a.s.sa.s.sins.
Especially a team of a.s.sa.s.sins who were capable of slaying quite a few clan elders and the clan leader of one of the top ten Great Families…
Glen must have noticed his hesitation, for he lowered his head.
"Sorry to ask this of you when you"re not part of the Porter clan. You"re not obligated to help us, you know? If you drop out now, I won"t blame you."
"No." Shun Yin shook his head as he hardened his resolve. "I vowed to stop the a.s.sa.s.sins. I don"t care if I die in the process. As long as I can save someone…"
"The Porter clan is hardly innocent, as I told you earlier," Glen reminded him. "We deserve what we get."
"Even so…killing is wrong. Two wrongs don"t make a right. If you truly are guilty, then we"ll have to expose their sins and have them punished by the law. Not slaughtered like this." Shun Yin raised a clenched fist, his determination swelling up within him. "I will stop them, no matter what."
He then accelerated, kicking off the ground and launching himself toward the main house. Glen lagged a little behind, unable to keep up. It didn"t matter. He wasn"t a frontline fighter anyway, and he would rather stay back to complete casting his spell to summon White Tiger. It was unfortunate, but as with all summoning spells, it had a range limit. In other words, he couldn"t just cast the spell while running until he reached within 100 meters of where he wanted to summon his White Tiger. The moment he moved out of those 100 meters…
The spell would be reset and he had to cast it all over again.
Not caring about all those, Shun Yin just smashed into the wooden doors, hitting the floor and rolling up. Drawing his sword with one hand, he fired off a fireball with the other at the nearest a.s.sa.s.sin, who merely sliced the fiery projectile apart with his dagger.
"…I"m too late."
To his horror, Shun Yin realized that there was little point in his presence. All of the clan elders had been brutally murdered and torn apart. He wasn"t sure who the leader was, but he had to be one of the corpses lying amidst the carnage. In the center of them all, a single ma.s.sive a.s.sa.s.sin stood, his face concealed behind a skull-like mask and his bulging muscles barely contained within his black synthetic skinsuit.
A Frenzor a.s.sa.s.sin.
The mana signatures and life-signs he had sensed just a minute earlier were all gone, not a single one of them remaining. They had been gradually fading all this time, but now he could sense that they were completely gone.
They were too late. He was too late.
With an enraged howl, Shun Yin launched himself at the a.s.sa.s.sins. His first target was the huge Frenzor a.s.sa.s.sin in the center of the room. The burly man merely swiped at him, his heavily muscular arm swinging at near supersonic speed.
"!!!"
Intuitively Shun Yin realized the danger. He brought his sword up to parry the blow, but the sheer strength behind it sent him hurtling several meters across the room. Even with his breath knocked out of his chest, Shun Yin managed to flip himself up and land on his feet.
"Huff…"
Before he could recover, two a.s.sa.s.sins descended upon him, their gleaming blades flas.h.i.+ng in a deadly arc. Shun Yin could only parry one of them, but the other"s sword swung toward his neck. The two a.s.sa.s.sins had acted in perfect synchronization, having antic.i.p.ated his reflexes, but their superior amount of experience and training had made the difference.
"d.a.m.n…!"
Fortunately, Shun Yin was not alone. A lightning blast snaked out and struck one of the a.s.sa.s.sins. Or tried to, but the a.s.sa.s.sin spun around and evaded it effortlessly. Even so, he had failed to decapitate his target.
Gritting his teeth, Shun Yin forced the other a.s.sa.s.sin away with his sword. Flames ignited around his blade even more ferociously than before and he unleashed a torrent of flames at pointblank range.
However, this a.s.sa.s.sin was far more skilled than any of the other professional killers Shun Yin had faced before. Twirling his sword around, he merely cut apart Shun Yin"s flames before thrusting his sword forward.
"Ugh…!"
Shun Yin was unable to avoid the sword, despite twisting to the side. The tip of the blade sc.r.a.ped the skin of his cheek, leaving a thin line of blood trickling down his face.
If that blade had been poisoned, I would have died from that!
Fortunately, Shun Yin intuitively understood that this a.s.sa.s.sin was not someone who used poison. His skills were too different, too…specialized. His weapons didn"t seem designed for poison. This was someone who had trained and perfected his sword skills.
Another slash and Shun Yin staggered backward, blood spurting from his shoulder. He tried to counter, but his opponent responded with a riposte that cut across his stomach, slicing through the uniform.
"d.a.m.n it…!"
Shun Yin realized that he was outmatched. Even with his training at the Miyamoto dojo, this a.s.sa.s.sin was far superior to him in terms of swordsmans.h.i.+p.
Behind him, the bellow of White Tiger resounded as Glen finally finished summoning him. The roaring Soul Beast pounced on the Frenzor a.s.sa.s.sin…
…but the ma.s.sive man merely batted the ma.s.sive creature aside. The White Tiger vanished in a shower of splinters, roaring in pain as it crashed through the wall. The Frenzor a.s.sa.s.sin didn"t relent, however, and dove after the White Tiger, who had gotten back onto its feet. Snarling, the White Tiger met the charging Frenzor a.s.sa.s.sin with its claws, but the berserk killer merely swatted its paws away before pummeling it.
"Kuh!"
Glen tried his best to defend himself from the second Umbra a.s.sa.s.sin, even as Shun Yin found himself cornered. The two high school kids were completely out of their league, even as they struggled to launch fire and lightning spells at their opponents. The shadowy killers merely wove in and out of their elemental projectiles or easily cut them down.
As if in perfect synchronization again, the two Umbra a.s.sa.s.sins managed to disappear before appearing from the two high school students" blind spots. Before Glen could react, the blade was reaching his neck. As for Shun Yin, he found his blade deflected and the opponent"s sword thrusting toward his throat, unstoppable.
"No!"
Both a.s.sa.s.sins froze, their swords resting on the skin of their targets" necks. Shun Yin and Glen also stayed still, not daring to even breathe. One wrong move and their carotid artery or jugular vein would be slit respectively.
"I told you that those two are not to be killed."
Shun Yin"s eyes twitched as he tried to locate the speaker. He recognized that voice, knew who the owner of the voice was, but he had to confirm it with his own eyes. He just couldn"t believe that she would be here…
Stepping out of the crackling flames, Angelica Porter emerged and stepped over the dead bodies of her kinsmen. With a single nod from her, the two Umbra a.s.sa.s.sins melted away into the shadows and disappeared. Behind, the Frenzor a.s.sa.s.sin continued pummeling the weakening White Tiger, who vanished at Glen"s discretion.
The berserk a.s.sa.s.sin bellowed in frustration at the lack of a target, but he was suddenly pacified by some spell, and he silently turned away to also disappear into the flames.
"Angie, you…" Glen began. Angelica gave him a sad smile.
"What are you doing here, Angelica?" Shun Yin blurted out. She turned to him, a look of sorrow on her face, but she didn"t reply.
"Isn"t it obvious?" Glen growled. "Angie was the one who orchestrated the a.s.sa.s.sination of the Porter clan elders and the leader! She"s the one who masterminded everything!"
"They had to die," Angelica replied coldly. She then lowered her gaze. "I told you not to get involved."
"People are dying. What would you have me do?"
"Endure." Angelica looked up. "Just a bit more, and we can be together again."
"This isn"t what I want!" Shun Yin snapped. "Do you really think I can just overlook this and be together with you after all that you"ve done?!"
"…you will." Angelica gave him one last look of grief before she turned away and disappeared into the raging flames. "Soon, the whole world will be consumed in fire…and the few of us will be the only ones left."