Assassination

It was harvest time, and everyone here had lived for centuries. Their reverence for food had been carved into their very bones.

So whenever they harvested the grain, everyone feared losing even a single kernel. Their minds were completely focused on the task, which meant no one noticed anything strange about One-Eye and the others.

Yet perhaps it was simply fate. In previous years, the oldest members of the group would have been assigned to the city walls, but Chen Cheng had arrived this year, so those sent to the walls to keep watch were not the old and weak.

As a result, the elderly people like Missing Tooth, who were almost too old to work, had all been assigned to harvest grain here.

Missing Tooth really was old. After working for a while, his back could no longer hold out. When he stood up to stretch, he spotted One-Eye and the others, hunched over among the harvesting team in the fields and conspicuous as could be.

Missing Tooth was not one of the soldiers left behind. Although he had been fairly powerful in his youth, after living here for so many years, he was now little different from an ordinary old man.

As he shouted a warning, he picked up the short dagger he had been using to cut the rice and hurled it straight at One-Eye's back.

Chen Cheng was young and strong, but harvesting grain was skilled work. After only a short while, even he was suffering from an aching back and sore waist.

Hearing Missing Tooth's wind-leaking, unintelligible voice, he raised his head and glanced behind him. Then he saw One-Eye and the others closing in.

"Attack."

At that moment, One-Eye knew there was no time to hesitate. He summoned the scant Battle Aura inside his