Assassin versus Assassin

Before coming to the Docklands, Klein had performed a divination, determining that Angel's trip carried danger, but not much of it.

However, being cautious, she still planned her route with the utmost vigilance to sneak in and successfully completed Mrs. Green's commission without alerting anyone.

At the exact moment the task succeeded, Angel inevitably dropped her guard. The moment she pushed open the room door, she had no mental preparation for a potential ambush.

On top of that, holding the notebook in one hand and the door handle in the other, she was completely wide open. The alternating light and shadow inside and outside the room also heavily affected her vision, which had been enhanced by the Assassin potion. The timing chosen by the assailant could be described as flawless.

Fortunately, as a Beyonder, her spiritual intuition gave a trace of a warning the instant before the attack, causing Angel's footsteps as she stepped out the door to hesitate for a split second. When the hand holding the dagger thrust out from the shadows, she still had a tiny bit of room to dodge.

In a panic, Angel raised her left hand holding the notebook upward, blocking the path of the incoming dagger, and pushed forward with the other hand gripping the door handle, attempting to slam the door shut again. At the same time, she leaned her body backward using the recoil.

Yet the assailant's attack force far exceeded her expectations. Like a hot knife cutting through butter, the sharp dagger easily pierced through two layers of thick covers and a finger-thick stack of paper. The door she tried to close was also pushed open with great force, dragging Angel, who was behind the door, to have her feet leave the ground as she fell backward.

The moment the door opened, Angel, airborne, finally caught sight of the assailant's figure. With his back to the light, he wore a hooded cloak. The tight black clothing outlined an emaciated physique, and his right hand, which had smashed open the door, held an oddly shaped short dagger, the tip of which had already pierced right through the notebook.

Before her enhanced vision had time to make out the face beneath the hood, a sharp pain came from Angel's back. Her body flew across half the room and collided with the solid desk, emitting a dull thud.

Leveraging this force, she turned backward, rolled a full circle off the desk surface, and arrived on the other side of the desk.

The hooded figure, whose sneak attack had failed, did not hesitate to fling the notebook off the dagger and, taking two steps in succession, chased to the side of the desk. Supporting his left hand on the edge of the table, he swung his entire body horizontally in the air like a gymnast, sweeping his right foot at a wide angle toward Angel.

Angel, whose footing was unstable, had no choice but to keep retreating to avoid the fierce kick. The desk was originally not far from the window, and having backed up a step, she was already pressed flat against the curtains with nowhere to hide.

Yet this dodge also bought her precious time. The moment the hooded figure vaulted over the desk using the momentum of the kick, she had already drawn a double-edged dagger from the leather scabbard tied to the outer thigh, holding it in a reverse grip and slashing at the enemy.

Seemingly not expecting the opponent to dare counterattack, the hooded figure paused in his movement, but immediately reacted, raising his dagger to meet Angel.

The two daggers collided. Originally, she had only prepared to feint before pulling away to draw her gun, but Angel discovered that the force of the opponent's parry was not as great as she had imagined. She instantly changed her moves, switching her dagger to a forward-grip and launching consecutive attacks. Although a few thrusts from different directions were all blocked by the hooded figure, the offensive and defensive postures of both sides had already swapped.

Now Angel held the initiative, and the hooded figure could only parry the attacks one by one, his movements constrained and awkward.

Seeing the situation reverse, the hooded figure forcefully blocked a blow, then reached under his cloak with his left hand, grabbed some object, and flung it toward Angel—so fast that even with her assassin vision, she couldn't see it clearly.

Worrying that the projectile might have some trick to it, Angel swept her dagger to force the hooded figure back. At the same time, she exerted strength in both feet and retreated backward, widening the distance between them.

With a few "clack clack" sounds, the objects thrown by the hooded figure landed on the floor. Angel's dark vision swept over them, discovering that a few copper pennies were actually rolling across the ground.

She had scared herself half to death, never expecting to be played for a fool by the opponent.

Angered, Angel intended to continue her pursuit, only to find that the hooded figure, who had been flustered under the continuous attacks just moments ago, changed his posture. Holding the dagger with both hands, he lunged forward with a speed matching his previous sneak attack.

This was an Assassin's Mighty Blow!

In this instant, Angel finally understood the hooded figure's identity.

The opponent was also a Beyonder who had consumed the Assassin potion!

The potion granted assassins the ability to pour their entire body's strength into a single strike, which was why Angel, ambushed while opening the door, had been sent flying by his superhuman strength strike, only to find the opponent's strength "diminished" when she counterattacked.

At this moment, the hooded figure assumed the posture of an all-out strike, evidently having triggered this Beyonder Ability once more.

Not daring to block it head-on, Angel could only dodge to the side, evading the fatal strike that combined both strength and speed. When the opponent's hands holding the dagger reached their limit, she flew a kick toward his waist.

From the previous fight, she had already discovered that this Assassin's combat experience was limited.

When the two of them traded blows face-to-face, the Assassin could still parry and counterattack decently, but the moment she changed her moves, the opponent failed to keep up with the rhythm.

Sure enough, after the strike missed, the hooded figure faced the kick aimed at his lower body with zero ability to put up an effective block. Angel's leather-booted right leg struck the opponent's soft flank, kicking him flying.

Just like Angel had been sent flying earlier, the hooded figure also crashed into the desk in the middle of the room. Unfortunately, his movements to adjust his body were not very practiced; after knocking down the small bookshelf on the desk and rolling twice more, he barely managed to stop at the other end of the room.

"Damn..."

Clutching his stomach and standing back up, the hooded figure spat out the first word he had spoken since entering the room. He gripped his dagger tightly once again, intending to launch another attack, but the moment he raised his head, he froze.

A conspicuously oversized revolver was held in Angel's hand, its pitch-black muzzle pointing squarely at him.

"You're also an Assassin, right? Who sent you?"

Regaining the initiative, Angel asked. The hooded figure, kicked to the wall, had nowhere to run; she only needed to pull the trigger to end the fight. Under these circumstances, she attempted to figure out the opponent's identity.

She did not believe there were such Beyonder thugs within the Labor Mutual Aid Society.

"How are you..." The hooded figure, his Beyonder identity exposed, was dumbfounded before reacting. "'Also'? So you are too. No wonder you could dodge my Life-Stealing Attack. How did you obtain the potion?"

Life-Stealing Attack? The name you gave this and your actual strength don't match up at all... And with your attacks full of openings like this, even if I weren't a Beyonder, dealing with you wouldn't be too difficult...

Inwardly sneering at this naive assassin, Angel spoke coldly on the outside, "The one the gun is pointing at is you, not me. Answer the question."

She shook the revolver.

"Hmph..." The hooded figure had no intention of answering honestly. With a light snort, he said, "Downstairs are all Mutual Aid Society thugs. I had a hard time drawing them all away. The moment you fire a shot, you won't be able to fly away."

No wonder the Labor Mutual Aid Society's warehouse happened to have a worker protest; it turns out this guy planned it behind the scenes...

Angel gripped her handgun tightly, her thumb cocking the hammer to the firing position. The slight click caused the hooded figure's body to stiffen. "I never consider things that far ahead."

"Fine, fine, I'll tell you everything."

The hooded figure finally compromised. With one hand, he pinched the dagger he held between two fingers, letting it hang naturally, while his other hand flipped back his hood. Beneath the hood was a young, tender face, covered in sweat from the recent fight.

"I just came to get that fellow Jike's ledger. Inside are just some accounting info for the Mutual Aid Society—it's worthless, at least it won't be worth anything in your hands," the young assassin replied, his eyes fixed on the gun in Angel's hand. "All the other jewelry and gold pounds can be yours. You just have to hand the ledger over to me."

"Tch... Look, we don't have any fundamental conflict between us either."

He smacked his lips and added.

Ledger? I searched this room from top to bottom, where is there any ledger?

Angel's gaze swept across the room, recalling if she had missed anything. When her sight landed on the notebook that had blocked a blade for her earlier and been casually tossed onto the floor by the young assassin, it clicked.

Could this guy be talking about... this very notebook?

Sensing Angel's movement, the assassin followed her gaze to the floor and likewise froze.

The next instant, disregarding the muzzle pointed at him, the young assassin lunged with hands and feet toward the notebook.

"Bang—"

Angel pulled the trigger directly, but the opponent seemed to have utilized the "Life-Stealing Attack" ability once more, his speed far surpassing the previous fight, causing her shot to miss and leaving a hole in the cheap framed picture on the wall.

Since she had already fired, Angel held no more reservations. She re-aimed at the assassin who had lunged to the floor, intending to fire again, but saw a cold flash as the assassin hurled the dagger—which he hadn't let go of even when kicked flying—like a throwing knife.

An attack launched in haste lacked any accuracy, and Angel dodged the dagger with a sideways shift. Yet taking advantage of that split second, the opponent had already grabbed the notebook on the ground and, rolling with the momentum, reached the doorway.

Pulling the trigger once more, Angel finally hit the assassin near the door. Blood splattered from the opponent's shoulder, and he let out a muffled grunt, yet his hand gripped the notebook tightly and refused to let go.

He's this desperate? He really wants the notebook over his life?

In the brief moment Angel was stunned, the injured assassin used the impact of the gunshot to scramble head over heels out of the door, flashing out of sight down the corridor and causing Angel's third shot to miss once again.

Inadequate combat abilities, but his escaping abilities are not only present, they're massive... Angel looked speechlessly at the trail of blood splattered on the doorframe. She bypassed the desk, hurried to the doorway, and peeked out—the assassin's figure was already nowhere to be found.

Yet the deserted corridor was not quiet. From beneath the staircase situated in the middle of the corridor came a series of shouts, accompanied by chaotic footsteps drawing closer. It appeared the Mutual Aid Society members downstairs had heard the gunshot and were rushing upstairs.

Angel shoved her dagger back into its scabbard, pulled the assassin's thrown dagger out of the wall, and rushed out of the chairman's office. Using her momentum, she kicked open the opposite room door. The very second she entered the room, the figures of other staff members appeared on the stairs.

"There!"

"Opposite the chairman's office! Don't let him get away!"

Crash—

Accompanied by the sound of shattering glass, the middle-aged man who had previously been soothing the worker protest downstairs flooded into the room Angel had entered, bringing several thugs with him. The glass window had been smashed open, and the wind blew the curtains fluttering continuously while the room was already empty.

"He jumped out the window and ran! Hurry down and chase him!"

A head poked out of the window, looking down.

"The chairman's office door has been pried open. We must catch him, otherwise..."

"All of you calm down!"

A roar from the middle-aged man who had previously confronted the workers at the main entrance quieted the room down.

"This is five or six meters high; who can jump down without a scratch? The window was smashed open with a chair—he's misguiding us. This guy is definitely still in the warehouse. Matt, you take people to guard the stairwell, and the rest search room by room with me!"

Leaning against the roof, Angel listened to the chaotic footsteps coming from the window below. Confirming that everyone had left, she leaped down from the top floor. With the activation of the Assassin ability "Feather Fall," her body drifted more than ten meters like a feather before landing gently on the ground.

When she had rushed into the room, the sound of the Labor Mutual Aid Society thugs charging to the second floor had already sounded behind her. Knowing she couldn't escape their line of sight in a short time, Angel decisively smashed the window with a chair to create a misleading action, then swiftly climbed the window up to the rooftop.

Sure enough, the Mutual Aid Society did not lack clever people; the deliberately disguised scene would soon be discovered, allowing her to make a graceful, distant escape while they wasted time searching the warehouse.

Yet recalling the mysterious assassin from just now, the faint smugness Angel felt from escaping the warehouse through a clever trick instantly vanished from her mind. She tightened her windbreaker and blended into the bustling crowd, walking toward the Public Carriage station.