Assassin Against Assassin

Before coming to Docklands, Klein had performed a divination and determined that Angel's trip would be "dangerous, but not too dangerous."

Yet, cautious as ever, she planned her infiltration route with the utmost vigilance. She successfully completed Mrs. Green's commission without alerting anyone.

The moment the mission succeeded, Angel inevitably let down her guard. As she pushed open the door, she was completely unprepared for a possible attack.

With a notebook in one hand and the doorknob in the other, she was wide open. The alternating light and shadow inside and outside the room significantly affected even the vision enhanced by the Assassin Potion. The attacker's timing could only be described as flawless.

Fortunately, as a Beyonder, her spiritual intuition gave her a faint warning in the instant before the attack. Angel hesitated briefly as she stepped through the door, leaving her a sliver of room to evade when the hand clutching a dagger reached out from the shadows.

In her panic, Angel raised the notebook in her left hand to block the dagger's path. Her other hand pushed forward on the doorknob, trying to close the door again, while she leaned backward with the recoil.

But the attacker's force far exceeded her expectations. Like a hot knife through butter, the sharp dagger easily pierced two thick covers and a finger-thick stack of paper. The door she had tried to close was forced open, knocking Angel behind it off her feet and sending her flying backward.

Only when the door opened did Angel, suspended in midair, clearly see her attacker. Backlit by the lamp, he wore a hooded cloak. Tight black clothes outlined his thin frame. His right hand, which had burst through the door, gripped a strangely shaped short dagger, its tip still embedded in the notebook it had pierced straight through.

Before her enhanced vision could make out the face beneath the hood, a sharp pain exploded behind Angel. Her body flew halfway across the room and slammed into the solid desk with a dull thud.

Using the impact, she flipped backward, rolled across the desktop, and landed on the other side of the desk.

The hooded man did not hesitate after his ambush failed. He flung the notebook from his dagger, took two quick steps to the desk, braced his left hand on its edge, and swung his whole body through the air like a gymnast. His right leg swept toward Angel in a wide arc.

Still unsteady on her feet, Angel could only keep retreating to avoid the vicious kick. The desk was already close to the window, and after taking one step back, she was pressed against the curtains with nowhere left to go.

But that evasion bought her precious time. The instant the hooded man vaulted over the desk with the momentum of his kick, she drew a double-edged dagger from the leather sheath strapped to the outside of her thigh and slashed at her enemy with a reverse grip.

Apparently not expecting her to dare counterattack, the hooded man paused for an instant. But he immediately reacted and raised his dagger to meet Angel's.

The two daggers collided. Angel had originally planned to feint, pull away, and draw her gun, but she found that his block was not as strong as she had expected. She instantly changed tactics, shifted to a forward grip, and launched a rapid series of attacks. Though the hooded man blocked several thrusts from different angles, their offensive and defensive positions had already switched.

Angel now held the initiative, while the hooded man could only block one attack after another, his movements increasingly strained.

Seeing the situation turn against him, the hooded man blocked one strike with all his strength, then reached beneath his cloak with his left hand, pulled out something, and flung it at Angel. He moved so quickly that even with an Assassin's vision, she could not see what it was.

Wary that the projectile might be unusual, Angel swung her dagger and forced the hooded man back. At the same time, she pushed off with both feet and retreated, widening the distance between them.

With several sharp clatters, the objects thrown by the hooded man hit the floor. Angel swept the room with Dark Vision and found several Copper Pennies rolling across the floor.

After making her worry for nothing, he had actually tricked her.

Furious, Angel prepared to press the attack, only to see the hooded man, who had just been flustered by her relentless assault, change his stance. He gripped his dagger with both hands and lunged at her with a speed comparable to his earlier ambush.

This was an Assassin's Charged Strike!

In that instant, Angel finally understood the hooded man's identity.

He was also a Beyonder who had consumed the Assassin Potion!

The Potion gave Assassins the ability to pour all their strength into a single strike. That was why Angel had been sent flying by his extraordinary force when he ambushed her at the door, yet found his strength "weakened" during her counterattack.

Now that the hooded man had assumed the posture of an all-out strike, he had clearly activated that Beyonder ability again.

Angel did not dare block it head-on. She could only dodge to the side, avoiding the Fatal Blow that combined strength and speed. When his dagger-clutching hands reached their limit, she launched a kick at his waist.

From their earlier fight, she had already noticed that this Assassin had limited combat experience.

When they traded blows face-to-face, the Assassin could still block and counterattack passably. But once she changed tactics, he could not quite keep up with her rhythm.

Sure enough, after his attack failed, the hooded man could not effectively block the kick aimed at his lower body. Angel's right leg, clad in a leather boot, struck his soft side and sent him flying with one kick.

Like Angel when she had been knocked back earlier, the hooded man crashed toward the desk in the center of the room. Unfortunately, he was not very skilled at adjusting his body. After knocking over a small bookshelf on the desk, he rolled twice before barely stopping at the other end of the room.

"Fuck..."

The hooded man rose again, clutching his stomach, and spat out his first word since entering the room. He tightened his grip on the dagger and prepared to attack again, but the moment he looked up, he froze.

A clearly oversized Revolver was in Angel's hand, its pitch-black muzzle aimed directly at him.

"You're an Assassin too, aren't you? Who sent you?"

Having regained the initiative, Angel questioned him. Kicked against the wall, the hooded man had nowhere to hide. She could end the fight with a pull of the trigger, so she tried to learn his identity.

She did not believe the Labor Mutual Aid Society had Beyonder thugs like him.

"How could you..." The hooded man gaped after his Beyonder identity was exposed, then quickly understood. "'Too'? So you're one as well. No wonder you could dodge my Life-Stealing Attack. How did you obtain the Potion?"

Life-Stealing Attack? That name really doesn't match your strength... And with an attack full of Loopholes like yours, even if I weren't a Beyonder, dealing with you wouldn't be too difficult...

Angel inwardly mocked this inexperienced Assassin, but coldly said, "You're the one with a gun pointed at you, not me. Answer the question."

She waved the Revolver slightly.

"Hmph..." The hooded man had no intention of answering honestly. He gave a soft snort. "The building below is full of Mutual Aid Society thugs. I went to great lengths to lure them all away. The moment you fire, you'll have no way to escape."

No wonder the workers' protest at the Labor Mutual Aid Society warehouse had happened so conveniently. This guy had planned it behind the scenes...

Angel gripped the gun tightly and cocked the hammer with her thumb. The faint click made the hooded man stiffen. "I never think that far ahead."

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

The hooded man finally yielded. He held his dagger loosely between two fingers and let it hang naturally, while using his other hand to pull back his hood. Beneath it was a young, immature face, now covered in sweat from the fight.

"I only came for Jike's ledger. It's full of Mutual Aid Society accounting records. It isn't valuable, or at least it won't be valuable in your hands." The young Assassin stared at the gun in Angel's hand. "You can have the other jewelry and Gold Pounds. Just give me the ledger."

"Tsk... See? There's no fundamental conflict between us."

He smacked his lips and added.

A ledger? I searched this whole room. What ledger could there be?

Angel swept her gaze across the room, recalling whether she had missed anything. Only when she saw the notebook that had blocked a dagger for her and been casually thrown to the floor by the young Assassin did she realize.

Could the thing he meant... be this notebook?

Noticing Angel's movement, the Assassin followed her gaze to the floor and was also stunned.

The next instant, disregarding the gun aimed at him, the young Assassin threw himself toward the notebook on all fours.

Bang—

Angel pulled the trigger directly, but he seemed to use his Life-Stealing Attack ability again. His movement far surpassed his speed during their fight, causing her shot to miss and punch a hole through a cheap painting on the wall.

Since she had already fired, Angel no longer had any reservations. She aimed again at the Assassin sprawled on the ground and was about to fire a second time when a flash of cold light streaked past. The Assassin had thrown the dagger he had not released even when kicked away like a flying knife.

The hastily launched attack had little accuracy. Angel merely twisted aside and avoided the dagger, but in that instant, he had already grabbed the notebook from the floor and rolled toward the door.

Angel pulled the trigger again. This time, she finally hit the Assassin by the door. Blood burst from his shoulder, and he let out a muffled groan, yet his hand clutched the notebook tightly without letting go.

He was really this desperate? He wanted the notebook more than his life?

In the instant Angel was distracted, the wounded Assassin used the impact of the bullet to tumble and scramble out the door. With a quick turn, he vanished into the corridor, causing Angel's third shot to miss again.

His fighting ability was lacking, but his ability to run away was more than impressive... Angel stared speechlessly at the trail of blood splattered across the doorframe. She circled the desk, hurried to the doorway, and peered out, but the Assassin was already nowhere to be seen.

Yet the empty corridor was not quiet. Shouts rose from beneath the Stairs in the middle of the hallway, accompanied by increasingly chaotic Footsteps. It seemed the Mutual Aid Society members downstairs had heard the gunshots and were rushing up.

Angel sheathed her own dagger, pulled the Assassin's thrown dagger from the wall, and rushed out of the Chairman's office. Using her momentum, she kicked open the door opposite with one foot. Just as she entered the room, other staff members appeared on the Stairs.

"He's 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 been Soothing the protesting workers downstairs rushed into the room Angel had entered with several thugs. The window had been smashed open, the wind making the curtains sway continuously, and the room was completely empty.

"He jumped out the window! Hurry downstairs and chase him!"

A head poked out the window and looked down.

"The Chairman's office door was pried open. We have to catch him, or else..."

"Everyone, calm down!"

The middle-aged man who had confronted the workers at the main entrance earlier let out an angry roar, silencing the room.

"This is five or six meters high. Who could jump down without a scratch? The window was smashed with a chair. He's misleading us. That guy must still be in the warehouse. Matt, take some men and guard the stairway. The rest of you, search every room with me!"

Angel leaned against the roof and listened to the chaotic Footsteps coming from the window below. After confirming that everyone had left, she leaped down from the top floor. As the Assassin ability Lightness activated, her body drifted more than ten meters like a feather before landing softly on the ground.

When she had rushed into the room, she had already heard the Labor Mutual Aid Society thugs charging up to the second floor behind her. Knowing she could not escape their sight in a short time, Angel decisively smashed the window with a chair to mislead them, then quickly climbed along the window to the roof.

Sure enough, there was no shortage of clever people in the Mutual Aid Society. Her deliberately staged scene was soon exposed, allowing her to use the time they spent searching the warehouse to drift away.

But when she remembered that mysterious Assassin, the pride Angel had felt at escaping the warehouse with a small trick vanished at once. She tightened her trench coat around herself, blended into the bustling crowd, and headed toward the Public Carriage stop.