Birds of a Feather

Yinsen looked at the excited Rodney and the burly man whose eyes were gleaming, and he could practically predict what they were about to say.

"Kid! Hand over the Magic Stone!"

Yinsen nodded to himself. Sure enough, it was exactly what he had expected, not even a punctuation mark different.

"You've been watching me in secret for quite some time, haven't you?"

Ignoring the burly man, whose eyes shone as he secretly signaled his subordinates, and not even bothering to acknowledge the two men quietly surrounding him and blocking his escape route, Yinsen turned to Rodney instead.

"You should know I changed ships and loaded it up with supplies before coming out, right?" Yinsen spread his hands. "You arrived at Stat Island with me. You should know I had no resources to trade for all this."

His meaning was clear: that Magic Stone you'd been coveting was long gone from my hands. What were you going to do now?

Just as Yinsen had expected, the people before him ignored his words completely. They simply surrounded him and drew all sorts of weapons.

Longswords, sabers, and daggers. Even Rodney drew a Curved Saber. "Kid, it's not that I don't believe you. Even if you really traded the Magic Stone for supplies, you still won't leave here alive today."

The meaning was obvious. Whether Yinsen had the Magic Stone or not, they intended to kill him and take everything he had. Only then did he realize that he had quite a bit of equipment on him. Their gleaming eyes were not solely because of the Magic Stone.

The exquisite light armor, the brand-new longsword, and the equally refined iron staff tucked at the small of his back—all of them had become reasons for these people to attack him.

"Birds of a feather really do flock together."

Rodney did not need to be grateful for being saved, but he had actually developed murderous intentions over a single Magic Stone. And the group he had joined was full of similar bandits. The moment they saw something valuable, they did not care about anything else. They simply robbed first and worried later.

"Though I already knew that, confirming it only strengthens my resolve."

Yinsen was not looking down on these rotten eggs. Saying they were worse than zombies might have insulted zombies, but compared to Fallen, they truly had no advantages.

After countless battles in the Diablo World, Yinsen was no longer an ordinary, powerless youth. That was precisely why he had the confidence to stand here and quietly watch them perform.

At the same time, he did not want to decide someone's life or death based on mere speculation. But once he confirmed that someone was truly scum, he would not hesitate or show mercy.

Having made up his mind, Yinsen could not even be bothered with more nonsense. He had always believed that when fists could do the talking, there was no need to waste breath. Beating the other side to death or half to death was far more useful than preaching.

He spun sharply halfway around and swiftly raised his right hand, firing a short arrow at the man behind him.

The short arrows on Yinsen's Bracers were triggered entirely by Mental Power, making them extremely convenient to use. The advantage was that the enemy had no time to react. Before he even understood what was happening, the short arrow had already struck him.

Because the short arrows fired from the Bracers lacked much force, they could only guarantee lethal power within ten meters. Combined with their small size, weapons like these could hardly inflict serious damage unless they hit vital areas such as the throat. At most, they served as a distraction.

That was why most people who used such weapons coated their short arrows with poison, compensating for their lack of damage.

Yinsen had not done that, because his short arrows were far more brutal!

Boom!

The explosion made everyone flinch, and the erupting flames left several of them too shocked to know what to do.

Yinsen was not among them. The instant he fired the arrow, he drew the longsword at his waist and, without even half a second of hesitation, slashed at another enemy trying to block his path.

Pfft—

The sound was almost inaudible. Yinsen's strike was exceptionally precise, sweeping directly across the man's throat. The sharp sword edge met no resistance at all, leaving a thin, long gash across the enemy's neck.

That strike was almost the most perfect sword stroke Yinsen had made since learning swordsmanship. Its strength, speed, and angle were all flawless. By the time everyone realized what had happened, the man was already on the ground, convulsing—having one's throat cut did not mean instant death.

Yinsen was not someone who enjoyed torturing enemies, so he did not let the man suffer. He finished him with another thrust.

Only when the situation had been completely overturned did the burly man on the other side realize what had happened.

"Bastard!"

He first stomped in fury, then turned and slapped Rodney so hard that stars burst before his eyes.

"Didn't you say he was some rookie who had just come out from a backwater island?"

After all, he had spent several years at sea and done plenty of "business," yet remained alive and well because he was cautious enough never to provoke people he could not afford to offend.

If Rodney had not told him beforehand that the one who got the Magic Stone was a rookie who had only recently gone to sea, and a scrawny young man with little strength at that, he never would have considered robbing him.

But looking at things now, how was this fellow some country bumpkin?

A rookie who had just gone to sea?

He was not blind. The boy's practiced movements when he attacked showed that he was clearly a ruthless figure who had killed who knew how many people. And judging from that first move, he even possessed Magic Stone Equipment. He was absolutely not someone the burly man could provoke.

If Yinsen knew what the man was thinking, he would definitely cry injustice. He had worked hard at training and killed plenty of monsters alongside Isendra and Zul, but today was his first time killing people. What ruthless figure?

As for Magic Stone Equipment? His previous pair of Bracers could barely count as Magic Stone Equipment, but the pair on his hands now was genuine Magic Equipment, produced in the Diablo World and carefully crafted by Isendra. Quality guaranteed!

"Friend, this is actually a misunderstanding. I'm willing to offer half the supplies on my ship, as long as you let me leave."

Hearing that, Yinsen nearly laughed like a pig.

"If I'd offered you supplies before this, would you have let me leave safely?"

The burly man fell silent. Of course, he could make up some lie and say that he would have, but there was no point. From Yinsen's reply, he already understood what the young man meant.

"Then there's nothing left to discuss."

"There was never anything to discuss."

Yinsen had never intended to let them go from the start. Someone like Rodney, who repaid being saved by plotting to kill his savior, needed to be put down for good. Let him go? That would just be asking for trouble.

The others were the same. Both sides had already torn off all pretenses, and Yinsen had killed two of them. Would they not hate him?

Cut the grass by the roots! Eradicate evil completely!

He raised his hand. While they had yet to scatter, Yinsen seemed about to fire another short arrow.

They had long been on guard against that move. The moment he raised his hand, they hurriedly dodged. But what they did not expect was that Yinsen was only feinting. Instead, he fired an Ice Arrows with his left hand.

Ice Arrows were less destructive than Flame Arrows, but they had more uses for support. Yinsen aimed at the feet of two men standing close together. The suddenly erupting Freezing Aura spread a layer of solid ice over the ground, and this patch of ground was especially flat, without even a blade of grass.

What happened next was exactly as Yinsen expected. The two men lost their balance the instant they stepped onto the ice and fell straight before Yinsen, who had already been waiting there.

He drove his sword down through their backs, one sword stroke for each.

One of them did react and tried to roll aside to evade, but his companion's corpse blocked him. He could only die resentfully beneath Yinsen's sword.

Of the men he had brought, only he and Rodney remained in the blink of an eye. The burly man began considering escape, and he did not merely think about it—he acted.

To ensure he could escape successfully, he shoved Rodney out as a shield, hoping to use him to hinder Yinsen and buy himself time to flee.

As long as I can reach the ship, I'll be fine.

Their landing spot was not in the same direction as Yinsen's, and they had deliberately cleared the route on the way here. As long as he started running, with Rodney holding Yinsen back for a while, he believed Yinsen would have no way to catch him. If Rodney could stall for just a little longer, he would be safe.

He was still too naive. The instant Yinsen saw Rodney rushing toward him, he drew the iron staff from the small of his back with his left hand. Blinding arcs of electricity danced merrily across Rodney's body, making him dance some unknown jig along with them. He could not even delay Yinsen for a moment before being shocked to the ground, unable to move.

Yinsen glanced at the burly man's position, then planted his longsword in the ground with a backhand motion. Raising his empty right hand, he activated the Fireball spell engraved on Isendra's Ruthlessness. A fireball the size of a watermelon instantly formed in his hand, then howled after the fleeing man.

The burly man had secretly been delighted when he heard no pursuit behind him, but then he suddenly felt a wave of heat at his back. Realizing something was wrong, he did not even dare turn around to look and immediately lunged toward a nearby tree.

He wanted to hide behind the tree to evade the attack while also breaking Yinsen's line of sight. The man's judgment fully displayed his wealth of combat experience.

Unfortunately, his past experience could not help him this time.

The fireball did not need to hit him directly. The instant he paused, it closed in enough to reach him, followed by a thunderous explosion.

The suddenly erupting force blasted the burly man into the air and slammed him hard into the thick trunk he had intended to use as cover. The tremendous impact even smashed the tree into two pieces.

Watching the burly man get blasted away, crash into the tree, and finally fall to the ground like a torn rag, Yinsen confirmed that he was dead. His first battle on the Sea of Tranquility had come to an end.

Six enemies dead, no injuries on his side, while he... had only lost two short arrows.

"That counted as a perfect battle."