Shadow Dancer

Rayne sat in the café for half the afternoon. By evening, Swordsmanship Hall students began emerging in small groups, and before long, the hall's staff had finished work as well.

Several carriages gathered from different directions and stopped outside the Swordsmanship Hall.

As one of the best swordsmanship halls in Longshande, every instructor at Maloney's Sword was a Transcendent and earned a generous salary. They could afford to hire carriages to take them to and from work every day.

Rayne's gaze settled on several coachmen, and he quickly found Esberg's carriage. He had seen it a few times before.

But this coachman was not the one who had driven during the previous crime. He came from a carriage rental company and was merely employed by Esberg.

The carriages departed one after another after picking up their passengers. Soon, a familiar figure appeared in Rayne's sight.

He was a tall, lean man around thirty-five years old. His features were ordinary, but his eyes were exceptionally lively. He wore a warm smile that made him seem very approachable. Walking beside a female instructor from the Swordsmanship Hall, he chatted and laughed with her, his manner perfectly proper.

"Esberg."

Rayne watched the man from several hundred meters away and sneered inwardly.

If he had not experienced it himself, who could have imagined that Esberg, renowned throughout the Swordsmanship Hall for getting along well with everyone, was privately a bloodstained executioner?

Two young men, both around twenty, followed behind Esberg.

One was Rayne's classmate Ramsey. The other was unfamiliar, likely a new assistant the Swordsmanship Hall had recruited for Esberg.

After gallantly seeing the female instructor into her carriage, Esberg turned and gave his two assistants a few instructions, telling them to go home. Then he climbed into his own carriage.

The carriage happened to be heading toward the café.

Rayne had intended to get up and avoid it in advance, but he saw Ramsey leaving the Swordsmanship Hall in another direction. Following him now would be difficult, so Rayne decided to remain seated and wait for the carriage to approach.

Of the two, Esberg was undoubtedly the leader and the greater threat. To find their secret hideout outside the city, he naturally had to investigate Esberg first.

As for Ramsey, he was only an ordinary person. Dealing with him would be easy.

A few hundred meters was not far. Rayne had already adjusted his chair to face away from the approaching carriage and raised his newspaper higher, concealing most of his face.

Clip-clop...

As the carriage sped past the street in front of the café, Rayne looked over the top edge of his newspaper and stared directly through the carriage window. He caught sight of half of Esberg's body and his profile.

With a single glance, he saw straight through Esberg's soul.

The whole process lasted less than two seconds. Esberg sat in the carriage with his eyes closed, resting, completely unaware that someone by the roadside was observing him.

Rayne slowly lowered the newspaper and watched the carriage disappear into the distance.

"So he's a level-two Shadow Dancer."

Before this, Rayne had been unable to determine Esberg's Transcendent profession.

Although he had witnessed Esberg kill someone, his only impression at the time had been speed!

Esberg was not only fast on his feet, but even faster with his sword. It was pure speed suppression; ordinary people were killed before they could react.

Several Transcendent professions could possess such speed. The most common were Rangers and Shadow Dancers, both known for their quickness.

However, Rangers and Shadow Dancers had completely different fighting styles. Getting them wrong could come at a terrible price.

A Ranger's first core element was Nimble Hands. Their hands possessed an extraordinary sense of touch and unmatched dexterity. They controlled their own strength with exquisite precision, could move rapidly over short distances, leap nimbly, and quickly master any kind of weapon they picked up.

Every Ranger was a versatile weapons master, proficient in swordsmanship, shooting, dual-wielding, climbing, throwing hidden weapons, rope techniques, and more. Their attacks were often unpredictable.

By comparison, Shadow Dancers were far more straightforward.

But straightforward did not mean weak. A Shadow Dancer's core element was Shadow Step. They excelled at lurking in the shadows and concealing themselves, their footsteps light and swift, often delivering a fatal blow when their enemies least expected it.

Rayne found the Shadow Step element within Esberg's soul and confirmed that he was a Shadow Dancer.

Furthermore, Esberg's soul structure had two layers.

After observing those Transcendents at the inn over the past few days, Rayne had learned that each Demon Soul fused into one's body added another layer to the soul's internal structure while raising one's profession level by one.

A two-layer soul structure meant Esberg was a level-two Shadow Dancer who had fused one Primary Soul and one Secondary Soul.

The Primary Soul of every Shadow Dancer was the same: the Demon Soul of a Shadow Lurker Spider, which granted the Shadow Step element.

Esberg did not possess a second elemental ability. Perhaps when advancing to level two, he had chosen another Shadow Lurker Spider as his Secondary Soul, continuing to strengthen Shadow Step. Or perhaps he had fused a different Demon Soul that conflicted with his Primary Soul, causing the element to be lost.

This was not uncommon. It was even normal.

Demon Soul conflicts were the most troubling problem for Transcendents, bar none.

Most Demon Souls were difficult to reconcile with each other and would create conflicts, greatly increasing the difficulty of fusion. At best, the element would be lost, granting no new ability and merely strengthening the soul.

At worst, not only would the soul fail to improve, but the original element would also be affected, causing one's strength to decline rather than advance.

Thus, to avoid or reduce conflicts, many Transcendents made the most conservative choice: fusing identical Demon Souls to strengthen existing elements.

The observation time had been too short for Rayne to know whether Esberg's Shadow Step had been enhanced, but knowing that he was a Shadow Dancer was enough.

Only after the carriage had traveled far away did Rayne stand and quicken his pace to follow it.

It was rush hour, and the streets were crowded with pedestrians and vehicles. The carriage had not been moving very fast to begin with, and its speed was reduced time and again, making it easy for Rayne to keep up.

Following the carriage from several hundred meters away, Rayne had no fear of Esberg noticing him.

The carriage headed west, stopping and starting for over half an hour.

As the sky darkened and the gas lamps along the streets lit up, the carriage finally reached its destination and entered a large house in the western part of Honeydew District. It soon came back out and left.

Clearly, Esberg was no longer in the carriage. This was his residence.

Rayne did not rashly approach. Instead, he surveyed the surroundings.

Beside Esberg's house was the Feregron River. Running from south to north, it divided the entire city of Longshande into two parts.

The river's eastern bank was the main urban area, including the three districts of Honeydew, Los, and Rienfular. It occupied two-thirds of the city, and more than ninety percent of its population lived there.

The remaining ten percent lived on the western bank of the Feregron River, in Silver Star District.

The Supernatural Academy and the Duke's Wizard Tower were both in Silver Star District, making it the gathering place for Longshande's upper class—the noble district people spoke of.

Esberg's house was ideally located, separated from the noble district by only one river. It stood in the most expensive area of Honeydew District.

Looking up from here, one could see a towering structure on the western horizon, its summit projecting a powerful beam of light that swept around like an eye.

This was Duke Silverstar's Wizard Tower.

Within the range swept by that beam, even the slightest disturbance would be detected by the Wizard Tower immediately.

In other words, Esberg's house was also under the Wizard Tower's protection. Taking action inside his home would be the most foolish choice.

Rayne looked at the Wizard Tower from afar, shook his head, and could only leave.

The following afternoon, after the Swordsmanship Hall closed, Rayne followed Ramsey and found his address.

Ramsey lived in an upscale apartment building not far from the Swordsmanship Hall. There were too many people coming and going, leaving no opportunity to act. Besides, killing Ramsey would be useless; it would only alert Esberg.

Rayne did not grow impatient. For several days in a row, he kept watch outside the Swordsmanship Hall and patiently waited for an opportunity.

Because he knew the two of them would not be able to restrain themselves and would strike again.

He waited for eight days. Nearly half a month had passed since Rayne had crossed into Aerenus, and just as the landlord was about to discover that the tenant had vanished, Rayne finally got his chance.

Esberg finished work as usual, but the carriage coming to collect him today was not his usual one.

Rayne recognized it at a glance. It was the same carriage that had picked him up at the back entrance of the Perfume Street bar that night. His spirits immediately lifted. Could they be making a move tonight?

However, to his surprise, Ramsey got into the carriage as well.

The carriage headed south, seeming to be leaving the city.

Rayne immediately followed. Sure enough, the carriage soon left Longshande and accelerated down the main road.

"This should be their secret hideout." Rayne was both startled and delighted. This was the opportunity he had been waiting for.

But the carriage was moving too quickly, and he was having trouble keeping up.

Fortunately, after absorbing that Fallen One's soul last time, his charge had surged by eight bars. Combined with the two more bars gained after his injuries completely healed, his charge had reached 18%. Both his stamina and strength now surpassed those of an ordinary person by a fair margin, allowing him to barely keep the carriage in sight from a distance rather than losing it completely.

With his night vision activated, Rayne ran through the darkness as his charge drained faster.

Before long, the carriage turned off the main road onto a smaller path. After traveling for a few more minutes, it finally stopped inside a secluded estate.

Rayne hid behind a tree and gasped for breath. Only after steadying his breathing did he begin observing the estate in secret.

The estate stood beside a vast pasture. It was not very large, enclosed by brick walls and surrounded by woods. The nearest estate was over a kilometer away, making the place exceptionally secluded.

Moreover, it was not far from the riverbank.

Following the small road to the main road would bring one to the Feregron River.

Rayne had noticed while running here that he had passed this place on the day he returned to Longshande. If he continued south for a little while, he would reach the spot where he had climbed out of the river.

He had no doubt that this estate was Esberg and Ramsey's secret hideout.

But what were the two of them doing inside?