Shadow Dancer

Rayne sat in the café for half the afternoon. By evening, Swordsmanship Hall students began coming out in small groups, and before long, the staff were getting off work as well.

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

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

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

But this driver was not the one who had driven during the previous crime. He worked for a carriage rental company and merely had an employment arrangement with Esberg.

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

He was a tall, lean man of around thirty-five, ordinary-looking but with exceptionally alert eyes. A warm smile rested on his face, making him seem very approachable. As he walked, he chatted and laughed with a female instructor from the Swordsmanship Hall beside him, his manner impeccable.

"Esberg."

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

If he had not experienced it himself, who would have imagined that Esberg, renowned at the Swordsmanship Hall for his good reputation, was privately a blood-soaked executioner?

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

One was Rayne's classmate Ramsey. Rayne did not recognize the other, who was probably a new assistant the Swordsmanship Hall had recruited for Esberg.

After gallantly seeing the female instructor into her carriage, Esberg turned back and gave his two assistants a few instructions, telling them to get off work. Then he boarded 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 leave the Swordsmanship Hall in another direction. It would be difficult to track him now, so Rayne decided to remain seated and wait for the carriage to approach.

Esberg was undoubtedly the leader of the two, and he was also the greater threat. If Rayne wanted to find their secret hideout outside the city, he naturally had to begin investigating Esberg.

As for Ramsey, he was just an ordinary man. Dealing with him would be easy.

A few hundred meters was not far. Rayne had already adjusted his chair so his back faced the approaching carriage, lifting his newspaper higher to cover most of his face.

Clatter, clatter...

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

With a single glance, his soul was seen through completely.

The entire 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 2 Shadow Dancer."

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

Although he had witnessed Esberg murder someone with his own eyes, the only thing he had felt at the time was speed!

Esberg's footwork was fast, but the sword in his hand was even faster. 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 of whom excelled in speed.

However, Rangers and Shadow Dancers had entirely different fighting styles. Getting them wrong would come at a terrible cost.

A Ranger's first core element was Nimble Hands. Their hands possessed extraordinarily keen touch and were incredibly dexterous, allowing them meticulous control over their own strength. They could move rapidly within short distances, leap nimbly, and quickly master any weapon they picked up.

Every Ranger was a versatile weapons master, proficient in swordsmanship, shooting, dual-wielding, climbing, throwing concealed weapons, ropework, and more. Their attacks were often unexpected.

By comparison, Shadow Dancers were rather straightforward.

But straightforward did not mean weak. A Shadow Dancer's core element was Shadow Step. They excelled at lurking in 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 in Esberg's soul, confirming 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 every Demon Soul one fused added another layer to the soul's internal structure while raising one's professional level by one.

A two-layered soul structure meant Esberg was a Level 2 Shadow Dancer who had fused one Primary Soul and one Secondary Soul.

A Shadow Dancer's Primary Soul was always the same: the Demon Soul of a Shadow Lurker Spider, which granted the Shadow Step element.

Esberg had no second elemental ability. Perhaps when he advanced to Level 2, he had chosen another Shadow Lurker Spider as his Secondary Soul to further strengthen Shadow Step. Or perhaps he had fused another Demon Soul, but it conflicted with his Primary Soul and caused the element to be lost.

This situation was not uncommon. It was even normal.

Demon Soul conflict was the most troublesome problem for Transcendents, without question.

Most Demon Souls were difficult to reconcile with one another and would create conflicts, greatly increasing the difficulty of fusion. In minor cases, elements would be lost, leaving one without a new ability and only strengthening one's soul.

In worse cases, not only would the soul fail to strengthen, but even existing elements would be affected, causing one's power to decline rather than improve.

Therefore, to avoid or reduce conflicts, many Transcendents made the most conservative choice: fusing the same Demon Soul to strengthen their existing elements.

Because the inspection had been so brief, Rayne did not know whether Esberg's Shadow Step element had been enhanced. Still, knowing he was a Shadow Dancer was enough.

Only after the carriage had gone 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 kept dropping, making it easy for Rayne to keep up.

Rayne followed the carriage from several hundred meters away, with 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 road lit up, the carriage finally reached its destination. It entered a large house in the western part of Honeydew District, then quickly emerged and departed.

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

Rayne did not rashly approach. Instead, he observed the surrounding environment.

Beside Esberg's house was the Feregron River, which ran from south to north and divided all of Longsand City into two parts.

The east bank was the main urban area, including the three districts of Honeydew, Los, and Rienfular. It occupied two-thirds of the city's area and housed over ninety percent of its population.

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

The Supernatural Academy and the Duke's Wizard Tower were both located in the Silver Star District. Naturally, it had become the gathering place for Longsand City's upper class, the noble district people spoke of.

Esberg's house was in an excellent location, separated from the noble district by only a 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 peak shooting out a powerful beam of light like an eye sweeping across the surroundings.

This was Duke Silverstar's Wizard Tower.

Within the range of that sweeping beam, the Wizard Tower would detect the slightest disturbance immediately.

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

Rayne glanced 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 pointless; it would only alert Esberg.

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

Because he knew the two would not be able to resist forever. They would strike again.

He waited for eight days. It had been nearly half a month since Rayne had crossed into Aerenus, and the landlord was about to discover that the tenant had vanished. Finally, Rayne got his opportunity.

Esberg got off work as usual, but the carriage that came to pick him up today was not his usual one.

Rayne recognized it at once. It was the very carriage that had picked him up at the back entrance of the Perfume Street bar that night. His spirits rose immediately. Were they going to act tonight?

But unexpectedly, Ramsey got into the carriage as well.

The carriage headed south, seemingly leaving the city.

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

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

But the carriage was moving too fast, 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 he had gained after his injuries fully healed, his charge had reached 18%. Both his stamina and strength now surpassed those of an ordinary person, allowing him to barely keep the carriage in sight from afar without losing it completely.

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

Before long, the carriage turned off the main road onto a smaller path. It traveled for several more minutes before finally stopping inside a secluded manor.

Rayne hid behind a tree, gasping for breath. Only after steadying his breathing did he begin secretly observing the manor.

The manor stood beside a vast pasture. It was not very large, enclosed by brick walls and surrounded by woods. The nearest manor was more than a kilometer away, making the place extremely secluded.

Furthermore, it was not far from the river.

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 went a little farther south, he would reach the spot where he had climbed out of the river.

He was certain that this manor was Esberg and Ramsey's secret hideout.

But what were the two of them doing inside?