Night Assassination

The night deepened.

Emil's soft snoring gradually ceased.

The herb garden was deathly silent.

Creak~

The soft sound of the wooden door opening passed in an instant, failing to disturb the stillness of the night.

"Who?" Ilan's groggy voice rang out.

"It's me."

"Uh, Gao De? What are you doing here?" Ilan was not fully awake yet, his mind still muddled.

"Ilan, I figured you'd be sleeping soundly at this hour, so I came to see you."

"What do you mean?" Ilan was about to sit up, but in the darkness, under the moonlight, he could make out a hazy figure. Taking advantage of the pauses in their conversation, it had already moved to his bedside.

A dark silhouette was cast upon the wall. It held a sharp knife, which descended with its hand and stabbed toward him.

Aah!!

Ilan's heart jolted in fright. Every trace of sleepiness vanished, and he became instantly alert, goosebumps rising across his skin. Instinctively, he raised his right hand, trying to block the possible attack.

It was too late.

With a soft stab.

A piercing pain shot through his chest.

Something sharp and cold had pierced his chest.

It was a table knife, the kind used in the dining hall to cut Rye Bread. It was not particularly sharp, but it was barely sufficient as a murder weapon.

Gao De pressed his knee against Ilan's throat while his left hand pinned down Ilan's body. His right hand gripped the table knife steadily.

Stab! Stab! Stab!

He pulled out the knife and stabbed again, then again, then again.

Scarlet blood ran over his hand. It felt warm in the cold night, yet it brought Gao De not the slightest warmth.

He only felt sick.

Only when Ilan's body had gone completely limp, with no sign of struggle remaining, did Gao De stop.

He gasped for breath.

"So this is what killing someone feels like..."

Everything had gone according to Gao De's plan, and even more smoothly than expected.

Still not fully recovered from sleep, Ilan had never imagined Gao De would dare to kill him. Faced with Gao De's nighttime attack, he had no ability to resist at all.

Everything had been far simpler than he had imagined.

But the discomfort of killing for the first time did not disappear simply because he had planned it beforehand.

"Easy to provoke the King of Hell, hard to deal with his underlings. Even if Ilan can't directly kill me like Mage Seda can, he's always held a grudge against me. Who knows what petty tricks he might use to disgust me?

"And with him constantly watching me, it'll be inconvenient for anything I do afterward. If he doesn't die, I can't rest easy!"

"Besides, I already died once after being framed by Ilan and sent to test medicine. That's a life-and-death vendetta. Blood must be repaid with blood. It's only right."

"He forced me to do it."

Gao De's hands were still trembling. He kept finding reasons to force himself to calm down, to adapt.

He had to adapt.

Gao De understood that given his circumstances, if he did not want to die, others had to die.

Clang!

Suddenly, Gao De's pupils contracted sharply, as though he had seen something horrifying. The shock was so great that the table knife fell from his hand and struck the floor with a crisp sound.

Though Gao De's hands had been trembling since the murder, they were not unsteady enough for him to lose his grip on a table knife.

The only reason was that he had been startled.

Just then, Gao De had clearly sensed that the Crescent Gem in his mind, whose purpose he had never understood, seemed to have activated. It suddenly shone with flickering spiritual light.

Immediately afterward, several lines of information, familiar from games and novels, appeared before his eyes:

Origin:

0th Circle—Human (1/7)

Spells:

0th Circle—Mage Hand, Repair

It was a very simple interface, even crude. There were only two sections in total: spells and origin.

The spells section displayed the two cantrips Gao De currently possessed.

Behind each of the two spells, a small yellow plus sign flickered.

The design was incredibly familiar. Anyone who had played games would understand what it meant.

"Add points."

Gao De tentatively used his thoughts to tap the yellow plus sign behind Repair.

The next instant, some information surfaced in Gao De's mind for no apparent reason, as though it had been implanted into his memories.

"Insufficient origin."

Clearly, adding points required origin.

Gao De's attention naturally shifted to the origin section of the interface.

Human (1/7).

The information was brief and came with no further explanation, but Gao De understood at once.

His gaze turned toward Ilan's corpse on the bed.

"Do I need to kill seven humans to gain one point of origin?" Gao De muttered.

Dawn had not yet broken.

Mage Seda was awakened by inexplicably noisy commotion in the herb garden.

At his age, he had always been a light sleeper.

And he had always had a terrible temper.

With a displeased expression, he pushed open his door. After walking a few steps, he grabbed a passing apprentice.

"What did you say?!"

Upon hearing the trembling apprentice's report, Mage Seda could not help but freeze for a moment.

Passing through the long corridor, Mage Seda arrived at the apprentice living quarters, a place he rarely visited.

"Mage Lord." An apprentice spotted him and timidly said with a panicked, helpless expression, "Ilan... Ilan is dead."

"What happened?" Though Mage Seda's voice remained level, the coldness within it was unmistakable.

"I just got here too." The apprentice could not answer and stammered awkwardly.

Mage Seda lost patience. With a cold face, he strode ahead through the long corridor and finally stopped outside Ilan's room, looking inside.

Ilan's not particularly tall body lay sprawled across the wooden bed against the wall. His chest was a bloody mess, and his eyes were wide open and glazed white.

He was obviously dead beyond doubt.

The manner of death was simple as well: stabbed to death.

The weapon should have been a bladed weapon similar to a dagger.

Mage Seda frowned, suppressing the anger in his heart as he turned his gaze toward another corner of the room.

A Youngster sat there. On the floor beside him lay a bloodstained table knife.

His hands were covered in scarlet blood.

Mage Seda did not usually pay much attention to the apprentices, but his memory was not poor.

No mage had a poor memory.

He remembered this Youngster. He was the only apprentice who had survived a medicine test in all these years.

"You did this?" Mage Seda asked, his voice full of displeasure and coldness.

"Yes." Gao De looked up and replied. His face was still pale, but his gaze was remarkably calm.

"What happened?" Mage Seda asked again.

"First, while eating in the dining hall, I slipped away with the table knife used to cut bread."

Gao De pointed to the bloodstained table knife on the floor.

"It wasn't very sharp, but it was enough."

"Then, after it got late, when I figured he was sound asleep, I quietly came over," Gao De explained. "He was older than me and stronger too. If I hadn't found a good opportunity, I might not have been able to kill him."

"In the end, he died. By my hand."

Thanks to my good brother Unnamed Dawnlight for becoming Alliance Leader!

Boss, you're too generous!