Assassination

This was the terrifying insight of Lin Zhiluo.

Over the past few hours,

he had already observed every move the mercenaries around him made.

Everyone had little habits they couldn't break.

Mercenaries were no exception.

As they used flashlights to check the area outside the manor,

the spots they inspected and the angles of their beams followed certain patterns.

Lin Zhiluo had memorized those patterns completely.

Then he calculated the best route in his mind.

Only then could he move along such an uncanny path and reach the wall.

One of the mercenaries on the wall had no idea Death God was coming.

He was so tired that he even yawned.

That was the opening Lin Zhiluo needed. Already pressed against the wall, he began climbing it with his bare hands.

His movements were so light that he made no sound at all.

In the blink of an eye, he had reached the top.

The mercenary had just finished yawning and opened his eyes. A man dressed in black and wearing a black mask had appeared right in front of him.

What the hell—was he seeing a ghost in the middle of the night?

The mercenary was about to shout when a dagger slashed across his throat, silencing him for good.

Lin Zhiluo had taken the dagger from a cutlery shop on his way here.

It wasn't the only one he'd found.

He had also picked up more than a dozen daggers of different designs, along with one "especially unusual" dagger.

Lin Zhiluo withdrew the dagger.

To keep the smell of blood from spreading, he had pinched the blood vessels shut as he cut the man's throat, preventing the blood from spurting out.

Now he pressed the prepared plastic wrap over the wound, taking care of the problem.

The mercenary's body was still propped upright in his hands.

The flashlight continued to sweep back and forth as usual, as if nothing had happened.

Lin Zhiluo used the body to shield himself,

then carefully observed the manor grounds.

The lights were off in all the smaller buildings.

Only the first floor of the large villa at the manor's center was still brightly lit.

What was more, from where he stood, he could hear loud shouts and roars coming from the first floor now and then.

It sounded as though a crowd inside was letting off steam.

Lin Zhiluo didn't care what they were doing.

Tonight, his goal was to leave no one alive!

Their racket actually made it easier for him to sneak in.

Lin Zhiluo lowered the mercenary's body and secured the flashlight.

Then he gripped the inner edge of the wall, leapt down into the manor,

and crept toward a mercenary nearby.

Lin Zhiluo already had the best stealth skills in the world.

But really, what mercenary,

while concentrating on watching the grounds outside the manor, would ever expect a silent, deadly reaper to appear behind him?

Under cover of darkness, Lin Zhiluo moved along the wall, reaping lives one after another.

A sneak attack from behind, a slash across the throat, the body lowered, the flashlight set back in place, then on to the next.

Lin Zhiluo demonstrated the art of assassination to perfection.

In just two minutes, he had wiped out nearly half the mercenaries on the wall.

Then one mercenary finally realized something was wrong.

"What's going on? Lao Zhu, why did the flashlight on your side stop moving?" he asked curiously.

Little did he know that those words would cut his life short by more than ten seconds.

As the mercenary went to check what had happened to his companion, a dagger slashed across his throat, ending his life.

That mercenary was dead.

But the other mercenaries' drowsiness vanished the instant he spoke.

"What's going on, Adi? What happened to Lao Zhu?" a mercenary called from another spot.

"Nothing. That guy was so tired he almost fell asleep, so I reminded him," "Adi" replied.

"That's good. Damn, this is ridiculous. The captain and the boss are enjoying themselves in the hall, while we're stuck watching the entrance."

After hearing Adi's reply, the mercenary didn't suspect a thing. Instead, he started complaining.

It wasn't that he didn't want to be suspicious. Lin Zhiluo had imitated Adi's voice perfectly!

The mercenary's words only added fuel to the fire.

The other mercenaries nearby chimed in too.

"Exactly. We spent all day clearing out zombies, and now they've got us on night watch. They don't treat us like people at all."

"You've got it easy. I haven't slept in almost twenty-four hours. Damn, if they really want to keep things safe, why don't the captains come out and watch themselves?"

Lin Zhiluo smiled faintly and continued in Adi's accent. "Put simply, they don't treat us like people. We're just cannon fodder."

He wasn't trying to sow discord among the Hunting Mercenary Group.

As Death Soldiers, they wouldn't truly be swayed anyway.

But they were bound to have grievances.

So he could stir up resentment among the mercenaries,

making them focus on complaining about others and remembering all the wrongs they had suffered.

Sure enough, after Lin Zhiluo got things started, the mercenaries in that area launched into a frenzy of grumbling.

"What the hell? Today, we found a pretty college girl at the university. I hadn't even gotten my hands on her before that bastard Eyu snatched her away and played her to death. He didn't even leave us a taste."

"Who didn't? The zombie I killed dropped a Bronze-grade piece of gear. It was the first Bronze-grade item our mercenary group had gotten, and they just took it from us!"

"That's nothing. I..."

Perhaps their resentment had been bottled up for too long. Perhaps they were trying to shake off their drowsiness.

More and more mercenaries joined the conversation.

And while they were distracted, Lin Zhiluo continued his assassinations.

One, two, three...

Lin Zhiluo specifically targeted those who had just spoken.

Someone who had just spoken and then fell quiet for a while was unlikely to arouse suspicion.

He continued passing judgment on the mercenaries there.

Finally, when only a few mercenaries remained, he could no longer keep it hidden.

"Wasn't what happened to me the same as what happened to you, Xiao Zhi? Tell me I'm right," one mercenary asked the one who had spoken before him.

Unfortunately, if he wanted Xiao Zhi to answer, he'd have to ask in hell.

"Xiao Zhi? Xiao Zhi?" The mercenary called twice, then realized something was wrong.

"Something's happened!" He pulled out an object shaped like a rectangular prism.

Lin Zhiluo recognized it at a glance. It was the Hunting Mercenary Group's special signal flare.

In the apocalypse, where communications were unreliable, signaling was an effective way to communicate.

The mercenary acted decisively. The instant he pulled out the flare, he fired it.

A moment later, a dagger slashed across his throat.

The signal flare had already been launched.

Lin Zhiluo held his breath and hurled the dagger in his hand with all his strength.

Was he trying to cut the signal flare down with a dagger before it could fly away?

How could that be possible!

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