Blood Feud

Ezio rose from his computer desk with vacant eyes, his face a mask of dead silence devoid of any excess emotion. He was an orphan abandoned at an orphanage, and over a decade ago, a man named Giovanni Auditore had taken him from the snowy doorstep, treating him as his own flesh and blood while passing down every skill he possessed without reservation.

Giovanni was a Master Assassin, but he was also a clumsy father who would burn his cooking. He was a strict mentor and a gentle father all the same. During the ten years spent with Giovanni, they leaned on each other for warmth, silently becoming the pillars of support for one another.

But this rare, extravagant warmth had shattered in this very moment.

On the computer screen was an email opened just minutes ago. It was Giovanni's final testament, his last farewell to Ezio. He had prepared for this for a long time, updating the contents of this letter every year, long since ready for the day he would die and be parted from Ezio.

It was the nature of his calling, or perhaps fate, or maybe something else entirely. Giovanni was never one to stay put; or rather, he could no longer escape the deep mire he was trapped in, unable to flee a life spent walking on a tightrope.

Today, this man had turned into a timed email, into a line of scarlet blood. (The letter is in the related works section)

[New mission enabled]

[Blood Feud Mission: Investigate the cause of death of Master Assassin Giovanni Auditore (Mission Reward +★★)]

[Difficulty: ★★★]

[Mission Hint: He is buried where the twelve moons rise]

[Mission Reward: Piece of Eden · Excalibur]

"You really are a damn fool! Now look at you, you're actually dead."

Ezio shuddered slightly, then squeezed his eyes shut, as if by opening them, he could see the empty computer screen and prove that everything just now was merely a hallucination.

The silence lasted for a long time, until a piercing eagle cry rang out. Ezio opened his eyes, and the redness that had previously filled them faded into calm. Controlling one's emotions was a mandatory course for an assassin; he had lost his composure earlier, but he knew this state could not last. Only by maintaining a clear mind could he handle what was to come.

As an assassin, Ezio was qualified. From the moment he could toddle, Giovanni had taken him through basic training. Back then, it was framed as cultivating a hobby, or perhaps, cultivating instinctual reflexes.

For ten years, Ezio had not slacked for a single moment. He was not an ignorant infant when Giovanni took him in. As a transmigrator, he had played along with Giovanni for ten years, pretending to be a precocious and clever child who wouldn't be viewed as a monster.

He didn't need to act anymore, didn't need to disguise himself, because the person he needed to care about was gone—gone forever, never to be seen again.

"I'm much more capable than you imagined, Giovanni. How could you underestimate me?"

Looking at the letter on the computer screen that hadn't vanished into blankness or hallucination, Ezio spoke softly: "I am strong. I am much stronger than you thought. Although I haven't grown up yet, I am not an ordinary child. I have a soul from another world within me, and I came with a gift. Perhaps I should have told you this secret; then maybe you wouldn't have taken such risks..."

As he spoke, Ezio suddenly tugged at the corner of his mouth in a bitter smile. "If you had known, you might have died even sooner. Once you knew I could actually protect myself, you probably would have pursued your so-called dreams even more aggressively? Your mission? Or your freedom?"

Ezio couldn't say for sure. To this day, he didn't understand why Giovanni was so passionate about this "profession" that involved dancing on the edge of a blade, on a tightrope.

"Perhaps this is the fate of an assassin."

A mission with a difficulty of ★★★ was one of the highest-level tasks Ezio had ever received, and the reward was the greatest he had seen so far.

With the bonus from the Blood Feud mission, the reward reached five stars. The prize was one of the few artifacts from Assassin's Creed Valhalla. As a Piece of Eden, Excalibur—also known as the Sword of Promised Victory or the Sword in the Stone—was the legendary blade of King Arthur, but in reality, it was crafted by the Isu of the First Civilization. It was an artifact intended to counter the prophecy of the end of the world, but regrettably, they had failed.

The gift Ezio received after transmigrating into this world originated from this very source.

Whenever he triggered certain conditions, the system would generate and issue missions for him. Before this, the tasks he received were mostly completing training, such as stealth, disguise, or assassination techniques. These missions were mostly one or two stars, rewarding him with various items, weapons, and skill upgrades from the Assassin's Creed series, and he could even enter a trial ground similar to a training space.

Giovanni always thought Ezio was still in the training phase he had set up, but he didn't know that when Ezio went to sleep at night, he would head to that magical training space to assassinate one trial target after another using swords, axes, daggers, flintlocks, hidden blades... any tool he could get his hands on.

Compared to Giovanni's claim that "my hands are stained with blood," Ezio had long since been soaked in a pool of gore.

He had forgotten how many people he had killed with his own hands. Regarding death, he had long since lost any peculiar feeling, because in the trial space, he had welcomed his own death countless times.

Originally, such training should have caused Ezio to lose the vibrant colors of life, but the emotions that an assassin was supposed to discard became his final shackles, or rather, the anchor that kept him from losing himself.

He cherished every bit of the last ten years more than anyone else. Only when he was with this clumsy man who always burned the food could Ezio laugh from the bottom of his heart.

But it was all over, and the mission was complete.

[You have completed the long-term mission: Disguise]

[Giovanni never discovered the fundamental difference between you and other children. You successfully hid your special identity for ten years.]

[Mission Difficulty: ★★★]

[Mission Duration: 3855 days]

[Mission Evaluation: Perfect (Reward +★)]

[You have received the mission reward: Broken Spear of Leonidas]

[Item Name: Broken Spear of Leonidas]

[Tier: Piece of Eden · Artifact · Semi-damaged]

[Effect: Break defense, point-to-point teleportation]

Looking at the spearhead, over a foot long, that appeared in his hand, Ezio did not feel like a stranger to it. In the hands of players, this broken spear had another name--Flying Thunder God.

But there was not a hint of excitement in Ezio's heart. If he had perfectly hidden his identity until he graduated from Giovanni's side, the mission reward would have been a full five stars. But even then, he couldn't be happy. If the completion of this mission required Giovanni's death as the outcome, then Ezio would rather not have triggered this damn mission at all.

"I will find you, Giovanni. I definitely will."

Even if he hadn't received that scarlet Blood Feud mission, Ezio swore he would find Giovanni's body and avenge him. At the very least, that was the only thing he could do for him.

"Where the twelve moons rise?"

If he was in the world of Assassin's Creed, then such a description would certainly involve one faction--the Templar Order.

Ezio naturally assumed this was the modern version of the Assassin's Creed world. Everything his gift provided came from Assassin's Creed, and the man who adopted him on that cold winter night was also Giovanni, a Master Assassin. The training he received from childhood was also for assassination.

He would not underestimate this massive organization that hid behind the scenes of the world, harboring ambitions to control it. Any contempt for them would surely turn into a sharp dagger piercing his heart in the future.

Just as Ezio was packing his belongings to leave this home that was no longer safe, he keenly heard a faint gunshot from outside the house. It was a crisp "pop," a sound most people would never notice, but to his ears, it rang out like a thunderclap.

Biting the pin off a flashbang, Ezio closed his eyes. The hawk he had tamed became his eyes, and his Eagle Vision opened at that moment. Target marked.