As he approached the tavern entrance, faint traces of blood reached his nose.
Something's wrong, he thought. He pushed the door open and saw everyone, from the patrons to the landlady, lying in pools of blood.
Almost all had been killed with a single strike, clean and efficient.
This was unquestionably Sethis's work. He had stopped at nothing to ambush him, and had come within a hair of succeeding.
He took the torch mounted on the wall and walked into the village.
Corpses lay everywhere: the Nilfgaard squad on night watch had been wiped out, two with their throats slit by a dagger, three with their internal organs shattered by bullets.
Following Ballistic Analysis into a small courtyard, he picked up four brass casings from the ground, completing the count for two magazines.
This was where Penny had ambushed the Nilfgaard squad-Willis's smithy.
The old dwarf lay on the ground, eyes wide with fury, a bloody line cutting across his windpipe. His hand still clutched a half-polished longsword in a death grip.
Chen Xu closed his eyes for him. His eyelid twitched as he sensed several gazes fixed on him;
He looked up to find Heipi and the other Chosen watching him with a mixture of delight and surprise.
They seemed to be gloating over the death of Chen Xu's dwarven backer. Everyone was finally back on the same starting line.
The only pity was that he had actually survived a veteran Chosen's retaliatory ambush.
In the still of the night, Chen Xu could faintly hear the frightened breathing of villagers in several nearby houses.
Sethis and Penny had not touched any bystanders. This had been a targeted, retaliatory massacre.
They killed whoever opposed them.
He seemed to have no grounds to condemn them either. He was the one who had slaughtered the unruly soldiers tonight. But if he really regarded these NPCs as nothing more than strings of code, why had he closed Willis's eyes?
The scabbard on his back grew heavy. They had known each other; their connection had begun and ended, and he owed him some closure.
Chen Xu drew the steel sword Glaem with his still-functional left arm, tried swinging it twice, and returned to Woesong Bridge.
[You have comprehended the feat [Nimble Left Hand]. Your off-hand penalty has been removed!]
A trail of bloody footprints stretched into the distance, left by the cut he had made on Sethis's leg. He followed the tracks past the mill, all the way to the Place of Power where he had first obtained a skill point.
The light on the stone pillar seemed much weaker. A few tiny threads remained on the ground, and the bloodstains grew indistinct nearby.
Chen Xu bent down, picked up a bit of bloodied mud, and rubbed it between his fingertips. Sethis had probably bandaged his wound here.
Fortunately, all of White Orchard was muddy terrain. Tracks barely perceptible to ordinary people clearly changed direction in Chen Xu's eyes, leading toward the nearby Ismena River.
A figure moved near the riverbank. It was the elf, preparing to cross the river and conceal his tracks!
He immediately rose to chase him, only for the clash of metal to ring out abruptly behind him.
As though he had eyes in the back of his head, Chen Xu swung his steel sword backward and knocked aside the dagger stabbing toward his back.
"How did you notice?"
A second Sethis appeared behind him and asked with a gloomy expression.
Chen Xu said nothing, slashing his steel sword toward Sethis's face, but he could not keep up with the speed granted by the other's eight points of strength. After being bandaged, the wounded leg seemed capable of exerting half its strength again.
"...We both misjudged you."
Sethis leaped onto the roof of the underground crypt and looked down at him. "But surely you don't think that landing a lucky cut on my leg actually makes you a match for me?"
Under the moonlight, another figure, almost indistinguishable from the real one, stepped out from behind him!
Both spun their daggers and lunged with vicious grins, immediately trapping Chen Xu between attacks from front and rear.
Was this what that figure on the riverbank really was?
Chen Xu glanced toward the river out of the corner of his eye. No one was there anymore. Sethis seemed able to create only one clone.
He turned sideways to avoid the real body's dagger and thrust his steel sword backward beneath his arm, only for the false body behind him to block it.
The body behind him had clearly split off from the real one. There was no mistaking what he had seen.
Both the real and false bodies could fight?
The ability was truly heaven-defying. A dense flurry of dagger strikes shredded the leather armor on his body.
He retreated under immense pressure, deliberately taking attacks he could not avoid on his already broken right arm.
It was not self-mutilation. Only the arm guards of this suit of Temerian guard armor were cast iron. They might not have been enough against swords or blunt weapons, but they were more than sufficient to stop daggers.
"If you had this up your sleeve, why didn't you use it when you first ambushed me?"
Chen Xu swung his sword again to force Sethis and his clone back, panting as he stalled for time.
His own [Stealth Technique] consumed Dark Energy not only upon activation, but also whenever the surroundings changed.
He did not believe Sethis could use supernatural abilities without restraint.
Sethis was equally exhausted. Before ambushing Chen Xu, he and Penny had already fought a battle.
To finish off those five Nilfgaard soldiers on watch without trouble, he had already used Clone Assassination once.
His remaining Natural Psionic Energy had originally been insufficient for a second activation, but while fleeing, he had actually discovered a miraculous stone pillar brimming with chaos elements.
In his eyes, Chen Xu merely reacted a little faster. His physical capabilities were nowhere near his own.
If he used the pillar to restore his psionic energy and activated Assassination Technique, his opponent would have absolutely no chance of defeating him!
He had received no notification that Chen Xu had died or exited early, so he had rested there to recover his stamina;
Even if Chen Xu did not come for revenge, he would take the initiative to seek him out at any time.
Neither wanted to reveal the slightest information to the other. Amid their life-and-death struggle, Chen Xu suddenly rolled twice in succession to put distance between them.
Planting his steel sword in the ground, he drew the Beretta 8045F from his waist and aimed at Sethis.
"How did you get that?!" Sethis's expression changed drastically, and he immediately moved his false body in front of himself.
At that moment, his resentment toward Penny knew no bounds. This was not the first time that stupid woman had ruined things for him.
On a battlefield! She could even lose her gun!
He had completely forgotten that he had stabbed his teammate in the back first.
"Do you have any bullets?"
Sethis adjusted the angle between himself and his false body, slowly retreating to ensure the muzzle could not aim directly at him.
"If your surname's Yan, you can take that gamble." [Deception] triggered. Chen Xu remained expressionless, leaving Sethis unable to glean any information and deeply wary.
The situation reached a stalemate, Sethis's expression shifting uncertainly.
After breaking out of prison, I can't stay in White Orchard anymore.
My revenge wasn't a complete success either, and I lost a teammate in the process.
After all that trouble, apart from a little experience for killing those three Nilfgaard soldiers and a few villagers, I gained nothing?
It's all the fault of this newcomer in front of me, and I can't do anything about him!
After using [Detection], although he could not see his talents or feats, nor all his skills, the distribution of his attributes was clearly severely unbalanced.
His reaction and constitution, attributes that contributed relatively little to combat power at the mortal tier, were instead incomprehensibly high.
He surmised that Chen Xu's [Dodge] had definitely reached the beginner level, perhaps even higher! To escape from that ram-horned monster, he had to have at least one technique completion level skill.
I'm a pureblood elf, able to inherit the endless ancestral memories in my bloodline, with an innate foundation in Assassination. What gives him the right?!
Could he be one of the God-Favored?
"It looks like I can't kill you, but there's even less you can do to me."
Sethis quietly retreated, leaning against the Place of Power to replenish the Dark Energy spent maintaining his clone. "Why not exchange some information? I imagine a newcomer like you must have plenty of questions."
"Not interested." Chen Xu had come only to avenge the dwarf he had known. Since it could not be done, he might as well leave as soon as possible.
"I'll let you ask first." Sethis adopted a very humble attitude, making his false body speak.
"How do you absorb the stone pillar's energy?" He might as well ask. Chen Xu had already seen through the other's intentions.
"You... try sensing your first trace of Dark Energy before asking that." Sethis simply could not accept that an ignorant bumpkin like this had fought him to such a standstill.
"My turn. How did you break my Assassination Technique?"
Seeing Chen Xu looking at him with the hint of a smile, Sethis understood that he would not get an answer.
But he was not particularly surprised. Without anyone noticing, he had already retreated another dozen or so steps:
He had watched Penny fire as well. These primitive gunpowder weapons became absurdly inaccurate beyond twenty meters.
By now, he had almost retreated to a safe distance. He could make his threats:
"This isn't over, Pro Gram. I'll hunt you forever!
"Whenever you eat, I want you worrying about poison. Whenever you sleep, you'll have to keep one eye open!
"Even outside the battlefield, don't dream of living in peace!
"I'll find you."
He sent his false body lunging at Chen Xu while he himself broke into a sprint.
Without his control, the false body immediately lost its animation. Its movements grew sluggish and its fighting strength rapidly declined. Chen Xu seized an opening and cut off its head with two sword strikes, turning it into a cloud of ash that scattered.
Pro Gram isn't my real name, though? What is this idiot threatening?
Chen Xu did not let his guard down. He forcibly activated [Tracking Technique], his mental energy steadily draining. Only after confirming that Sethis had truly gone far away did he put away his steel sword.