The scythe the Reaper swung down halted abruptly; the image of destruction so close before their eyes was shattered by a single shrill scream.
All the Shadow Warriors had their attention drawn by their comrade's voice.
"Your skill at concealing Mana really is quite good, and your ability to hide your presence is first-rate too. But soldiers, warriors—warriors are just warriors... A real assassin wouldn't fuss over so many orders. As long as you take out the target as fast as possible, using whatever method you're best at, isn't that enough?"
From the shadow within the shadows, Nanoda stepped forth, hauling several Shadow Warriors along.
The moonlight, once veiled hazily by the evening clouds, now showed itself a little.
Strands of white hair, stained with a few flecks of crimson, drifted on the rising evening breeze; her faintly visible heterochromatic pupils, set against the moonlight, looked not the least bit bloody but rather holy.
Behind that mysterious, impenetrable black robe trailed several corpses dragged along by vines—among them the very Shadow Warrior who had first issued the commands.
The immense pressure she gave off was utterly at odds with her moonlight-like grace.
A true assassin.
Outside the ring of encircling shadows had come an even more massive shadow.
Not for conviction, not for orders, not for a soldier's obedience.
Killing purely for the sake of killing.
Though she bore no killing intent, she had slaughtered countless all the same; the Shadow Warriors, who forever hovered on the edge of life and death, felt it keenly—that was a Reaper come from hell.
Almost in the same instant, most of the Shadow Warriors lunged toward Glück's side, while a smaller portion flung themselves recklessly at Nanoda to hold her back!
"Paradox."
Amid the stillness, only one demon was still in motion.
By the time everyone reacted, Nanoda had—at some unknown moment—already arrived at the very center of the encirclement.
"Looks like the timing's just right."
Nanoda had in fact moved to intervene the moment the Shadow Warriors prepared to strike, but she hadn't expected so many masters to intercept her along the way.
These people had not only concealed their Mana and presence to lie in ambush all over the place, but had also been willing to throw away their lives, using mutually-destructive tactics to stall Nanoda for a short while.
Still, before leaving she had seen that those two twin-looking warriors were probably quite capable, and might be able to hold out until she arrived.
And so Nanoda had first gone ahead and conveniently cleaned out the minor leadership among these soldiers.
By the time she got here, the result was somewhat unexpectedly grim.
"You've worked hard. You can leave it to me now—I'll deal with all of them."
At a single glance Nanoda knew that the person before her was already beyond saving.
"Then... I leave it..."
Spitting out a mouthful of black, his pupils utterly dilated, the warrior who had been clinging to his last breath—seeing this scene—collapsed completely, at ease.
Glück's eyes went wide in disbelief.
Lektire, who had been stumbling along behind Denn, stopped crying.
The slashed-open carotid arteries offered up blood and red to the night like so many fountains; the pitch-black was dyed anew, and as the pure-white moonlight spilled down, there came sounds like beats of percussion! "Thud!" "Thud!" "Thud!"
A path had appeared at some unknown point.
The remaining Shadow Warriors, however calm they might be, all swallowed dryly.
The night remained tranquil, yet the shadows and darkness—as if influenced by the stars emerging in the sky—had been torn open by a small bright gap.
"Who else wants to come?"
Nanoda gazed at those shadows, two broken horns now in her hands, as if she were a Reaper with snapped horns.
"The situation's changed—retreat!" "Retreat." "Retreat."
With the most important messenger killed by Nanoda, quite a few Shadow Warriors who seemed slightly higher in rank began to speak up; one retreat order after another rang out, yet no one left first, as if waiting to reach a consensus among them all.
But Nanoda did not give them that chance.
"You all have to pay some price, don't you?"
And just at the instant she took her first step, the carriage canopy—shot to tatters by arrows—came crashing down, and a Shadow Warrior who had been hiding there at some unknown point suddenly attacked, the poison-coated dagger in his hand aimed straight at Lektire!
"Did you think I hadn't noticed?"
The dagger stopped several centimeters short of Denn, who had thrown himself in front of Lektire, while his sword had already pierced into the man's chest.
In that life-or-death instant, Denn broke out in a cold sweat. Without Nanoda's support, that blow just now truly could not have been dodged. Even if he had protected his mother and wounded the enemy, he himself would have died beneath the poisoned blade.
And a broken horn, long since imbued with Paradox Magic and Severance Magic, pierced clean through that warrior's throat.
"Denn! Lektire! Are you two all right?!"
Because he had charged at the very front alongside that now-fallen twin warrior, Glück had long been prepared to give his life as cover—yet he had never imagined these Shadow Warriors would be so ruthless!
Even though he alone was the target, they still wouldn't spare his family.
But Glück understood, too: to cut the weeds you must pull up the roots—he had done the same thing before, and now it had nearly been his turn.
At almost the same moment, in the instant the ambush failed, every Shadow Warrior cried "Retreat" and made to scatter in a rush.
Nanoda had already caught up. Under the empowerment of the Paradox Magic of motion and stillness, her Mana was draining at a furious rate, but that was no problem at all—she had only to activate the magic, catch up to one of them, gently slit his throat, and then repeat the process again and again.
One Shadow Warrior after another fell.
Muffled groans and shrill screams, one after the next.
Even among those Shadow Warriors who held life and death lightly, some felt fear well up within them after sensing the scene behind them.
She was simply a monster—
so thought many of them in their hearts.
A night of bloodshed that had been fated.
The Shadow Warriors who had come here to assassinate, including the original commander, numbered thirty in all.
Just like in the initial territorial war of Gaderia—the assassination of Qual and her own hidden guards—they had all prepared suicide poison in the slots behind their teeth, but none of it was of any use; Nanoda simply finished them all off as the situation called for.
Moreover, these people, once they shed the black garb of the shadows, seemed to have their own identities all over the world.
This was perhaps only one batch of Shadow Warriors; those shadows might be everywhere, and with just a single command from some so-called superior, they would fight once more for their own glory.
Even the Northern Empire itself did not know exactly how many Shadow Warriors there were, from that very first generation down to the present.
Of the missions assigned back then, perhaps some still waited into old age for tasks yet unfinished; some had long ago given their lives for the Empire, vanishing utterly as shadows that never existed; and some even craved their own extinction in battle.
Nanoda did not like Shadow Warriors. The so-called glory of a warrior was nothing but an excuse to numb oneself, and that loyalty and honor weighed a touch too heavy.
That was why Nanoda had chosen to be a free and unfettered assassin.
For the sake of the Empire's stability, perhaps those warriors had done no wrong; but since they had taken the opposing side and made a move against her allies, they ought to pay the price before a far greater power.
"So something really did happen. My intuition's been getting more and more accurate lately..."
Nanoda did not know whether such a change was good or bad. In some unfathomable way, she seemed able to foresee certain things—or perhaps it was this very sensation in her body that was guiding her.
____
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