Under the dim moonlight illuminating the roof of the South Dormitory, Virelith stared at me intently. The female cadet who always bowed her head before nobles now radiated a spark of rebellion from behind her spectacle lenses.
"I will join you," said Virelith, her voice trembling yet firm. "But on one absolute condition. You must ensure I stay alive if those crazy nobles target me because I am on your side."
I smirked thinly. "Deal."
Exactly one second after the word 'deal' was spoken, my veteran ears caught a sound from the blind spot behind the shadow of the water tower.
Crunch.
The sound of stepping on crushed glass. The sound was very subtle, almost swallowed by the night wind, but it sounded like a cannon explosion to someone who had indeed set that trap.
I did not turn my head. I looked straight at Virelith and said with an ice-cold tone, "The contract is formed. Time to work."
Simultaneously with my last word, my hand moved faster than the blink of an eye. I drew a military dagger from beneath my cloak, spun on my heel, and threw the steel blade at lightning speed cleaving the darkness toward the water tower.
CLANG!
A loud clink rang out as metal clashed with metal. Sparks flew for a moment, revealing a silhouette that had merged with the night all this time.
The man was dressed in pitch black with a veil covering his face. Through the slits of his eyes, I saw a flash of genuine surprise. The Assassin from the Black Tower did not expect that the Basic Class "rat" he underestimated could detect his deadly silent steps.
Realizing his position was exposed, the Assassin did not attack immediately. He used a mana-based dash or flash step to jump backward and melt back into the dense shadow behind the row of chimneys.
Virelith gasped in shock. Her wooden staff was instantly pointed forward even though both her hands trembled violently. "W-what is that?!"
"A guest from the Black Tower," I answered without averting my gaze from the darkness, reaching back under my cloak to draw my second dagger. "And he has not left yet."
Virelith's breath hitched. Panic began to seize her eyes.
"Focus, Virelith!" I snapped, my commander's voice forcing her brain to work again. "Disintegrate the stone floor structure around us into loose gravel and dust! Now! Then, prepare a mid-tier spell at the tip of your staff to trigger the alarm, but do not release it!"
Despite being scared half to death, the Combat Field Engineer's survival instinct and pragmatism responded to my instructions. Virelith slammed the base of her staff onto the roof floor.
In a matter of seconds, her earth magic worked. The solid stone tiles on the dormitory roof creaked, cracked, and crumbled into a spread of loose gravel mixed with thick dust in a ten-meter radius around us.
At the same time, I heard a soft scraping sound from behind the roof parapet wall. The Assassin was performing silent parkour, circling us like a shark looking for an opening to bite.
I smiled cynically. Elite assassins from the Black Tower were trained for years to infiltrate past temperature sensors, disable magical alarms, and avoid explosive runes. They were accustomed to the luxury of high-end security systems.
However, in the bloody trenches where I came from, that luxury did not exist. We used the most primitive methods to detect intruders like crushed glass, fishing wire, and gravel.
Gravel is the natural enemy of the Silent Step technique used by assassins. Its surface is slippery, unstable for a quick dash footing, and any slight shifting of stones will surely create a scraping sound that exposes their position.
In the shadows, the Assassin cursed inwardly.
Every ideal corner he found to ambush turned out to have a thin wire strung across it. If he forced a jump, he would have to land on a slippery spread of gravel, ruining his perfect stance.
What restrained his movements the most was the crystal glow on the street lamp posts around the dormitory below us. The Mana Fluctuation Alarm was set to maximum. He dared not use his Shadow Manipulation magic to sneak in and behead me instantly.
If the Assassin knew this target was a tactical monster, he would surely have sabotaged the academy's alarm system first. But it was all too late.
Suddenly, the Assassin's eyes caught a bright mana surge from the tip of the bespectacled girl's staff behind me. Virelith was gathering pure mana in large quantities.
The Assassin's instinct screamed. If the girl finished her chant, the alarm would howl! Hundreds of elite knights would surround this dormitory! The girl must die now!
Driven by the urgency of dwindling time, the Assassin discarded his caution. He leaped out of the shadows, lunging like a black arrow, jumping over my tripwire, and aiming straight for Virelith's neck.
SCRRRK!
As soon as the Assassin's boots landed on the spread of gravel Virelith created, his footing shifted. The loose stone surface robbed him of traction, causing the elite killer's speed to drop for a fraction of a second.
That fraction of a second was the line between life and death.
I threw my dagger toward the scraping sound. In mid-air, the Assassin proved his class. He tilted his waist extremely, dodging my dagger which only grazed his shoulder.
However, that throw was merely a distraction. I had already darted forward through the dust, interrupting his path, and standing as a steel wall between the Assassin and Virelith.
A close-quarters clash of weapons erupted.
The Assassin used a pair of curved knives designed to tear veins and hook muscles. His attacks came like a storm; fast, silent, and possessing terrifying surgical precision.
I met him with military-style Close Quarters Combat. Instead of parrying his curved blades that could hook my weapon, I used my forearms wrapped in thick leather guards to batter his wrists away every time he swung, then retaliated with close-range thrusts targeting his neck and ribs.
This dagger dance took place brutally over the gravel. Technically and experientially, my general's brain could predict his every swing and feint.
However, physical reality could not be lied to.
My body was still shattered from the fight against the Emerald Root Wyrm last night. The "glass cup" inside my chest was cracked. Every time I blocked the Assassin's blow, the kinetic vibration traveled to my ribs, sending flashes of pain that made my vision white out for a moment.
My breathing became ragged. My steps began to be pushed back.
The Assassin's eyes caught a millisecond pause in my defense when I grimaced holding back the pain in my ribs. He did not waste that opening.
The man rotated his left wrist, performing a deadly downward feint to bait my dagger down, then his right hand threw a hidden dagger coated in thick green poison, aiming right for the center of my face from less than a meter away.
The distance was too close. The time was too short to parry.
I unclasped my thick academy cloak and whipped it forward like a capture net, instantly covering my own face and the Assassin's face.
THWIP!
The poisoned dagger embedded deeply into the thick fabric fibers of my cloak, failing to penetrate to my skin. At the same time, the thick cloth covered the Assassin's vision for one full second.
Taking advantage of the enemy's second of blindness, I let the cloak slip from my shoulders. I lowered my posture until my knee almost touched the gravel, then slashed the dagger in my hand horizontally with all my remaining physical strength.
SLASH!
My blade tore the Assassin's calf, penetrating his trouser fabric and cutting half the muscle of his left leg.
"Urgh!" the Assassin growled in pain. He staggered backward, fresh blood spurting wetting the dusty gravel. His perfect stance was totally destroyed because he was now limping on a slippery surface.
The hired killer stared at me from behind my cloak lying on the floor. In his eyes, there was no more underestimation. He realized that the outcast cadet before him was not a rat, but a veteran monster highly mastering the art of brutal assassination.
The Assassin's breathing sounded heavy. His time was up. His cover was blown, his surprise attack failed, his leg was crippled, and he was facing an unpredictable opponent.
Driven by desperation and the absolute pride of the Black Tower Association, the Assassin decided to gamble with his life.
"You will die tonight, Draven!" he roared hoarsely.
The man stopped holding back his mana flow. He spread both his arms, and an incredibly cold, dense black fog exploded from his body. High-level Shadow Aura was now fully released, swallowing the dormitory roof area in a suffocating darkness.
Instantly, the blue crystals on the dormitory street lamp posts below us changed color to blazing blood red.
WEE-WOO! WEE-WOO! WEE-WOO!
A highly deafening magical siren howled cutting through the silence of the Aethelgard night. Its sound echoed throughout the academy, waking every instructor and knight from their sleep. The Mana Fluctuation Alarm had been triggered to the maximum.
Under the flashing red emergency lights spinning through the black fog, the Assassin, whose form was now half-merged with the shadow, stared at me with absolute killing intent.
I gripped my dagger tightly, my physical body trembling due to extraordinary pain and fatigue. I knew the knights would break onto this roof in five minutes.
However, surviving for five minutes against a full-powered elite assassin, using a body already shattered from the inside... was a hell that had just begun.