Chapter 61: Spanking a Delusional Assassin!

Chapter 61: Chapter 61: Spanking a Delusional Assassin!

He got out of the bed as he retrieved the Netherbound Deathscape, tuckeing it into an easily accessible spot so it was not visible, as he slipped out of the estate without a sound.

The barrier shimmered faintly behind him as he crossed its boundary, resealing itself in his wake.

He glanced back once at the house, the windows dark with only some lights visible, all the girls asleep and everything peaceful.

’Be back soon,’ he thought, and stepped into the trees at the start of the forest and end of the estate.

---

The forest at night felt subtly wrong the moment he crossed the treeline, definitely not him traumatized from the horror movies from Earth, yes, definitely not.

He layered his senses one at a time.

Sanguine Perception first. Nothing unusual, the standard scattered pulses of small nocturnal beast amd animals, nothing more.

Mana Sense next, almost nothing, the ambient mana thin and undisturbed and the animals.

Shadow Sense followed, and this time something registered in his surroundings, hundreds of ordinary shadows cast by trees and rocks and drifting branches, and one, somewhere ahead, that was moving differently, with it feeling different from the surrounding wildlife, denser in mana maybe pr something else.

He stopped walking.

’There it is.’

He couldn’t pinpoint exactly what else made it different. It wasn’t like it was alive, exactly, maybe after leveling the trait up a few times pr getting a higher ranked one would he be able to tell how it wasn’t the same.

As he was busy in his thoughts regarding Shadow Sense his Keen Hearing caught something small.

Crack.

A branch, snapping somewhere off to his left.

His hand closed around the scythe’s shaft without conscious thought as he turned to face it ready for something to pop out and attack, after some time a Horned Rabbit jumped put the bush.

’Phew, nothing.’

---

He moved forward carefully, deeper between the trees amd bushes, pushing further into the forest, as the world around him became quite besides the insects and small nocturnal beasts ruffling around.

His various sense traits flickered informing him of something nearby, the faintest possible fluctuation, gone before he could lock onto it.

He moved again and waited a bit to see if it would return. There, again. Smaller this time, but unmistakably real.

’Okay, someone’s definitely here, seems like the old man isn’t going senile just yet.’ He thought trying not to laugh as he activated all his sensing skills at once, Mana Sense and Mana Vision as the world bloomed into different colors around him, his mana draining steadily from his core with each activation.

[Mana Sense: -10 Mana]

[Mana Vision: -50 Mana]

His perception expanded all at once, world sharpening into something almost overwhelming, and for one brief, flickering instant, he caught it.

A human-shaped distortion, perched high in the branches of a tree thirty meters ahead.

He looked up sharply.

Nothing, just branches, leaves, empty darkness.

His eyes narrowed. "...You’re good."

A pause.

"But I’m better."

Something shifted behind him as the distortion disappeared from in front of him.

He spun, his new scythe rising on instinct. Nothing there either, just more trees, shadow and a certain silence.

Then, from somewhere in the darkness, close, closer than it had any right to be, a voice echoed through the stillness.

"...Interesting."

"You actually noticed and came looking for me."

Lucien turned slowly toward the voice.

A cloaked figure stepped out from behind a tree that definitely hadn’t been wide enough to hide a person a second ago .

’A presence suppressing skill, must be s required skillet for an assassin, though Vane didn’t have one I think.’

’And unlike Vane, this one’s not even bothering to hide, and just came out right from the start.’

’Is he confident because he has info on me, or is he stupid, let’s find out which one it is.’

The assassin didn’t attack. He just stood there, head tilted, studying Lucien like a man appraising livestock.

’So that is your secret,’ the assassin thought, delighted. ’It turned a talentless D-Rank reject into something that could kill a B-Rank clone, and it’s mine now. Malrith hasn’t even arrived yet, that loyal dog. Why would I hand this to that bastard Dravik when I could just take it myself and disappear off this entire continent, what would he even do about it?’

Then he started laughing.

Quietly at first, then louder, then genuinely and uncomfortably hysterical.

Lucien watched him wheeze through it, coughing and still laughing, utterly bewildered.

"...Are you okay?"

The assassin wiped an actual tear from beneath his hood. "Do you have any idea how fortunate you are?"

"Honestly?" Lucien glanced around the empty forest. "I’m starting to question whether I’m the fortunate one here."

"Haha, don’t act like you don’t know, you have got some very high ranked cultivation technique that actually let’s you absorb absurd amounts of mana, don’t think I didn’t notice you trying to hide the effects using those mana crystals, though I wonder what rank it is and what it’s full effects are, maybe Legendary or Mythical if I’m really lucky?" He asked while laughing already certain the technique was his.

"And just as I was wondering how ro get it from you, you actually walked into the forest," the assassin continued, still grinning. "All alone, away from your wives saving me the trouble of eliminating witnesses even. You practically delivered yourself to me all tied up, gagged and wrapped in a bow."

’Why do all these assassins talk so much, also what drugs is he on, what technique, the cultivation progress?’ Lucien thought, exasperated. ’Is there a mandatory monologue clause in the assassin job contract?’

’I thought assassination was all about stealth and doing the job cleanly, but here they literally announce themselves.’ He thought shaking his head a bit.

’And to top it of this guy’s giggling, actual giggling. Vane was bad, sure obsessive, needy and clearly touch-starved for Silas’s approval but at least he had a coherent goal, who even sent this guy?

’This one’s laughing like he just won the lottery by finding a guy in the woods.’ Thinking of this, Lucien really started worrying.

’Please don’t be into swords for weird reasons,* Lucien thought, a genuinely horrifying possibility crossing his mind. ’Please don’t be here because you think I’m handsome and want to have a sword fight with me. I’ve had enough weird energy from Vane and his storage ring to last a lifetime.’

He shuddered involuntarily.

---

As the guy was losing it and laughing at his bright future already mumbling various names and something about a harem, he activated Night Vision, straining to make out details beneath the enchanted hood.

Nothing, full black cloak clearly enchanted, hsi face lost entirely to shadow with no visible markings.

’What is it with assassins and cloaks. Is there a store? Some assassin guild discount? Do they all shop at the same place?’

He decided to try something new instead using one of his newly acquired skills.

[Appraisal Activated.]

[Mana Consumption: -100]

A significant chunk of his mana pool drained instantly, and information bloomed in his vision.

[Appraisal Target.]

[Name: ???]

[Race: Asura]

[Age: ??]

[Cultivation: Beginner B-Rank]

[Bloodline: ???]

[Talent: ???]

[Condition: Healthy (?)]

[Additional Information: Insufficient data]

’Not omniscient, then,’ Lucien noted, unlike what he knew from webnovels.

’Just organizes whatever I can actually sense into something readable, fair enough it’s still useful. I’ll check its system description later on for its actual effects.’

His Mana Sense jad already confirmed the rank independently Beginner B, distinctly weaker than Vane had been.

’Should be easier than Vane, doesn’t mean I get sloppy, though.’

---

"You don’t deserve whatever you’ve obtained," the assassin continued, working himself back up. "A weak vampire, suddenly climbing this fast? Whatever you stole, whatever inheritance you awakened, whatever artifact you found buried in some forgotten vault—"

"None of those, actually," Lucien said cutting him off.

"—it’s mine now," the assassin finished, ignoring him entirely. "I’ll take it. I’ll do far more with it than some trash reject ever could."

"You’re making a lot of assumptions."

The assassin smiled, yellow teeth flashing beneath the hood. "And soon I’ll have all the answers."

’Definitely mentally unwell,’ Lucien thought. ’Do these people get evaluated before employment? Is there a psych screening? Because between Vane’s daddy issues and this guy’s main-character delusions, I’m starting to think evil nobles just hire whoever’s available on short notice.’

As those thoughts passed his mind, the guy still dreaming, he activated the Netherbound Deathscape quietly, with no warning or dramatic gesture.

Reality bent around them both.

The assassin blinked, glancing around at surroundings that looked, at a glance, completely unchanged, same trees, same moonlight and the same forest.

"...What did you do?" he asked, frowning.

Lucien said nothing.

The assassin’s confidence flickered, just slightly but seeing Lucien’s silence it went up just as fast. "Did you fail whatever you tried to do?" He asked before he started laughing his ass off.

’Nope,’ Lucien thought. ’You just haven’t figured out you’re already trapped.’

He didn’t waste the opening.

[Crucible Overdrive Activated.]

[Strength +87 | Agility +74 | Vitality +92 | Constitution +81 | Intelligence +58 | Mana +69]

Power surged through him instantly as he burned some of the blood in his storage, and in the same breath he activated Blood Suppression.

The assassin’s expression twisted mid laugh.

"What—?"

His blood flow stuttered, weight settling wrong across his limbs, movement suddenly costing more effort than it should, as he was debuffed.

Lucien pulled his new weapon up and burst forward with speed that surprised even himself.

’What the hell?’

The Reaper’s Twin Crescents gleamed dark crimson-black in the moonlight, curved blades edged in a faint bloody glow, connected pommel to pommel by a thin, enchanted chain that hummed faintly with latent mana.

He spun one experimentally, chain trailing the motion.

’Now this feels right.’

The assassin, sensing the shift too late, lunged.

Lucien’s first strike came in low and fast, the assassin twisted his waist at the last possible instant, the blade grazing past him by a hair’s breadth, close enough to shear a few threads off his cloak.

’Close,’ Lucien thought, already resetting. ’Not close enough.’

He flicked his fingers, and thin crimson threads shot free from his storage, a little denser than his usual work and studded with tiny embedded spikes on some parts.

They wrapped around the assassin’s ankles as he was in an awkward position.

SHNK.

The spikes bit deep, the assassin yanked back on reflex, driving them in further along his leg, leaving a wild gash as he jumped back.

"What the—?!"

Lucien was already there, closing the last few feet in a blur.

"You said I delivered myself here," Lucien said, grinning, "to be slaughtered, right?"

The assassin’s eyes went wide.

"I think you got the roles reversed."

SHNK.

The twin scythes crossed.

The head separated cleanly before the assassin’s brain finished processing the sentence, his eyes wide at the miscalculation.

The body collapsed a half-second later, legs simply giving out as it fell to its knees and then flat on the ground as the head smashed next to it with a wet thud in a puddle of blood.

SQUELCH.