Chapter 532: Just Trust Me

Had these assassins been... well, ’ordinary’ assassins, if there even was such a thing, Christina would have cut off all their heads by now, but knowing that when any of these fanatics died, they would subsequently blow up, she had been forced to hold back and focus on disabling them.

The idea of capturing one of them alive had passed through her head, but Christina had dismissed the idea as quickly as it came to her, understanding that getting people willing to literally blow themselves up to hide their identities to talk would probably be hopeless.

Up until now, Christina hadn’t quite been able to counter these assassins, always winding up a step too slow to really cripple one of them before the others stepped into stop her; however, with Landon now occupying one of them, she saw her chance and wasn’t about to let it pass.

With a single, heavy sweep of her sword, Christina forced all 3 of her remaining opponents back before lunging forward and driving her gauntlet into the face of the strongest assassin, rattling his brain severely.

Even if these assassins were fearless and willing to die, they were still just humans with the same physical limits as any other Mortal Realm Practitioner.

With the most troublesome foe temporarily dazed, Christina activated the Solidifying Array engraved in her armour to strengthen it and block the dagger strike from Second Step assassin behind her while she replaced her left hand on her greatsword and thrust it towards the Third Step assassin.

The Third Step assassin was too slow to dodge the blow, so he tried to block it by crossing his vambraces in front of his vitals, but Christina’s greatsword cut through his guard and pierced through his chest like butter.

If he had been wearing a proper metal chestplate and armguards, he might have been able to withstand the blow, but he was only wearing light leather armour designed to provide maximum flexibility and stealth, as was typical of an assassin.

What surprised Christina, however, was that after being run through, the assassin didn’t try to withdraw but instead actually grabbed the crossguard of her greatsword and thrust it further into his chest.

Realizing what the enemy was trying to do, Christina didn’t hesitate to release her grip and deliver a push-kick to the Third Step assassin’s chest, sending him stumbling back several steps where he proceeded to collapse to the ground.

Having lost her primary weapon, Christina drew her backup daggers and re-engaged the Second Step assassin.

It was clear she wasn’t as proficient with this style of weapon as her opponent was, but having trained together with Lucas and somewhat learning from him how to use his Pseudo-Sense Projection, Christina’s spatial awareness was significantly higher than the assassin’s.

Coupled with significantly higher raw specs and much better equipment, it only took Christina a few exchanges to find the enemy’s throat with one of her daggers.

Having learned her lesson from the Third Step assassin, Christina didn’t even bother trying to withdraw the dagger she had sunk into the enemy’s neck and just delivered a palm-strike to his abdomen, sending him flying back as he bled out.

At the same time, she whipped around and met the Sixth Step Assassin’s blade with her last remaining dagger.

Obviously, in the time she had taken to dispatch this man’s two companions, he had managed to recover from the shock she delivered to his head.

Still, it was now a 1-on-1 where Christina held the absolute advantage, so she was confident she could dispatch him in under a minute as long as she fought steadily.

At least, that was her plan before Landon cried out, "Tina! Enemy reinforcements!"

Focusing her Soul Qi into her ears, Christina caught the sound of many approaching footsteps and understood that she didn’t have a minute to waste here.

Dropping the dagger in her hand, Christina surprised the Sixth Step assassin who suddenly found himself pushing his own dagger against thin-air.

Before her opponent could regain his balance, Christina wrapped her arms around his neck in an unarmed move Lucas had taught her called a ’clinch’ and proceeded to drive her knee into the man’s chest.

Christina had been hoping this blow from her armoured knee would be enough to incapacitate her opponent, but the Sixth Step Sea Establishment assassin was clearly much tougher than his weaker comrades and managed to tank this hit before driving his dagger into her side.

After taking multiple hits, including an arrow from what she assumed was a Mid-Rank Spirit Initiate archer, the protective Spirit Array in her armour had been exhausted, so the assassin’s blade actually managed to pierce into her flesh.

Fortunately, the quality of her materials in her armour were incredibly high, so even without the Solidifying Array, the blade was only able to sink about 2 or 3 centimetres into her chest.

It was painful, but it wasn’t anything Christina couldn’t endure.

Gritting her teeth to avoid screaming, Christina put power into her hips and delivered a sweeping-kick to her opponents left leg while twisting her arms hard in the opposite direction, causing a rather loud and gruesome *crack* to sound from the assassin’s neck.

.....

Quickly tossing away the Sixth Step Sea Establishment assassin’s corpse, Christina leapt back to avoid the inevitable explosion and grabbed the hilt of the dagger that was still sticking into her side, yanking it out with a grunt.

Ideally, she would have cleaned and sealed the wound next, but there was no time for that.

Landon had also managed to finish off the Second Step assassin he was dealing with and quickly moved to join her, his expression approaching something similar to awe as he stared at Christina.

Ignoring the look on Landon’s face, Christina grabbed his hand and whispered, "We need to run."

"What about your sword?" Landon asked, wondering exactly what she was planning on doing in a house full of people who wanted to kill them without her main weapon.

Not bothering to wait, Christina dragged the Darr Kingdom prince along with her, running in the opposite direction she heard the sound of approaching footsteps, "It’s fine, just trust me."

Landon was confused, but didn’t raise any objections. Christina clearly had a much better idea of what was going on than he did, so for the moment, he was fine with following her lead.