Chapter 136: The Assassin’s Identity

Chapter 136: Chapter 136: The Assassin’s Identity

The assassin didn’t utter a word.

He reached behind his back, drawing a pair of dark, curved twin blades with a swift slink.

It seemed like guns were not the only thing he could use.

Flipping them into a reverse grip, he let the dark steel rest against his forearms.

Woosh!

He even coated the weapons with wind energy and

A sharp, high-pitched hum echoed through the air as bright green wind energy swirled around the edges like spinning saw teeth.

He sank into a deep, low crouch on the swaying pine branch, his chest almost touching his knees, coiled like a predator about to spring.

Derrick’s black eyes narrowed. The pale glow of his white chakra blades cast a cold light across his face.

"Have it your way," Derrick whispered softly.

He took two quick, leaping steps across the breaking pine boughs before vaulting straight into the night sky.

Mid-air, Derrick twisted his body and threw his chakra blades.

Fwip! Fwip!

The twin white discs sliced through the dark, flying toward the assassin with terrifying speed.

The assassin’s eyes widened behind his mask. With no room to dodge, he brought his twin daggers up in a cross-block.

CLANG!

Green gale force and white energy crashed together violently, creating a shockwave that shattered the branch beneath his feet.

The hitman dropped several feet, kicking off a lower limb to catch himself.

The deflected energy discs streaked past his head, slicing clean through a massive pine fifty yards away before hitting the mountain rock.

BOOM!

Rubble blasted into the air.

Before the assassin could even settle his balance, the air pressure above his head spiked.

He looked up to find Derrick already falling straight toward him.

"I can finally let loose. I hope you are ready to be on the receiving end." Derrick spread his arms wide and laughed into the air.

He brought a heavy, energy-packed axe kick straight down, forcing the assassin to throw his crossed blades up to catch it.

BANG!

The sheer force blew through his wind barrier in a split second, tearing his sleeves to shreds.

CRACK!

The ground beneath them cracked upon the impact.

The assassin’s legs shook before he was sent flying back, smashing through layer after layer of rocks before hitting the slope in the back with a heavy crash.

BOOM!

Derrick moved back after the impact and landed on the ground while controlling the Chakrams in the air with his enhanced energy, making almost no sound as he looked down at the settling dust. ’

Woosh!

In the small crater fore him, the assassin forced himself back to his feet with a cracked mask and blood dripping down his chin, yet his grip on his twin blades stayed firm.

Derrick didn’t give him room to breathe.

Taking a calm step off the branch, his figure blurred and dissolved back into the shadows.

Woosh!

While the assassin was fending off the assault from the twin disk like blades from both directions, Derrick lunged forward.

He pulled out a flying blade from his inventory and gripped it hard.

’Oh no.’ Just as the assassin was busy blocking the blade coming for his head, he noticed Derrick closing in with a blade in his hand.

Clang! Clang! Woosh!

He spun his twin daggers with full force and send the chakrams flying back desperately and took a step back to dodge the attack from Derrick.

Clang! Shing!

He thought he was barely dodging death, completely oblivious to the fact that Derrick was just peeling back his gear piece by piece.

A fast sweep of Derrick’s blade cracked his mask, sending dark plastic fragments fluttering down into the dirt.

Another flick and he changed the hand holding the blade before he attacked the assassin’s left wrist.

Shing.

The blade didn’t even graze his skin; it neatly sliced through the back of his tactical glove, letting the shredded leather peel away and expose the mark he had been hiding underneath it and returned to Derrick’s hand followed by the other.

A soft chime sounded in Derrick’s ear.

"Got it, sir," Silly B, who had been using camera to focus on the fight, whispered through the hidden earpiece. "That mark belongs to the Winchester Assassination group. They take mercenary and assassinating jobs. I will look into their known addresses and location and hack into their servers. I might need more power for this."

"Go ahead." Derrick whispered before he lowered his blades an inch. "So, you are from the Winchesters," Derrick said quietly. "The assassin syndicate."

The assassin glanced at his hand with an indifferent look on his face.

He even wanted to mock Derrick.

But when he heard Derrick speak the name out loud made his eyes narrow.

"So you have heard of us," the assassin rasped, his voice rough and cold.

"To be honest, I seriously thought someone from the West Family came after me. But I guess i was wrong." Derrick tilted his head.

"Why would someone from that place come after me?" Derrick muttered. "Did someone put a hit out on me? Definitely has to be that family."

He wasn’t just talking to the assassin. A faint golden ring flared to life deep inside Derrick’s black pupils as he activated his All-Seeing Eyes.

Time seemed to slow down. Derrick locked his gaze onto the assassin’s face, reading every tiny twitch and micro-expression. He watched the slight tightening of the man’s jaw and caught the brief flicker in his dark pupils.

"Yes? No?" Derrick said with a deep frown as he watched the hitman’s pulse jump in his neck.

Then, a look of realization appeared on Derrick’s face. "I see," Derrick whispered softly. "So it’s a yes and a no."

At that exact moment, Silly B’s synthetic voice chimed through the hidden earpiece again.

"Sir, I believe there is a major reason besides your bounty on the dark web," Silly B reported quietly. "The contract was posted through an anonymous account traced directly back to Pearl City."

Pearl City? Derrick thought, his mind racing as he processed the location. Isn’t that where the Golden Dawn Academy is located?

He kept his gaze locked onto the silent hitman standing in the crater, the pieces of the puzzle quickly falling into place.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence, Derrick concluded privately.

"To confirm his identity, I matched his profile against restricted threat records acquired by hacking the main server of the FIA," Silly B added smoothly. "I then cross-referenced those assassin profiles with the records of everyone you have ever come into contact with."

You did what...? Derrick thought, a wave of shock hitting him so hard his foot nearly slipped on the thin pine branch.

He caught himself in a fraction of a second, locking his posture and keeping his face completely blank so his target wouldn’t notice.

A few yards away, the assassin stayed crouched low on the branch, holding his twin blades in a vice grip. His sharp eyes remained locked onto Derrick with extreme vigilance, sensing that something was happening even if he couldn’t tell what.

"So that’s how it is..." Derrick finally turned to the assassin and said, "No wonder your reason of coming after me is so conflicted. Although there was a hit out on me, you also had a personal reason for coming after me don’t you."

"Since you have already found out. Tell me..." The masked man raised his weapons once more and flared his energy even more wildly. "What have you done to my child? What did you do to my... daughter."