Child of Destiny

Right after Shin stepped out of the isolated dimension that the Head Priestess had created, all of the ‘memories’ that he could remember about his experiences within the Black Serpent Mafia Training Camp started to return to him.

That heartbreaking scene when he watched Alyssa, who was like a big sister to him, kept repeating it inside his head, which ignited the slumbering rage within him.

This made his mood immediately take a massive shift compared to the way he was talking with the Head Priestess earlier.

Then, he spread his Spiritual Sense in every direction, looking for the agents hiding within the surrounding woods. And it did not take long for him to find them, marking all of their location inside his head.

The moment when he raised his head, his eyes immediately came in contact with one of the agents, who was hiding in the distance. And after he saw the unique black serpent tattoo on the latter’s face, his rage immediately reached the limit, making the killing intent that he was suppressing suddenly burst out.

…

Not long after, he managed to take down all of the agents alongside the one with the black serpent tattoo on his face.

Shin stared at the corpse of the agent lying under him with a pair of cold eyes. And when noticed the earpiece attached to the ears of the latter, he suddenly bent down and took it. He placed the communicator on his ear and listened for a moment before attaching it to his ears.

Through it, he discovered that there were three more young agents being dispatched to this location. And they were not the average ones since they were personally nurtured by the organization to be executioners.

Shin continued to listen for a couple of moments before the person on the other side of the line got tired of it and finally accepted what just happened.

When the line was cut, Shin smirked a little before removing the communicator and crushing it within his hands. He then turned around and walked further into the woods to hide while waiting for the next batch of guests coming here.

“Executioners, huh? It has been a while since I’ve fought one here in the real world. Let’s see if the quality is still the same as before,” he muttered in a cold voice as his figure disappeared within the dark shades of the forest.

…

A few hours later, Shin, who was sitting on a tree branch, finally noticed some movements coming from a few distances away from him.

And from the silent and sneaky movements that they had, he immediately understood that his targets were finally here.

He adjusted his position in a more comfortable position while casting his gaze in the direction where he sensed the three presences were coming from.

“Three?” muttered Shin as he observed their moments as if he was a predator stalking its prey. “An initiator, a finisher, and an auxiliary one – a pretty standard composition.”

“They look good. But since they are in a group, their talent is still inferior to the top-quality ones. They are most likely another cannon fodder. The real one should be hiding right behind them,” he added as he surveyed the surroundings with his Spiritual Sense.

After all, he was still raised by such an organization as one of their special agents, an all-rounder Joker. It was pretty natural for him to be familiar with how they were working given the understanding that he gained with that background.

But after spending a long time without any result, he gave up on locating the real executioner and focused on the three that were sent as the front for that particular assassin.

Watching from the shadows, Shin saw the three executioners arrive at the spot where he purposely left the bodies of the agents that he just disposed of just earlier. He let them investigate for a few moments as he continued to stalk them in the dark.

And when he saw that they were getting a little separated from each other to cover a much larger area, he knew that it was finally the time when he needed to make his move.

He adjusted his position on the tree branch before asking a silencing spell on himself through his body. It was a special application of the Silencing Boundary that he used during the written exam in the academy. Instead of creating a huge domain that could cover an entire room, Shin applied it to himself to make his movements as quiet as possible.

He hopped between trees as he approached the sole female member of the little group. From his observation, she must be the auxiliary type of executioner, which had a bunch of supporting techniques and abilities.

It would be best to eliminate her as soon as possible since she could be annoying if he let her do her thing. Moreover, she would be the easiest target among the three since the abilities of the other two would most likely be focused on direct combat. It would take quite some time before he could eliminate either of them, so it would be best to pick the easiest target.

…

While Shin was preying on her, Serra was constantly sensing that he was being stalked by a dangerous predator. She understood this feeling very well as she was trained within the camp under the pressure of a similar feeling.

Within the camp, people like her, especially female young agents, were constantly being targeted by everyone. All of them had different thoughts while looking at her, and she was familiar with all of them.

She understood that she was being targeted by their enemies since she looked to be the weakest member of the group. She was already used to it, so she put her guard up to the best of her abilities.

She could admit that compared to the two, her fighting capacities were on the weaker side. But it did not mean that her survival abilities were any weaker than theirs. In fact, when it came to surviving and pushing the battle into a longer fight, she was the best among the group. She was confident that she could buy enough time for her two teammates to save her.

Crack!

Her foot accidentally stepped on a broken branch scattered on the ground, crushing it. The sound did not bother her as she was fully occupied with sensing her surroundings.

Unfortunately, that was the moment she was not expecting. Right after the branches were crushed under her feet, its sound distracted her senses for a moment without her knowing.

With impeccable timing, Shin, who was waiting on the tree above here up until now, suddenly dropped down without making a sound. There was a pair of daggers on his hands that he took from the agents that he killed earlier.

His arms were crossed as his body dropped before uncrossing them and swinging the daggers at the neck of Serra when he reached her.

Swoosh!

His ambush was perfect, but to his surprise, Serra was able to respond in time and barely saved her life at the last moment.

She did not see nor sense Shin, but her instincts quickly kicked in when the sharp edges of the daggers were about to reach her neck. Her body shivered and quickly leaned back when she sensed the threat.

Slash!

Unfortunately, her throat was still grazed by the daggers, drawing a thin red line on it. She was cut albeit not too deep. However, shock and panic could be seen in her eyes when she saw the young man in front of her in an upside-down position.

Despite seeing the person, she could not sense his presence at all. It was as if he had never been there. If she removed her gaze away from him, then she would never be able to know that there was someone else here.

This was a trick that Shin learned from Vincent. Being someone who was trained and raised within a family of assassins, Vincent had a habit of erasing his presence almost all the time. Shin could not copy it perfectly, but he could at least mimic the technique by relying on the illusion techniques from the Heavenly Black Tortoise Method.

“Tsk!”

He clicked his tongue when he saw that his ambush failed. Regardless, he still had to immobilize this girl even if he could not finish her off.

He let his body continue dropping before swinging the daggers on his hands at her thighs. And since she was currently in an awkward posture due to his surprise attack, she was not in the right position to dodge.

Puchi! Puchi!

“Ahh!”

She screamed in pain due to the daggers piercing her thighs. She could not do anything but to fall the ground.

Her scream quickly attracted the attention of Steve and Chris, who were not that far from her. And the moment when they saw what was happening, they quickly sprung into action and charged toward Shin.

“Bastard!” Chris changed with his full outburst of speed, almost reaching Shin within an instant.

Steve was not slow either as he was already upon Shin before Chris could even reach the latter. There was a dagger appeared in his hand and he swiftly stabbed it forward.

Shin, who was planning to finish off Serra could not help but abandon the idea and quickly retreated when he saw the two almost reaching him.

He hopped back to dodge the incoming stab from Steve before leaping in the air to avoid being entangled with Chis, who was coming at him from another angle. He then swiftly stepped on the nearby tree and agilely hopped from one after another, reaching the top within an instant.

He disappeared with the dense branches of the entangled trees and hid behind their leaves, not giving the trio the chance to find them.

He was not planning to fight them in a frontal confrontation since he still had to find the real executioner hiding in the darkness.

Moreover, he also had to hide his real fighting style until it happened, so he had to rely on this kind of guerilla tactics, torturing the trio with the hint-and-run attacks, before revealing his fangs at the final moment.

…