Leon's long legs lashed out like a whip, kicking his opponent flying as he snapped his fingers:
"Nova!"
The ninja squad leader was sent hurtling backward, spitting blood, his eyes fixed on Leon in pure horror.
How is this possible? I'm a Lv.4 senior officer! One counterattack and I'm already wounded? What the hell is this Demeter Familia guy? The intel said he was only Lv.2!
Those useless bastards in the intelligence division!
Having kicked the enemy away, Leon spoke without even turning his head:
"These two look like they'll be a pain, so leave them to me. The small fry are yours."
"Persephone, keep Demeter safe."
"Jeanne, field command's on you!"
Before the words had fully left his mouth, he dropped low, his coat snapping in the wind, the ground beneath him erupting with a thunderous crack as he shot forward like a cannonball!
"O flame, grant me strength!"
Mid-charge, he twisted his wrist, the watch-shaped magic ring flickering with light as fire blazed to life in his palm!
He looked up at the "high ninja" still sailing backward through the air, and a wicked grin spread across his face.
"Hah!"
"Fire Style: Great Fireball!"
"?"
Fire Style: Great Fireball?
The assassin flew backward like a kite with its string cut, slamming into the wall with a crash.
The impact rattled his entire skeleton until it felt ready to shatter, his organs all but screaming. Before he could even catch his breath, a terrifying fireball filled his vision, rushing straight at his face!
The air warped and twisted in the searing heat, the orange-red glow casting the assassin's horrified features into something monstrous.
"Move... my body! Move, damn it!"
"It's just a fatal wound! I'll push through it on willpower alone!"
"Aaaaagh!"
In that razor-thin moment, the stench of singed hair shot up into his nostrils, and right as he was about to be reduced to ash, he finally managed to trigger his magic once more...
Body Flicker!
Leon's brow arched, and he let out a sound of surprise.
"Took a kick with half my strength behind it and still moves that fast... no wonder, a ninja who's mastered assassination."
As he spoke, his eyes slid sideways, catching sight of the assassin hunched over, dragging his body along, gasping for breath but somehow still on his feet.
When he noticed the hand gripping the kunai was trembling, Leon understood... even between adventurers of the same level, there were gaps. Against overwhelming strength, this duel had been a rigged game from the very start.
Especially when he himself was a cheating bastard with both the stats and the mechanics. PVE aside, since that was raid-boss territory, but in pure PVP, whether it was a lopsided one-on-one or a chaotic one-versus-many, as long as the enemy's health bar fell within the human range, he held a permanent advantage.
Whose mage gets to have every single spell on instant cast?
That's just unplayable, what the hell!
"Damn it!"
The assassin glared at Leon, his eyes shot through with blood.
Every breath felt like his lungs were burning, ready to burst. His nerves were stretched so tight he was getting lightheaded, his vision blurring for a moment.
This despairing, crushing pressure... he hadn't felt anything like it in years, not since he'd become one of the organization's handful of Lv.4 senior officers!
"Heh... heh heh... hahaha..."
"Orario, the center of the world. Truly a place where dragons and tigers hide."
"No wonder the seniors always warned us to steer clear of jobs coming out of Orario. I always thought they just looked down on Orario contracts because the pay was low."
"But now I see it wasn't that they looked down on them. They just couldn't win!"
Leon said nothing. He simply took a step forward, and his figure vanished in an instant.
When he reappeared, he was already standing right in front of the assassin.
He shot his hand up, precisely catching the assassin's incoming punch, his five fingers locking around the man's wrist like an iron clamp, then yanked hard! At the same time his right fist blasted out like a cannon, slamming heavily into the man's mask.
The assassin staggered backward from the blow, but Leon's left arm contracted, hauling his body right back in!
His fists came down like a violent storm, one after another, each one heavier than the last!
Every punch landed squarely on the head, and in the span of a heartbeat... the assassin's mask was soaked dark red with blood, shattered teeth scattered in every direction, blood pouring freely from his nose and mouth. Within twenty punches, his eyes shifted from horror to something feral, and finally settled into blankness.
Leon released his grip, letting the man slump weakly to his knees.
He looked down at the assassin clinging to life, slowly raising his arm, his index finger lifting slightly as a dancing spark flickered at his fingertip.
A tiny crimson magic circle flashed and was gone.
The flame quickly gathered into a small, slowly rotating fireball, its blazing reflection mirrored in the depths of Leon's eyes.
The assassin lifted his head, and beneath the bloodied mask, a smile of release appeared.
"It's over."
A blast.
...
"No!"
"Shirakumo Toru!"
The other Lv.4 officer, locked down hard by Jeanne, watched as Leon casually executed his comrade. In an instant his eyes nearly split with rage, on the edge of madness!
What the hell kind of shit job was this!
He could accept that Orario hid dragons and tigers, but wasn't the Demeter Familia just a farming faction that quietly tilled fields? They weren't some exploration-type familia risking their lives in the Dungeon every day, so how could they be hiding a monster like this?!
"You damn intel broker, screw your jungling!"
"You call this a Lv.2?"
Before the operation, the intel they'd pulled through underground channels had clearly stated:
The Demeter Familia had only their captain, the Priestess of Desolation, freshly promoted to Lv.4, and she'd faded from the adventuring frontlines years ago. In terms of actual combat ability, how could she possibly compare to professional killers like them who licked blood off the blade's edge?
But who could have guessed that this Lv.2 Shadow of Sorcery, whom they'd written off as an ant, had crushed Shirakumo Toru, born of the Far East ninja, in a single exchange! That was a master who'd mastered escape techniques and assassination. Even if he couldn't win, surely he should at least have been able to flee?
And the result? He'd traded a few dozen blows with the Holy Maiden, then turned to look, and Shirakumo Toru was just... gone.
The death of a senior officer didn't just shake the other officer to his core, it dealt a devastating psychological blow to the assassins below!
"No, impossible! That was Shiroyasha, one of the organization's only Lv.4 senior officers, with a one hundred percent completion rate on underground contracts!"
"A big name in the underworld like that, dead at the hands of some nobody?"
"You've got to be kidding!"
Watching the fear flicker in the assassins' eyes, the adventurers meeting them in battle bared bloodthirsty grins.
A sudden collapse in morale, a wavering will, at the critical moment of a fight, was the cardinal sin of combat!
An opening like this, they certainly weren't going to let it slip!
"Take them down!"
"Charge!"
...
...