"Well…it was either join them or die…and to tell you the truth, the Silver Wolves treat me a lot better than my masters at the Veneneum Sect." Anastasia shrugged. "They have earned my loyalty rather than demand it, so I guess, yes. I am proud to have defected to the Silver Wolves."

"b.i.t.c.h…" Rei narrowed his dark eyes. "You lack an a.s.sa.s.sin's honor."

"What can I say?" Anastasa shrugged again. "The a.s.sa.s.sins Guild lack compa.s.sion, treating us like tools. But…I realize that we aren't tools. Perhaps it's time that you guys realize it too."

"I have no intention of debating with a traitor." Rei flipped his katana about and rushed forward to stab her. Anastasia drew her own short sword and parried his strike. Even as her boots crunched against the ice and snow, she held her ground firmly against Rei's superior strength.

The bald a.s.sa.s.sin didn't take his advantage for granted, however. He was already casting shadow spells to strike at her from above, the serpentine trendrils seeking to eviscerate her. Fortunately, Anastasia managed to draw a second dagger to slice away the offending shadow spikes and keep herself unscathed.

Rei pressed on with the attack while unleas.h.i.+ng more of his shadow spikes upon Anastasia. Before they could reach her, however, I cleaved them apart with both of my swords.

"!!"

Clicking his tongue in annoyance, Rei spun around to parry my swords while kicking at Anastasia when she closed in to stab him with her poisoned swords. He avoided getting cut, and was able to whirl away from the both of us, his katana turning into a deadly storm of blade.

It wasn't just his katana we had to watch out for. We also had to be careful of his shadow spells.

"?!"

The both of us jumped away when the ground erupted with countless shadow spikes. Rolling to my feet, I cut through another horde of shadows that surged toward me before realizing I was standing in the shadow of something immense.

"Oh boy…"

Looking up, I caught sight of a gigantic shadow hammer that was raised to pulverize me. Rei didn't hesitate or throw any fanciful villain words before he delivered the crus.h.i.+ng hammer blow that would consign me to oblivion if I didn't evade.

I dove to the side, hitting the ground and rolling as quickly as I could, even as the hammer smashed a crater and threw up an expanding cloud of dust and snow. For a moment, my vision was completely blotted out, but my gla.s.ses adjusted and infrared vision rapidly overlaid itself over my lenses.

Even though I could see the heat signatures, it was hard to tell who belonged to who. I did notice one of them swiftly approaching me. A silver flash of light nearly blinded me, but I managed to take a step back to avoid it before countering with swings of my own swords.

Clang!

Rei parried the blow effortlessly and turned my swords aside before elbowing me away. I managed to deflect his curved blade from my throat, only for him to kick me in the gut and send me sprawling in the snow. Before he could finish me off, Anastasia barged through the rapidly dissipating snow cloud and stabbed toward his back.

With a hiss, the bald a.s.sa.s.sin spun around to block her poisoned blades. As he did so, I thrust both of my swords up from where I was lying, and Rei was forced to jump and tuck his knees in to prevent getting crippled.

Even so, I succeeded in grazing his thigh, drawing a thin line of blood. Rei muttered an oath as he retreated, but he focused on defending against Anastasia. It was only natural – against her poison, even a single scratch would be deadly. In contrast, the shallow wounds I dealt to him wouldn't be fatal at all, not unless I managed to deliver a few hundred other cuts. And even then it was unlikely that he would bleed to death.

Anastasia pursued him, and I tried to get to my feet, but Rei launched a new wave of shadows at us.

"Tsk!"

The green-haired a.s.sa.s.sin jumped back and retreated, swiping at any shadow spikes that aggressively homed in on her. As for me, I cleared them with a single blast of black and white mana.

"…"

The moment Rei put a good amount of distance between us, he dropped onto the ground and slammed both palms against the snowy ground. Something burst out of the frost behind him, numerous shadowy, serpentine heads writhing and snarling. They lurched toward us, tearing through trees and sending up clumps of snow flying into the air.

"Hydra!"

Without any hesitation, I completed my summoning spell and called upon one of the strongest Constellation spirits in my a.r.s.enal. The behemoth materialized behind me, his nine heads uncoiling to hiss ferociously at the approaching shadowy heads.

Both monsters clashed. Well, I wasn't sure if Rei's spell was a summoned monster, but I didn't care. Hydra could take care of it, at least for now. I should focus on taking Rei out while he was still maintaining that ma.s.sive spell.

"Kuh!"

Rei realized just how dire his situation was, especially as he tried to defend against simultaneous attacks from both me and Anastasia. Our blades struck from unexpected angles, probing his defenses. Afraid of Anastasia's poisons, Rei prioritized defending against her short sword and dagger, his katana sweeping up to deflect her venomous blades. As he did so, he left himself open to my strikes. Despite his impressive reflexes that allowed him to avoid fatal hits to his vitals, he wasn't able to emerge from the exchange totally unscathed.

Even as he kicked at me to force me back, I could see that I had scored several cuts across his arms, shoulders and legs. Even his back was dripping with blood. True, they were superficial wounds, but I was pretty sure the more injuries I inflicted upon him, the damage would eventually acc.u.mulate drastically to affect his movements and fighting condition.

Spinning around, wisps of shadows spilling from his blade, Rei unleashed a stormy hail of strikes that forced both Anastasia and me back. I ducked under his strike, only to grunt as I blocked his foot. The kick was still powerful enough to send me skidding back in the snow, but fortunately Rei couldn't follow up because he had to deal with Anastasia. She managed to cut away his shadows, but another kick toward her head forced her to stumble a step backward.

A new wave of shadows caused her to flip away and gracefully land a few meters away. Holding up her dagger, she reversed her grip on it and used it to shear through another volley of shadows that Rei directed at her.

The bald a.s.sa.s.sin's eyes darted toward me, and I suddenly understood his intention. He was weighing whether it would be worth eliminating me first so that he could fully focus on dealing with Anastasia.

Rei was naïve if he thought he could eliminate me so easily. I smiled and waited for him to charge at me, while he covered his advance by throwing another storm of shadows at the struggling Anastasia. As he closed in on me, glancing at the battling Hydra – who was still occupied by that monstrous cl.u.s.ter of serpentine shadows he had conjured – to ensure that he was in no position to intervene, he struck out with his katana. Vapor-like darkness streamed out of the curved blade and lashed out at me, as if to ensnare me or cut me apart.

At the same time I summoned my next Constellation spirit. An azure gigantic whale materialized behind and above me, hovering in the snowy skies. With a silent song, Cetus barreled forward, swimming through the air and leaving a thick trail of ice. Everything was frozen in an instant, even the shadows that Rei was unleas.h.i.+ng.

"You…!"

"What?" Despite the gravity of my situation, I couldn't help but smirk. "Did you think I had run out of Soul Beasts or something?"

"Just what the h.e.l.l are you!?" Rei snarled as he backpedaled, drawing more shadows toward himself to defend against the incoming blizzard. The entire place had already plummeted to below minus fifty and vapor was freezing immediately into ice, deadly enough even to a mage enhanced with physical reinforcement spells and magical resistance. His skin was already turning blue from the extreme temperature.

"I'm a summoner," I replied before his vision of me was replaced by the gargantuan jaws of Cetus.

However, Rei was no simple a.s.sa.s.sin. He wasn't going to get swallowed up by my humongous Constellation spirit like that.

"!!!"

Cetus recognized that too, and banked to the right. Hard. A gigantic ice s.h.i.+eld the shape of a snowflake appeared in front of him and protected him from a sword strike from Rei's katana. I recognized that sword spell as the same basic ranged strike any swordsman could use by swinging his sword. h.e.l.l, I was casting the same spell earlier, with the only difference being that my sword blasts were black and white instead of Rei's silver.

However, Rei's sword slash was several times sharper and more powerful than mine – and I was taking into account the combined power of both of my sword slashes. The guy was clearly a madman. Or he was really a professional a.s.sa.s.sin. Not that I ever doubted that, but hey.

"d.a.m.n…I thought I could cleave that gigantic whale in half."

Rei cursed as he glanced up at Cetus. The gigantic ice s.h.i.+eld had been split in half, and was raining down fragments of frost onto the snow below, and a deep wound had been gouged into Cetus's side, but otherwise the Constellation spirit was still in the fight.

"Too bad I didn't learn healing magic," I muttered. It was impossible for me to summon healing type spirits – and let's be honest, it was much more efficient for me to learn healing magic and cast it myself instead of summoning a spirit and then having it cast on me. To summon a Constellation spirit capable of casting healing spells, the prerequisite was that I myself had to master healing spells first. The reason why I could summon Constellation spirits of the five traditional Chinese five elements was because I learned the basic elemental spells for each of them. Unfortunately, I didn't learn wind magic, so I had to improvise with wind-attribute Constellation spirits. Same with healing spells. And before you go and demand that I learn them, it wasn't that simple. You don't expect a lawyer to suddenly master medicine and double as a doctor, do you? Even if they try, they would need years to do that. For me to go and learn a completely new magic such as healing or whatever, I would need to spend another few years learning a completely different branch of spells.

Rei glared at me, but before he could deliver another attack at Cetus, Anastasia practically jumped him. As expected of a former a.s.sa.s.sin – even I, who was looking in Rei's direction, didn't see Ana sneaking up on her target at all. She lashed out with a poisoned dagger, intending to bury it in the bald a.s.sa.s.sin's back.

However, Rei didn't survive this long and grow this strong from being careless or naïve. He reacted on instinct, moving to dodge her strike. At the same time, shadows surged from the ground and almost pierced through Anastasia, who was forced to vault over them and land a few dozen meters away. Several of them curved and shot toward her, but she cleaved them once again with her dagger and short sword.

Taking a deep breath, Anastasia dug her feet in the snowy ground before launching herself forward. She weaved through the multiple shadowy spikes, slas.h.i.+ng and cutting those that she couldn't evade, and closed the distance on Rei. She was greatly a.s.sisted by the fact that Rei was forced to divert a significant amount of his shadows and coalesce them into a single spear to thrust it at the approaching Cetus.

Again, Cetus swerved away while creating a second ice s.h.i.+eld, which got smashed completely by the shadowy spear. Before he could wheel away to safety, another powerful sword strike from Rei sent him cras.h.i.+ng through the forest, and leaving ice in his wake.

By now, Anastasia had reached him. Rei spun around, just in time to intercept her short sword from piercing his back. He whirled about and kicked at her, but she ducked under the blow before slas.h.i.+ng upward with her dagger. Rei slammed his elbow down on the flat of her blade, ensuring that he didn't get cut at all while deflecting the deadly, poisoned weapon, and then countered with his katana. Anastasia parried it with her short sword, but the power behind Rei's blow sent her staggering back a few steps.

He ground his feet into the snow and swept his katana up, unleas.h.i.+ng a sword blast that rippled devastatingly through the forest and forced Ana to flip away. While she was still trying to regain her balance, Rei sent another bombardment of shadows to pierce her. Still off balance, Anastasia threw herself off the ground before she could get impaled, blood trickling down her arms when she failed to evade them completely.

She crashed onto the ground awkwardly, and before she could get up, Rei stood over her, getting ready to plunge his katana into her and finish her off.

It was only natural. She posed the biggest threat to him. One little injury from her and he would be finished. He probably didn't have any antidote, or even if he had, he didn't want to risk it.

However, before Rei could deal the killing blow, a single arrow slammed into his back, piercing his coat and leather suit to embed it deeply into his skin. Snarling, he staggered around and glared at me. I shrugged as I lowered my bow.

"Hmph."

Rei snorted when he realized that the arrow didn't hit any of his vitals, and his injuries seemed superficial. Like I said, I was never a good shot. I was glad that I was able to hit him at all, and that was thanks to him being a stationary target. If Rei had been moving, I would never have been able to hit him. And even though my aim struck true, I wasn't able to target his vitals.

I told you I sucked at archery. I specialized in brute force, not precision.

"What are you playing at?" he sneered. Because my arrow had embedded itself in his back, he was unable to reach behind and pull it out. Not that it was a big deal – he could get one of his disciples to extract it once all this was over. "After all the Soul Beasts you were summoning, such a lame attack is so disappointing."

I shrugged as I dismissed Hercules. Rei watched me, bewildered. He was evidently wondering if I had given up.

And then h.e.l.lish agony exploded across his body.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

Howling, Rei dropped onto the ground and writhed. His body began to bubble and melt as the intense hydra toxins that laced my arrow finally took effect, destroying his system from the inside out. He stared at me with melting eyeb.a.l.l.s, the final expression on his dissolving face that of disbelief, despair and excruciating pain.

"Sorry…but I figured I should take a leaf from Ana's book, you know?"

Smiling, I watched Rei's demise to ensure that the master a.s.sa.s.sin wasn't feigning his death. He wasn't, of course.

The highly virulent toxins utterly annihilated his body, making certain that he wouldn't be coming back in any shape or form…for good.