Cass and Victor exchanged another glance.
Cass's fingers twitched slightly as a strand of battle force seeped from his fingertips, spreading in all directions along the surface of the mud pit like an invisible snake.
Wherever the battle force passed, the air distorted slightly; shattered stones, dead wood, and dirt—every inch of space was meticulously licked clean.
Victor was doing the same thing.
With his palm pressed against the mud, his battle force sank into the ground, spreading deep into the earth like tree roots.
Their eyes followed the paths of their battle force, scanning their surroundings inch by inch.
Nothing.
There was nothing at all.
No aura of a third person, no mana fluctuations from a concealed presence, and no hidden killing intent whatsoever.
Cass's brows furrowed even tighter.
Victor shook his head as well.
The two exchanged another glance, the confusion in their eyes solidifying into an absurd realization.
There was only one person.
That High-tier High Rank mage.
On the other side.
Standing beside Morgan, Lin Gui withdrew his gaze from the mud pit and turned his head to ask,
“How is your mana holding up?”
Morgan gave a low chuckle, his laugh laced with the bitter acceptance of someone driven into a corner.
“Less than twenty percent left.”
He paused, the light on his staff dimming further.
“But I can still hold out for five minutes.”
His gaze settled on Cass and Victor, an excited, irrepressible light surging in his blood-red eyes.
“While I have them trapped, quickly have Freeman attack and shatter their protective qi!”
His voice was loud, so loud that the two assassins in the center of the mud pit heard him loud and clear.
Cass heard it.
The corners of his mouth curled up slightly. Instead of rushing to break free, he crossed his arms over his chest, watching Morgan like a spectator enjoying a show.
“A Low-tier Legendary assassin, shattering our protective qi?”
His voice carried a natural contempt.
“Lord Morgan, have you forgotten that while you've kept us trapped, we've remained completely ready?”
He paused, a cruel amusement creeping into his tone.
“Still at our peak state.”
“Are you certain that when he attacks us, he will shatter our protective qi...”
His gaze scraped across Morgan's face like a blade.
“...rather than be killed by us?”
The moment the words left his mouth, Cass and Victor exploded with battle force simultaneously.
Dark gray battle force surged from within them, enveloping their bodies like flames.
The battle force condensed onto their daggers, a spine-chilling cold light swirling across the blades.
The air trembled—not an illusion, but a real, visible tremor.
The pressure radiating from the blades weighed on everyone's chest like a mountain.
Even from a dozen meters away, Lin Gui could feel that heart-stopping, terrifying power.
A stationary burst from Legendary assassins.
In a motionless state, they condensed all their battle force onto their blades, not wasting a single bit.
A single strike from them was enough to tear a same-rank mage's magic shield to shreds like paper.
This was the absolute counter of assassins against mages.
Not speed, not concealment, but this close-range, instantaneous burst of indefensible, destructive force.
And this strike was equally applicable against their own kind.
In terms of defense, assassins were the weakest class among all physical classes.
They could be killed instantly in one hit by a Legendary assassin, and could just as easily instantly kill another Legendary assassin.
Looking at the two daggers wrapped in battle force, Lin Gui agreed,
“Right, even if Lord Freeman were here, it would be impossible for him to kill them.”
His voice was not loud, but every word rang crystal clear.
Everyone present froze for a moment.
Morgan was the first to react. He turned his head toward Lin Gui, his blood-red eyes filled with shock.
“What do you mean?”
His voice grew urgent.
“Freeman didn't return with you?”
Lin Gui looked at Morgan, his dark eyes as calm as stagnant water.
His gaze passed Morgan, landing on the two Mid-tier Legendary assassins trapped in the mud pit. The corners of his mouth curved slightly upward as he spoke aloud,
“Correct, he didn't come back.”
“Only I came back.”
He paused.
“In other words, I'm the only High-tier High Rank mage here to support you.”
Morgan's head buzzed.
He had waited so long, held out so long, and squeezed his mana to near-exhaustion, only for Lin Gui to show up alone?
“You...”
Morgan's voice was hoarse, carrying an absurd disbelief crushed by reality.
“Did you come to help me escape?”
Lin Gui shook his head.
Stepping forward, he passed Morgan to stand at the edge of the rock platform, staring straight down at Cass and Victor.
With a wave of his right hand,
the Staff of the Windwhisperer appeared in his palm.
The staff was slender and silvery-white all over, a faint cyan halo swirling across its surface as if the night wind had been frozen inside the wood.
Embedded at the top was a thumb-sized cyan magic crystal, crystal-clear, with gusts of wind slowly flowing within.
Cass's eyes fell upon the staff, his pupils contracting slightly.
Victor's eyes narrowed as well.
With their keen judgment, they could tell at a glance that the staff was extraordinary.
The swirling halo, the restrained mana fluctuations, that seamless, natural texture unique to demi-artifacts.
Morgan noticed the staff too.
He had seen it and used it before.
On the way escaping from the sanctuary to Withered Wood Town, he had used this very staff given by Lin Gui to cast Hurricane Propulsion.
He knew the power of that staff better than anyone.
Yet even so...
Morgan kept his voice extremely low, audible only to Lin Gui.
“Even if I use a demi-artifact, it's impossible to defeat two Mid-tier Legendary assassins.”
He was stating a fact.
Cass's and Victor's weapons were not much inferior to the Staff of the Windwhisperer.
Every weapon held by Legendary assassins of the City of a Thousand Towers' Assassin's Court was a masterwork forged through endless trials, matching any demi-artifact in quality.
Lin Gui let out a chuckle.
The laugh was light, yet carried a deliberate, flamboyant, and almost reckless arrogance.
“What are you saying, Lord Morgan?”
He raised his voice slightly, intentionally letting the two assassins in the mud pit hear.
“They're just two Legendary assassins.”
He turned his head to look at Cass and Victor, a high-and-mighty contempt in his dark eyes, as if looking down on ants.
“I've seen plenty of assassins from the Assassin's Court.”
“Concealment is lacking, speed is lacking, and direct combat is even worse.”
“All they can do is hide in the dark and stab people in the back.”
“Once exposed to the daylight, how are they any different from rats in a gutter?”
He shook his head, his tone dripping with disgust.
“So-called Legendaries are nothing more than overhyped names.”
“Especially the Legendaries of the Assassin's Court.”
Cass's face darkened.
Victor tapped his fingers twice against the hilt of his dagger, killing intent surging within his cold eyes.
A High-tier High Rank mage saying such things before them—
was not bravery, but an insult.
Morgan stared at Lin Gui in dumbfounded shock, his mind a complete mess.
When he first met Lin Gui and heard him utter such arrogant words as "let all half-demons help me and become my strength," he had thought he was a fool who didn't know the heights of heaven and depth of earth.
Yet later, Lin Gui used practical means to accomplish those impossible feats.
He had come to believe Lin Gui was an extraordinary, unbelievable mage of formidable capability.
But now...
Relying on one High-tier High Rank mage and a Legendary mage nearly drained of mana to defeat two Mid-tier Legendary assassins at their peak?
Arrogant?
No, this was completely insane.
Morgan almost suspected Lin Gui had been replaced by an impostor.
The image of the calm, rational, analytical sage he had seen when asking about enemy intelligence felt like a delusion.
Until his gaze landed on Lin Gui's back.
On his coarse mage robe, strands of dust drifted up, condensing into fine lines that slowly swam between the folds of the fabric.
The dust formed words.
At an angle visible only to Morgan.
[Release them.]
Morgan's eyelid twitched.
The dust continued to move, and new words emerged.
[While casting Mana Restoration on me, use the Staff of the Windwhisperer to condense a compact Legendary spell around us capable of instantly killing them.]
Morgan's fingers tightened around the staff.
The dust shifted once more.
[I will control them.]
Morgan stood frozen in place, staring at the line of words for several seconds.
His mind was in complete turmoil.
Control two Mid-tier Legendary assassins?
A High-tier High Rank mage?
How could that be possible?
But he had no time to hesitate.
The light on the staff was almost extinguished, the edges of the mud pit were drying up, and the barrier's curtain of light was thin as paper.
Morgan gritted his teeth.
[Trust me.]
[We can't just let them get away.]
[This is our only chance.]
Morgan sighed, then released his staff.
The mud pit collapsed in an instant.
Deprived of magical support, the viscous mud began to solidify and crack.
The translucent barrier peeled away from the air block by block like shattered glass, falling into the mud and splashing dark yellow water.
With his left hand, Morgan took the Staff of the Windwhisperer handed over by Lin Gui, while placing his right hand on Lin Gui's shoulder.
Mana Restoration was released silently.
A pale blue glow flowed from his palm into Lin Gui's body like a gentle trickling stream.
Then he closed his eyes and began chanting a spell he believed capable of instantly killing Legendaries.
Just as the chant began, he noticed something bizarre.
His magic circles were not floating around his body.
He was clearly chanting, and his mana was clearly flowing.
Yet none of the magic runes that should have appeared in the air or the magic circles that should have hovered around him materialized.
For a moment, Morgan thought he had made a casting error.
He nearly stopped chanting.
Then he saw it.
On Lin Gui's mage robe, the drifting dust moved again.
New words appeared.
"I concealed all your magic circles, chanting sounds, and mana fluctuations."
"Keep going."
Morgan's pupils contracted slightly.
He took a deep breath, suppressing the tempest in his chest, closed his eyes, and continued chanting.
Lin Gui stood in front of him, holding his oak staff in his right hand while his left hung by his side.
He looked toward Cass and Victor above the collapsing mud pit.
The mud pit was collapsing.
The mud beneath Cass's and Victor's feet lost its suction, turning into ordinary soil.
They pulled their feet out of the mud and stepped onto the cracked ground, yet they were in no hurry to leave.
Vigilant eyes scanned the surroundings once more.
A High Rank mage daring to talk trash before them?
They didn't believe for a second that this was mere empty posturing.
Vigilant eyes swept across the surroundings.
Cass and Victor employed even more refined methods to perceive their environment.
Cass drew several steel needles thin as ox hair from his pouch. With a flick of his wrist, the steel needles shot out in all directions, pinning into distant rocks and dead wood.
A faint trace of battle force adhered to the tips, acting like invisible tentacles that relayed every slight disturbance within a radius of several hundred meters back into his perception.
Victor crouched down, placing his palm flat against the ground. The battle force in his palm seeped into the earth like water, spreading deep and wide.
At the same time, the color of his eyes shifted; a faint dark-gray light gleamed in his pupils as he slowly looked around, scanning every inch of space.
Once.
And once again.
Cass retrieved the steel needles, looking at the residual battle force on the tips with his brows tightly knitted.
Victor stood up, patted the dirt off his hands, and shook his head.
Nothing.
There was nothing at all.
No aura of a concealed presence, no residual mana, and no hidden killing intent.
They were confident that even an Epic Rank concealed presence could not completely evade their techniques.
Cass and Victor exchanged another glance.
Repeatedly using various methods to perceive their surroundings.
Time continued to pass.
Until finally... they stood straight.
Both of their eyes settled onto Lin Gui at the same time.
Lin Gui was looking at them as well.
There was no fear or tension in his dark eyes—only a deliberate, flamboyant arrogance.
As if looking at two insignificant ants.
Cass tapped his fingers twice on the hilt of his dagger, his lips twitching slightly.
Is there really fucking only this one guy??!!
As a Mid-tier Legendary, Cass had encountered many startling things in his lifetime, but never had he felt such absurdity at once.
Victor stepped forward, closing in on Cass, his voice lowered to a whisper.
“Let's leave first.”
His tone was flat, yet every word carried a cautious prudence unwilling to take risks.
“Something is off.”
Cass was silent for a breath before nodding.
Both of them stepped backward simultaneously.
Just at that moment, Lin Gui's voice echoed from the rock platform, carrying an unreserved, arrogant laugh.
“See, Lord Morgan?”
His voice was so loud that it echoed across the entire wasteland.
“I told you assassins from the Assassin's Court are like rats in a gutter—cowardly and useless.”
Cass and Victor continued moving away, entirely unmoved by Lin Gui's provocations and insults.
Until Lin Gui lowered his gaze, looked down at them, and said:
“Just like Lord Hugh said.”
Cass and Victor stopped dead in their tracks at the same time.
Cass's body froze for a second, then he slowly turned around.
Those cold eyes stared dead at Lin Gui like twin blades, the killing intent within them thick enough to spill over.
His voice ground out from his throat, dark and razor-sharp.
“Who did you say?”
Lin Gui looked at him, the corners of his mouth curving slightly with a deliberate, provocative glint in his dark eyes.
“Lord Hugh of Avalon.”
His tone was nonchalant, as if stating a trivial fact.
“He said you assassins from the Assassin's Court are like rats in a gutter, useless cowards.”
“Yellow dogs that only swing their blades at the weak while wagging their tails at the strong.”
Cass didn't speak.
His neck slowly twisted, giving off a creaking, cracking sound.
It was the grinding of bones.
It was killing intent accumulating.
The corners of his mouth slowly curled up—not in a smile, but in a suppressed, ready-to-explode grimace.
“Truly...”
His voice was faint, faint as a breeze blowing from the depths of hell.
“...I've never wanted to kill someone so badly.”
His eyes pinned onto Lin Gui's face, every word like a poisoned dagger.
“Stupid mage.”
“Go to hell with your contempt, along with that damned traitor!”
With that, Cass instantly vanished from sight.
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