"Took you long enough…"
Aura let out a slow breath. The struggling had gone out of her body; she lay still at last. The nightgown, already in tatters, had come completely apart under the assassin's brutal kick moments ago, leaving her disheveled violet hair spilling loose across a pale expanse of skin.
"What a sorry state you're in, Aura. I've been telling you for ages — learn something besides magic for self-defense."
Nanoda was still calmly taunting Aura, even with two black-clad assassins right in front of her.
On the floor, Aura stirred once — then went limp again, like a dehydrated salted fish.
Whoosh.
Nanoda glanced at the red-and-white mess that was Aura, then reached over and yanked the bedsheet — riddled with stab holes — off the mattress and draped it over her, covering her up.
"Sorry for being a little late. My right eye wouldn't stop twitching all evening — never a good sign."
A flick of her foot, a reach of her hand — and the broken horn she'd driven into the floor came flowing back into her grip as if it had never left.
The two black-clad assassins stood frozen, not daring to move a muscle.
As professionals, their sharpened instincts screamed at them the moment this broken-horned Demon came crashing through the window: danger. Every cell in their bodies was trembling, shrieking at them to run — now.
"Oh? Fellow practitioners. No wonder it's so quiet in here."
The assassin who had been about to finish off Aura was standing no more than two steps from Nanoda — and yet he could not bring himself to close that gap. Could not make himself raise a blade or throw a hidden weapon. Something formless and absolute was telling him that if he tried, he would die immediately.
No killing intent radiated from her. She simply stood there — and the air around her felt like it was slowly crushing your lungs.
"Stopping now won't do you any good, I'm afraid. You've already hurt my companion, after all."
After all these years with Aura following her around, Nanoda had developed a certain fondness for the troublesome Demon. Right now, she simply wanted to settle the score on Aura's behalf.
The two assassins exchanged a glance. In each other's eyes, they found the same resolve.
"Hesitating at that moment sealed your defeat. It's already too late, children."
These two reminded Nanoda of the young men from the church in her past life — capable enough in training, but always showing cracks at the moment of truth.
An assassin — a true killer — must know: better to shatter like jade than survive intact like clay.
"Let me show you what the peak of this profession actually looks like."
Even as she spoke, two short blades came slashing toward her throat — both assassins hurling their weapons simultaneously.
As though she had already read their minds, Nanoda swept the broken horn up with one hand to bat the thrown blades aside — and with the other hand, she scooped up Aura, bedsheet and all, and flung her straight out the window she had entered through.
"Gugh—!"
Aura hit the ground and coughed up a mouthful of dark blood, rolling over several times, tangled in the bedsheet.
Fortunately, Demons were made of tough stuff. This much wouldn't kill her.
Nanoda had dealt with the non-combatant first — now she could fight without holding back.
The assassin closer to Nanoda furrowed his brow. He had been about to lunge — but checked himself and leaped back instead.
His original plan had been to throw himself at this powerful broken-horned Demon, pin her down with his life if necessary, and buy his partner a window to finish off Aura.
He hadn't expected her to move faster.
"You've got no path to her now."
Nanoda spread both arms wide in the window frame, cutting them off.
It looked, to their eyes, like an utterly foolish stance — and yet they could find absolutely no opening in it.
In that single moment of hesitation, Nanoda vanished from where she'd been standing.
"That's the thing, you see."
They felt the blow to the backs of their necks before they registered it. Both assassins fought with everything they had to hold onto consciousness — but Nanoda's second strike landed, and they crumpled to the floor, out cold.
If once wasn't enough to knock someone out, you just hit them again.
"Still too green."
Nanoda appeared behind the assassins and spread her hands in a small shrug.
If they hadn't frozen up at the pressure she was putting out, they might have at least caught a glimpse of how she'd moved. Instead, it was over in an instant.
For assassins and killers, an instant is everything.
Under the effect of the Mana-Sealing Stones, her Severance Magic had been nullified — but Nanoda had trained in both magic and martial arts. In her past life, her physical combat ability had already transcended what any human could conceive of. She had been, in the truest sense, a master assassin.
CRASH.
A massive, blood-soaked fist punched clean through the wooden wall from the next room, carrying a dark humanoid shape along with it — which then immediately dissolved into mana particles and scattered.
"Haaah~... Good evening... Mother..."
A nightgown strap slipped off a pale, soft shoulder. Jane shuffled out through the hole in the wall, rubbing her eyes.
The several "fatal wounds" on her body were slowly, sluggishly regenerating — but never quite finishing. Her endless Eternal Life Magic was locked in a standoff with the barrier created by the Mana-Sealing Stones. Under these conditions, she couldn't maintain forms like her Blood Wings for any extended period.
With the sheer volume of mana she naturally possessed, she could still manage a single-use burst of magical force. That was all.
"The book says... people who sneak into your room at night are bad people. Haaah~."
Jane switched to rubbing her eyes with the other hand.
"Jane left that bad human a little breath. Did Jane do good?"
Looking down at the three unconscious assassins on the floor, Nanoda smiled and nodded. "Mm, very impressive, Jane." She reached over and gave the adorable little Demon girl a pat on the head.
— Linie's room.
Linie hadn't come out unscathed — her body bore a fair number of wounds. But for her, they were all surface injuries, nothing more.
A short blade rested against the assassin's throat. Both of the man's hands dangled uselessly at his sides — Linie had cut the tendons in his wrists, and he couldn't lift them.
"There. Please stop struggling. Linie made a promise not to kill humans without good reason."
That she had managed to take down this particularly troublesome assassin at all was thanks to Nanoda having once taught her how to use a short blade. Without a proper weapon in hand, Linie would never have been able to finish it.
— The hallway.
The fifth assassin had been keeping watch at the staircase the entire time. The moment he saw Nanoda emerge with Jane, and Linie step out dragging her captive, he turned and ran without a backward glance.
He even abandoned the precious Mana-Sealing Stone formation where it lay.
He had to reach the Empire's great Emperor. He had to tell him — the mission had failed.
He ran in silence through the dark streets. The last black-clad assassin said nothing, thought nothing but forward.
Then, in the murk ahead, a figure stepped into his path. He slowed to a stop.
"And where do you think you're going?"
Lugner stood in the road with his hands clasped behind his back, expression flat and cold. He had only just finished his night patrol and was heading home — and had walked straight into an uninvited guest.
He shook his head. It looked like he'd be working overtime again.
—
After a fierce struggle,
Lugner pressed a hand over his wounded arm and looked down at the black-clad figure pinned to the ground by blood-spikes — his Blood Manipulation Magic at work.
He'd pushed himself to the edge of blood loss before he finally subdued this tenacious opponent.
Killing him would have been simpler — but Lugner chose to leave him breathing. There was information to extract.
____
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