Pa!

Assassin’s Creed stomped on a patch of grass, mud and water before vanishing into thin air all of a sudden. Then, a pair of footsteps began running toward me at high speed. It was impressive how much pressure I was feeling from the visuals alone.

I gripped my sword tightly, stood where I was and kept the blade pointed to the ground. When I glanced at the footsteps on the ground though, a chill jolted through my spine like a gunshot. Assassin’s Creed was only one man, so why was I seeing two pairs of footsteps on the ground? Scratch that, the two pairs of footsteps just separated into four pairs! What was going on here?

Swhoosh!

An icy dagger emerged from the veil of invisibility and stabbed toward the weak point beneath my armpits. Its wielder was a flaming—literally, the dude was on fire for some reason—Assassin’s Creed with violent, blood-shot eyes. I called him Assassin’s Creed, but only because their appearance was identical. The real Assassin’s Creed would never make such a flashy, thug-like entrance!

I shifted sideway to dodge the attack and slammed my knees into the flaming assassin’s abdomen, dealing 70k+ damage and eliciting a muffled groan. I was just about to kill him when two more flaming assassins appeared into view and attacked me from different angles!

That made three flaming Assassin’s Creed in total. What the hell was this? Some sort of shadow clone skill?!

I withdrew my sword and smashed the pommel against the arm of the assassin to my right. At the same time, I raised my Cyan Dragon Shield slightly and parried the attack of the assassin to my left. However, the defense came at the cost of all my balance, and I was forced to stab the ground with my sword and propel myself across the air.

Swhoosh!

A bone-chilling cold approached me at the perfect timing. I knew it. The true assault must come from the true Assassin’s Creed![1]

The attack hit me in the back close to my kidney. He had calculated the angle and made it so that it was impossible for me to block or dodge it. As a numbing sensation spread through the wound, the combat log informed me that I had been poisoned by his Poisoned Weapon and lost 14.8% movement speed and Defense as a result. It wasn’t good.

Assassin’s Creed’s eyes were less than 20 cm away from mine. There was no sword technique in the world that would work at such a short distance. So, I did the only thing I could and punched his chest with the pommel of my sword at the same time he struck me with a four-hit Blade Vortex. After my stats had been reduced, his daggers easily ripped through my shoulder and dealt massive damage.

210992!

229188!

230184!

210233!

Before Assassin’s Creed could react, I put some distance between myself and his shadow clones, dashed toward him, and swung my sword down at his head. He reacted quickly by raising both arms and protecting himself with a double-layered parry. The advantage of dual-wielding revealed itself here. I managed to shatter his first parry, but not the second. As a result, I could only make the suboptimal choice of shield-bashing him a dozen or so meters away from me.

My arms felt numb and tingly from all the fighting. Now I understood why Stranger of Three lifetimes and Eyes Like Water were killed at Dragon God Cave. If there was one player who was qualified to poke the murderous tiger that was Blazing Hot Lips in the butt, it was him. He had summoned three shadow clones and controlled all of them at the same time. Although his shadow clones’ attack speed and angle weren’t perfect, he was still controlling four characters at once in real combat. In a sense, he was extremely close to Farewell Song and Moonkiss’s level already. Truly, you could never write off grass roots experts. Somehow, someway, Assassin’s Creed had grown to his level without any of us learning about it until now.

I continued running away from the three shadow clones while switching the Purple Cloud Ring with the Apparition Ring. Then, I summoned my own apparition to help me!

Now that I had an extra body under my control, I immediately turned back and ganged up on the shadow clones with my apparition. My skills were better than Assassin's Creed in the first place, and he had to control four characters while I only needed to control two. It was a one-sided slaughter. In less than three seconds, all three shadow clones had been skewered by my Chill of the Nine Provinces and turned into piles of dust on the ground.

……

"Fuck! Who the fuck is this guy…"

I heard Assassin’s Creed swearing from the darkness before disappearing into the rain. Realizing that he was trying to escape, I hurriedly gave chase and uttered, "Don’t you dare! Surrender the Dragonbone Whip now!"

Suddenly, a troop of cavalrymen barged into the battlefield from the forest edges. They were led by Warsky, Laughing At The Heavens and more. There were about a dozen or so men strong, and judging from their movement speed they were the vanguard of their main force.

I side-eyed the four high-level assassins who slowly slinked back in the darkness with Dark Pupils and let out a sigh of relief. They were the four elders of Blood Alliance. Had Warsky Alliance come a bit slower, they might’ve engaged me in battle already. Assassin’s Creed had most likely ordered them to let me go for now.

Warsky said while gripping the Immortal Blade, "Down there! I saw Assassin’s Creed down there just a second ago!"

Lin Bing Dou Zhe cautioned, "Calm down, guild leader. We’re in Blood Alliance’s territory right now. Even if you have the Immortal Blade, you know better than anyone what a top-tier assassin can do!"

However, Warsky replied, "Bah, you worry too much. This is a warrior versus assassin match-up."

"But—"

Before he could finish his sentence, Warsky suddenly shuddered and froze in his tracks. A bunch of icicles had emerged from the earth and skewered both mount and rider. In fact, Laughing At The Heavens and Lin Bing Dou Zhe had fallen for the same trap. It was an eighth-promotion assassin’s Freezing Trap. I knew that Blood Alliance would trap this place the moment they entered it.

"Watch out! It’s an ambush!"

Warsky shouted, but it was too late. Damaged and slowed by the icicles, they reacted too late to the red figures appearing all around them. Laughing At The Heavens was just about to turn around and stab an assassin when he was stunned by Assassin’s Creed himself. The latter and three more assassins immediately punched multiple holes in his chest and caused his blood to gush out like a super fountain.

"Gah…"

Laughing At The Heavens groaned and fell from his mount. Despite possessing almost 2 million HP, he still wasn’t able to survive the ambush.

Assassin’s Creed picked up a shield dropped by Laughing At The Heavens and tossed it into his bag. Then, he and his assassins threw a fluorescent powder and turned invisible once more.

Growing hasty, Lin Bing Dou Zhe skewered an assassin with Barrier Break and fired Ultimate Strength Break while the body was still on his spear. The devastating energy of the skill instantly shredded the body to pieces and killed another 7 assassins. Lin Bing Dou Zhe wasn’t the vice leader of Warsky Alliance for nothing, and Warsky had never been wrong about a person despite his many flaws.

Light shone from the Immortal Blade as Warsky galloped back and forth and cut down several assassins in the process. He managed to open up a path using Ultimate Strength Break, but hundreds of assassins had already rushed into the battlefield. The moment they successfully plunged their daggers into his mount’s ass and stunned him, Warsky immediately fell into a hell of infinite stuns!

Pa!

The grass shuddered unnaturally, and a shadow rushed straight toward Lin Bing Dou Zhe. It was Assassin’s Creed swinging his dagger at the vice leader’s neck.

Lin Bing Dou Zhe chuckled and clashed blades with Assassin’s Creed. At the same time, he threw a punch at the assassin’s right side. However, Assassin’s Creed chuckled right back, raised his arm to block the blow, and allowed himself to be blown out of range. Lin Bing Dou Zhe immediately knew he was in deep shit. This was an ambush, and countless assassins were already swinging their daggers at him using Ambush. Without a skill like Dark Pupils or Clear As Flame, how on earth was he going to defend himself against this many invisible killers?

"Ugh…"

Lin Bing Dou Zhe died as expected. In fact, the entire vanguard except Warsky had died to the enemy. Warsky was still clinging to life, but it was only a matter of time.

Swhoosh swhoosh swhoosh…

The Immortal Blade was a healing-type Divine Armament, and it kept healing Warsky for an insane amount—

+117829!

+117829!

+117829!

……

Not only that, the Immortal Blade gave him a lot of Defense, so he was able to tank an entire group of assassins while still remaining above 50% HP. His complexion was deathly white though. So what if the assassins were having trouble killing him? Even if the Immortal Blade could heal infinitely—and it couldn’t—they could theoretically stun him until time immemorial. It was only a matter of time before he died to their damage.

I was already running to Warsky’s aid. Further back, Xinran was catching up to me on the onager.

Crack!

I hacked off the head of an assassin before continuing toward Warsky. I even activated Ghost Spirit Step Art so I could reach him as soon as possible. Although Warsky and I were neither friend nor enemy, I couldn’t allow him to die to Blood Alliance. It was because everyone would suffer if the Immortal Blade fell into Assassin’s Creed’s hands. I could already imagine the fucker, no, the entire Blood Alliance, growing even more arrogant than they already were should the worst-case scenario happened.

Suddenly, a miracle happened. Warsky broke out of his stun before the next one could happen and moved his mount several steps to the side. He killed an entire line of assassins with one swing of his blade and dropped Ultimate Strength Break that killed a dozen more. As long as the Immortal Blade remained in his possession, everyone must respect his Attack!

Swhoosh!

Unfortunately, that was where the miracle ended. Three red lights stabbed into Warsky from three different directions, and they were cast by none other than the elders of Blood Alliance themselves. The guild leader shuddered and was stunned yet again.

Assassin’s Creed eyes abruptly erupted with ambition as he cackled. "Well done, brothers! Kill him and drop the Immortal Blade! Make sure you turn on Stalker’s Will to increase the stun rate!"

Daggers went in and out of Warsky’s body. This time, not even the Immortal Blade could outheal the damage he was receiving. He dropped below 10% HP in just the blink of an eye.

Growing even hastier, I activated Thunderous Charge and cast Myriad Swords Obliteration right on top of Warsky. He must not die no matter what!

Unfortunately, I was too late. Assassin’s Creed and his four elders activated Night Armor, a skill that greatly reduced the power of Myriad Swords Obliteration. All of them managed to survive the skill.

Crack!

Warsky’s final sliver of HP vanished, and I was still 10 meters away from him.

……

I caught a glimpse of the despair in Warsky’s eyes as he dropped dead. At the same time, the Immortal Blade came loose from his grip. You have to be shitting me! He actually dropped the Immortal Blade!

Whoosh!

I practically slid across Warsky’s body as I made a mad grab for the weapon. Unfortunately, I only managed to catch a near-expired bread. It was Assassin’s Creed who managed to steal it.

……

"Guild leader!"

Some distance away, Farewell Song finally appeared with murder in his eyes. He dashed straight toward us without hesitation.

Assassin’s Creed backed away while pointing a finger at me and shouting, "Kill him now! This guy took the Immortal Blade! Kill him now!"

1. T/N: OMG, it’s the attack of the original and the spin-offs. Someone help!