Failed Assassination
[Word Count 1884]
"Phew, I should probably return to the clan. I already miss the warmth of my bed." Zhao Wei exhaled lightly as he swiftly moved from one tree to another.
In cultivation, the stronger one gets the less the need for basic human functions like sleeping and eating.
Even though Zhao Wei liked to battle stronger opponents and would have definitely spent the rest of the remaining days rampaging in the Sky Cloud Forest, that didn't mean that he didn't get sick of it. It was mentally exhausting actually.
Zhao Wei had the urge to just… relax and laze around till the day of the main tournament but his heart opposed it. Lazing around for 6 days straight was a big NO.
It was not yet time for idling.
Zhao Wei continued his journey toward the outer regions of the Sky Cloud Forest while enjoying the scenery along the way. Of course, his path was occasionally blocked by a few hungry Deadly Beasts and Wild Beasts that viewed him as easy prey which was just plain ignorance. This was honestly due to him not making any effort to hide his presence during his return trip. Also Zhao Wei had naturally chosen a path with less nuisances.
"Eh?" Zhao Wei suddenly stopped midway when he sensed some peculiarities a few miles ahead.
A strange, imperceptible light momentarily flickered in his eyes.
"I honestly didn't expect him to go through with it, that is, adding me to his list." A light chuckle escaped his lips.
Zhao Wei didn't decrease his speed and continued moving at a steady pace.
'Assassins are really patient when it comes to their jobs but the guys I am sensing ahead are nothing like true assassins. They are half-baked at best.'
Zhao Wei categorized those guys waiting in ambush as such since he could easily see through their camouflaging skills even though they had put utmost effort in hiding their auras.
It was truly laughable how they thought that they were better at laying ambush.
***
"Tch, I feel extremely pissed off that our first target slipped between our fingers like a fucking… huff!" A thin seemingly malnourished man cursed under his breath before trying to rein his anger from exploding. Having an unnecessary amount of anger would be detrimental to his assassination plan.
Among the three men in hiding, the thin, malnourished man seemed to be the leader.
"Boss, don't worry. We have already disappointed our client once but this time round, we should be more careful than ever." One of the underlings who had a deep scar that ran across his face spoke with determination. Subtle killing intent oozed off his eyes to affirm his words.
"We can't afford to fail. We will cleanly finish this one, boss. I promise not to be careless like the other assassination attempt." The other underling licked his dagger in a threatening manner.
"We are lucky that the terms stated by the client in the contract was just the death of one of the targets incase of a mishap happening." The thin malnourished man's face hardened into a serious expression.
"But even that still won't remove the stain already smeared on our assassination profession."
"Boss-" The goon with a deep scar was just about to start speaking but the leader cut him off by putting his index finger on his mouth.
"I have spotted our target heading this way. Into position. No mistakes this time round or else… one of our heads gets to roll on the ground!" The leader coldly warned with a deadly expression on his thin face.
All of them then hid themselves carefully, making sure to take strategic positions that would enable them to corner the opponent with no way of escaping.
Their pride couldn't be ragdolled for a second time.
***
'One Fifth Rank Martial Artist, presumably the leader and the two Peak Fourth Rankers.'
Zhao Wei put on a fake relaxed facade on his face as he 'innocently' directly moved toward the enemy's trap.
His facial expression showed cluelessness, unaware of the dangers directed toward his dear life.
The moment Zhao Wei's feet landed within the striking radius of the hiding wannabe assassins, the three men instantly sprang from hiding and tightly closed off his escaping routes. As if they could contain him to begin with.
"Little bastard, we are extremely pissed off at the moment. Why don't you make it easier for us by directly killing yourself?" The assassin that liked licking his dagger said in a condescending tone whilst his killing intent was hitting the top of the roof.
He was prepared to strike at any given moment.
The leader brandished a sharp curved blade on his hand.
Seeing these assassins being so "cute", Zhao Wei decided to engage them in a little bit of conversation.
"I wonder what I have done to warrant such misplaced hostility," Zhao Wei calmly started speaking while sweeping his eyes across the supposed assassins.
"There's no need for you to know." The leader retorted in a cold, emotionless tone.
Zhao Wei then raised his hands in a panicky manner. His cowardly actions unconsciously made the three assassins revel in his despair.
"B-Before I-I die… Did you happen to encounter a boy of the same age as me from the Zhao Clan and he uses a bow?!"
Zhao Wei's knees were literally knocking against each other as if at any given time, they would easily give out. Even his heartbeat rate had increased. His little theatrical performance was really worthy of an international level acting award.
"KILL!" The goon with a deep scar on his face was immediately triggered by Zhao Wei's words as he hurled himself towards him with a short sword in his hand
The other one also followed suit with unbridled anger written on his face.
Zhao Wei seemed to have accelerated his own death sentence by blatantly mentioning one of their recent sore spots that had yet to heal.
'He must have successfully escaped then. Nothing surprising from a protagonist. Just look at those terrifying faces that they are currently showing.' Zhao Wei thought, the cold expression on his face a complete 180 of his previous cowardly one.
This sudden change was immediately captured by the leader who immediately felt an unprecedented feeling of uneasiness drilling into his heart.
And when Zhao Wei slapped scar face's head into a gross watermelon mess, his survival instincts kicked in. Assassination was an extremely dangerous profession where one was closer to death at any moment.
The same way they could easily reap lives, their lives could also be snuffed out like candle lights.
Their target was supposed to be a Peak Third Ranker with the strength of a Quasi Martial Artist according to the intel provided by the client.
But…
What he was seeing at the moment wasn't what he had expected. Their target was a True Fourth Rank Martial Artist with unbelievable strength capable of bursting the head of a Peak Fourth Rank like a balloon. Flawlessly and effortlessly.
He was a Peak Fifth Rank Martial Artist but the best he could do was easily suppress and overwhelm those of the beginner Fifth Rank and Peak Fourth Rank. Bursting their heads with only physical strength, that he couldn't do. Never even in his wildest dreams.
And when he witnessed that even a mid tier weapon couldn't cause as much of a scratch on the target's seemingly smooth skin, followed by the violent crushing of his underling's neck by the use of only a neck chop…
'Dangerous. Extremely Dangerous!'
'Abort mission!'
'I will die here if I stay any longer. Fuck, even though I have some confidence of taking him on, I trust my natural instincts as an assassin way more!'
The assassin leader accessed the speed force ASAP, tapped into it, and took off as an illusory red lightning of Death loomed over his running figure.
The assassin leader felt that he would really die if he stayed there any longer. He had never felt this afraid in his entire life. He saw the incarnation of the living hell.
The target seemed better at reaping lives than even him, a supposed seasoned assassin. This was a complete disgrace to his profession's CV.
A derisive smile formed on Zhao Wei's face as he took out his bow and aimed a non-poison arrow at the fleeing assassin. He aimed at his Achilles tendon specifically. This one shot was intended to completely incapacitate his prey.
SWOOSH!
10 miles from where he was standing, a scream of unadulterated pain reverberated all over heaven and earth.
Zhao Wei then hurriedly followed.
It didn't take long before he faced an extremely distraught man crawling like a pitiful worm on the ground. And when he saw Zhao Wei, his eyes widened in boundless fear as his thin malnourished body instinctively shivered uncontrollably.
"Truly laughable that you thought you could escape from me!" Zhao Wei's head keeled over as a burst of laughter, full of derision, escaped his mouth.
In the assassin leader's ears, Zhao Wei's laughter only brought him nightmarish visions of his impending death as he amped his sad attempts at crawling away from the devil incarnate.
"Haha, still trying to escape despite your crippled state?"
"When did the monkey king ever escape the Buddha's grasp? Even after leaping to the end of universe, he was still oblivious to the fact that he was still within the Buddha's palm." Zhao Wei slowly narrated while calmly following the crawling mess of despair.
"P-Please… P-Please… forgive me. I-I have a f-family that's useless without me. They would have no one to depend on!" The assassin leader pleaded vehemently in a way that could even evoke emotions in someone known to be extremely cold.
Uncontrollable torrential tears immediately started falling from his eyes when he sensed Zhao Wei's shadow looming above his head.
"P-Please I-I beg you!"
"I-I will tell you who sent me to kill you. It was a Zhao Clan elder called Zhao Tianjian!"
Zhao Wei scoffed before yanking the assassin leader's head so that his scrawny face was facing upwards.
Zhao Wei squatted to his level while his face mirrored an I-don't-give-a-shit attitude
"Do I look like I fucking care?"
"Do you realize how fucked you are?!"
Zhao Wei abruptly released his head from his hold before resuming his original posture.
"I think I have had enough fun playing with you." Zhao Wei spoke slowly.
"It brought me great sadness that you are an irredeemable shit mess of a wannabe assassin. You are pitifully weak, if I must say." Zhao Wei continued with a voice full of melancholy.
As if sensing that his life was about to end for real this time round, the assassin leader shouted, "Wait-!"
But Zhao Wei silenced him by trampling on his head and crushing his skull into smithereens.
Zhao Wei frowned slightly when he saw the piss puddle forming below the corpse.
"I hope that even if you drink Meng Po's soup in the yellow springs, you won't ever forget this day."
Zhao Wei smiled in satisfaction before examining his bloody appearance with a nonchalant expression on his face.
"I need to wash this mess before I walk back to Sun Feather City."
"I don't wanna scare the civilians." What sarcasm.
Failed Assassination
[Word Count 1884]
"Phew, I should probably return to the clan. I already miss the warmth of my bed." Zhao Wei exhaled lightly as he swiftly moved from one tree to another.
In cultivation, the stronger one gets the less the need for basic human functions like sleeping and eating.
Even though Zhao Wei liked to battle stronger opponents and would have definitely spent the rest of the remaining days rampaging in the Sky Cloud Forest, that didn't mean that he didn't get sick of it. It was mentally exhausting actually.
Zhao Wei had the urge to just… relax and laze around till the day of the main tournament but his heart opposed it. Lazing around for 6 days straight was a big NO.
It was not yet time for idling.
Zhao Wei continued his journey toward the outer regions of the Sky Cloud Forest while enjoying the scenery along the way. Of course, his path was occasionally blocked by a few hungry Deadly Beasts and Wild Beasts that viewed him as easy prey which was just plain ignorance. This was honestly due to him not making any effort to hide his presence during his return trip. Also Zhao Wei had naturally chosen a path with less nuisances.
"Eh?" Zhao Wei suddenly stopped midway when he sensed some peculiarities a few miles ahead.
A strange, imperceptible light momentarily flickered in his eyes.
"I honestly didn't expect him to go through with it, that is, adding me to his list." A light chuckle escaped his lips.
Zhao Wei didn't decrease his speed and continued moving at a steady pace.
'Assassins are really patient when it comes to their jobs but the guys I am sensing ahead are nothing like true assassins. They are half-baked at best.'
Zhao Wei categorized those guys waiting in ambush as such since he could easily see through their camouflaging skills even though they had put utmost effort in hiding their auras.
It was truly laughable how they thought that they were better at laying ambush.
***
"Tch, I feel extremely pissed off that our first target slipped between our fingers like a fucking… huff!" A thin seemingly malnourished man cursed under his breath before trying to rein his anger from exploding. Having an unnecessary amount of anger would be detrimental to his assassination plan.
Among the three men in hiding, the thin, malnourished man seemed to be the leader.
"Boss, don't worry. We have already disappointed our client once but this time round, we should be more careful than ever." One of the underlings who had a deep scar that ran across his face spoke with determination. Subtle killing intent oozed off his eyes to affirm his words.
"We can't afford to fail. We will cleanly finish this one, boss. I promise not to be careless like the other assassination attempt." The other underling licked his dagger in a threatening manner.
"We are lucky that the terms stated by the client in the contract was just the death of one of the targets incase of a mishap happening." The thin malnourished man's face hardened into a serious expression.
"But even that still won't remove the stain already smeared on our assassination profession."
"Boss-" The goon with a deep scar was just about to start speaking but the leader cut him off by putting his index finger on his mouth.
"I have spotted our target heading this way. Into position. No mistakes this time round or else… one of our heads gets to roll on the ground!" The leader coldly warned with a deadly expression on his thin face.
All of them then hid themselves carefully, making sure to take strategic positions that would enable them to corner the opponent with no way of escaping.
Their pride couldn't be ragdolled for a second time.
***
'One Fifth Rank Martial Artist, presumably the leader and the two Peak Fourth Rankers.'
Zhao Wei put on a fake relaxed facade on his face as he 'innocently' directly moved toward the enemy's trap.
His facial expression showed cluelessness, unaware of the dangers directed toward his dear life.
The moment Zhao Wei's feet landed within the striking radius of the hiding wannabe assassins, the three men instantly sprang from hiding and tightly closed off his escaping routes. As if they could contain him to begin with.
"Little bastard, we are extremely pissed off at the moment. Why don't you make it easier for us by directly killing yourself?" The assassin that liked licking his dagger said in a condescending tone whilst his killing intent was hitting the top of the roof.
He was prepared to strike at any given moment.
The leader brandished a sharp curved blade on his hand.
Seeing these assassins being so "cute", Zhao Wei decided to engage them in a little bit of conversation.
"I wonder what I have done to warrant such misplaced hostility," Zhao Wei calmly started speaking while sweeping his eyes across the supposed assassins.
"There's no need for you to know." The leader retorted in a cold, emotionless tone.
Zhao Wei then raised his hands in a panicky manner. His cowardly actions unconsciously made the three assassins revel in his despair.
"B-Before I-I die… Did you happen to encounter a boy of the same age as me from the Zhao Clan and he uses a bow?!"
Zhao Wei's knees were literally knocking against each other as if at any given time, they would easily give out. Even his heartbeat rate had increased. His little theatrical performance was really worthy of an international level acting award.
"KILL!" The goon with a deep scar on his face was immediately triggered by Zhao Wei's words as he hurled himself towards him with a short sword in his hand
The other one also followed suit with unbridled anger written on his face.
Zhao Wei seemed to have accelerated his own death sentence by blatantly mentioning one of their recent sore spots that had yet to heal.
'He must have successfully escaped then. Nothing surprising from a protagonist. Just look at those terrifying faces that they are currently showing.' Zhao Wei thought, the cold expression on his face a complete 180 of his previous cowardly one.
This sudden change was immediately captured by the leader who immediately felt an unprecedented feeling of uneasiness drilling into his heart.
And when Zhao Wei slapped scar face's head into a gross watermelon mess, his survival instincts kicked in. Assassination was an extremely dangerous profession where one was closer to death at any moment.
The same way they could easily reap lives, their lives could also be snuffed out like candle lights.
Their target was supposed to be a Peak Third Ranker with the strength of a Quasi Martial Artist according to the intel provided by the client.
But…
What he was seeing at the moment wasn't what he had expected. Their target was a True Fourth Rank Martial Artist with unbelievable strength capable of bursting the head of a Peak Fourth Rank like a balloon. Flawlessly and effortlessly.
He was a Peak Fifth Rank Martial Artist but the best he could do was easily suppress and overwhelm those of the beginner Fifth Rank and Peak Fourth Rank. Bursting their heads with only physical strength, that he couldn't do. Never even in his wildest dreams.
And when he witnessed that even a mid tier weapon couldn't cause as much of a scratch on the target's seemingly smooth skin, followed by the violent crushing of his underling's neck by the use of only a neck chop…
'Dangerous. Extremely Dangerous!'
'Abort mission!'
'I will die here if I stay any longer. Fuck, even though I have some confidence of taking him on, I trust my natural instincts as an assassin way more!'
The assassin leader accessed the speed force ASAP, tapped into it, and took off as an illusory red lightning of Death loomed over his running figure.
The assassin leader felt that he would really die if he stayed there any longer. He had never felt this afraid in his entire life. He saw the incarnation of the living hell.
The target seemed better at reaping lives than even him, a supposed seasoned assassin. This was a complete disgrace to his profession's CV.
A derisive smile formed on Zhao Wei's face as he took out his bow and aimed a non-poison arrow at the fleeing assassin. He aimed at his Achilles tendon specifically. This one shot was intended to completely incapacitate his prey.
SWOOSH!
10 miles from where he was standing, a scream of unadulterated pain reverberated all over heaven and earth.
Zhao Wei then hurriedly followed.
It didn't take long before he faced an extremely distraught man crawling like a pitiful worm on the ground. And when he saw Zhao Wei, his eyes widened in boundless fear as his thin malnourished body instinctively shivered uncontrollably.
"Truly laughable that you thought you could escape from me!" Zhao Wei's head keeled over as a burst of laughter, full of derision, escaped his mouth.
In the assassin leader's ears, Zhao Wei's laughter only brought him nightmarish visions of his impending death as he amped his sad attempts at crawling away from the devil incarnate.
"Haha, still trying to escape despite your crippled state?"
"When did the monkey king ever escape the Buddha's grasp? Even after leaping to the end of universe, he was still oblivious to the fact that he was still within the Buddha's palm." Zhao Wei slowly narrated while calmly following the crawling mess of despair.
"P-Please… P-Please… forgive me. I-I have a f-family that's useless without me. They would have no one to depend on!" The assassin leader pleaded vehemently in a way that could even evoke emotions in someone known to be extremely cold.
Uncontrollable torrential tears immediately started falling from his eyes when he sensed Zhao Wei's shadow looming above his head.
"P-Please I-I beg you!"
"I-I will tell you who sent me to kill you. It was a Zhao Clan elder called Zhao Tianjian!"
Zhao Wei scoffed before yanking the assassin leader's head so that his scrawny face was facing upwards.
Zhao Wei squatted to his level while his face mirrored an I-don't-give-a-shit attitude
"Do I look like I fucking care?"
"Do you realize how fucked you are?!"
Zhao Wei abruptly released his head from his hold before resuming his original posture.
"I think I have had enough fun playing with you." Zhao Wei spoke slowly.
"It brought me great sadness that you are an irredeemable shit mess of a wannabe assassin. You are pitifully weak, if I must say." Zhao Wei continued with a voice full of melancholy.
As if sensing that his life was about to end for real this time round, the assassin leader shouted, "Wait-!"
But Zhao Wei silenced him by trampling on his head and crushing his skull into smithereens.
Zhao Wei frowned slightly when he saw the piss puddle forming below the corpse.
"I hope that even if you drink Meng Po's soup in the yellow springs, you won't ever forget this day."
Zhao Wei smiled in satisfaction before examining his bloody appearance with a nonchalant expression on his face.
"I need to wash this mess before I walk back to Sun Feather City."
"I don't wanna scare the civilians." What sarcasm.
