Cynthia cursed again as she tried to keep up with the man ahead of them. Jasmine and Rhea had followed them too. The guild master burst through the door to a high-class-looking inn, almost more than half the size of the hotels in the noble district, a famous hangout among high-level adventurers who wanted a taste of noble life.

  The man scanned the wide dining hall, his eyes immediately settling on the loudest corner of the room. Cynthia also heard the gold-ranked adventurer Hodo say something, undoubtedly something boisterous, and start laughing at the top of his lungs.

  He was the kind of person such establishments were built to avoid, but she well knew he'd recently stumbled upon a horde of gold.

  Without preamble, the guild master started to match to that corner of the room, and the three ladies made to follow him.

  “Oh, Kayle?! What’s our prestigious guild master doing at this dump?” a man from the opposite side of the room called to the guild master.

  Cynthia was sure the spear master was going to ignore him, as he'd ignored so many others that night. They were in a state of emergency after all, and the man was across the room from their targets.

  “Ah, Jonathan, just the man I wanted to see.”

  The guild master about faced and went to the opposite side of the room. Cynthia and the girls, panting and sweating as they all were, stopped short, disbelieving. Their targets were a few feet away. Cynthia couldn't believe the guild master wasn't taking things seriously.

  “Your boy is on a freaking rampage, Wilde,” the guild master said.

  The three women jolted, turning their attention to the table. It had three people drinking together. A red-head holding a spear, a boy no older than maybe sixteen with a sheathed bastard sword next to his chair, and the middle aged man the guild master was currently approaching. The middle aged man had been smiling, but his smile started to slide off his face as soon as he heard the guild master's words.

  “Is something wrong with Guy?” the man asked.

  “Yes. There was an incident, a betrayal I'd say, orchestrated by…” the guild master stopped himself just before he said too much, in Cynthia's opinion.

  They were in public, for crying out loud. When she reached him, however, he was frowning at the calmest person on the table, the boy with the bastard sword. The red-headed girl had tensed and her face had paled, accentuating the red of her freckles. She was looking at the guild master with wide round eyes.

  “Oh? What is this?” the calm boy said expressionlessly, “we were just discussing Guy, you know. He's been gone too long, and Celene here felt his banishment for her sake was excessive.”

  “Yeah…well,” the guild master coughed. “Yeah, a bunch of nobles paid a few high-ranked adventurers to mess with the boy.”

  “A bunch of nobles?” the boy said with a growing smirk.

  “This isn't the time, Noid,” the older man growled. “Where is the boy now? Mess with him how? How serious is this?”

  “What do you mean it's not the time? If my family is involved, I deserve to know.”

  “Involved in what? You don't even know what–”

  And in that moment, the sound of glass breaking, of air being split by a rushing projectile, of flesh being sundered, of men crying in pain, ended the burgeoning argument.

  They turned as one, all six of them, to watch what they could have prevented had they acted prudently. Cynthia took a step back even as her eyes widened. He hadn't been that strong, had he? He could not have been. He was just a silver-rank adventurer.

  And yet, even though as a spell caster, her mental faculties were stronger than those of average melee fighters, she could not follow his movements. He held two swords, she now saw. Like his friend had, her former charge.

  Three gold-rank adventurers had died in the seconds it took her to turn around. Hodo was on the ground screaming with one hand and one leg completely gone. And the boy's blades clanged against a small axe as he engaged the only jade-ranked adventurer in the room.

  Samson had not carried his massive great axe, instead opting for a tiny spare that wouldn't spook the customers here. Perhaps that had been his mistake? Or more accurately, he just didn't have an answer for the windmilling style that was not a recognized sword technique anyone should use. But Cynthia knew it. Had seen the early seeds that had born this new style.

  With one sword aimed low and the other high, Guy Wilde kicked off the ground and rotated like a windmill, one sword parrying the axe and the other taking a nibble of his opponent. Samson had no answer to that initial barrage and was a mess of blood and shallow wounds by the time the technique was done.

  Jade rank adventurers were extremely high-level warriors and often could fight and survive against masters even if they couldn't necessarily win. It seemed that was not a problem for Wilde.

  He'd always been fast, but the speed at which he sheathed his short swords and unsheathed a long sword from his back was shocking. Samson had been keeping himself at the edge of the short sword’s reach, and in that moment the fast draw of the long sword had it cut a whole swathe through him, bisecting him diagonally from right shoulder to left hip.

  The jade-ranked adventurer jerked back with a cry, but the wound had already been dealt, and Guy Wilde just had to keep him busy for a few minutes for the man to bleed out. The guild master thought so as well, diving for the redhead's spear and lunging toward the fight.

  “Is anyone a healer?!” He screamed at the frozen room even as he continued his charge, forgetting he'd brought a healer of his own.

  Guy Wilde was already in his favorite stance, as far as Cynthia could tell, sword tip aimed to the ground and both hands on the hilt. His eyes turned to the darting guild master, and then further back to their little group. He smiled tightly, tensing his body visibly. He swung his sword, his whole body moving along with him. Steel met steel, and the sword was pushed back, and the axe man used his prodigious strength to swing to where he'd pushed Guy.

  Only Guy wasn't there. Even the guild master had just arrived, his spear aimed at that spot. He looked around with bewildered eyes.

  Then the teenage-looking with the bastard sword started to laugh, laugh, and they all heard the whooshing of air being displaced as Guy Wilde fell from the sky like a meteor, causing a cloud of wooden shrapnel and dust and bloody mist to spread. This was enough to finally get the still-shocked patrons moving, shouting in alarm as they left.

  In less than twenty seconds, Guy Wilde had taken out no less than four gold-rank adventurers and one jade. He had never intended to bleed the man out. He had intended to end the fight as quickly as he could and move on. And he'd had the ability to.

  When the cloud settled, the guild master stood where he had when he'd arrived at the scene, staring down at mangled remains of what must have been Samson Darios, a very strong jade-ranked adventurer. Cynthia decided she was going nowhere near that pile of meat, otherwise she would be sick. She would be so sick.

  The guild master was red, so red. And he smelled, oh, did he smell. His eyes were closed as he returned to them. It was a scene of confusion, of blood, of vengeance. She hadn't known Guy Wilde was strong enough to go around causing such widespread destruction. It was like those rare occasions when two masters fought with everything they had.

  “The boy could fight a master?” the guild master said, staring at Jonathan.

  “Indeed,” the other man said, frowning at the teenage boy who was still smiling like this was all some damn game.

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  “What? I'm not yet a master, you know,” the boy said with a shrug.

  “That's only because you don't want to break through. I'll bet you anything that boy isn't within sniffing distance of mastering all those techniques he's so fragrantly throwing around. You can, and should stop him,” the guild master entreated.

  “Why should I?” the boy asked.

  “He's killing people. Not innocent people, to be fair, but we can give them a trial. If he keeps going like this, he's going to get himself killed, and the perps will walk.”

  The boy looked at the bloody impact crater, then he shrugged.

  “I think he'll be alright.”

  “Noid, please,” the red-haired girl spoke for the first time. “What if he intends to go after the nobles? They'll kill him.”

  “Do you think he's stupid enough to go after my family at his level of power?”

  “You saw his eyes,” this time it was Jonathan who spoke. “He has the look of someone who isn't thinking, doesn't he? It's good because it will help him develop his style faster, but he is letting his sword think for him. Do you not see?”

  The boy jolted, but instead of being shocked, he smiled brighter.

  “You think so?”

  “Yes!” the man said with a growl.

  “Well, we can't have him dying at such a pivotal step, now can we,” the boy's smile turned malicious.

  He rolled his neck, breathed in deep a few times and clapped his hands in anticipation. His smile never left his face. He turned around and went back to where he'd been sitting on the table, grabbed his sheathed sword. Then, turning his head slowly to study everyone around the table with him, he disappeared just as fast as Guy had.

  ****

  Name: Rafael Kingsley

  Race: human (lvl-)

  Class:N/A (lvl-)

  Health: 60/100

  Stamina:1/90

  Stats

  Strength: 12

  Agility: 25

  Coordination: 20

  Vitality: 10

  Endurance: 9

  Intelligence: 7

  Wisdom: 6

  Paranormal: ???

  Skills: …..Acrobat(lvl 103)>>Puppeteer's body (uncommon) (lvl.1)...

  “That must be a relief for you,” Samantha said.

  Noid tried to ignore her, as he'd been doing for months now. Or was it seconds?

  “Such wide-scale cracking of skill structures. It's glorious. I wonder how excited the little system must be,” the first Skyholm said, laughing like a madman.

  “We already knew the skills could be upgraded. I mean, hell, look at that skill.”

  “We have just started to actively study the skills now Noid, so we couldn't be sure before. Now we have another advantage,” Enith stated as she rubbed her hands together.

  They all three looked at her, at the glee in her expression. Noid couldn't even believe it. The boy was his challenger. His.

  “What's the point of this stupid test anyway, Noid?” Samantha, the thief asked.

  “Nothing you'd understand. It's a warrior thing.”

  “Oh, don't act like it's something so profound,” Enith chimed in. “He's just trying to see the boy's potential. Physically, mentally, even conceptually. I'd say the fact the boy can fight people with almost three times his statistics is good for his physical condition. His mental and emotional state is not the best though, given how suicidal he's becoming, but he's already pretty developed conceptually. That's why Noid is excited.”

  “Hmm? We should all agree that the boy is pretty suited to assassination. You should consider it Noid, we can birth another shadow monarch together. Another enchantress though, that's kinda impossible.”

  Noid just stared at the thief.

  “Oh come on! What did Enith offer you? What does she want you to do?”

  Enith scoffed, the thief cursed.

  *****

  Guy breathed his lungs out. He couldn't even feel his body anymore, and all the wounds he'd suffered were taking their toll.

  It had been such a long day. When the day began, he'd had two brothers. Now he'd killed over forty people, and that was just the beginning.

  The Final Rest, the jade-ranked party that had led their aggressors, was down to only two members.

  He read their files now as he waited. When he’d entered the city earlier in the day, he'd first gone home to find Grunter. He'd been close when the explosion happened, so close.

  Something had broken in him then. He didn't have any weapons at the time, nor did he have information. It was easy to get both, what with all the information brokers adventurers had to often make use of. Gold and jade-ranked adventurers were not common, they were curiosities to so many people.

  He had to pretend he was interested in every single one of the thirty-odd jade rankers and a hundred twenty gold rankers, to prevent any whistle-blowing.

  Then he'd had to find the damn receptionists. Cynthia had gone to report to the guild master, but maybe the man hadn't taken the threat of Guy Wilde seriously. It had been a massacre. The first receptionist had been at her home, and awkward sounds were coming from her room. At first, Guy had considered leaving her to it and starting somewhere else, but then he'd heard her partner's name. Geo Sanz was one of the gold rankers he was chasing.

  He was still debating what he should do when he heard another name from her mouth. Another of those bastards. His rage had smouldered and he couldn't let those sluts finish. They died before they knew what was going on.

  Then he'd continued to hunt, some of them having decided to celebrate their new wealth. Maybe the guild master thought it would be difficult to hunt a bunch of people in a city this big in one night? Guy had done it. Killing the receptionists had only made him thirstier for blood.

  And now only these two were left, and then he'd head to the noble district. He watched them, the last two jade rankers he had to fight. He couldn't catch his breath.

  He stepped out of the shadows, standing not five metres ahead of them. The woman looked more put together than the man. Her head snapped up as she tightened her grip on her staggering partner to stop him. Guy unsheathed his sword.

  “Oy! I'm not in the mood to beat down on some highway robber tonight. Get lost, and I'll let you keep your life,” she threatened.

  Guy laughed, he couldn't help it. She had looked so scary when she'd ambushed him, but he supposed even strong people were people in the end.

  He could see the mage in her hands stiffen, forcing himself to sobber up in light of this new threat.

  “Invisible, illusion man? Why would you think me a robber? I've already sent the rest of your team to their Final Rest.”

  Then he started to laugh maniacally. He could see his targets exchanging disbelieving looks, and this only increased his mirth.

  “What did you just say?” the woman asked, but he could see that she knew.

  Ever the experienced assassin, she knew. This was not some random street thug. He was here on a mission. Almost as if his thoughts had caused it, the woman disappeared, along with her partner. He staggered back a step, tilting his head in question.

  He pointed his sword forward and then started to swing it around blindly, not willing to be ambushed. And then night turned to day, and he was standing in the midday sky.

  Guy blinked in confusion. The midday sky? How could he be a skywalker? And that was when he realised it was impossible to walk in the sky and therefore he began to fall back to the earth. He stopped swinging his sword as he flailed wildly. Knowing he was about to land with a splat.

  Instead, a knife penetrated his skin with a wet schlunk, sinking right into his heart. The illusion broke, and he found himself flailing on the ground, coughing up blood.

  “As expected…of jade…rankers,” he said in between coughs.

  And then the light left his eyes.

  He came to moments later, the knife having been removed from his heart and his two targets walking away without looking back.

  “Who the hell was he?” he had the man wheeze.

  “Don't know, don't care. We've gotta go check on the–”

  Her partner jerked from her with a surprised cry, and then he was hacking blood due to a sword impaled in his gut. The assassin turned with her knives already drawn.

  Guy's short sword clanged against her defensively positioned knife, pushing her back such that she couldn't counter with her second knife. Her eyes widened as she took him in.

  “I thought I recognized you. Didn't we kill you earlier too?”

  Guy just smiled. Then he lunged.

  The woman stepped back once, twice, and then she turned invisible. Guy pressed her still. He danced with nothing but air, and he loved every second of it. Only the clashing of steel on steel showed he wasn't a crazy bastard dancing with the wind.

  The illusion mage was crawling, bawling and crawling, trying to get away.

  “Just help me get away from him, you bastard!” the woman shrieked at him, but that was her mistake.

  Fast as thought, his sword had already slashed toward where he heard her voice, and with a cry, he found her again, and again. Now there were drops of blood with which he could track her. Guy grinned, unsheathing a dagger and throwing it straight into the mage's right eye. The man died with one final squeal.

  “Y-you…you bastard!” he heard the assassin scream.

  And the blood stopped moving. Guy went at her, faster, more clinical. It was time to end this.

  “The Final Rest, huh? I liked your name. It reminded me of a saying from home. Memento Mori, remember that you will die, and have one final rest.”

  He frowned. Where had those words come from just then? Sure, he'd said them, but...

  With a decisive swing, he cut through what must have been her arm. She cried out but Guy didn't give her any more moments of life. He swung through her neck and ended her there. He sighed and took a step back, studying his two victims carefully.

  It was time for the next step.

  “Are you going after my family?”

  Noid, that asshole. That never growing asshole. Why the hell had the guy not aged a day since Guy had first met him? Something odd was going on, and Guy intended to find out what.