Chapter 94: Mind Games, Mimicry
The assassin’s dagger flashed toward him. Adam dropped low at the last second.
His leg swept out and caught the assassin’s ankles.
The assassin’s balance broke.
His body tipped sideways
For a fraction of a second, he was airborne.
Adam pushed off the ground, regaining his stance in one smooth motion.
Before the assassin fell and touched the ground, Adam drove his foot into the assassin’s side.
The blow lifted the assassin, launching him upward.
The assassin’s back slammed into the ceiling with a dull thud before gravity began to pull him back down.
Two seconds.
That was the window before he hit the floor again.
’You won’t be able to vanish into the shadows while you’re up there.’
Adam drew his fist back.
This was not a feint like his first attack.
The gauntlet’s surface glowed faintly, resonating with the force building in his arm.
All his weight, and Aura went into that strike.
His fist shot forward like a bullet—
The assassin disappeared.
Adam’s eyes widened slightly.
’He entered a shadow? But there’s no—’
Then he realized.
’His own shadow.’
Even in midair, there were shadows.
The thin shadows beneath a chin, the ones along the curve of a fist, and under the arm.
These shadows were small, and Adam never expected the assassin to be able to enter his own shadow like that.
The first exchange between them had been a trap to mislead Adam.
Showing his ability to enter shadows, the assassin had ’unknowingly’ implied he could only enter shadows on the ground.
Adam had seen it. He had fallen into the assassin’s trap at that moment.
’Shit.’
Pain bloomed in his chest.
A dagger slid between his ribs from behind, straight into his heart.
The assassin was standing behind him.
Adam had put too much force into his earlier attack, and could not counter instantly.
The assassin’s blade withdrew, only to punch forward again, this time spearing into Adam’s back and piercing his lung.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
The assassin was merciless.
Adam swung his gauntleted fist backward, intending to attack the assassin while the assassin was focused on stabbing him.
The assassin noticed the attack.
His arm coiled like a snake around Adam’s arm, locking the movement.
The other hand flew forward like an eagle’s claw.
The dagger held in it glinted once before it was plunged into Adam’s left eye.
The world fractured into pain, then began to fade into black.
...
MC’s POV
I twisted the dagger deeper into his eye.
His body gave out, and I caught him before he hit the floor.
’Three lung punctures. One heart puncture. Windpipe and major artery puncture. And brain damage.’
That was the result of our ten-second fight.
By all accounts, he shouldn’t be alive with those kinds of injuries.
But there was no telling what kind of hidden treasures or passive abilities an Exorcist might have.
Survival in these situations wasn’t always about how damaged the body was.
Sometimes it came down to artifacts or strange bloodline abilities.
Just to be certain, I stabbed him three more times, and activated the Inventory Rune on my palm.
A pale glow spread across Adam’s body before he vanished, pulled into storage.
’Alright. That confirms he’s dead.’
I let out a slow breath and deactivated Hollow Eyes.
The Colorless World disappeared.
Shapes and colors returned to the spectrum of the normal world.
A wave of fatigue washed over me.
Hollow Eyes consumed mental energy, but the real cost was physical.
They put immense strain on the body, and only a strong Exorcist could handle them without collapsing.
Right now, my body felt like it had been wrung dry.
’I need to keep getting physically stronger if I want to unlock more abilities of Hollow Eyes.’
I put a hand to my side.
The security head’s kick earlier had been no joke.
The pain throbbed in steady pulses, radiating into my ribs.
’That’s going to swell in a few hours.’
Mom would freak out if she saw the swelling tomorrow.
It needed to be handled now.
I pulled several small ingredients from my Inventory Rune.
"I’ll heal it, Lord of Shadows."
I nodded.
A faint glow surrounded her, and the injury slowly stopped hurting..
’It should be fine now.’
’Yuna, thank you.’
She smiled at my words.
Although Yuna had been disapproving of my assassination today, she became supportive after seeing the children locked in the basement.
I entered the shadows and emerged in a quiet, remote section of the underground base.
Pulling out the head of security’s communicator, I coughed a few times, testing my voice.
"No... that’s not quite it," I said softly to myself.
His voice had a deeper bite to it.
"Hello? Hello?"
I tried again, pressing my fingers lightly to my neck to help modulate the tone.
I repeated the greeting several times until I was satisfied with the imitation.
’Time to move onto the next part of the plan.’
I dialed the surveillance room.
"What happened now?" I spoke with a cold, clipped edge, imitating the man’s speech pattern I had picked up earlier while shadowing him.
"Sir, the second generator just went down," one of the watchguards said immediately. "It looks like the electrical discharge from the first generator’s short-circuit traveled through the system and hit the second one as well."
"...What?" I let a note of irritation slip in. "...Is that even possible?"
"It’s... theoretically possible," he said quickly. "If the circuits are still connected at certain points and the grounding fails, a discharge from one system can feed into another......"
He started explaining in a rush, probably trying to avoid any blame.
I listened to him and gave two orders.
One was to close the gates, and the second was to gather all people of the underground base in one place.
"Y-yes, sir," he answered without hesitation.
Good.
Now no one could escape the underground place, and since everyone was clustered together, creating chaos would be far easier.
Once the call ended, I moved quickly toward the surveillance room.
It was empty.
Both watchguards had followed my instructions and left their posts.
I scanned the monitors.
As I had expected, not all the doors had been shut.
’I shouldn’t expect people who do human trafficking to be loyal to their bosses.’
The guards weren’t complete fools.
They understood the Dusk Hand hidden clan was going down today.
And they wanted to escape before it happened.
That wouldn’t happen though.
I closed the remaining doors through the control panel.
With the gates sealed, there was no exit.
’The gates are closed now. I can take down the last two generators.’
The compound needed to lose electric power for the next steps of my plan.
The communicator buzzed in my hand.
The name "Jason" appeared.
He was the combat specialist who went to check the House Head earlier.
I cleared my throat and checked my voice again before answering.
"I have a report," he said.
"Speak," I replied curtly.
"It looks like the House Head was absorbing mana when something went wrong. He lost control.
"The mana surged, overloaded the rune array, and it exploded.
"The gold in the structure acted as a conductor, feeding the surge into the electrical system....."
He told me the whole story.
It seemed the House Head died to an accident.
As our conversation continued, he explained he suspected [Fate] to be behind everything.
"...."
I let out a faint smile.
Was luck finally working in my favor?
I fanned the flames of his suspicion and acted as if I suspected Fate too.
"Since you know it, be careful. I’ll warn the guards in the mansion above to keep a close watch on the Exorcist Police."