Number 10—that’s what people from his organization called him. From the latest batch of assassins, he was one of the best, seen as an investable prospect.

From the moment he could remember, there had been nothing but one thing he always wanted to do—see the face of their leader. It was something only a selected few—the ones at the top—could do.

He didn’t know why he wanted to do that. That had just been his goal.

Many said that he had the potential to reach high enough to be able to see their supreme leader.

As a new assassin, Number 10 did ten missions—all wonderful successes. He returned without a single wound on his body and a cleanly severed head of his target.

He had space and poison affinity, and although his space affinity wasn’t very high, his poison affinity was at 60%. His poison was strong—way stronger than what normal people would have—and paired with his space affinity that let him hide and run, he never faced any problem.

“He was a perfect assassin,” stated his seniors, who soon died under his blade.

He needed to kill the stronger assassins in the organization to go higher. If he wanted a higher rank, then he needed to take it.

But just then, as if Fortune were smiling at him, a mission that would enable him to get rewarded directly by their supreme leader appeared, and none of the numbers lower than him were present.

He didn’t hesitate for a second, quickly accepting the mission and rushing to complete it. But even if he was in a rush, Number 10 didn’t forget to do a complete background check on his target.

The target turned out to be a pretty big figure—the child of the strongest human. It was one of the hard missions that the high-rankers usually took due to the risks involved. But, for some reason, the high-rankers weren’t allowed to take on this mission for unspecified reasons.

That difficulty, however, made Number 10 believe more that this mission might let him meet their supreme leader.

He tried to get as much information as possible about the target while engaging with it, planning to tell all of that to the supreme leader. There was no use talking about a guy who would already be dead by then, but he needed something to talk about when the time arrived, right?

He had to think ahead for such a grand event.

That was how it was supposed to be. He was supposed to finish this mission and return, especially when the supreme leader—whom he had never seen before—provided a special teleportation circle.

Number 10 even coerced someone from within the empire.

With his target being a star-formation realm expert, there was no way he would lose. After all, Number 10 had six connected stars, and all of them were imbued with his poison skill, empowering it to a point where he could melt even fire.

No matter what kind of star-formation realm expert were to use, it was supposed to be useless. So, why?!

‘Why are none of my attacks getting through?!’

Roared Number 10 in his head as he tried to send arrows made of poison at Alex from afar.

It was supposed to be Alex running away from him, so why?!

‘Why am I the one running away?!’

Number 10 couldn’t believe what was happening. Why was he, the one who is supposed to be way out of Alex’s league, feeling his entire being tremble right now?!

All he could do was shift within the shadows as he saw Alex bolting toward his subordinates, grabbing them with his arms covered in strange purple energy before they broke into a lump of ash.

‘What the fuck is happening?!’

Number 10, who never felt fear in his assassination attempts until this day, was finally feeling it today.

He was a guy with six connected stars, all of them having embued with his main poison ability called corrosion, boosting it to the limits, yet it couldn’t melt that damn energy surrounding Alex.

‘J-Just what do I do now?!’

All Number 10 could do was recall how things came to this in just a few seconds.

Things were going fine—no, things were within his prediction from the start. This task was said to be a hard mission, so the surprises he got from Alex were not uncalled for.

Number 10 had known that their organization wouldn’t rate a mission hard just because there were chances that Vanessa Drakathor, the mother of their target, would interfere.

They never rated a mission based on chances.

But he had never thought of things to suddenly change—all after he sent his subordinates after Zahara.

It was as if Alex, his target, had sent Zahara away not because he wanted her out of their range but because he wanted her out of his own range.

The moment Zahara had moved some distance away, the air grew thick, laden with a palpable force that weighed on everything around.

That was when, for the first time in their battle, the assassin leader—Number 10—felt an unfamiliar sensation creeping into his heart: unease. His instincts screamed at him to move, to retreat, yet he was rooted to the spot, unable to tear his gaze away from Alex.

“What… what is this?” Number 10 had muttered, his voice barely audible over the sudden crackling of energy emanating from Alex’s trembling form.

Alex had stood there, his head tilted down, his eyes hidden under his disheveled astral hair.

His body—as strange as it seemed—had been glowing since he started using his physique, but at that moment, a faint glow of purple light began to seep from his skin, pulsating like a heartbeat.

The ground beneath his feet had crumbled, unable to withstand the energy surging from him.

That starnge energy coated Alex’s body, roaming freely from one place to another as if they were extensions of his body. Just looking at that energy made chills run down Number 10’s spine.

‘It’s dangerous.’ He could tell that. Even the mana in the air seemed to be shifting from that energy’s presence.

Unlike what it looked like before, after closer inspection, Number 10 could see that the ground under Alex’s feet wasn’t crumbling but evaporating. It was disappearing altogether.

“Destruction…” Alex’s whisper was the first sound heard in the eerily silent battlefield, his voice carrying an otherworldly resonance that echoed through the silent battlefield.

Number 10 had then seen Alex’s face. Gone was the look of uncertainty and surprise, leaving nothing but eyes that now glowed a blinding shade of violet, brimming with unrestrained power.

It was then that Number 10’s composure cracked for the first time.

He felt like the tables had turned and he was now the prey. It was his instincts telling him that—something that had never happened in his life.

Number 10 had never felt like this from a mere star formation realm expert.

He had instinctively summoned another green portal to retreat, only to realize what he had done after a while.

Alex, however, hadn’t even bothered with him and rushed to his subordinates, who couldn’t move for some reason. All of them, who were supposed to be cold puppets with no feelings, were trembling as if they had seen their deaths.

Number 10 thought it would be fine since they were unkillable, but soon, to his shock, he found them crumbling or evaporating like the ground beneath Alex’s feet.

One touch from Alex’s palm, covered in that strange energy, and those unkillable and analgic roared in pain—something they were incapable of—before they vanished.

Running away didn’t even come to his mind, as if he were incapable of even imagining it. All he could do was jump from one portal to another as he saw his subordinates getting killed because the moment Alex’s palm touched his portal, it would evaporate just like his subordinates.

“Come out now.” Alex’s voice, sharp yet deep, cut him out of his musing, bringing his focus back to the battlefield where Alex stood alone now, his astral eyes locked into the portal he was hiding in.

Now was the moment that would decide everything. Both Alex and Number 10 knew it.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep