About a quarter of an hour had passed since the assassination operation began.
The estate above had likely already turned into a river of blood, while down here in the sewer, all was strangely calm — save for the trickling of filthy water and the occasional squeak of rats.
...
The Weasel Bandit Gang were all professional assassins; their operations usually ended without a sound.
But this time, something had clearly gone wrong.
BOOM!
Suddenly, a violent explosion rang out.
Flames tore through the floor above, and a blast of air violently surged down into the tunnels. In the enclosed confines of the sewer, the sound was deafening.
The sudden upheaval sent Tiger springing up like a dog whose tail had just been stepped on.
The man who a moment ago had looked like nothing more than a drunk instantly transformed into a cold, savage hound in the darkness, his sharp gaze fixed on the depths of the tunnel.
Staring at the hole blasted through the sewer pipe above, he muttered to himself, "Huh... strange. Why would the boss's crew make this much noise up there... could something have gone wrong?"
Before he could say anything further, the rookies had already gone on alert.
Ryan too drew the dagger from his holster, pointing it toward the source of the explosion, his expression grim.
He glanced sideways at Tiger, who had melted back into the shadows, and silently thanked himself for not having acted rashly earlier — clearly, it had been the right call.
Just then, his AI Core suddenly chimed with another alert.
[Ding! Warning! Lethal unidentified neurotoxin detected approaching → Mild paralysis onset, loss of consciousness imminent, administer antidote immediately.]
[Ding! Concentration rising rapidly. Lethal threshold reached in an estimated 1.3 seconds. Evacuate the danger zone immediately!]
1.3 seconds — no time to react at all.
"Not good!"
Without a moment's hesitation, Ryan produced an antidote vial from somewhere, as if by sleight of hand, and jammed it into his thigh.
He'd secretly saved this one during training — now it finally came in useful.
Even as he injected it, he unhesitatingly threw himself backward, away from the direction the toxin had come from.
He still had his gas mask on, yet the toxin had somehow bypassed it entirely and invaded his respiratory tract — just how lethal was this stuff?
Instinct overrode his concern about exposing his hidden abilities; his first move was simply to run.
...
"9527, what are you doing?!"
Meanwhile, Tiger watched Ryan's figure suddenly bolt backward, his pupils contracting sharply.
He wasn't just startled by the odd behavior — he was stunned by the astonishing speed this rookie had just displayed.
"Rapid Sprint" was a basic movement skill every thief in the Weasel Gang learned — a burst of extreme speed in an instant.
But Tiger realized this rookie's burst just now had far exceeded anything he remembered from before.
This wasn't something an ordinary rookie could pull off!
He'd trained this batch of rookies himself. This 9527, whom he'd always considered mediocre at best, usually clocked around 11 to 12 meters per second during "Sprint" assessments — barely passing.
But just now, he'd burst out at nearly 15 meters per second!
That level — while still short of an Awakened One — far surpassed every other rookie at the same stage!
The other two rookies were equally stunned. How could someone who'd always ranked dead last in training suddenly turn out to be this good?
Could it be he was trying to use the chaos of the explosion as cover to escape?
...
"Such practiced movement... could that kid have been hiding his true skill all along?"
Tiger instantly understood — he'd misjudged him!
This quiet, taciturn rookie was, perhaps, the deepest, most dangerous one of them all.
Startled as he was, Tiger sneered nonetheless: even so, escaping from right under his nose was simply not going to happen.
But a flicker of doubt passed through his mind: "Rookies only carry standard-issue supplies. Where the hell did he pull that vial from? Some kind of storage space?"
Clearly, Tiger had also noticed the strange act of Ryan injecting himself with something.
"That looked like the training center's standard antidote... when did that kid manage to squirrel one away..."
But reality gave him no more time to think.
Suddenly, a wave of danger surged over Tiger.
His seasoned instincts kicked in, his expression changing drastically as he realized something.
Too late.
Just as Tiger spotted a staggering figure scrambling in through the blast hole and tried to flee himself, a wave of intense dizziness overtook his mind.
Only then did he understand — this was a lethal gas.
The toxin spread with terrifying speed; before the horror on Tiger's face could even fully register, his body had already collapsed limply to the ground.
The other two rookies didn't even get the chance to react — their eyes rolled back, and they dropped dead on the spot.
...
"What's going on — someone actually made it down into the sewer?!"
Meanwhile, Ryan, still running to escape the toxic blast, found the whole thing hard to believe.
He never imagined the Weasel Bandit Gang's assassination mission would actually go wrong.
He glanced back at the figure "chasing" him relentlessly, and his heart sank.
Clearly, it wasn't Tiger, and it wasn't the other two rookies either — the deadly toxin, spreading rapidly on the blast wave, would have caught those three off guard; by now, they must already be dead.
"Is this person not a transcendent? Or badly wounded..."
After running a few hundred meters, Ryan suddenly found it strange.
Why hadn't this person caught up to him yet?
Before he could think further, the staggering figure behind him suddenly collapsed, sprawling face-down into the filthy water.
"Dead?"
Watching this unfold, Ryan froze.
He stopped in his tracks, gripping his dagger tightly.
A thought flashed through his mind: if this person were a transcendent, killing him would be effortless — there'd be no need for this cat-and-mouse deception. But if he wasn't a transcendent, there was no way he could have escaped a whole team of assassins and made it into the sewer at all.
The only explanation was that this person was genuinely mortally wounded.
Who... was he?
After only a moment's consideration, Ryan chose to approach and take a look.
The toxic mist around him showed safe levels on his display; he cautiously crept toward the fallen figure.
The collapsed man's mouth and nose were half-submerged in the filthy water — clearly, he was already dead.
There was a large bloodstain across his back, and a black, glinting dagger was still lodged there.
Clearly, this was the fatal wound.
"This is... Boss Quinn's enchanted dagger, Blackspine Fang?"
Ryan recognized it at a glance — the gleaming black dagger embedded in the corpse's back, its blade carved with three terrifying blood grooves.
This was the Weasel Bandit Gang's boss Quinn's own signature transcendent weapon.
Which meant this killing blow had been delivered by Boss Quinn himself!
"To have escaped Quinn's hands after he'd unlocked his third-stage Gene Lock — just who is this guy..."
Ryan had witnessed Quinn's terrifying strength firsthand; an ordinary second-stage transcendent wouldn't survive a single exchange with him.
Anyone who could escape alive was clearly no ordinary person.
Filled with confusion, Ryan turned the corpse's face to get a better look — and the moment he saw that bearded face clearly, his pupils contracted sharply.
"Isn't this... the very target of this assassination, Baron Morin?"
He knew that face all too well — before the operation, every member of the Weasel Gang had memorized the target's photograph by heart.
Seeing this corpse right in front of him, Ryan's heart began pounding wildly.
Infiltrating a major territory to wipe out an Imperial noble's entire household — this went far beyond the usual scope of operations for any bandit gang.
If the higher-ups of the Weasel Bandit Gang were willing to take such a massive risk, it could only mean this Baron Morin was hiding an enormous secret!
The toxic gas from the explosion site was still thick; it would be a while before anyone from above could make their way down.
Ryan glanced at the not-too-distant blast hole, and a reckless idea immediately flashed through his mind.
"Loot the corpse!"
Though he coveted the razor-sharp dagger embedded in the body — Blackspine Fang — he didn't dare touch it. Instead, he cautiously began searching through Baron Morin's corpse.