Chapter 143: The Mutual Repulsion Between Assassins

Although the Babel-era Doctor had walked a remarkably grueling path, he really had managed to pull off a few genuine miracles. How else could the so-called God of Happy Endings and the walking human Holy Grail of Terra be so ridiculously effective in this timeline?

Unfortunately, you genuinely lacked the refined, aristocratic taste required to appreciate high opera. You only knew how to aggressively applaud the very second Phantom opened his mouth.

“Who lives, who dies, who tells your story…”

You slapped your hands together in a rapid, echoing rhythm.

“Doctor, I actually hadn’t started singing yet…” Phantom’s feline ears drooped, his expression turning deeply melancholic. The elegant assassin looked as if he had just suffered a critical blow to his artistic soul, genuinely beginning to doubt his own musical talent.

“Ahem…” You coughed awkwardly, lowering your hands and desperately trying to pivot the conversation. “I honestly thought you would at least harbor some hatred toward me because of Bacchus. After all, I could easily be considered a cold bystander to that mess, or at the very least, an indirect instigator of the tragedy.”

It wouldn’t be entirely accurate to say Phantom and Bacchus got along; their dynamic was more akin to oil and open flame.

Yet, even if the Feline could maintain his rationality and avoid taking his lingering anger out on you, he shouldn’t be standing by your side so naturally. You freely admitted that most small animals felt an instinctive, almost gravitational closeness to you, but this passive effect was already reaching a level of absurdity that surpassed most high-tier Originium Arts.

‘Could it be that I’m actually using cheat codes?’

You were already feeling a phantom headache coming on. Weren’t we supposed to be living in a heartwarming, healing Terra fairy tale? Why couldn’t these illogical, broken mechanics just quietly remain as convenient background settings forced into the narrative by some light novel author for the sake of cheap memes?

You were absolutely sick of this Riddler-tier drip-fed mystery. The world loved to leak out tiny, agonizingly vague fragments of the truth every now and then just to make you guess, only to fob you off with flimsy excuses the exact second you finally got close to the core of the conspiracy.

It was hard enough to piece the puzzle together to begin with, and the ‘small animals’ you had deliberately left behind as clues for your future self were all harboring their own convoluted agendas, frantically misleading you at every turn.

Maybe you should just embrace the ‘Welcome Home’ route. Honestly, you didn’t really have a concrete reason that mandated your safe return. If you gambled everything and lost, at worst, your soul would simply hit the respawn screen and return to its homeland.

Phantom never expected that in the short, heavy moment he remained silent, the mind of the seemingly gentle, unassuming young man standing before him had already violently leaped from a sentimental ‘Why don’t you hate me?’to a catastrophic’Let’s blow up Terra together.’

When the Troupe Leader used to speak about the Doctor, the madman had evaluated him as being far purer and vastly more paranoid than himself. But based on Phantom’s own careful observations over the past few days, that assessment was complete and utter nonsense.

The Doctor was clearly a sharp, brilliantly gentle leader who possessed terrifying power but never once abused it, choosing instead to treat everyone as absolute equals.

Phantom took a deep, steadying breath, lifted his chin, and answered with piercing earnestness. “Doctor, I will never lump you in with the Troupe Leader. It was the mad artist who chose his muse. I despise his actions, but in this specific regard, we happen to inherit the exact same philosophy.”

The Feline’s golden eyes narrowed, gleaming in the dim light. “I can do better than him, but I will not become him. I am not some Blood Diamond of the Crimson Troupe. I am just Phantom… a rebel of the Crimson Troupe. I am Lucian, the man whom you personally brought out of that ancient, suffocating castle.”

The more Phantom spoke, the more fluid and impassioned his diction became, as if every disjointed lesson he had learned had suddenly clicked into perfect alignment. It inexplicably made you hallucinate Bacchus for a split second—though the one who hadn’t been dragged out of the castle carried more of that exhausted, Młynar-style resentment, while this one standing before you was much more like Maria, always earnestly scheming to step on her uncle to get ahead in the world.

‘Enough! Stop thinking about these stupid meta jokes!’You mentally slapped yourself.’Aside from niche shipping dynamics, character stereotyping, dark humor, and Amiya-related donkey memes, is there really no story in our Arknights fan community that possesses actual literary depth and showcases a positive environment?!’

…There really wasn’t.

Phantom was still actively trying to step on Bacchus’s reputation to elevate his own. “Doctor, I freely admit that I do not fully understand the outside world, but I will observe and judge it for myself. What kind of person you truly are… I will see for myself from within the shadows.”

A sharp, metallic shing sliced through the ambient noise, followed instantly by a blinding flash of cold light. A sharp, questioning voice, faintly tinged with lethal anger, echoed through the corridor as the icy gleam of bladed gauntlets struck directly toward Phantom’s exposed neck.

“Where exactly do you intend to look?”

A deep purple figure erupted from the shadows in a manner terrifyingly similar to Phantom’s own techniques. A long, spiked Sarkaz tail slammed heavily against the floor tiles, cracking the stone. “Back off, Feline! It is not your place to judge what he is like!”

Even the shapeless, flowing cloak could not hide the proud, lethal figure of the woman who had materialized from the darkness. The two conspicuous, deep purple demonic horns curving from her head radiated an overwhelming, suffocating sense of oppressive violence.

Phantom clearly had not expected a single living soul to be capable of evading his perception in terms of stealth. Caught entirely off guard, he barely managed to block the lethal blow with both hands. Looking uncharacteristically disheveled, the assassin stumbled back several heavy steps, his shoulders slamming hard against the corridor wall.

The figure, having successfully landed the opening strike, did not press her overwhelming advantage. Instead, she stepped back half a pace, firmly shielding your body within the absolute safety of her cloak’s shadow. “Doctor, do not leave my side. He is dangerous.”

You recognized that cold, professional voice instantly. Offering zero resistance, you simply stood still, allowing the thread-like tendrils of living shadow to slither up your ankles and weave themselves into a lightweight, protective set of dark armor around your legs.

This familiar, intimate method of protection… Ascalon was using it with even more terrifying skill now than she had in the past.

Ascalon didn’t even turn her head to check on you, keeping her lethal gaze locked on the Feline. However, her spiked tail hung completely motionless in the air, as stiff and rigid as a hibernating snake—a perfect physical manifestation of its owner’s current emotional state.

“Ascalon? I think I remember you.” You instantly realized exactly why she was so tense and took the initiative to speak, a warm smile breaking across your face. “But I distinctly remember you weren’t quite this tall yet.”

Ascalon’s rigid tail finally snapped back to life, swaying gently behind her, though her voice remained strictly professional and stiff. “Doctor, that was several years ago.”

In the brief span of those few exchanged words, Phantom had already summoned his shadow clone once again. The two identical figures, completely indistinguishable from one another, launched a synchronized, lethal counterattack almost simultaneously.

Ascalon slammed one gloved hand onto the ground. Instantly, countless grasping ‘hands’ forged from pure, condensed shadow erupted from the floorboards, grabbing the two charging figures tightly by the ankles.

Under the crushing weight of the area-of-effect slow, the subtle differences between the original body and the shadow clone began to expose themselves. Ascalon drew a long, vicious blade made of solid darkness from the ether and frowned deeply. “Back off!”

The absolute threat of imminent death exploded inside Phantom’s mind. He felt the sheer, unadulterated danger radiating from that shadow blade—the distinct possibility of being cleanly sliced in two, both he and his clone, in a single, merciless strike. Without a second of hesitation, he forcefully retracted the shadow that was still charging forward and retreated once again to a safe distance.

But he was not without the ability to fight back. If the Sarkaz woman dared to close the distance, under his preemptive vocal control, she would likewise suffer severe, internal injuries.

The shadow pooling beneath Phantom’s boots began to violently melt and expand, signaling that his volatile Originium Arts were once again teetering on the absolute verge of spiraling out of control.

“Eh? No, no, no, stand down, this is my new Operator!” Seeing the lethal conflict about to escalate into a full-blown bloodbath, you hurriedly stepped forward. Moving purely on muscle memory, you reached out and aggressively ruffled Ascalon’s hair.

While the elite Sarkaz assassin instantly stiffened up, her lethal movements freezing into awkward paralysis, you naturally strolled right past her and pinched the lynx ears of the Feline who was just starting to darken with murderous intent.

Then, placing one hand on each of their shoulders, you forcefully dragged the two terrifying killers together. “Stop fighting, stop fighting. If you two keep throwing Arts around like this, you’re going to end up hitting me. Come on, shake hands!”

The two extremely unnatural-looking, cold-blooded assassins awkwardly allowed you to drag them into the center of the room, held firmly by each hand. The long, lethal blade of shadows in Ascalon’s grip instantly dissipated into a harmless pool of flowing black sand on the ground. Meanwhile, Phantom’s volatile shadow instantly became as quiet as a church mouse, with only his short feline tail wagging frantically—a reaction that looked exceptionally out of place on his rigid, battle-ready body.

“Doctor…”

“Doctor, who exactly is he?” Ascalon was the first to recover her voice, her eyes narrowing dangerously. “Why was he hiding inside your shadow?”

Phantom immediately retorted, his tone dripping with theatrical venom. “Asking a question like that—what, do you own this shadow? I suppose I’m just ignorant of the rules.”

Ascalon frowned deeply, scrutinizing this Feline of unknown origin with deep, professional suspicion. “Forgive my bluntness, Doctor. His loyalty cannot be guaranteed, and his combat abilities are excessively weak. You should not be so doting toward unknown variables.”

“You tardy Sarkaz, what right do you have to question me?” Phantom hissed, his melancholic persona entirely replaced by defensive pride. “I am not loyal to Rhodes Island, so there is absolutely no need to demand things from me using your island’s strict regulations. Other than being driven by the innate violence of the Sarkaz race, what difference does your crude shadow technique have from any other standard Originium Arts?”

Refusing to back down, Phantom tried to forcefully dive back into your shadow. But the very second he exerted his Arts, he clashed violently with another, equally powerful force that was already attempting to occupy that exact same space. The resulting kinetic feedback jolted both of them out into the open.

The two elite assassins glared at each other with pure, unadulterated hatred, and then simultaneously turned their heads away in disgust.

‘As if you are worthy!’

Before today, neither of them had ever entertained the thought that, while they both specialized in the rare art of shadow manipulation, the other would use their techniques in such a deeply eyesore manner.

[Rhodes’s Note:

Enjoying the operation so far, Doctor?

(This daily grind literally pays the landship’s rent! 🙇‍♂️):

Massive thanks for reading and supporting the operation!]