Chapter 36: Four Assassins Came for My Wife

The Ashcroft residence sat quietly beneath the night sky.

Mikhal watched it from the shadows between the trees, his eyes moving across the dark windows. He had spent several days studying the family and had memorized their routine.

Emily had returned from the hospital that afternoon, and one by one, every light in the house had gone out.

His orders were simple.

Take Reinhard alive.

Nothing else mattered.

Three others waited around the property. Darius crouched on the roof of the garden shed, Kane stood near the road, and Vera knelt at the edge of the backyard with both hands pressed against the grass. A faint ripple spread from her palms and settled over the house like a sheet of glass.

A silencing field.

Whatever happened tonight, the neighbors would hear nothing.

Mikhal waited until the house had been quiet for several minutes before approaching the wall, but something made him stop.

Mana.

He extended his senses toward the house and quickly found the source.

Emily.

His expression changed when he realized the mana was inside her body.

She was holding it.

That shouldn’t have been possible. Someone with a shattered Gnosis shouldn’t have been able to retain mana, and even if her treatment had begun, she shouldn’t have been able to maintain such a stable flow so quickly.

Yet there it was.

For a moment, killing intent filled Mikhal’s chest. If Emily’s Gnosis had truly been restored, allowing her to recover could become a serious problem. His organization couldn’t afford to let another faction reach her first.

But he forced himself to calm down.

That wasn’t his mission.

He had been sent for Reinhard, and whatever had happened to Emily, the man who had made it possible was asleep inside this house.

Reinhard first.

Darkness crawled across Mikhal’s body as he pressed his palm against the wall. His form dissolved into shadow and slipped through the narrow gaps in the siding before reforming silently inside the hallway.

He climbed the stairs and entered the bedroom he had identified as Reinhard’s.

It was empty.

Mikhal frowned and extended his senses again, but he detected nothing.

Then the air behind him twisted.

A hand closed around the back of his neck, and before his instincts could even react, space folded around him and dragged his entire body through it.

He slammed into the wet grass outside and rolled several meters before recovering.

Shadow immediately gathered around his body.

Then he looked up.

Reinhard stood several meters away on the lawn, wearing a plain black shirt and gray sweatpants with one hand resting casually in his pocket.

He looked almost bored.

"Well, hello there, little rat. You know, it’s rude to come over this late without calling."

Mikhal said nothing.

He swept his mana sense over Reinhard, and his expression slowly changed.

C-Rank.

There was no mistake. He had fought enough C-Ranks to recognize their mana. But Reinhard’s mana was completely different. It was denser, heavier, and far more controlled than it had any right to be.

He’s C-Rank. So why does he feel like something that shouldn’t exist?

Mikhal attacked before he could think about it any longer.

His mana-coated blade flashed toward Reinhard’s throat.

Reinhard caught it between two fingers.

Mikhal froze.

Reinhard glanced at the blade. "Is this a knife or a toothpick? I genuinely can’t tell."

His fingers tightened, and the blade snapped in half.

Mikhal immediately retreated.

Darius dropped from the shed roof and landed between them, forming a thick Mana Shield around his body.

Reinhard stepped forward and punched it.

A crack spread across the barrier.

He struck it again, and the entire shield shattered into fragments of light. "Your shield’s buffering."

Darius stared at him in disbelief.

Before he could respond, Vera fired a concentrated Mana Blast toward Reinhard’s head.

Reinhard moved before the attack had fully formed, and the blast passed through empty air.

She fired again.

He slipped past it and continued walking toward her as though the attack had barely been worth noticing.

Then Reinhard glanced toward the faint shimmer surrounding the house. "By the way, is this soundproofing yours? Thanks. My family’s asleep."

Vera’s face went pale.

Mikhal understood the problem now.

Reinhard wasn’t simply fast.

He was reacting to their attacks before they were fully launched.

And his mana still said C-Rank.

Reinhard appeared beside Vera and struck her in the stomach, sending her tumbling across the yard.

Kane rushed in from the road, but Reinhard caught his wrist before his blade could connect. Kane tried to pull free and couldn’t move him.

Reinhard released him only long enough to drive a fist into his chest and send him crashing into a tree.

Darius stared at the scene. "What the hell? Is he another Emily? I thought only that monster could do this."

Mikhal’s jaw tightened. "So did I."

Reinhard looked offended. "Excuse me. Who are you calling a monster? My wife is the monster. I’m just her husband." He paused. "Although I’m flattered."

Nobody answered.

Then the air beside Reinhard split open, and a thin black distortion appeared in the darkness. Darius instinctively hurled a shadow spear toward Reinhard.

It disappeared into the distortion.

A second rift opened behind Mikhal, and the same spear shot back out.

Mikhal twisted aside just in time. "What is that ability?"

Reinhard only smiled.

Another attack disappeared into the distortion and returned from somewhere else. Soon the assassins were forced to dodge their own weapons as Reinhard’s strange spatial ability turned the entire battlefield against them.

Mikhal felt something cold settle in his stomach.

His rank says C.

His mana says C.

Everything else says otherwise.

Then the distortion opened again.

For the briefest instant, a pair of strange golden eyes appeared inside it.

Mikhal’s gaze met them.

The sensation that followed wasn’t simply fear. His entire body reacted as though something unimaginably dangerous had just noticed him.

Death.

Destruction.

Something so vast that every instinct in his body screamed the same command.

Do not touch it.

Mikhal threw himself backward, and the eyes vanished.

Darius stared at the distortion. "What was that?"

Mikhal didn’t answer.

Kane was still looking at it.

"Don’t look at them," Mikhal warned.

The warning came too late.

The golden eyes appeared again, and Kane immediately froze. When they disappeared, he stumbled backward, breathing heavily.

Reinhard looked at him with genuine curiosity. "What’s wrong?"

Kane stared at him. "You don’t know?"

Reinhard smiled. "What?"

That answer frightened Mikhal more than anything else. For the first time that night, Mikhal stopped thinking about defeating him. He started thinking about surviving him. He flooded the yard with darkness, covering the grass, trees, and house in shadow until his presence disappeared completely.

At the same time, Kane charged Reinhard from the front.

Reinhard’s eyes changed as the night sky faded beneath a pale, colorless gray.

Kane’s world disappeared. The house was gone. The grass beneath his feet was gone. Even the sky had vanished.

There was only darkness, and somewhere ahead of him, a vast black hole slowly swallowed everything around it.

Kane tried to move, but his body refused to respond. Terror filled his mind as he struggled to scream, yet no sound came out.

Then the world returned.

Kane collapsed to one knee, gasping for air. Darius had stumbled backward, and Vera stood several meters away with her body shaking. Even Mikhal looked pale. None of them understood what Reinhard had just done.

Reinhard watched them quietly. "Is that everything? Because if it is, you might want to—"

Mikhal raised both hands.

Hundreds of shadow daggers formed around him and filled the darkness. He released them all at once.

The storm of black blades converged on Reinhard from every direction, but Reinhard moved through them with such speed that the assassins could barely follow him. One after another, the daggers were knocked aside until the entire attack had scattered across the grass.

Mikhal still had two blades in his hands.

He charged.

Reinhard caught both.

He looked down at the dark blades, and the playful expression disappeared from his face.

"Mirror."

Mikhal didn’t understand what the word meant.

He only knew that something about Reinhard had changed.

The humor was gone.

Reinhard vanished.

Darius was sent flying across the yard. Vera barely managed two steps before Reinhard struck her into Darius. Kane was dropped by a single blow.

Mikhal watched his teammates fall.

There was no chance of winning.

He immediately formed a shadow portal.

Reinhard didn’t stop him. Instead, he summoned a bottle and sprayed its contents over one of the wounded assassins.

Mikhal’s eyes widened when he saw the man’s body beginning to break down. What is that?

He threw himself through the portal. A moment later, he landed on the concrete floor of an abandoned factory.

Relief flooded his chest. He had escaped. Then one of his teammates came flying through the portal and crashed directly into him. Mikhal groaned and pushed himself up as the others began shouting questions.

"What happened?"

"Why are you back already?"

"Did you complete the mission?"

Mikhal ignored them and reached toward the closing portal. Before he could seal it, two hands appeared on opposite sides of the shrinking darkness.

The hands grabbed the edges and pulled them apart.

Mikhal’s eyes widened as Reinhard stepped through the portal.

"Knock, knock."

Reinhard dusted off his sweatpants and looked around the enormous abandoned factory. Rusted catwalks stretched across the walls, dead machinery filled the lower floor, and several broken windows allowed the moonlight to enter.

He looked around for several seconds before shaking his head.

"An abandoned factory. Very original. You people really need a better real estate agent."

...

Reinhard looked toward the far side of the factory.

One robed figure stood near the wall.

Then another appeared.

Then five more.

Within seconds, dozens of figures stood among the machinery and along the catwalks, silently surrounding him from every direction.

Reinhard glanced at the four wounded assassins lying on the floor before looking back toward the crowd.

A slow smile spread across his face.

"Looks like I hit the jackpot. With this many of you in one place, I’m sure at least one of you can tell me who’s after my wife."

A blue window appeared in front of him.

[Investment Opportunity Available.]

[Target: Emily Ashcroft.]

[Objective: Survive hostile territory and return safely to Emily Ashcroft.]

[Difficulty Grade: S.]

[Success Probability: Unable to Calculate.]

Reinhard stared at the final line for several seconds without blinking.

A voice came from somewhere in the darkness. "You’re Reinhard."

Reinhard turned toward the voice and smiled. "You’ve heard of me?"

A robed figure stepped forward into the lamplight. "We were told you wouldn’t be a problem."

Reinhard chuckled as he looked around at the dozens of people surrounding him.

"You were told wrong."