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Translator/Editor: Mordor
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◈ Unbound Magic Swordsman ◈
Chapter 22: Assassination
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The last eastern outpost.
The main route where the main force would charge in for the surprise attack.
Killing the sentries here would complete the scout's first and most important task.
The route that circled from south to east took thirty minutes.
East of the stronghold, the forest thinned, and the gaps between the trees widened. It was terrain that made concealment exceptionally difficult.
The view was open in every direction, making it the first place to spot an approaching enemy.
That was why the Beastfolk had likely concentrated their watch on the eastern side.
The eastern outpost differed from the previous two.
It was not a platform in the trees, but a crude six-meter watchtower made from logs driven into the ground.
And there were four of them, not two.
Security had been doubled, since this was the main route into the stronghold.
Could he slaughter all four without a single scream?
Crouched in the bushes, Lucian coolly studied the wooden structure.
Two were loafing inside the stockade, while the remaining two wandered outside it on patrol.
The two circling outside were the problem.
They were moving as they scanned the forest, making it difficult to slip into their blind spots.
He read their movements.
The two outer guards patrolled in opposite directions around the stockade.
When one moved far east, the other moved far west.
Then they crossed again at the front gate.
The brief instant after they crossed, when they were heading away from each other and at their farthest apart.
He would have, at most, ten seconds to assassinate one before the other turned around.
Could he cut one throat, cover forty paces, and crush the remaining one's vocal cords within ten seconds?
No matter how much his body had evolved, if the first target made even the slightest noise, the second would immediately raise the alarm.
The risk was high.
He needed to control every variable.
Lucian's hand went behind his back.
His bow.
The Ironwood Composite Bow he had bought for a decisive moment.
He would blow off one of the outer guards' heads with an arrow, then immediately leap at the other and tear them apart with a dagger.
The range was forty paces.
During yesterday's zeroing practice, mana-infused arrows had struck the target seven times out of ten from a hundred paces away.
But this was not a target board. He had to aim for the narrow throat or skull of a moving magical beast.
If he missed or hit the torso, the creature would scream before dying. He had to make certain its breath was cut off.
The head. Pierce the back of its skull and burst its brain.
All he could do was trust that the distance was less than half that of his practice, and trust the ballistic stability of a mana-infused arrow.
The lack of wind resistance in the forest was also fortunate.
Lucian hid behind a massive tree forty paces from the stockade and nocked a Wyvern bone-tipped arrow onto the Ironwood Composite Bow.
His control was not advanced enough to use mana-infused iron arrowheads effectively.
Besides, this was not training. It was no time to save bone tips.
He explosively drew mana from his dantian and drove it into the arrowhead.
Reinforcement.
A cold blue light shimmered around the bone tip like heat haze.
He watched the patrol route of the beasts with piercing focus.
After crossing at the gate, the two began moving away from each other with their backs turned.
One approached Lucian's hiding place, while the other walked in the opposite direction with its back fully exposed.
The moment they were farthest apart.
Now.
Lucian pulled the bowstring taut.
He fixed his aim on the back of the retreating wolfman's head and released.
Thwoong!
The mana-infused arrow tore through the air, erasing thirty paces in less than a second.
Crunch!
With a sickening burst, the bone tip pierced the wolfman's skull and burst out through its face.
Its head destroyed, the creature toppled onto the grass without managing a single scream.
Instant death.
Lucian threw away the bow before he even confirmed the arrow had struck and kicked off the ground.
He drew a spare dagger from his right thigh and poured mana into his leg muscles as if making them explode.
Physical reinforcement.
Mud cratered beneath his feet, and the thirty paces between him and the second patrol creature vanished in only four seconds.
The beast's pointed ears twitched.
It sensed footsteps filled with killing intent and began to turn its head.
Lucian's dagger mercilessly drove beneath its jaw.
Thud!
He clamped its muzzle shut with the crushing strength of his left hand, then savagely twisted the dagger in his right.
Its carotid artery and windpipe were crushed together.
The creature trembled as blood spilled from its mouth, then went limp.
Without a sound, Lucian laid the corpse in the grass.
The variables circling outside had been eliminated. All that remained were the two inside the stockade.
Lucian gripped his bloodied dagger in a reverse hold and approached the entrance.
The doorway was covered by a thick beast hide, blocking his view of the interior.
Unpleasant murmuring in the beasts' language came from beyond the cover.
He did not know why he could not understand the Beastfolk's speech. It was not important right now.
At any rate, their tone was peaceful conversation, not growling.
Lucian held his breath, kicked aside the hide cover, and stormed inside.
Two wolfmen sat facing each other in the cramped stockade.
One sharpened the blade of a crude scimitar against a stone. The other tore at a chunk of dripping meat.
Their eyes turned to Lucian as he burst through the cover.
Intruder. Enemy.
It took barely two seconds for their brains to grasp the situation and command their muscles.
But those two seconds decided life and death.
Lucian lunged and drove his dagger into the nearest one's throat.
At the same time, he drew a throwing dagger from his left thigh like lightning and flicked it toward the farther creature tearing at the meat.
Thud!
The mana-infused throwing dagger pierced its rib cage and buried itself in its lungs.
The first creature dropped its scimitar and collapsed in a wash of blood. The second clutched its chest and opened its jaws to let out a tearing scream.
Lucian leaped off the corpse and charged straight at its face.
His dagger sliced long and horizontally across its vocal cords.
“Grrrk...!”
A horrific, wheezing sound escaped halfway.
He had not silenced its scream completely.
Lucian's heart sank coldly.
Had the sound escaped the stockade?
Kneeling atop the beast's corpse, he sharpened his senses to their limit and listened to the sounds of the forest.
Wind. Rustling leaves.
This outpost lay three hundred paces from the main stronghold. Fortunately, the natural sounds of the forest seemed to have swallowed the creature's dying cry.
No unusual disturbance came from the direction of the stronghold.
Every sentry at the eastern outpost had been torn to pieces.
The route was open for the main force to exploit the advantage of surprise.
The first stage of the scouting mission was complete.
Lucian sat briefly amid the reeking blood inside the stockade, brutally committing the stronghold's layout to memory.
The perimeter of the fence, the density of the barracks, the location of the leader's barracks, and its blind spots.
Perhaps his mental capacity had also increased. Terrain he had surveyed only once imprinted itself in his mind as clearly as a map.
Having gathered the information, Lucian left the eastern outpost and ran through the forest as though gliding toward the rendezvous point with the main force.
A stream two kilometers east of the stronghold.
The meeting point he had arranged with Kairon.
Just as he had moved roughly two hundred paces away from the stockade.
Woooaaaar!
A savage roar tore through the forest's silence behind him.
It came from the direction of the stronghold.
Lucian's feet gouged the mud as he stopped sharply.
It was not just one.
Howls of fury erupted in succession.
The interior of the stronghold was churning wildly.
'I've been discovered.'
Had the sentry change come early? Or had a commander specimen on patrol discovered the bodies?
Whatever the cause, he had no time to analyze it.
Lucian turned and charged east at full speed.
This was no time to worry about stealth.
He poured mana into both legs to their limit and tore madly through the forest.
But the pursuit behind him was monstrously fast.
The beasts' four legs overwhelmed a human stride as they closed the distance.
His enhanced body and the forest's obstacles bought him some time, but he could not shake them completely.
The footsteps of the nearest pursuer closed to thirty paces, twenty, then fifteen.
If he kept running with his back exposed, they would tear out his throat.
He had to fight.
Lucian abruptly changed direction and threw himself behind a massive old tree.
The lead wolfman rounded the tree, bellowing in rage, and pounced toward him.
Lucian was waiting with his breath held.
Shing.
The Silvermoon Grass longsword slid from his waist with a cool scrape.
He explosively forced mana from his dantian into the blade.
Hummm!
Blue mana shimmered savagely over the silver blade.
He brutally swept the sword sideways at the leaping beast's throat.
Slash!
Its cutting power was horrifying, in an entirely different league from the dull steel sword of the past.
The silver straight blade, with its maximized mana conductivity, sliced through the wolfman's tough hide and spine like butter.
The beast's head flew into the air, and dense Experience Points seeped into Lucian's veins alongside the blood gushing like a fountain.
Before the first creature even fell, the second charged with bloodshot eyes and brought down its crude scimitar.
Lucian angled the Silvermoon Grass longsword, smoothly deflecting the scimitar's force. He then twisted his wrist and drove the sword deep into the beast's rib cage.
The creature collapsed, spilling its guts.
At that moment, the third and fourth creatures attacked at once from either side, claws raised.
Lucian stepped far back, drew a throwing dagger from his left thigh, crammed mana into it, and flicked it away.
Thud!
The dagger buried itself deep in the shoulder of the third creature charging from the right, throwing off its balance.
At the same time, the fourth creature surged from the left, its scimitar cutting for Lucian's waist.
Lucian bent his upper body away from the blade, then used his momentum to swing his sword upward.
Slash!
The beast's face split precisely in half from beneath its jaw to its forehead, and its brain burst out.
The third creature, its shoulder pierced by the dagger, bared its teeth through a scream and charged.
Lucian stepped back half a pace and thrust the silver longsword into its throat, cutting off its breath.
He slaughtered the four pursuers in an instant.
But it was not over.
A fifth pursuer emerged from behind the old tree with heavy footsteps.
Worse, its size and build differed from those of the four he had just cut down.
A hulking body one and a half times the size of an ordinary specimen.
Scraps of looted metal armor were stitched across its chest and shoulders, and the huge crescent-bladed halberd in its hand reeked of blood.
A lower-ranking commander specimen.
It opened its jaws wide and released a piercing shriek.
A savage alarm announcing the intruder's location to the main force.
There was no longer such a thing as stealth anywhere in the forest.
Hundreds from the stronghold would pour this way like a carpet bombing run.
Lucian's eyes narrowed coldly like a snake's.
The commander-class beast raised its crescent-bladed halberd with blood-spitting force and kicked off the ground.
The trajectory and speed of its movements were more than two levels beyond those of ordinary specimens.
It was not a monster clad in aura, but with its overwhelming musculature and killing techniques honed in actual combat, it was more than dangerous enough as a predator.
Just as an Ogre or Troll that could not use magic could still tear a knight to death through sheer strength, the presence or absence of aura was not an absolute measure of power.
In other words, a moment of carelessness meant death.
Lucian readjusted his grip on the blood-dripping Silvermoon Grass longsword and drove the remaining mana in its blade to its limit.
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