Chapter 686: Revenge

Translator: imperfectluck  Editor: Kurisu

I had never personally trained in the path of the assassination, but even if I had no natural talent suitable for becoming an assassin, I had been the target of assassins far too many times already. Because of this, I intentionally learned some “common knowledge” regarding assassins to be on guard against them.

Novice assassins would only be able to patiently wait for an opportunity. If no opportunity arose, the novice assassin would either have to risk their life on an assassination attempt, or simply leave, having failed to even try and attack their target.

A veteran assassin would look down upon the very idea of waiting for an opportunity. A veteran assassin would instead try to create an opportunity. This was the foundational difference between a novice and a veteran assassin.

Using words and actions to distract the assassination target in order to create an opening to strike. This would be the foundation of a high-level assassin.

An even more powerful assassin would have many small techniques to increase the distraction of the target, such as using hallucination magic to create fake sounds, using hypnosis or mental manipulation magic to easily deceive the target or excellent disguises to fake one’s identity, and so on. All of this would only be for the sole purpose of disrupting the assassination target’s concentration even a bit.

The best of the best assassins would instead be much plainer. They would return to the basic of waiting for an opportunity. This was because they had sufficient patience. If one day wasn’t enough, they would wait for 100 days. If one year wasn’t enough, they would wait for 10 years. They would wait for the one day that you revealed a moment of weakness.

A top-level assassin would perhaps become your servant, or the friend of a friend, or your customer. They would use many years to get closer to you, several decades to obtain your trust and figure out everything about you, and then wait another several decades for an opportunity where they would be absolutely sure of success.

Even I would fear such a top-level assassin, but right now…

The handsome elven assassin’s face was distorted as his veins bulged. His slender body suddenly became muscular as if he had used some forbidden spell that cost him his lifeforce.

His dagger was quite sharp, and the venom coating the dagger was evidently out of the ordinary. However, I actually laughed. A poisoned dagger? A single first-rate assassin?

“That’s it? You underestimate me so much?”

I silently thought the word ‘dragon’ to myself, and the next instant, my entire body was covered in my dragonscale armor. Any normal weapon at Legend rank or below would be unable to even break past its defenses.

“You want to kill me without having even done your homework!?”

I indeed met with many assassins on my way back to the Northlands. The most dangerous assassins had even managed to break past Harloys’ defenses. However, the benefits of my choice to create this armor back in the day now became obvious. My Guardian of Yongye armor had already evolved into SemiGod Equipment. I could easily defend myself with it until reinforcements arrived for me.

Of course, its weakness was that this was one of my aces that I had exposed several times already…

“No, wait!”

The moment that I recalled the fact that it was already known to the world that I had the ability to instantly summon heavy armor, I instinctively felt that something was wrong. Even though I logically should have no problems taking even a direct hit from that dagger, I still chose to retreat while using my sword to block the dagger strike.

*Clang!*

The clash of our weapons was like a collision of two trains. My strength had recovered quite a bit. Even if my current Strength value was no match for Immemorial Dragons’, I would still be significantly stronger than the average giant. Yet, the result was that my hands hurt from the collision as if they had taken an impact from a sledgehammer.

The elf assassin’s frightening brute force caused me to lose my balance. I hurriedly stomped on the ground to decrease my momentum, kicking up much dust and small stones before I regained my balance.

My high-quality longsword that I had East Mist forge for me had already been shattered. That weapon had been an elite-grade military weapon worth at least 300 gold coins. Yet, my enemy’s weapon only had a slight crack… No, that was no crack, but rather chipped paint as his weapon had been disguised.

The chipped portion revealed a clear green jade. I only knew of one top-level dagger with such a color.

“Jade Tooth?”

The moment that I noticed that something was wrong about the situation, Jade Tooth’s Concept of Revenge had furiously reached me already. And when I recognized who this elven assassin really was, I truly felt a headache.

The elven messenger’s originally seemingly harmless face had already become completely distorted. He didn’t resemble the person in my memories one bit. However, his jade dagger was far too famous.

“Jade Flame” Sirar. He was a famous elven ranger who made a name for himself 700 years ago. He was also a SemiGod, or Level 4 in the new power level system. His personal Myth-ranked weapon was the “Jade Tooth”, a weapon imbued with his personal Concept. Although this weapon was only a dagger, Sirar had become quite renowned as its wielder.

Sirar was a guardian of the Rivendar Elf Kingdom from back in the day. Rivendar had been one of the elven kingdoms destroyed during my rampage as Yongye. Sirar had vanished in the midst of battle, with some rumors saying that he had died, while other rumors said that he had become a mercenary for hire.

But right now, I was certain that Sirar had always been hiding in the shadows, waiting for a chance at his revenge.

“Revenge!”

The elven word for “revenge” echoed throughout the tent. A powerful dizzying sensation robbed me of my stamina. Yet, the first to be injured was actually the Level 4 Sirar. His eyes suddenly exploded, leaving behind two empty holes from which black blood and tears poured out.

His blood and tears combined together with the distorted power of his curse. All of this power was then injected into his jade dagger. However, the jade dagger wasn’t tainted black, and instead shone an even brighter green.

This was no evil sacrificial ceremony, but rather the elven ranger’s desire for revenge against me. Sirar’s personal Concept was the Concept of Revenge. He permanently sacrificed his vision as well as part of his lifespan, giving his weapon the property of forever locking on to his mortal enemy.

“Damn it!”

At this moment, I abandoned all thoughts of toying with my opponent, and instead focused fully on survival.

As a Concept, revenge would be the most suitable Concept for any warrior job class, especially a shield warrior focused on defense. Whenever revenge was used as a Concept, it would be a type of counterattack power.

The Concept of Revenge wasn’t a unique one. Someone possessing this Concept could lock on to an individual mortal enemy. Their personal weapon would then obtain a major buff against the target of revenge. This buff could be limitlessly strengthened based on the power of the desire for revenge and how much injury one suffered due to the target of revenge.

Jade Tooth, Sirar’s famous personal weapon, was also one of the most famous double-edged swords. The moment that one used Jade Tooth to lock on to a target, extreme pain and calamity would descend upon the user’s body if they failed to kill the target within a month. However, this pain would further increase the power of this weapon of revenge, as well as motivate the user to speedily enact vengeance.

This pain would exponentially multiply every month. After one year, the pain would be more than enough to kill anyone who still hadn’t succeeded in their revenge. Although the user could cancel the target and give up on their revenge, the user would have to pay a large price of permanently losing power levels.

Additionally, after Jade Tooth locked onto a target, it would be unable to harm anyone else at all. If it did, it would count as having harmed someone unrelated to the revenge, which would result in the crumbling of its Concept of Revenge.

The prerequisite for targeting someone with the power of revenge was a deep grudge and the target having harmed you! It was obviously impossible for me to have done anything to Sirar in recent times, which meant that he had targeted my soul ever since I had still been Yongye.

Jade Tooth should have been a dagger clear like glass, yet it now resembled pure green jade. This meant that this weapon had already accumulated more than a century’s worth of hatred for me. This nutcase Sirar had actually withstood the endlessly exponentially multiplying pain for hundreds of years! That meant that this dagger’s attack power against Yongye, or me, had also multiplied for hundreds of years already!

“Sirar! You’re insane! You actually still locked onto me as your target of revenge for more than a hundred years!”

Sirar didn’t reply, but his empty eyes still stared at me as he smiled. That was his tacit admittance as well as his pride and resolution.

He was insane, completely insane. I felt chills running down my spine at how deep his grudge against me had to have run for over a century. At this moment, I no longer had any confidence that my SemiGod Equipment armor would be able to block his dagger of revenge.

The dagger’s speed wasn’t quick, but as I watched its seemingly frail blade, I felt that I would be unable to dodge it. The dagger’s Concept of Revenge had already locked onto my very existence.

Combat would be instinctive for any top-level warrior. The more one’s life was in danger, the quicker one’s reaction would be, and the clearer their mind would be. At this moment, I actually thought of a method to save myself from this danger.

“Explode.”

I uttered a simple word in the dragon language, causing my precious dragonscale armor to self-destruct. My armor that was strong enough to even defend against average God Equipment broke up into shattered shards that shot out, viciously attacking the now blind assassin as my personal aura filled the entire space within the tent together with the armor’s shards. This would serve to disrupt my enemy’s senses, especially now that he was blind.

As expected, Sirar showed a moment of confusion as his hand slowed slightly while wielding his dagger. My dragonscale armor had originally been a part of my physical body itself. Since I had self-destructed it and sent its shards scattering everywhere, he would sense that “Yongye” had suddenly shattered and sent himself everywhere, which would naturally confuse him.

But in the very next second, his empty eyes locked onto my location once again.

“Revenge.”

He uttered the exact same word in the elven language once more, causing me to be restrained again by an invisible force. He slowly aimed and pushed his dagger at me, yet his attack was actually almost unstoppable.

However, his lag time of one second was more than enough for me to bring out another ultimate defensive weapon of mine.

“…I choose you, cat shield!”

I grabbed the black cat and forcefully used her body to block the dagger. Right after that, I heard Harloys’ screeching simultaneously in my ears and deep within my soul.

“ROLAND! YOU BASTARD!”

However, Sirar wasn’t moved by this scene one bit, and viciously stuck his dagger into Harloys’ body. But right after that, Jade Tooth stopped moving, while Sirar had an expression of utter disbelief as he collapsed and fainted.

I sat down on the ground and panted loudly. I truly had just escaped with my life by the skin of my teeth just now.

Meanwhile, Harloys found to her surprise that the dagger stuck in her chest actually didn’t hurt her one bit. She then pulled it out of herself and curiously looked at it while tilting her head to ponder what had just happened. She then realized the answer.

Jade Tooth had locked onto my soul. After Sirar sacrificed his eyes, he further strengthened Jade Tooth’s targeting and lock-on effect on my soul. Meanwhile, my personal magical pet also had my soul shard, and I had been using Harloys at close distance as my meat shield, so Jade Tooth would naturally automatically attack my magical pet first.

However, Harloys was also a separate individual. Attacking her meant that Jade Tooth had attacked someone “unrelated” to the target of revenge, which would shatter its Concept of Revenge. This was why Jade Tooth hadn’t dealt Harloys any damage.

Yep, using my magical pet as an indestructible meat shield was an idea I had come up with long ago. It seemed that my theory had been correct as she was even able to tank the elven ranger’s Concept of Revenge attack against me.

Still, it was only thanks to Sirar sacrificing his vision that I was able to realize my plan. He never would have made such a mistake with his dagger’s target had he still possessed his vision.

None of this was that difficult to understand. Harloys just hadn’t realized it in the heat of the moment. Now she understood everything.

I was somewhat displeased with Harloys, who was still playing with the dagger that had just been stuck in her. I remarked, “How come you finally woke up just now? What a terrible bodyguard you are… I should dock your salary!”

Her expression suddenly changed upon hearing this as if she just remembered something.

“…Oh, I almost forgot that I needed to tell you something. I was just assassinated as well. What I mean is, my Elven Empress clone was just killed off in public in front of everyone. The clone has exploded into a pile of slimes. How am I supposed to explain that now?”

“What?”

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