The headless body of the level 13 Fire-clawed laughing hyena slain by Delilah was standing proudly beside the leader of the pack as if it still hadn't registered that it had died. It was killed so quickly that no one understood how it happened. What happened was that Delilah used the camouflage runic stone to become invisible. Roy had gifted it to her. He had a few camouflage runic stones, so he could afford to give one away. After becoming invisible, she used a technique she had learned during her days as an assassin to hide her smell and breath, due to which it seemed like she had disappeared into thin air. The Fire-clawed laughing hyenas were beasts that relied heavily on their five senses. Since her scent was suppressed and they couldn't detect her breath or catch her figure, it was impossible for them to determine where she was or whether she was still there.
The leader of the pack was impatient and impulsive. When it saw its initial target was gone, it commanded the pack to attack Roy and the massive beast standing behind him. It was at this moment that Shadowless received Roy's order and snuck into his shadow, disappearing too.
The attention of all the beasts focused on Roy. When he became the center of attention, Delilah made her move!
She teleported close to the weakest of the strongest three Fire-Clawed Laughing Hyenas and brandished her cold daggers.
Faced with her bloodthirsty attack, the poor beast didn't even get to understand the situation before its head was chopped off, and its scorching dark red blood splashed outwards. She took a step backward to avoid it.
The boiling splatter of flaming hot blood landed and melted a deep hole into the brown, muddy ground.
'He forgot to mention that their blood is also a weapon!' Delilah thought.
The blood of the hyenas was like a magical fire. It was hot and could melt the bones of a weapon master. Roy had overlooked this information while explaining their weaknesses and strength to her.
If it weren't for her quick reflexes, she would have gotten badly hurt.
Her movement was quick and fierce, allowing her to score a kill in the blink of an eye. The main array gathered the soul of the fallen and refined it into experience points.
『Ding!』
『Your subordinate "Delilah" has killed a level 13 monster and earned 130 experience points』
『You are entitled to half of it, but you can decline, and all of it will be used to strengthen her』
『What would you like to do?』
Roy looked at the semi-transparent screens floating in front of him and immediately responded, "Decline. Transfer the full amount to Delilah."
He didn't lack EXP and was in urgent need of a powerful subordinate.
That's not to say that Delilah was weak.
However, while she could easily suppress trainees and give weapon masters a run for their lives, she couldn't hold a candle to a true expert.
『Ding! The 130 Experience points were used to refine the aura sea of your subordinate for the first time. Her level has increased dramatically. She is a thousand EXP away from reaching the advanced weapon master stage』
To reach the peak of the first stage, a trainee needed to open their aura gate and fill their inner world with enough aura to create a sea. In the beginning, a weapon master needed to fortify their inner world and increase its size. However, in the late stages, they needed to convert the sea of aura into a nucleus. This was also called refining the aura sea. Once the nucleus was created, a weapon master would meet one of the requirements to enter the aura master stage. They won't become aura masters until they complete the test given by their class weapon. But the vigor and intensity of their aura will match an aura master.
Delilah was already in the latter stages of the weapon master stage as she was in the process of refining her aura sea!
Roy felt deeply impressed, 'She hasn't been slacking off. While my strength was quickly rising, she was also training. From the first level of the weapon master stage, she had already reached the second.'
The weapon master stage was divided into four levels. From weakest to strongest, they were beginner, intermediate, advanced, and peak level weapon masters. Not many weeks have passed since they first met. At that time, she was a beginner-level weapon master, and now, she was already an intermediate-level weapon master.
The rate at which she was becoming powerful wasn't impressive compared to the true geniuses of the top-notch families of the empire.
The heir of such families are fed countless natural treasures and are given uncountable resources so that they can quickly advance.
Even then, it was common for them to take a month to make a breakthrough in the weapon master stage!
But Delilah reached the second level in less than two months without an astronomical sum of resources. It was all her hard work and talent.
And she was already close to reaching the third level.
'She needs to kill some more, and she will level up.' Roy couldn't wait to see her level up. While he was stuck in the first stage until he awakened, she could level up nonstop! She just needed EXP!
Delilah, meanwhile, felt her insides heating up. It was similar to the feeling she would get when someone as handsome as Roy stared into her eyes, but it was even better.
It distracted her. The energy she was supposed to channel into the runic stage was a beat too late. As a result, her invisibility wore off, and her body became visible to the naked eye.
The problem with the rune of invisibility, less famously known as the camouflage runic stone, is that it deactivates once the user makes an aura or magical attack or is attacked. It was the biggest weakness of the rune of invisibility. The smaller ones were that it didn't hide a person's breath or their scent, making them more weak against beasts with sharp senses.
Of course, there was a way to overcome all three of its weaknesses. By learning assassination techniques, one could eliminate its lesser weaknesses, and by perfectly timing the action of the rune of invisibility, one can overcome its biggest weakness. She was also planning to time it perfectly. If everything had gone according to her plan, it would have seemed like a ghost had killed it. But because of the weird feeling she felt after killing it, she was a moment too late to reactivate it. As a result, she was revealed.
The strongest two hyenas instantly realized that it wasn't some ghost that killed the third strongest of their pack. It was a human pretending to be a ghost.
Their green eyes flared up as they clawed in her direction.
Whoosh!
A fiery hot stream burst out of their claws as crescent fire blades whizzed through the air like a bullet and closed in on Delilah.
There were four such blades made completely out of a level-2 magical fire.
'Ah, goddamn it.'
Two came straight towards her, while the other two dropped on her from the sides, leaving her with no choice but to blink to safety.
