When Dimitri decided to show his appearance and tell him about his real identity, Noel couldn't help but ask, "Dimitri. You are the best assassin in the Demon Banner Army, right? How could you fail to assassinate me? Although it's true that my father is shrewd, you can't outsmart an absolute power, no?"
Dimitri thought for a moment and said, "It's actually pretty simple once you grasp it. First of all, you have to be an expert in assassination to be able to counter an assassination attempt."
"Huh? But my father is a merchant…"
"I mean, a textbook assassination." Dimitri made a weird smile. "Your father might be a merchant, but he has a lot of people helping him, including an assassin. Instead of leaving everything to the guards, he is trying to learn all kinds of knowledge to counter it."
"So, I'm going to teach you the six basic assassination attempts. They are Manual, Accidents, Drugs, Sharp Weapons, Blunt Weapons, and lastly, Explosions."
"Manual is like the ambush you have in your mind. However, you have to take note of three things when attempting this. First, you need enough power to kill or heavily injure the target in a single clash."
"Second, you need to have some abilities that are strong enough that you can become a decoy. Basically, it should be enough to make your target focus on this ability instead of yourself."
"Third, you need to be swift and precise during the attempt."
"If you can do this, you should be able to at least heavily injure your target. After all, the stronger the target, the harder it is for you to kill them."
Noel nodded in understanding. Though, he raised another question. "Still, if you want to assassinate someone, you should do it in the dark, right?"
"Not really. The place usually requires three basic things: lighting, distance, and silence."
"Basically, it's true that having the darkness to cover you is the best thing for an assassin. However, if we think that's all there to it, then you only need to increase the guards during the night, right? People can expect your assassination pretty easily."
"Besides, it's true that your opponents will have a hard time finding you or anything you have set up, but it's the same as you. It's like choking your own neck. So, we are trained to assassinate someone in broad daylight as well. In fact, you can use the sun to blind your enemy like throwing an attack that forces the target to look up and close their eyes to the sunlight or something like that. Basically, you have to adapt to the situation and use everything to your advantage."
"Then, the distance. You need at least some distance from other people. There are bodyguards that are hiding among common people. And some even hide in the shadows like me. That's why you need to make some distance from other people before assassinating them."
"Last but not least, silence. If you want to kill them, do it as silently as possible. Well, that's the point of the assassination anyway."
Noel remembered this lesson and applied it. Just like his father, he might not be an assassin, but knowing some knowledge could give him an idea of how to do things when necessary.
He couldn't help but smile when he looked at the situation. He used that phoenix by taking advantage of the sunlight to blind Fil, causing his reaction speed to become slower. At the same time, the ambush occurred during the day, breaking the stereotype.
With the help of Rose's illusion, he could cover everyone's movement and show everything that he wanted to let the enemy know.
This was why the ambush was a success even though he wasn't an assassin.
The strength Dimitri was talking about was Damian and Paul. They were both Spirit Grandmasters, so they were the only people that could inflict some damage on them. Meanwhile, the other Spirit Masters would be joining hands to restrain the third Spirit Grandmaster.
'Good. With this, we should b—!!' Before Noel finished his thought, he saw multiple distortions appearing all around them.
"!!!" Damian felt the distortion around him and immediately jumped back, trying to regain some distance to observe the distortion. This ability was weird after all.
"A space distortion…" Damian muttered while feeling something else. "No. It's not space…"
However, when he jumped away like this, it meant Gargan finally had the space to do something.
While gritting his teeth, he grabbed the glaive with his other hand while rotating his body. With his body, momentum, and Spiritual Energy, he created a tornado that swept the area.
Paul was forced to step back, while the other Spirit Masters thought about retreating. Luckily, Damian made his move.
In an instant, the wind was frozen and shattered into pieces before getting reduced to nothing.
Hailfa didn't miss the opportunity. The moment they were distracted, she used that split second to break through their formation.
"Not good!" Stella gritted her teeth, trying to strike her. But Hailfa easily blocked her swing with the snake scale and used that force to boost her momentum.
Then, she started running at a speed that they wouldn't be able to catch up to. The only one who could stop her was probably Zion, but the latter was creating a fake trail to keep Laufey busy.
At the same time, Gargan actually used that wind to cover his movement for a second. When the wind disappeared, Gargan was already next to Fil, who was trying to stand.
As expected of Spirit Grandmasters, even though their injuries were heavy, they weren't that easy to kill.
In addition, with Hailfa going back to inform Laufey, it was clear that they were forced to choose between two options.
'We should retreat and continue our journey before Laufey comes here… Or should we do everything to kill them and fight Laufey and that guy?' Noel frowned, wondering what the correct choice was.
But he soon remembered what Dimitri taught him.
Back then, he said, "When you failed your assassination attempt, retreating is the best choice."
It didn't take too long for him to say, "Let's continue our journey. Sir, please stop them for a while."
