The eyewitnesses to the gory scene felt like time had been slowed down for them.
It looked like someone had kept their invisible hand pressed against Oshawa's mouth. Her open mouth, which was spewing blood, looked like it had been pressed against a glass surface. The assassin had also held her body by her waist, using her as a shield to protect themselves from Gondel's potential attacks.
At this point, Gondel's entire team had come to realize it was too late to save the three rankers. The first two had already died. And Oshawa's heart stopped a second ago.
The assailant didn't even allow Sansara World's defense mechanism to get triggered. The rankers were killed before the defensive mechanism had a chance to activate. Meaning he didn't need to exploit the delay in the defense mechanism for these kills.
The only reason the invisible assailant had maintained his hold on the surprised-looking and deader-than-dead Oshawa was that he was waiting for other rankers to have a chink in their defense.
The assassin was analyzing the rankers surrounding him with the eyes of an apex predator.
Neither the predator nor his eyes could be seen at first. But the rankers instinctively noticed the predator's gaze on their flesh. They had goosebumps on their skin as a result.
Slap!
Gondel slapped himself to snap out of the shock he was feeling. He had already lost three of his teammates out of the blue. He didn't want to lose any more of them.
"Dis… fucking disperse!"
Gondel's hatred for Oshawa's killer was evident in his words. Shades of panic and anguish could also be seen on his face. Using each Perk after another, he isolated the assailant and the dead Oshawa.
Gondel's Perks worked their magic. A blurred image of a person was seen standing behind Oshawa, holding her still by her waist and neck. It took another second for the blur to get unblurred, revealing the image of Oshawa's assassin to her still-breathing teammates.
The assassin was wearing a beaked mask. He was completely invisible because of this mask, which was a transcendent-grade artifact that could be used for a limited time every day for carrying out silent assassinations.
He was also holding a transcendent-grade anelace with which he punctured Oshawa's throat with surgical precision. It was imbued with the fusion of lightning and fire manas. And yet, it didn't give off any mana signature, as if it was a rankless dagger meant to be used by mortals.
The man had black hair and a lean body. For a brief moment, Gondel felt like this man had blue eyes. But when he blinked, they had turned emerald green. His presence also felt… otherworldly… for a fraction of a second before it returned to normalcy.
He was wearing a hooded long black jacket along with dark pants. His black shoes had runic engravings which would exude faint, light blue breathing light. His body was surrounded by tiny streaks of lightning and a thin layer of fire mana.
Gondel could guess where the transcendent-grade artifact had come from judging by the look of the mask. The beaked nose mask and anelace were associated with only one man as far as Gondel knew, which was the Grand Duke of Edinburgh. And Gondel knew that there was now someone who had inherited his legacy.
"EREN MOTHERFUCKIN IDRIL!"
Gondel screamed at the assassin with a voice coated in anger and injustice. With his mere thought, Sage Loxley's mask was removed from his face and converted into a small tattoo before disappearing completely. The dagger in his hand also disappeared into thin air.
Eren smiled slightly at Gondel. His presence and body language were as calm as still water despite the violence he had unleashed on three rankers not too long ago.
"Hi, there… Stranger. One-sided introductions are no good. What's your name, might I ask?"
Eren didn't mind Gondel's rude way of addressing him. He asked Gondel the geek casually while making Loxley's anelace appear in his hand once again. He played with it for a fraction of a second using Unlimited Knife Works before making it disappear once again.
The butcher was experimenting with his assassin class.
He had used his bloodline powers to keep his looks the same despite the use of the assassin class. As a result, he felt uncomfortable using it in the presence of his usual body. So fidgeting with the anelace was his way of coping with the discomfort.
'Damn it. Damn it. God fucking damn it. This... Why did it happen to us? Eren... No... It's those artifacts... The Sage Legacies are indeed amazing. It allows a close combat expert to move like an assassin.'
Godel attributed Eren's assassination skills to his acquisition of Sage Loxley's Legacy. He had also come to understand that what Oshawa was saying to him just before her death was right all along.
He clenched his hands into fists and took a few deep breaths as if to quell his anger and other emotions. He shook his head and relaxed before answering Eren's question.
"Name's Gondel.
Listen here, Eren. Your team has already won two of the four Sage Legacies the graduation event had to offer. I don't want to create a conflict with you. But you know how significant Sage Lehan's Legacy is to us Sansara Academy's students.
As long as you give me an assurance that you won't raise a claim for the last Sage Legacy and compensate me for killing my teammates, we won't…."
Gondel was trying to distract Eren with his fake peace talks while one of his teammates initiated an attack on him. The geek thought that he was doing a convincing job pulling off acting as a peacemaker. Unfortunately for him and his teammates, it couldn't be further from the truth.
Swoosh. Zoom. Clang.
Eren intercepted the attacker's attack effortlessly. He used his anelace to defend himself from the assassin's karambits– a pair of curved short knives meant for silent killings.
The compressed curvature of the blades allows the user to generate concentrated slash waves in a restricted area, making them suitable for close combat confrontations.
The assassin made these karambits with his wind element mana. These spectral weapons were further strengthened by the modded Perks.
However, even with such advantages, the assassin from Gondel's team was not able to even slightly injure the butcher. A showdown ensued between the two assassins then and there as they exchanged dozens of moves with each other in a matter of seconds.
