The woman looked at Paras with a frown. This is the first time she showed any expression other than contempt and amusement.
"How did you guys do it?"
She asked Paras in a low voice. Even her tone changed; she was clearly shaken.
But Paras is not Saber Monarch, he wouldn't entertain her with words. He lunged forward as he ran towards her with the ax and stopped right in front of her all of a sudden and used the momentum to take a big swing at her.
The ax didn't feel any resistance as it went right through the abdomen and only then did Paras realize that the thing he hit is not the woman, it is another deceptive image that dissolved into thin air.
But Paras didn't stop in confusion, rather he increased the force and continued with the swing as he made a three-sixty degree turn to his rear.
The ax met with the knife that was coming towards him.
The knife and the ax clashed, but the brute force of the ax won as the woman was pushed backward. She could feel her hand going numb for a moment and she almost lost the grip on the knife.
She was stunned for a moment and stood there standing, but Paras didn't.
He leaped towards her with an overhead ax strike to her spot and this time she dodged with the utmost desperation.
But with all the speed she could muster up all she could do was dodge the ax by hair's breadth.
She felt the cold, sharp, and tyrannical force passing right by her body and felt cold.
As the ax landed on the ground, cracks appeared all over and she felt terrified just from the shock wave of the attack.
She trembled on her spot as she looked at Paras as if he was a devil.
"Who are you?" She asked in a trembling voice. Paras took a step back and channeled his energy into the ax as he got ready for a cleave once again.
He got ready with another overhead strike, but right when he was about to make contact, he stopped and turned around, he leaped high into the air and got ready to land with another overhead strike.
The woman who was standing disappeared. She used the same trick again, but this time Paras was prepared.
At this moment, the woman is trying to escape. She instantly knew that she couldn't defeat Paras. Nd this is not what she signed up for. And the fact that this guy appeared out of nowhere, could answer the disappearance of the assassins who are still alive according to the tokens they left.
She immediately wanted to report the whole thing to the manager and then to the higher-ups.
But when she saw that Paras was already prepared and he already leaped into the air with his ax, she felt her feet run cold, she wanted to run but she couldn't, it is as if the surrounding air turned dense not letting her move and even the spiritual energy is manifesting around her, obstructing her way.
She looked at Paras who is high up in the air and is rapidly descending, she could guess the trajectory of the attack, she tried her best to get rid of the resistance around her and moved to the side before heaving a sigh, thinking that she would be safe like before.
But Paras only grinned as he channeled more energy into it and it condensed around the ax. As Paras landed, the ax touched the ground. The spiritual turned into a large sharp cleaving ray as it destroyed the whole area all the while cutting the woman into two.
Sam and Saber Monarch came out of the Ice divine dimension. They anticipated that the manager might attack Saber Monarch with a middle stage transcendent after two consecutive failures, so they decided to prepare before they come here and their preparation was not in vain.
The manager really did proceed as they predicted and they managed to kill her easily.
"Sorry, boss. I wanted to spare her, but I couldn't control my strength."
Paras said with an awkward smile. He was just lost in the moment as this is the only time he could have a real fight with a person of same level after his breakthrough. As for a sparring between themselves, Sam completely rejected it after Saber Monarch and Vidyut went overboard with their sparring and almost killed each other.
Now Paras felt like he made Sam lose a person with a unique ability.
"Don't worry, her ability is not that great anyway. It is just a petty trick."
Then only Paras felt relieved. Sam performed the memory extraction from the soul of the woman who died and got some detailed information regarding the organization.
Unlike the assassins before this woman is nurtured by the organization itself. But even she never reached the headquarters and met with the leader.
This amused Sam quite a lot. After all, the leader is only a peak stage transcendent cultivator of the Astral Plane, but he didn't even meet with a cultivator of Middle stage Transcendent cultivation of the Astral Plane. This is completely illogical.
But he didn't bother too much as another interesting piece of information was obtained.
Most of the assassins of the Black curtain are actually not nurtured by the organization, they are just normal cultivators most likely to be stray cultivators without any sect, family or organization backing them.
And they are used for the regular assassination attempts. As for the people nurtured by the organization, they have different duties, they manage their business, scout for talents, and act as elites of the branches.
These Elites are used for either assassinating troublesome targets, emergency security for Branch managers, or for assassinating the assassins that joined the Black curtain and betrayed them.
And this woman is one of the elites. The elites differ from branch to branch, not just the cultivation level but for a number of people as well.
In the current branch, she is one of the three Elites and the remaining two are also of Middle stage transcendent cultivation.
Sam took out some blood and made up Saber Monarch as if he is really injured and entered the Ice divine dimension along with Paras.
Saber Monarch weakly went back to the inn in the plain sight of others, while limping and groaning in pain.
He went to Sam's room directly where he made a ruckus after Sam came out of the divine dimension. The ruckus alerted everyone in the inn including the manager.
The rest of Sam's teammates pulled Saber Monarch aside and gave him medicine to let him sleep.
Sam looked at the manager who came running because of the commotion and his expression turned from terrified to ugly.
The manager's expression also turned ugly as he could predict that he would get an earful from Sam. He knew that he messed up.
He also got the message that the woman had died, but after that, he became so engrossed in the pain of losing an elite and nervousness in how to explain the situation to headquarters, and in the process failed to think about Sam.
Now he knew that he made a mistake and immediately took Sam over with him to his room to discuss the issue.
"I am sorry, I would try my best to remedy the situation immediately."
The Manager spoke as soon as they entered the room.
"I don't trust you anymore. If you don't kill him right now, I will die."
Sam's voice was hysterical and he almost sounded like he was crazy.
"Don't worry, nothing of that sort will happen. You will be okay. I will protect you in the name of Black Curtain. I, no… not just me, the Black Curtain will take responsibility for this incident."
"If you want to take responsibility, go and kill him right now. Otherwise, I will be dead before dawn."
"I cannot do anything to him at the moment. It is the organization policy."
That triggered Sam even more as the argument became heated.
Soon, the manager finally agreed to something.
"Try to get him out of the place and we will deal with him."
"How can I get them out of this place, they are suspicious of me, you dumb fuck. They will kill me the moment, I speak anything remotely close to making him go away from this place. Luckily they don't know that you are the assassins I hired, otherwise, they would have already barged in and killed both of us."
The Manager once again fell into deep thought, so he decided on something else.
"I have a plan. But you must play along."
With that, both of them discussed the plan and went to the Saber Monarch's room where the rest of the team are currently looking after him.
When they saw the manager and Sam together, they frowned a bit.
"I am the Manager of the Inn, today your friend broke the rule of our inn by attacking a fellow guest, from what I learned from Sam, he is also part of your group, so we wouldn't look into it further, but the policy of inn doesn't change just because of some relationship between the guests who are part of the conflict.
So, he has to move out and since you are all connected, I ask you to move out too."
The team was stunned and was about to refute, but Night Ghost pretended to gesture them to stop and spoke to the manager.
"We will move out and that means our whole team. So, don't worry."
"Thanks for your cooperation. I have a friend who is also operating an inn nearby, you can go there and they will arrange the rooms. If you go elsewhere, you wouldn't be able to find any residence after knowing that you are kicked out of here."
The Manager gave out a helping hand and Night Ghost accepted it.
