Sam landed on a different tree.
The grin on his face didn’t fade. In fact, it widened.
“Cocky Idiots. Even in hell, you are still the same.”
He muttered to himself as he disappeared from the spot. Eight bolts went past the spot he was in. He reappeared at a new spot and slashed another trunk.
This time, the head fell off along with a part of the tree. The volume of the bolts was reduced by a lot when Sam jumped to the next spot and slashed another person.
Once three heads were down, it became fairly easier for him. Sam kept on jumping from one tree to another as he killed people.
The heads rolled down, one by one. Soon, all the reaper sword has is blood and there is an empty patch in the middle of the forest. The area is riddled with cut-down trees, broken rocks, and of course pieces of corpses.
Sam observed the effects of corruption as he looked at the corpses.
They are part of his training in the organization.
When Sam was about to finally graduate into his own independent assassin when he was twelve, these people are the final test for him to pass.
These are some senior assassins within the organization and they do not take some mercenary jobs, they also take on training the new graduates.
The final test is to survive their onslaught and try to assassinate them back. And if the counterattack works or if the team thinks that it will work the other person would pass.
Because of Sam’s status, he was put forth to take this test early. Generally, the threshold for this is sixteen. For some reason, these guys felt that they were being insulted as a twelve year old was asked to take this test.
So, they decided to take this out on Sam.
The first time Sam attempted this test, his whole body was riddled with holes from the crossbow bolts. His arms, legs, his back, in fact even his buttocks had around six bolts lodged into them.
It was because some of these guys were trying to bet who hits Sam’s anus first.
But of course, all of them missed it and because of the bet they lost, they took out their anger on Sam even more.
Sam almost bled to death that night.
These people have a unique fighting style which made it hard for Sam to take revenge.
By some miracle, he recovered within a couple of months. Only later did he realize that it is not really much of a miracle, rather than the sadistic nature of these team members.
They only gave him flesh wounds with their weaker bolts to take pleasure in playing around with Sam.
But Sam himself had his own plans. He studied their fighting style. For starters, he wasn’t injured that much in the second round. He only got one injury and he was completely fine.
After that was done, the tests went on.
Sam kept on improving.
The main advantage of these guys is that they are stealthy. Nobody ever managed to find their exact location when they attacked.
They are extremely stealthy, they are precise and their choice of weapon limits the range to which they are good at.
So, they are not really snipers, rather they are a shooting squad that uses crossbows and knows how to fight using the terrain from a decently long range.
They prey on the target bit by bit. Making them weaker, slower, and finally taking their lives.
But their biggest mistake is constantly letting Sam go so that he could come back and entertain them more.
Soon, Sam became skilled enough to catch these guys. He managed to defeat them after dozens of tries. Once he figured out a way to not get injured within that formation used by these people, he started trying out the test like once a week and within a few months, he had it in his grasp.
The pattern is that these people try to corner the target to one spot and they will bombard them with their trick shots and speed and make it impossible to recover.
They will kill them right there.
So, Sam focused on defending himself with a sword and first figured out their locations. Just like how he did now.
Then there is this drawback they have because of the stealth. They compromised on their movement because of their stealth. Their positions are fairly fixed.
With their fixed situation, Sam could pinpoint their locations. When he was a kid and did this in real life, he had to use some really old tricks in the book to get to them and take them one by one.
When Sam was done with each one of these team members, he showed them what the hell on earth would taste like.
He broke their bones, ripped the tongues out, and the eyes were gouged out.
That is why he had such a lasting impression on them. He almost killed himself when he was a kid for challenging them in open.
But now Sam schooled them beyond belief.
Even in this present scenario, Sam did the same.
He first narrowed down their locations, they took down what he felt like are the key opponents and then took over the rest pretty easily.
The crossbow squad that used to enjoy the misery of the candidates they failed, died in a test taken by a twelve year old.
That was one of the most tragic things to happen in the organization, because of the amount Sam made the organization lose as they invested a lot
in the squad. The assassinations would have gotten some really great cash, but Sam ruined it for the community. He even made a bunch of enemies because of that.
As he imagined how his situation was when he met these people, Sam finished up the cleaning process.
He then sat in that area to think about the next step.
He doesn’t have any threats lying around. The forest patch is cleared. No more new people are coming when he was sitting there.
There are no creatures as well. Sam had a breathing space where he could kick back a bit.
After a few minutes of brainstorming, he picked an interested direction. Sam took it because the main camp he is establishing would be a lot closer from this place if this direction and from the details fixed up like this a bit.
But it also has a certain level of danger.
