Chapter 24

Some debts to pay?

Zairen furrowed his brows.

Finn’s father was the Bindan village governor. What business did the governor have with these powerful hidden assassins?

After thinking for a while, Zairen stared back at the masked man in front of him and shook his head. “I won’t give him over,” he finally spoke, in a gruff and unnaturally low sounding voice.

Zairen had long since decided to not give Finn to the two assassins. Even though Finn was extremely bratty, Zairen still had morals. He would not leave a little boy, even an extremely annoying one, to be abducted and possibly get hurt.

Furthermore, if it came down to a fight, Zairen would not be in the least bit helpless! If raw power and speed were not enough to secure victory, he still had many unrevealed tactics and abilities.

As he spoke, he couldn’t help but cringe at his own voice. Sure enough, it sounded extremely unnatural and fake - it was pretty obvious that it was intentionally modified. However, the silver masked fighter didn’t seem to notice.

Hearing Zairen’s response, the masked man was at first silent. Then, after a few seconds, he spoke out softly: “Very well then… Looks like we won’t be getting along.”

FUOOSH!

The next moment, his figure distorted, and he appeared right in front of Zairen, a knife in his hand striking down at Zairen’s body.

Zairen was alarmed. The man was fast… he moved like he was flying! Previously, he had concealed his true speed!

That being said, Zairen was not slow either. The Silent Shadow Art focused on increasing a user’s agility, precision, and stealth. As a result, after more than a week of constant training, Zairen’s reaction time and speed were far greater than those of an average person. Combined with his plentiful fighting experience, he was not at much of a disadvantage.

Instantly, Zairen dodged to the right, seemingly barely escaping the range of that lethal knife strike. He then directly launched a counterattack of his own: two fingers streaked out like bolts of lightning, piercing straight towards his target’s eyes. At that moment, his fingers didn’t seem like body parts, but razor-sharp spears.

Seeing the lightning-quick stab aiming for his eyes, the assassin’s face clenched.

What speed!

Throughout his life, the masked man had always been very fast; in terms of agility, he could be considered very skilled. For this reason, he was absolutely shocked to find out that his opponent wasn’t a bit slower than him at all!

Not only that, the black cloaked person was quite vicious! With his first strike, he had went directly for his eyes! If it connected, he would surely lose his vision, and almost certainly after that, his life!

The masked assassin immediately retreated backward two steps and took a defensive stance, his body leaned low and his arms placed in front of his face.

As if having prepared for that, Zairen instantly advanced forward with a quick step and arrived in front of the masked man, his left hand forming a fist. Using that fist, he fiercely jabbed at the masked man’s exposed body, like a cheetah pouncing on its prey.

The masked man hurriedly brought his hands down in order to block. But a moment later, his face changed, and he realized that he had made a grave mistake.

The quick jab was a feint! The real blow was arriving now, a heavy right cross to the head! In the corner of his vision, the rapidly approaching blur of a fist streaked through the air towards him.

Unfortunately, it was already too late to retreat. The most the masked man could do was tilt his head sideways in an effort to minimize the damage.

BANG!

A small fist backed by milky white spirit energy slammed into the side of the masked man’s face, cracking the mask in three different places. The assassin was knocked back a couple of feet, and he spit out a mouthful of blood.

Suddenly aware of the large amount of damage done, he felt panicked, and his head was ringing. That mask was made out of solid iron! How could a fist be so powerful as to put cracks into iron!?

Actually, the reason why the punch had been so powerful was that Zairen had evenly transferred all of his spirit energy into his punching fist. This resulted in greatly enhanced explosiveness and penetrating strength, a drastic increase in power that did not match Zairen’s looks.

The masked man breathed haggardly. The dangerous situation forced his mind to clear, and he started to think rapidly, trying to find ways out of his current predicament.

“You’re much stronger than I thought.” The masked man said as he coughed. He took a fighting stance, extending one foot slightly ahead of the other, and placing both arms in front of the body. His right hand held a knife, which was visibly glowing with murky-greyish spirit energy.

Suddenly, his wrist flickered. The knife that was previously in his hand shot outward, heading directly for Finn!

‘What a dirty tactic!’ Zairen scowled. He had no choice but to rush over to Finn and intercept the dangerous projectile. In an instant, he had already arrived in front of Finn and was carefully catching the approaching flying knife by its handle.

After making sure that Finn was unharmed, he looked backward, and saw that the masked man was already at the opposite end of the clearing, rapidly retreating into the forest. He was carrying the taller masked man over his shoulder, but somehow, that didn’t seem to slow him down much.

‘You think you can get away?’ Zairen focused his mind, and a moment later, his figure disappeared, melting into the forest trees’ shadows.

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The masked man breathed in ragged heaves as he ran through the forest. His mind was currently confused. Disbelief jumbled his thought process. ‘That guy… who is he? How could he be so strong?’

The blow that he had received from Zairen had actually caused quite a severe injury. Even though the iron mask had shielded him, he still took the full brunt of the punch's momentum, and as a result, was now suffering harsh side effects. His head felt dizzy, and every few seconds, he would throw up a bit of blood. He could sense that he would not be able to stay conscious for more than a few minutes.

Just at that moment, he suddenly felt a chill run down his spine, and his instincts flared, telling him that he was in great danger. He glanced backward and was flabbergasted to find that Zairen was actually directly behind him, sweeping out at him with the knife that he had thrown earlier!

‘How did he catch up so quickly?!’ Panicked, the masked man ducked down, just barely dodging Zairen’s streaking knife strike. However, as he ducked, the taller masked man was thrown off his shoulder and landed heavily on the ground.

For a moment, the small masked man glanced down at his brother who was sprawled on the floor. Then, he grimaced and then shot away deeper into the woods, leaving his brother behind.

Staring at the running masked man’s back, Zairen made a movement to chase after him. But as he did so, he suddenly stumbled. One of his legs wouldn't budge.

He looked down. The taller masked man on the ground was hugging his leg, trying to prevent Zairen from moving. He seemed to have gained consciousness due to the heavy fall to the ground.

He only managed to hold Zairen in place for two seconds before his clinch was kicked away. However, those seconds were enough.

In those two seconds, the smaller masked man had already travelled a large distance away. His overall running speed was greater than Zairen’s, and Zairen did not have enough spirit energy left to shadow walk again. Also, they were in the middle of a thick forest, so it would be very difficult to chase him.

In other words, the man had gotten away.

Zairen frowned and stared on as the retreating masked man’s figure disappeared into the thick forest. He then looked down at the other masked man underneath him. He seemed to have fallen unconscious again, from Zairen’s kick.

Zairen sighed lightly, slung the unconscious masked man over his shoulder, and made his way back to the clearing.