“Young master Niel, we have trouble!”

“What is it?”

Niel looked towards the maid who had been serving him for the past year. However today she looked a bit anxious.

“Young master. You are to be enlisted into the northern army. You are expected to head out to battle tomorrow”

“Northern battle? What exactly is going on…?”

“Young master, the king states that talent isn’t enough to reach the top. A man needs to shed blood before they can achieve anything great”

Niel instantly realized this was likely some plot by another one of the princes. However whether it was a plot, or his father's true intentions, it didn’t matter. He needed to train his spear skills in real battle anyhow. Just training against regular students could no longer improve his skill, they didn’t have the bloodthirst or battle experience a regular soldier required.

“Very well, pack up a few essentials and prepare my horse. I shall leave tomorrow”

The next day came quickly. Niel hopped onto his horse and left the kingdom on his own. Normally a prince would be escorted everywhere with guards, however he was expected to go on his own. How could someone experience life or death battles if they had guards constantly protecting them? The battle field was a few days journey from the kingdom, meaning Niel had plenty of time on the round.

Everything was going fine until the midpoint of the journey. An arrow shot out of the treetops, flying at Niel at tremendous speeds, had Niel not expected this he might have been caught off guard. Unfortunately for the assassin, he knew this was likely a plot the second he left the kingdom, however now his thoughts were confirmed. Niel swung his spear, hitting the arrow head on. The arrow flew to the side and embedded itself deep into the earth.

“Come out you rats. No need to hide any longer”

“Looks like the 4th prince is truly as strong as the reports made him out to be. It’s good we’ve already prepared a contingency plan. Surround him”

The bushes surrounding the trail Niel was heading down started to shake. Different men walked out of these bushes covered in black. They looked towards Niel with bloodthirsty eyes, as if they wanted to devour him alive.

“Unless you can take on 30 men by yourself, you shouldn’t dream of living much longer”

The main assassin jumped down from the tree and landed right in front of Niel’s horse. Niel hopped off his horse and stood facing the assassin.

“Had you surrounded me a month or so earlier, you may have managed to kill me. Unfortunately for you, I’ve already come up for a move for a scenario like this. You should be happy that you’ll be the first man to die to it”

“Hmph, all empty talk. Rush him!”

The 30 or so men instantly bombarded Niel, not giving him a chance to breathe at all. Niel wasn’t afraid at all however, and just seemed to be waiting for them to get within his spears reach. One month ago in the academy, Niel had already become to strong, hence he decided to face multiple opponents at once, however he quickly realized a flaw. If you can’t overwhelm with strength, your only option is to overwhelm them with technique. His strength wasn’t strong enough yet, so naturally he had to choose the second option.

“1000-Man Spear Spin”

Niel held the spear above his head and started to spin it like a propeller. The spear soon started moving so fast that it simply became a blur. The spear started to form a small tornado around Niel. Any of the assassins who got caught in this tornado would suddenly have hundreds of cuts appear on their body. The tornado got larger as Niel spinned the spear with more force. Soon the 30 or so assassins had already been cut up into pieces, without even having a chance to fight back. The main assassin managed to survive a little longer, unfortunately the wounds on his body would soon cause him to bleed to death.

“I’ve got to thank you. You’re little group of assassins gave me a perfect chance to test this new skill of mine. I’ve got to say it's far greater than I originally expected”

“Ho-how are you so powerful…”

“I'm not that powerful. It’s just that killing a group of dogs requires no strength at all”

Niel wasted no more words with this dead man, and severed his head with a single swipe of his spear. He collected all the heads of the dead assassins and left them in a pile. Hopefully this would be enough to send a message to whoever's messing with him, that they should stop while they are still alive.