"I would like to say let us begin, but it seems that you are now dead..." The assassin laughed as he turned around and looked at Nicole, "Come now,"

"Herr Peter" Nicole ran after Isaiah but the assassin caught her hand, "Unhand me!"

"Now now, I do not wish to poison you with a paralyzing agent, don't force my hand."

"Let her go!" Isaiah stood up from the bush he fell into, his face bruised up.

"Oho..."

Lightning raged around Isaiah's body as he walked onwards,

The assassin threw away Nicole and fixed his collar, "People call me Nightstalker, for I fight well during the night... Let us dance,"

Isaiah threw a punch, slow as it was, Nightstalker dodged it easily before launching his own jab at his chin.

"Ghhk!"

"You're a mage, and you thought you could beat me in physical combat?!"

Nightstalker struck three more times as Isaiah retreated, the lightning around his body then disappeared as he pointed his fingers at Nightstalker, and then launched a huge geyser of white light.

"I cannot dodge light, yes... But I can dodge your aim!"

As lightning dashed out from Isaiah's finger, Nightstalker easily avoided the bolt and struck at Isaiah's face. Isaiah was thrown off balance as Nightstalker struck again,

"Surrender now!"

"Never!"

"Oho..."

Isaiah leaped as far away as he could whilst Nightstalker brandished his knife,

"Let's end this quickly."

Isaiah once more aimed at Nightstalker who got ready to dodge but then felt his leg as hard as a rock. Looking down, he saw that his whole body was now wrapped with earth. He gritted his teeth and braced himself,

Zzzzzt boom!

The two didn't wait to see what had happened and quickly left the place in a dash. Nightstalker meanwhile emerged from the cloud of smoke, his body charred from the attack and his clothes ripped apart as if he was attacked by a wild animal. He violently removed his vest and patted down his pants, despite his tense muscles he forced himself to smile,

"Troublesome, it seems he knows what he is doing,"

He then took out a long, thick stick from his sleeve which can turn into a miniature crossbow, loading it with a make-shift cartridge that can fit four bolts at once. He held onto the weapon as if he was holding onto a baby,

"Capture the girl and the mage, they said. Make sure she is unharmed they said, well, let's see." He then bent his body in a sprinting position, his eyes glowing blue as he scanned his immediate surroundings. "She only needs to live after all."

His search didn't take long as he could feel Isaiah's mana source not too far from him. Despite having made quite the distance between the two parties, to Nightstalker, it didn't matter how far his targets had run, the assassin's main arsenal was his speed after all. It would only take him a few seconds to reach his prey.

The air around him grew heavy as his pants stuck even closer to his legs, to which they began to harden.

Boom!

With a loud explosion, his body struck in the direction as if he was a heat-seeking missile, despite the literal jungle of obstacles in his path, Nightstalker easily slithered through all the trees and stones that blocked his path as he closed in on the pair. In no time at all, he was in front of them. Hanging on top of a branch, he then aimed his crossbow at Isaiah who didn't even notice him.

He squeezed the trigger, but it missed its target. Nevertheless, he had expected this to happen hence why he had his crossbow with a custom-made magazine. He quickly emptied the cartridge, firing three other bolts at once.

Tssw tssw tssw,

All three bolts missed their shots, making him frown at his own skill, that said the shots had managed to frighten them enough that they began to franticly look around the place trying to figure out where exactly those attacks had come from, and in that Nightstalker smiled as it was best to have them exhaust their own energy first before striking.

Isaiah shot a bolt of lightning blindly, hitting a tree far away from where Nightstalker really was,

"Excellent,"

He reloaded his final cartridge onto his crossbow and leaped from one tree to the other as he leisurely chased them down,

Tssw,

He took one more shot at Isaiah, which struck him down on his foot, causing him to fall down whilst his second shot was blocked by a wall of earth. This was followed by a counter-attack of lightning which struck Nighstalker's last location,

"Ohh, getting accurate I see?"

He leaped for the tree in front of them and fired another bolt but was blocked when two massive branches fell towards its path, as those branches fell away from sight a bolt of lightning struck not too far from Nightstalker.

Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!

The trees around Isaiah were struck by bolts of lightning as he began to saturate the area until smoke covered his surroundings. Whilst the attack stopped, Nicole quickly went to apply her healing magic on Isaiah, placing her hand on his shoulder,

"Let my faith be his shield, Heal!"

White light surrounded Isaiah and quickly his wounds began to fly away, even his legs which had been struck by the bolt had now returned back to normality, he stood up and stomped his foot to test its effects. The magic she did was of greater quality than the last time.

"That's great,

She waved her hand in relief when she pointed to his back, "Watch out!"

An object came flying at a fast pace towards his face, to which Isaiah managed to shoot down with a bolt of lightning, however...

"Got ya!"

Nightstalker leaped out of the smoke and struck Isaiah's neck. The knife only managed to create a shallow cut as Isaiah caught it just in time, lightning then raged on his hands as Nightstalker kicked himself free from Isaiah's grasp. The bolt of lightning that was raging on his body was then redirected to his left hand as Isaiah defused the lighting to the ground directly below, electrifying everything directly in front of him.

Nightstalker leaped up to dodge the attack but realized that it was all a ruse, a bolt of lightning shoot out of Isaiah's right hand and struck him down, causing him to drop his knife as his body rag-dolled a few meters away before he smoothly took a defensive manner.

Isaiah took a deep breath as he wiped the sweat off his face. Behind, Nicole applies weaker healing magic to remove the cut on his neck. But as Isaiah continued to look at Nightstalker, he felt his vision getting more and more blurry. As he was wondering what was happening, a status bubble popped out.

[Low Mana!]

'Okay...' Isaiah bit his lip as he looked around. Nightstalker was still well-off than he was, sure he had Nicole to heal him up anytime but if his mana ran out then he was only going to become a punching bag, plus Nicole herself has a finite amount of mana. Nightstalker meanwhile still looked great, although he looked beaten-up he was still capable of launching those attacks.

As he looked around, he then noticed the knife just below them.

'Stab him...'

As those thoughts popped out of his mind, fear began to consume his heart. 'Should I stab him?'

But before he could think out his thoughts, Nightstalker raised his fist and attacked, Isaiah quickly raised his and struck first. He unleashed a left-uppercut followed by a right jab, but both his attacks were half-assed, thrown in a panic, and were easily dodged by Nightstalker who countered with his own left-uppercut and a right jab, ending his combo with a spinning kick, with all three attacks putting him in a daze as he blindly threw around his attacks in an attempt to fight back but these too were easily dodged by the gold-ranker who countered with a straight punch to his nose, following it up with a right uppercut.

The attacks knocked Isaiah out of his mind as he stumbled to his back, his nose bleeding profusely. Nicole tried to heal him up but Nightstalker struck again.

One, two, three...

Nightstalker was relentless with his attacks as he continuously unleashed jab after jab, all aimed at Isaiah's face and stomach. Isaiah could not even mount an effective defense let alone an offense.

Isaiah struck back as quickly as he could, but the blinding pain in his face now tanked his already abysmal agility as a punch to his guts blew him down to his knees. Trying to catch his breath, Isaiah opened his mouth and looked up, there he saw Nightstalker foot burying itself in his face, blowing him away,

"Her Peter!" Nicole once more tried to run after Isaiah, but a swift kick to her foot brought her down, whilst Nightstalker leisurely made his way over to Isaiah, dusting off his shoulders.

"What is wrong with you?" He laughed as he struck Isaiah in his stomach, causing him to hurl around, "You are slower than me, yet you engaged in a fist fight against me!" He then kicked Isaiah in the stomach, causing him to lurch onwards, catching him by the hair, he then looked at Isaiah, "You are a fool!"

Isaiah spat at his face and flashed a grin, but this was instantly quashed as Nightstalker struck him in the face.

"I see."

Nightstalker struck again and again and again until Isaiah's face was a bloody mess, he was about to launch his fourth strike when Isaiah suddenly lunged his hands onwards, there Nightstalker felt something rip through his fist, his eyes turned to his hands and there he saw a knife.

Isaiah had hidden the knife underneath him, but as it penetrated deep into Nightstalker's knuckles, he felt guilt wash through his entire body. His hands began to shake while his eyes quivered in fear.

Nightstalker saw his reaction and grinned,

"Oho... Ahahahaha!"

Seeing that he was mocked, Isaiah's guilt was suddenly washed away and replaced with an unbridled amount of anger.

"AAAAAAAAH!"

Field by anger, his entire body went into overdrive mode and he pushed onto the knife as the two began to wrestle control over the weapon. Isaiah powered up his legs and began to stand little by little. Nightstalker found himself losing in the battle for strength and struck Isaiah in the face, his punch however lacked the strength as he was more concerned about the knife, and thus, Isaiah managed to take over his hand and bite it as hard as he could.

"Aaaar!"

Isaiah then stood up and pushed Nightstalker onwards, the two having crashed onto a tree. Unrelentless, Isaiah tried to remove the knife by pulling it, but Nightstalker, not wanting to be stabbed any further, pulled his hand and the two were engaged in a short tug-of-war. Isaiah eventually managed to remove the blade but was thrown away by a swift kick, meanwhile Nightstalker leaned his body onto the tree,

"Haaa... You stupid." He fished for his crossbow, but found it to have been destroyed in the scuffle, he pulled out the bolt instead whilst Isaiah pointed the blade of the knife to him.

The two then charged. Nightstalker was of course the fastest, but all of a sudden, he felt his whole body tense up and froze momentarily. He couldn't understand what had just happened, but by then it was too late. He felt something sharp strike his hip, looking down he saw Isaiah bury the knife.

The rage which clouded Isaiah's eyes had disappeared and now he saw the knife buried deep into Nighstalker's hip. He walked back, his eyes quivering in fear, and felt himself vomiting.

"I..." He shook his head, sweat pouring down his face, "What..."

Nightstalker meanwhile felt no better than Isaiah. The man's face turned completely white as he fell to the ground. Though such an attack wouldn't normally kill him outright, the paralyzing poison the blade was coated in completely arrested his lower half. Simple healing magic could heal him up, but being that he was in front of an enemy, he knew he had no other choice.

He saw the fear in Isaiah's eyes and grinned maliciously.

"If I will die..." With his tongue, he took out the glass capsule hidden underneath a hollow tooth, "I at least will haunt you forever." He bit the capsule as hard as he could as the poison inside entered his mouth.

Isaiah, realizing what had happened tried to stop but there was little he could do as Nightstalker fell to the ground, his eyes having rolled up and his mouth now filling with foam. Isaiah's eyes locked on the knife now stuck in his hip.

"Fuck... Fuck, no, fuck..." He began to vomit profusely as he fell to the ground, "I... I did not. No!"

"Her Peter!" Nicole once more applied her heal onto Isaiah as the latter began to calm down. She then saw the now dead body of Nightstalker lying not too far. "It's no time to mourn or regret, we have to get going."

Isaiah looked up and shook his head, "Right... Right." He slowly got up and looked at Nightstalker, "I..."

"You only did that to protect yourself."

"Right. Protect."

Isaiah shook his head once more and calmed the nerves of his shaking hand. But as they were just about to leave, the dreaded sounds of dogs barking filled their ears.