Timeless Assassin

(Meanwhile, Back at the Black Serpent Headquarters, Vice-Guildmaster Antonio's Office)

Antonio leaned back in his chair, finally alone in the dim silence of his private office.

His fingers moved swiftly across the interface of his data slate, as he logged into the vault transaction logs to confirm the item Leo Skyshard had chosen.

He sincerely hoped that it was an item of no significant value, something worth a few dozen million MP at best, however, his breath hitched when he found out what Leo had actually selected.

[Retrieved Item: Indestructible Necklace]

For a full two seconds, Antonio didn't move.

Then—

"No… No. No! No, damnit!" he roared, slamming his fist onto the long wooden desk hard enough to send a spiderweb of cracks racing across its surface.

The data slate embedded within trembled, as Antonio clenched his teeth so tight, that his gums began to ache.

"Of all the fucking things…!"

His hand shook as he gripped the edge of the table.

"That little bastard knew. He had to have known!" he spat, fury overtaking disbelief.

"Nobody, and I mean nobody, in their right mind would have picked that item unless they knew exactly what it was and what it did.

Without prior knowledge, why would someone pick an item with no proper description, no mana trace and no appealing looks?" Antonio wondered, as something about this selection did not sit right with him.

Somehow, he couldn't wrap his head around why Leo would make such a choice, as if he were put in Leo's situation, he would never do the same.

"This was planned for sure…." He muttered, as he stood up now, his thoughts spiralling out of control.

"All that looking around, all that hesitation, it was likely just a front. An attempt to make this look like a spur of the moment decision"

Antonio's jaw flexed.

"But the reality is, he did not go in there to explore. He went in to collect the indestructible necklace"

Antonio stopped, as he stared out of the office window overlooking the city.

"You're clever, Skyshard. I'll give you that. Smarter than most, even. But you don't understand the line between ambition… and suicidal greed."

He turned back to the desk, eyes glinting with a colder light now.

"You picked one of the two items I made sure no one could identify. You probably understood that I did not wish anyone to take it, but you took it regardless…. And by doing so, you did not just cross the line. You pissed on it."

A bitter breath escaped his lips.

"I was willing to value your life, and your favor for completing the near impossible mission at 6.5 billion MP. That was the magic number. But now that you've taken something that surpasses that valuation, you've breached the good faith I had. And that gives me the license…"

A dark pause.

"…to kill."

He sat down again, slower this time, composing himself as he tapped a contact into his inter-comm panel.

*Beep*

A low static hum answered.

"Fredrick."

"Yeah?"

Antonio's voice dropped, razor sharp now.

"The kid took something he wasn't supposed to. You know what that means."

Fredrick didn't reply for a moment.

"Are we taking him out, boss?"

"Yes we are, but not yet. We can't afford to make it obvious in case he's talking about it right now to other guild members.

We first need to make sure that he's alone and that it looks like a robbery gone wrong, so that the idea that spreads is not that the guild can't be trusted but rather that having more wealth than you can handle can get you killed…." Antonio instructed, as "Understood." came the response from the other end.

"Retrieve the item. I don't care if you have to carve it off his corpse with a spoon, just make sure we get it back by tomorrow before he has time to master it, or get any funny ideas about selling it."

A click.

The line went dead.

Antonio exhaled again, rubbing his temple, but there was no relief in the gesture.

Only a deep, simmering rage.

"Enjoy your final few moments alive, Skyshard," he muttered. "Because tonight, you're going to learn why exactly you shouldn't bite off more than you can chew."

—--------------

After putting the Codex back into his storage ring, Leo made a quick call to Mu Fan, informing her of the mission's success, before packing everything that he needed to take from the apartment and putting on the face-covering mask that he had bought from the store.

Then, he slid open his apartment's window and jumped out while having [Vanish] active, as he used [Blade Switch] to descend silently, as he landed on the ground without so much as a sound.

*Land*

Without glancing back, Leo immediately began making his way through the silent city streets with swift and calculated strides, as he stuck to the shadows and tried to minimise his presence as much as possible to slip out undetected.

He did not pause at all, running at his top speed wherever he could, as his instincts continued to scream at him to move faster, as though something, someone, might catch up to him if he did not.

His heart pounded like a war drum in his chest, louder than his footsteps, louder than the world around him, but he refused to let that fear touch his hands or cloud his eyes.

He didn't stop.

He didn't breathe easy.

Not until the blinking lights of the private hangar bay finally came into view, a full 30 minutes later.

Still masked, Leo approached one of the side terminals and waved down a freelance pilot, an older Terran man with a sunburnt neck and lazy eyes, who perked up instantly upon seeing the huge offer of 100,000 MP for an emergency trip.

"I'll give you ten thousand MP extra if we leave right now," Leo said, his voice deeper than usual as he tried to conceal it.

The pilot didn't even blink.

"Done. Destination?"

"Rodova. No stops. No questions."

"Get in."

The ramp lowered, and Leo walked aboard, eyes scanning the empty corners of the craft twice over before finally stepping inside and locking the door shut behind him.

He felt the rumble beneath his feet as the engines began to hum.

Felt the faint sway of the world tilting.

And only once the screen on the interior dashboard marked "Exiting Planetary Gravitational Field..." did Leo finally, finally let himself breathe.

The anxiety hadn't gone away.

The paranoia hadn't vanished.

But the noose around his neck had loosened just enough for him to unclench his jaw.

He sat in the far back of the small passenger bay and closed his eyes behind the mask, feeling the ship jolt into hyperspeed a few minutes later, tearing away from Twin Fang at a velocity no pursuer could match without a faster ship of their own.

'Just a few more minutes before I kill the pilot,' Leo thought internally, as he waited patiently for hyperspeed to put some significant distance between them and planet Twin Fang, before he killed the pilot and redirected the plane to the coordinates that the cult had given him for rendezvous.