Level-Up Apocalypse: Surviving With The Assimilation System

Chapter 237 The Red-Haired Assassin

The remnants of the slain lifeform crumbled away into ashes, floating off into the wind. He stared ahead, settling the soles of his boots into the gravel made of decayed buildings.

'Lightspeed Dash…A skill like this might be monumental. Let's give it a test run,' he decided, catching a breath into his lungs.

Pressing his feet against the ground, he leaned forward, bending both knees. Past his lips, a breath was emitted—

["Lightspeed Dash"]

"—Hyuughh!"

Everything around him distorted, being catapulted forward at an incomprehensible momentum. His cheeks rippled, tugged on by the intense forces of his own dash. The wind against his body was intense, feeling as though it could easily tear him to shreds, yet it didn't.

"Hah–"

It all came to a stop at once, simply finding himself standing there, breathing out in a foreign territory. A peculiar forest, covered so abundantly in trees of all different, glowing shades.

Leaves sprouted with vibrant, luminescent shades–some trees bearing cerulean leaves, other ruby, some snow-white, others gold.

It was a completely different region, at least, it seemed a world apart from the graveyard of buildings.

'How far did I travel?' He considered.

Before he could figure that part out, it seemed he stumbled upon a present scene. A group of sickle-armed fiends, hunched over with crystal-like skin–each and every one of them were diced into pieces.

Sprays of crimson splashed onto the grass of the colorful forest, leaving the pieces of the monsters falling over lifelessly.

'...Who?' Finn looked.

Between the chunks of abhorrent monster-parts, he saw the one responsible: a man no older in age than himself, dressed in a black uniform not too different from his own. What stood out was his shaggy, red hair, though more so were the emerald eyes similar to his own.

["Ascended Sleuth"]

[Name: Jeong-Hui] [Level: 111] [Class: Assassin] [System: Sage System]

While the first thing he wanted to do was call out to the fellow assassin, he found the scarlet-haired figure gone.

The cold sharpness of steel pressed against his neck, finding the stranger already in front of him.

"Who're you? One of them?" Jeong-Hui interrogated coldly.

"First off, pull that thing away and we can talk," Finn calmly said, feeling the blade pressed up enough to scrape against his skin.

"--" The assassin-designated man of eastern origin didn't respond, nor did he move the weapon away.

It was clear that the person was simply too cautious, or perhaps malicious; he didn't know for sure. With a dagger to his throat, it was a position he didn't take too kindly to being stuck in.

'Well, I guess it comes down to trouble,' he thought.

["Phantom Retreat"]

–He instantly moved back several meters, momentarily taking the form of a shadow before settling himself, immediately calling his dagger into his hand. Before he could think to replicate his weapon, he found his fellow assassin gone from in front of him, quickly realizing where he'd gone–

'Behind,' Finn discovered, pivoting off his foot to spin himself around.

No, it was too late to do that.

The fellow assassin was at the very least equal to him in agility, perhaps superior. Attempting to turn would only result in being a step late in the clash. Instead, he flicked his dagger from his hand without moving himself.

["Blade Warp"]

He caught his blade, immediately finding himself directly behind the red-haired assassin. The gamble was correct; of course they could dodge his weapon if thrown. Instead of plunging his blade into the black coat, he instead pointed his index finger.

'A nice zap oughta calm him down. Just gotta settle him down so he'll listen,' Finn planned.

["Magenta"]

The spark coiled around his finger before firing off with a small shockwave that pulsated through the air. Scarlet, cerulean, and golds leaves waved from the trees in the wake of the shot bolt, yet–

"Huh–!?"

To his surprise, the lightning missed its target as the red-haired assassin somehow ducked right beneath it, immediately turning around and lunging for him. The only choice in that split-second was to meet dagger-to-dagger, steel-to-steel as the blades united with sparks.

Met face-to-face, their emerald eyes met, finding that look embedded into their irises just like that of mirrors.

'What's with this guy? Dodging a point blank bolt of lightning without even seeing it. It's like pause cheesing in a game,' Finn considered.

He prepared himself to have to counter against a blade, though immediately found that it wasn't a hand coming for him, but a leg. It was an agile effort, cleanly executed by the rival assassin as though he were a master martial artist, having practiced for decades.

The kick was performed on both hands, launching it right for his head as he stepped back–

No, he found himself still in front of the kick as he raised his arms to block it just as the shin struck his forearms.

There was no doubt in his mind he had evaded it, yet it didn't feel like so as his arms throbbed. Either way, another kick was on its way–

["Gravity"]

Before another shin could slam against his body, he lowered the gravity around the red-haired assassin, forcibly lifting him off the ground with a total weightlessness.

Find adventures on empire

"Huh–?" Jeong-Hui let out with visible confusion.

It didn't matter how fast one was or elusive–a non-hostile, unseen force was sure to catch an enemy off-guard at least once.

"Listen already–I'm not your enemy," Finn clarified himself. "Are you mine?"

While that look etched into those verdant eyes seemed uncertain and suspicious of him, Jeong-Hui finally breathed out while kept suspended in the air, "If that's the case, why did you come at me so aggressively?"

"Oh, that?" Finn realized, glancing behind him to see a new road carved into the forest from his lightspeed sprint. "--Right…That was just me testing a new skill. Totally unintentional."

"I get that…So can you turn whatever this is off?" Jeong-Hui requested, floating in the air as he squinted at him.

Finn didn't accept quite yet, keeping his hand raised with the forces of gravity, "Are you going to try cutting my throat again? I'm not too fond of that."

"Depends. Right now, I'm not planning on it," Jeong-Hui answered.

"Well, good enough."

With the fall of his arm, he relinquished the force suspending the rival assassin in the air as he watched the shorter figure land with zero sound. For a moment, they simply stared at one another, as if reading each other's intentions with a single misstep leading to daggers for each other's throats.

"Are we square?" Finn asked, holding out his hand. "There's only a few dozen of us left. It'd be a waste to reduce that number further."

It was rare that he found himself as the less cautious and closed-off person among two, though it was understandable. Different from the shivering mess Gilbert was, he found his fellow assassin sharing a similar sturdiness to himself in the face of the unknown world.

"You're right about that. There's been enough loss as there is…" Jeong-Hui agreed, tucking his dagger away with a quiet breath.