Episode 380
Chapter 116: How Runcandel Deals with Assassins (Part 2)
Without hesitation, Jin and the assassins’ blades clashed in a chaotic tangle. Sparks flew wildly from the colliding swords, and the aura they emitted caused the entire room to tremble.
Boom! Bang! Crash!
The thick wooden chairs, interior decorations, and pillars shattered like fragile straw under the shockwaves.
The Ghost Squad’s assassins no longer let their guard down. The murderous intent in their strikes was now more refined, their movements sharper.
Especially the captain-level assassin at the center of the formation—each of his blows sent a chill down Jin’s spine, threatening and precise.
Though Fei Prochi held the highest rank, that was only because she was blood kin to the Ghost Squad’s leader, Lata Prochi. In pure skill, the captain-level assassin far outmatched her.
Fei’s twin swords were fierce, no doubt. She had the kind of raw talent that could earn her the title of genius anywhere.
But at just twenty-five, she was still a rookie in Jin’s eyes. No matter how gifted, her skill wasn’t shocking by his standards.
“The key is to take down the captain-level assassin quickly.”
Having already lost five subordinates, Jin’s resolve hardened like venom.
Like a cunning serpent, the captain moved fluidly between offense and defense, unleashing the most difficult and powerful attacks. He was a formidable opponent.
Jin had started this fight exhausted.
So far, he’d used his secret techniques to lure the Ghost Squad into complacency, but they were no ordinary mercenaries.
They had strength of their own.
“There’s some kind of magic at work in his sword, creating a gravitational pull. Everyone, factor that in and adjust your movements!”
Sure enough, the captain immediately recognized the oppressive power of the Underworld King’s Sword. At his warning, Fei and the assassins adjusted their distance.
“So there’s one among you worth sparing. What’s your name?”
The captain’s question went unanswered.
“If you don’t want to say, then so be it.”
Whoosh!
Riding Bradamante, Jin’s spiritual energy swirled in a vortex. Black sword energy radiated outward like a curtain, and Jin used it to continuously disrupt the Ghost Squad’s vision.
Breathless from the relentless footwork, Jin pushed his concentration to the limit. He could feel the murderous intent left by Yona sharpening, becoming clearer.
The clearer it became, the easier it was to read the enemy’s intent. Jin weaved dangerously between seven blades, swinging Bradamante—but it was only a facade of peril.
To Jin, the blades brushing against his spiritual armor felt distant and safe.
“I’ve heard of a level where you can read intent and completely control offense and defense. Is this what it feels like?”
The pinnacle of spiritual insight—Jin was experiencing something similar.
Despite the danger, a smile crept onto his lips.
Jin always preferred fights like this: dangerous, but with the feeling that he would never lose.
Though hidden by Multa’s rune and invisible to the Ghost Squad, the captain clearly sensed it.
“He’s enjoying this. Even with us right in front of him…!”
The captain couldn’t help but feel as if Jin was toying with them.
It was absurd. Objectively, they had the upper hand—or at least the fight was evenly matched and fierce. Jin should have shown some sign of desperation.
Yet here he was, acting like a predator savoring a delicious prey.
Such arrogance.
Still, as a lifelong swordsman, the captain felt a strange respect.
“Is he truly different from us, down to his very blood? Jin Runcandel.”
Kaaah!
The captain shouted and lunged with his sword.
Behind his mask, his eyes burned with the desperation Jin himself should have felt.
Clang!
Jin parried the strike with the blade’s flat edge and stepped back, losing his stance. The Ghost Squad seized the opening.
Fei’s twin swords and four other blades rained down on Jin’s entire body.
But they felt no familiar sensation of flesh and bone being pierced. The only thing transmitted through the blades was the hollow clang of metal striking metal.
Jin wasn’t unscathed.
“I’m using too much spiritual energy.”
Even with nearly an eight-star level spiritual energy release, it wasn’t enough. To overwhelm the assassins with a tired body, to release that much energy and maintain the armor—it was draining.
The spiritual armor weakened.
Normally, Jin would have blocked six blades piercing his body without injury, but now cracks formed in his bones and muscles.
Gritting his teeth against the sharp pain of cracked ribs and torn thigh muscles, Jin swallowed hard.
But every loss brings a gain. While enduring with his armor, Jin unleashed the second form of his spiritual sword scissor technique, severing the wrist of the lead assassin.
It was the hand holding the sword. Before the clang of the falling severed wrist could even ring out, Jin charged and drove Bradamante into the assassin’s chest.
“Five left.”
Fei and four assassins remained.
Both Jin and the Ghost Squad were breathing heavily. Though the skirmish hadn’t lasted long, everyone was fighting at full strength.
A sharp ringing pierced Jin’s eardrums.
Whoever lost focus first would be cut down. Ignoring the ringing, Jin gripped his sword tighter.
For a brief moment, Jin and the captain’s eyes met.
Jin pictured the blades clashing again in his mind, and the captain made his choice.
He would regret it.
He thought about the three chances Jin had mentioned earlier—wishing he hadn’t missed them.
Though it wounded his pride deeply, the captain’s position was different from Jin’s.
Fei Prochi.
She was the only blood relative of their lord, and he had a duty to protect her.
“Miss, I’ll buy you time. Run.”
Ziiing…!
The captain’s sword, wrapped in aura, emitted a grim vibration.
This was no legendary technique of Runcandel, no secret art of Hylan, nor the essence of any other renowned martial house.
It was simply the fruit of one man’s relentless training—an unnamed swordsman’s ultimate strike.
Jin sensed this would be the captain’s final blow.
“We were hired to kill Jin Runcandel. And I was the one who ordered it.”
“I will do so. But I cannot hold the lady’s life as collateral.”
“If you risk your life, then so will I.”
“Miss.”
“That is the Ghost Squad and the honor of the Prochi name. If we fall, my brother will avenge us.”
The captain could no longer stop Fei.
Jin was regaining his strength.
To block the captain’s last strike, Jin summoned every ounce of his remaining power.
“If I fail to block this, there will be no next time for me.”
The outcome would be decided in a single blow.
If only he could unleash the Underworld King’s Sword, the demonic sword secret art, or the legacy of the Demon King. But he lacked that power.
What Jin could wield was a strike that embodied the very essence of the sword more deeply than anything else.
“Cut, no matter what comes flying at me.”
And the will of the warrior.
Like chanting a spell, Jin poured his will into his sword. Suddenly, the world around him fell silent and dark.
In the hazy vision, the assassins’ forms were faint but easier to gauge than when they were clear.
Multa’s rune and the spiritual armor naturally faded. Even the minimal spiritual energy protecting his body transformed into the will to “cut” and melted into Bradamante.
For about ten seconds, Jin and the captain faced off.
Fei and the assassins hesitated to attack the still-standing Jin.
Between Jin and the captain was a barrier of energy unlike anything they could perceive.
Only those who had reached the same level could cross it freely.
Fei and the assassins believed.
They believed the captain would finally slaughter Jin this time.
Even if he couldn’t kill him outright, he would at least leave a fatal wound they could finish.
“It’s coming.”
Almost simultaneously, Jin and the captain’s swords moved.
A flash of light and dark spiritual energy cut between them. Two blades, as fast as lightning, pierced each other’s bodies.
Such radiant swords weren’t reserved for prodigies outside the norm.
Any swordsman who had dedicated their life to the blade could achieve this once—through true, unwavering resolve.
For the captain, this was that moment. A dying ember flaring fiercely before fading.
It was dangerous.
“He must have been fatally wounded.”
Had he known Jin’s last secret technique, he would have surely inflicted a mortal wound.
The captain’s blade grazed Jin’s waist.
On the captain’s back, a blue flame flickered—Cheonghwa, the power of Tess sealed within Bradamante.
“If not for the pressure…”
At the final clash, the weight of Cheonghwa crushed the captain.
Though the fierce battle with the Ghost Squad raged on, Jin had deliberately held back this power until now—and it decided the outcome.
The Ghost Squad knew Jin was a demon swordsman and Tess’s contractor from the start.
But since Jin hadn’t summoned Tess during the fight, they had discounted Cheonghwa.
In their minds, the phoenix embedding its power in the contractor’s sword was impossible.
Gahk…!
The captain, pierced through the chest, gasped his last breath—a sound like metal scraping metal.
At the same moment, Fei and the assassins lunged at Jin, but having lost their center, they were no longer a match for him.
The room was soon drenched in blood and shattered flesh. It took less than three minutes for the remaining four assassins to meet their deaths.
The poison was spreading. Though they had taken the antidote beforehand, none of them possessed a body as resilient as Jin’s, nearly immune to all toxins.
At last, only Fei Prochi remained alive, glaring at Jin through tears of blood.
Her wounds from the battle had allowed the poison to fully take hold, and paralysis was beginning to set in.
“Without fail, my brother, Lata Prochi, will kill you. For me, Grimol, and the fallen ghosts.”
“So his name was Grimol,” Jin muttered, glancing back at the corpse of the dead captain-level assassin.
In that moment, Fei threw herself at him with all her remaining strength, but Jin easily dodged her blade.
That was the last thing she saw before losing consciousness and collapsing.
“Remember this,” Jin said quietly.