Orchestrated Assassination

Xander's manor, nightfall. It was close to midnight, and the guard in charge was going to change already for their shifts.

The 2 maids were backups, deployed in the shadows, undetectable even to Mythic cultivators.

After all, the twins were talented to a subset of the Darkness element: Shadow element. After the shift change, an alert resounded from one of the girls, Esta, causing Rosa to come out of hiding as well and attempt to contact the other guards.

No response. She attempted to shout towards the villa to alert them; no response. She attempted to release a magical burst upwards the sky, but before it could even reach 15 meters above the ground, it hit a film that caused a small ripple before the burst dispersed and the film disappearing into the night.

Communications were down, magic bursts can't be utilized to alert external areas beyond the villa. She's probably in a domain, isolating her voice, Rosa thought to herself.

So, Wave element? Or something that can isolate sound or movement? However, since Esta was discovered, that means that the person is also proficient at the element of Darkness. So, someone with the Shadow element or pure Darkness element? Or a sub-element under it?

A mythic class assassin? Or maybe someone stronger? As her thoughts whirled, Rosa prepared her abilities and was continuously on guard, even against her own shadow. Her body was surrounded by a magic barrier as well.

After a few seconds of silence, Rosa was more alert than ever. She was looking around when she felt that sense of impending crisis looming over. She began casting her AoE spells around, in an attempt to discover where the attack would happen.

A second later, a blade was jutting out of her chest, seemingly coming from the inside of her body, causing Rosa to constrict her eyes in disbelief, before falling down. She never would have thought that the person would utilize the darkness inside her body to transport the method of attack.

After a while, a man walked out, one of his hands stained with blood. He placed it on top of Rosa's body which immediately melted into darkness as if it never existed.

The man muttered, "Do I really have to go in and investigate? I thought I was only to watch from a distance..." the man muttered. In truth, he was suspicious. The reason was that he only received the call of the superior earlier today, via his communicator.

Only he and the Lord knew their personal numbers, and the program server they used was very, very secure and encrypted so that the mainframe server would alert them that they had been compromised. He also tested the caller several times, as part of the protocol, to ensure it was really the supervisor, and he passed.

Yet, the man couldn't help shake off an ominous feeling, like something bad was about to happen if he entered the building. That was why he decided to kill the guards and maids first before attempting to restrain the target before shipment to his supervisor. That was to ensure all possible variables were removed.

Two down, 3 more to go. Huh, quite inefficient amounts of guards. Why won't he hire his own, I wonder, thought the man.

He headed towards the man standing guard at the entrance of the villa. It had a structure of one way in, one way out. No one was actually guarding the other parts of the villa, such as the walls and such.

He appeared behind the guard and instantly sliced off Bryan's head, who had no idea what was happening. Before the head fell, it rapidly turned into liquid darkness, along with the body.

He then headed to the other places where the guards were staying. One was in the open field, training, while the other one was by the garden, watering the plants. He quickly took care of the remaining two.

One of them, Ryan, was quite perceptive and had attempted to escape his domain and head towards the villa, in an attempt to alert his boss, maybe? Pity he was a tad too slow, slow for someone who was a Demigod.

Yes, the man that has been watching Xander was a Demigod assassin scout, focusing on stealth, ambush, and assassination skills. Their elements are usually the discreet types, such as Darkness or subsets of it, poison, and decay elements.

Upon killing the last guard, however, a situation occurred. He suddenly found himself immediately transported to the middle of the hall inside the villa, with alarm bells ringing off in his mind.

He attempted to leave but realized that no matter how fast he moved, he never got close to the doors. This alarmed him greatly, when he heard a chuckle from the second floor, and a voice fluttering down.

"Since you're already here, stay. Enjoy my house and the treats it can offer you, as long as you survive."

The whole villa then quakes for a moment, before returning to its still state after a while. The demigod scout felt something was amiss and saw from the window that he was in a different place. He recognized those flashing, twinkling points of light, allowing him to realize that he was in outer space.

Many thoughts appeared in his mind, coming to a scary conclusion: He was out of his league here! He attempted to contact his supervisor and was shocked to hear the same voice that came from upstairs appear in his communicator.

"A shocker, isn't it? Didn't your employer tell you I didn't like to be watched? Or is he just stupid?"

…

…

…

"Your majesty, our assassin scout's life signals just disappeared a moment ago."

"Oh? Which one? Why do you have to report this to me?"

"Milord, this is the one assigned to Xander Cloverfield."

"Hmm.... interesting. What did the scout do moments before his disappearance? Have you discovered it?"

"Well, milord, I saw him approach the Xander Cloverfield's villa and killed every guard placed. I had attempted to contact him, but no forms of communication could be reached, ranging from long-distance telepathy to the communicator. After a few minutes of entering the villa, his life signals had disappeared."

"Let me do a casual check." The man then closed his eyes and attempted to feel the location and state of his implanted seeds.

Those seeds were actually magic parasites, a unique lifeform that he had discovered and began cultivating. It allowed him to take note of the people around him and those that served him, ensuring that he can always kill or cripple them if they planned to betray him. A total of 49 seeds were scattered all over the planet, and 57 more in the Galactic Empire and nearby areas, and the last one was in his butler. There was a total of 108 seeds, and the last seed was... still present, but quite far, very, very far to the point that he can only detect its state, but not its location or condition.

"He's alive, but it seems he had been transported to a very, very far place, much further than the Galactic empire's size."

"I see, thank you milord. I will update you if anything happens differently in the target's villa."

…

…

…

The demigod looked at the top of the staircase and saw no figure appear. What magicians hated the most was facing the unknown since they can never be sure of what to expect. Although he had items, and abilities to help out, it might not be useful in the end.

"Who are you? Mr. Cloverfield, I presume?"

"Nope. I'm your worst nightmare, Mr. Carlbray Aziz."

Upon hearing his name being uttered by the voice, Aziz quickly paled and began readying his abilities, silently casting his spells.

The voice boomed again, however, causing all his plans to be for naught.

"I declare, the space around you to be unstable for elements and matter."

"I declare, the space around you not produce any elements."

Immediately, the space around 3-5 meters of him became a dead space, with no matter or element particle or energy existing. All the spell models he was trying to cast collapsed and his domain had shrunk to surround his body alone, hanging on barely.

Of course, this was just dramatic effects. In truth, Xander had used [Void Rejection] and removed everything except space and time elements in the area.

"So, Mr. Aziz, why is a respected scholar magician like you have a shocking hidden identity, and to the point of following me around?"

Mr. Aziz, seeing that he couldn't use any abilities at all, decided to rely on his attributes. His cultivation skill had focused on enhancing his attributes more than comprehension, to ensure that in a situation like this, he would be able to function.

What is important for a scout is their physical fitness and quick-thinking, rather than their power output. Sadly, this wasn't the case for an opponent like Xander.

Aziz immediately turned into a blur, attempting to head towards the source of the voice, on the second floor. But when he had attempted to take a step closer to the stairs, more and more warning bells rung at his head, telling him that there was extreme danger and he would most likely die. He decided to listen and stopped at his tracks.

He didn't dare disregard his intuition. This had saved him many times in his other missions and expeditions.

"Oh? Why have you stopped? You just need to walk or head over to the second floor. You can even fly, try it hehe." the voice sounded out, attempting to goad Aziz to kill himself.

Aziz, upon hearing his words, stopped and began to think about what should be his next course of action.

Currently, what he can guess is that the speaker wants to find out information about him and his organization, hence the talking and the trapping.

Is it possible he didn't plan to kill me? Aziz thought to himself. It was highly likely. He still had his uses. Maybe he could use it to his advantage? Take an opportunity to send out a distress call once he returned back to where Eteria was.

Aziz wasn't stupid. The power demonstrated indicated that the man or woman he was facing was a famed magician, one that was said to exist only in myth and legends of Eteria, a magician of space.

However, he didn't completely give up, given that there is a possibility for demigods to destroy space by the power and intensity of their spells.

Aziz simply needs time to accumulate and launch the said spells. However, the same could be said about his enemy.