2

After always satisfying Miss Susanna, Ivan would use the excuse of patrolling around to make Miss Betty feel at ease when she entered his bedroom, so as not to be as embarrassed as on the first day and delay until late at night, making everyone mistakenly think that something had happened to Miss Betty.

After pacing around the villa and turning off the lights in the corridor one by one. Ivan was not afraid of the dark. On the contrary, the dark was his friend rather than his enemy.

In the pitch-black villa, Ivan could vaguely make out the roads, doors and stairs. If there were any figures, he could also detect them. Moreover, he had lived in the villa for a long time and was definitely more familiar with the terrain than strangers. Therefore, the dark undoubtedly gave him the best shelter.

After patrolling around the villa and standing by the window on the second floor for a while, Ivan returned to the bedroom.

The light in the bedroom was off.

This was also to make Miss Betty feel at ease.

However, due to the faint light seeping through the cracks of the thick curtains, the bedroom was not as pitch-black as the corridor.

The dark did not mean tranquility. Especially when there were six women lying in the small bedroom, it was even more difficult to be quiet. Although no one was speaking, the mixed breathing sounds came one after another.

Some breathing was rapid and full of tension. This was from Miss Betty. Up to now, she still could not completely dispel this sense of tension. There was also light and faint breathing. This was from Lina. She had not yet fully recovered from the poison damage.

There was also the heavy and long breathing sound, which came from Aina, the crazy girl. When in bed, among the three maids, she was the most passionate and even crazy. The effort required to satisfy her was more than the sum of the other two.

Ivan carefully walked through the narrow passage between the bedding and took care to avoid stepping on others' hair.

He didn't want to repeat the mistake of the previous day. At that time, he stepped on Xena's hair with one foot, causing her to scream. In a panic, he stepped on another person with the other foot. Fortunately, it was Aina, not the weak Lina. Otherwise, it might have caused a big disaster.

Ivan took off his coat and hung it on the bedside, and placed the things he needed within easy reach of the bedside.

His precious - the magic wand, the belt with two bottles of potions, the crossbow given to him by Herbert to save his life, and a sharp dagger. Each item had its own specific position for easy access.

Ivan quietly lay between Miss Betty and Miss Susanna. This was his exclusive territory.

Although lying side by side with Miss Betty, due to Miss Betty's reserve, Ivan did not dare to act recklessly. He even dared not get close to her body.

Ivan tried his best to restrain his thoughts and tried to adjust his body to the special state that Herbert had forced him to learn. In this state, he needed to abandon thoughts and will, and even make his sense of smell, taste and sight temporarily ineffective, focusing all his energy on hearing and touch.

However, lying between the thick bedding and with two beautiful women beside him, the sense of touch was inevitably subject to a lot of interference.

Although Ivan had always been unable to reach the state described by Herbert, that is, using ears instead of eyes to observe and search, in this state, he could indeed capture the faint sounds coming from a distance.

Ivan did not expect to be able to hear the sound of pulling a bowstring. That was really too difficult. But the sound of footsteps crossing the grass, the sound of a sword being drawn, especially the sound of an officer giving an order, he could distinguish.

It was extremely quiet outside the villa. There was only the singing of insects in the night and the rustling whisper of the wind blowing through the branches and leaves.

I don't know how long it had passed. The breathing sounds of the women in the room gradually became steady and gentle. It seemed that everyone had fallen into a deep sleep.

Ivan's tense nerves also gradually relaxed. Perhaps tonight would be another safe and sound night.

He lay quietly in bed, enjoying this rare peace and tranquility, sincerely hoping that no one would break this beautiful silence of the night.

I don't know how much time had passed quietly. In a daze, Ivan faintly felt that there seemed to be some movement outside.

He closed his eyes tightly and listened attentively. Sure enough, someone was fiddling with the door of the garden living room.

Someone was trying to break in! Ivan became alert instantly.

To Ivan's slight relief, those sneaky attackers were obviously amateurs. There was a bolt inserted in the garden living room. These attackers fumbled for a long time and made a lot of noise, but they still couldn't open the living room door.

Ivan reached out and took his coat, getting all his weapons ready.

He quickly got dressed, tied the belt with the potion bottles, and put the magic wand in his pocket. It was not its turn to play yet. In this pitch-black darkness, the dagger and the crossbow on his right arm were the ones that could really be of use.

He gently pushed Miss Susanna beside him and covered her mouth with his hand to prevent her from making a sound.

Ivan quietly got up from the bed and woke Miss Betty and the other maids one by one in the same way.

He crept to the window, slowly lifted a corner of the curtain and peeked out. A bright moonlight shone through the cracks of the curtain. The tree shadows outside were swaying. There was a bright moon reflected on the lake in the distance. Under the moonlight, there were two figures, quietly groping along the outer wall of the villa towards this side.

The backs of their bodies rubbed against the wall, making a rustling sound.

Suddenly, a faint but clear sound of broken glass came from the living room.

Obviously, those attackers had no way to deal with that door, so they chose a simpler way to break in.

Ivan became more certain in his heart that these attackers were all novices.

Because if he planned to break a window and break into a room, he would first stick a piece of paper covered with glue on the window and then press hard to break the glass. In this way, the sound could at least be a little smaller.

What's more, this could also avoid the sound of stepping on broken glass when climbing into the window.

In this quiet night, all sounds were extremely noisy and harsh. Even an untrained person would be easily awakened.

What surprised Ivan most was that these attackers obviously had not realized that they had been discovered and were still creeping towards this side.

When these attackers stepped on the floor of the corridor, from the steady footsteps, Ivan judged that they were all quite excellent knights. If they were wearing armor and riding warhorses and encountered him in the wilderness, Ivan might suspect that he might not be a match for these knights.

However, in this pitch-black darkness, Ivan was full of confidence that he could kill these attackers. After all, he was the disciple of the king of assassins.

From the footsteps, Ivan roughly inferred that five or six people had broken into the villa. Plus the two people outside, Count Roberde really attached great importance to him.

Those attackers who had broken the glass of the window of the garden living room and broken in were slowly groping along the corridor. Obviously, they could not see the location of the door in the dark.

Two of them were quietly groping upstairs.

The actions of all the attackers were quite tacit. They let one person explore the way in front, and the others quietly guarded behind. Obviously, this was not the first time they had fought in the dark.

However, Ivan really doubted what role those people who could not see anything in the dark and were guarding behind could play.

Ivan directed the girls to get under the bed.

Fortunately, the bed was big enough to accommodate five women.

After settling Miss Susanna and Miss Betty in a safe place, Ivan finally had the interest to launch a counterattack.

The attackers outside the door who were slowly groping forward would not be able to break in for a while. From the sounds coming, it could be judged that those attackers outside the door had no action. On the contrary, the two people who had gone upstairs were quite active, running around in the various rooms on the second floor.

Suddenly, Ivan smelled the smell of lamp oil.

He became alert immediately.

Killing and arson often went hand in hand.

Obviously, Count Roberde had the idea of ending everything once and for all, trying to use the ruins after a big fire to cover up all the evidence.

Since he had known the intention of the envoy, Ivan would naturally not sit and wait to die. He came to the window again. To his delight, of the two attackers who had been waiting outside the villa against the wall, there was only one left. The other one was nowhere to be seen.

Ivan repeatedly searched around according to the methods taught by Herbert back then. Every dark corner became a hiding place.

There were numerous hiding places in the woods in front of the villa, and those thick trees were not easily penetrated by crossbows.

Although the trees in the woods were sparse, their branches and leaves were quite thick. The moonlight projected onto the ground, leaving only scattered patches of light. The darkness under the tree shadows varied in depth, and the deep, pitch-black areas were like a gateway to a mysterious and unpredictable other world.

Ivan searched for a long time but didn't see a single figure.

Ivan decided to take a risk.

He quietly hid in a blind spot outside the window that was hard to be discovered, and it was adjacent to a tall and straight tree.

Ivan took a deep breath and thought to himself whether the assassination skills he had painstakingly practiced under Herbert would really work.

He pulled open the bolt of the window, tightened his grip on the crossbow, and three extremely sharp crossbow bolts had already been loaded into the firing groove.

The moonlight shone obliquely, and the figure of that person was projected on the ground in front of the window. The hazy moonlight magnified, elongated, and distorted the sneaky figure, making the dark and blurry silhouette look like a demon from the netherworld.

Ivan stared intently at the figure in the moonlight, waiting for the moment when that person turned to look the other way.

Opportunities were often fleeting. His experiences with Herbert had made Ivan deeply understand how important opportunities were for a killer. Missing an excellent opportunity was undoubtedly pushing oneself into the abyss of death.

Herbert's teachings did not go to waste. Ivan firmly grasped that moment.

Without the slightest hesitation, he decisively opened the window, raised his arm, pulled the trigger of the crossbow, and fired the three bolts.

At such a close distance, even at night, it was impossible for Ivan to miss the target.

The powerful crossbow bolts were deeply embedded in the back of the attacker's head and neck. Only because there was thick armor protection on the back were they not able to penetrate. However, that was enough. The back of the head and the neck were also parts where an injury would be instantly fatal. The attacker didn't even let out a cry before collapsing to the ground.

Ivan had no interest in checking his handiwork. He quietly rushed to the attacker's side, pulled out his dagger, and made a cut along the attacker's neck. Now he could finally feel at ease. Ivan dragged the body and hid it in the woods. The darkness under the big tree became an ideal place for him to temporarily hide the body.

Ivan shuttled between the trees, quickly darting from one tree shadow to another.

The second attacker was quickly discovered by Ivan. This novice had actually abandoned the companion he was supposed to guard and was standing in front of the broken glass window of the garden living room, keeping watch for his accomplices who had broken into the villa.

Ivan really couldn't understand what this person was afraid of. Was it passers-by? Or Count Roberde's patrol soldiers?

Ivan didn't plan to waste his crossbow bolts. He quietly approached the lookout from behind and with a single stroke of his knife, easily dealt with him.

After dealing with the opponents outside the villa, Ivan entered the villa through the broken part of the window. To avoid making noise, he covered the glass shards with the cotton-padded coat he had stripped from the corpse.

To his slight relief, there was still not much movement in the villa. Only the guys who had gone upstairs were heading towards the third floor.

Ivan walked through the living room and slowly entered the corridor. He wasn't worried about his footsteps being heard but was trying to prevent abnormal air fluctuations caused by his movement from the living room to the corridor. Experienced killers were extremely vigilant about abnormal air flows.

In the corridor, Ivan saw four black figures in front of him. The farthest one was squatting in front of his bedroom door.

Ivan wasn't completely confident that he could kill them one by one under the noses of these people without alerting anyone. If Herbert were here, it would undoubtedly be an easy task, but Ivan didn't have such confidence in himself.

He could only take one step at a time. Ivan quietly walked to the back of the nearest figure and switched the dagger to his left hand. When Herbert trained him, he had specifically practiced controlling the dagger with his left hand because the crossbow was attached to his right arm.

The dagger, which had been baked with black paint, had no luster but was far more practical than the swords worn by those attackers.

The dagger quickly slashed across the man's neck. The extremely sharp blade cut through the trachea and the carotid artery without any hindrance, and the movement was clean and neat. Unfortunately, the struggling sound of the man before he died alerted the others.

Ivan quickly aimed the crossbow he had prepared long ago at another figure in the darkness, and the crossbow bolt shot into the man's head almost point-blank.

Although it was also an instant death, the scream echoed throughout the entire villa and even reached far outside the villa.

When the first person was killed, the others obviously hadn't reacted yet and didn't know what had happened. But this scream woke everyone up.

Ivan saw that the other two people in the darkness quickly drew their swords from their waists. However, the pitch-black darkness protected him.

Ivan now understood why Herbert had always warned him that for a killer, darkness was the safest place.

Indeed, these knights, who were far more skilled than himself, were almost helpless in the face of this darkness and himself hidden within it.

From the rapid and heavy breathing sounds of those attackers and their panicked figures, it was completely possible to see the panic in their hearts. Seeing the shiny sword light cutting through the darkness and hearing the whistling sound of the sword slashing through the air, Ivan was surprisingly calm in his heart because darkness was his best armor.

Ivan slid along the wall silently.

When he came to the side of the attacker who was standing quietly with a long sword in hand and had an air of a master, he slowly swung his arm. When his arm was close to the man's neck, he suddenly reversed his wrist and made a lightning-fast slash. The dagger cut through the man's throat as smoothly as the tip of a waterbird's wing skimming across the water.

The knight was quite skilled. Although seriously injured, he still swung his long sword to attack Ivan. Fortunately, Ivan had expected it and deliberately leaned his back against the wall.

With a clang, sparks flew everywhere. The long sword left a series of marks on the wall of the corridor, and bricks and stone chips fell one after another.

The power of this sword strike surprised Ivan greatly. Moreover, fortunately, the knight was using a long sword. If it had been a curved sword, with his fierce strikes and rapid moves, Ivan might have already become a cold corpse.

Ivan secretly rejoiced. Facing the last person, he didn't dare to be careless at all.

The attacker was swinging a long sword so tightly that it seemed he was trying to escape his doom by doing so.

Ivan, having just experienced that thrilling fight, knew very well that his swordsmanship skills came from Audrey's teachings and were far inferior to those of these real warriors.

He pulled the trigger of the crossbow and fired three crossbow bolts.

The attacker couldn't block the flying crossbow bolts at all. Moreover, in this pitch-black darkness, he couldn't see anything in the first place.

With a scream piercing through the night sky, the man loosened his hands, and the long sword flew out of his hand. It collided in the narrow corridor, creating a series of sparks. The long sword flew a long way before falling to the ground, making a clear and loud sound.

Ivan reloaded three crossbow bolts and walked upstairs. It was certain that the two people upstairs already knew that their operation had failed. At this moment, Ivan didn't dare to be careless anymore. Even in the dark, he would rather use the crossbow than the dagger to solve the problem.

Suddenly, there was a loud "bang" on the second floor, and a fire burst out.

Someone had lit the lamp oil on the ground, and the fire spread rapidly.

In the firelight, a figure suddenly jumped out. That person was ready to escape.

Ivan and that person stared at each other.

Behind that person was a sea of fire, which set off his ferocious face, making him look like a devil escaping from the blazing hell.

The reason why that person didn't launch an attack was obviously because he was afraid of the crossbow in Ivan's hand.

Ivan also didn't dare to act rashly because the firelight dispelled the darkness. Under the light, his skills were definitely no match for these professional soldiers.

Ivan was waiting, waiting for the moment when the fire went out.

In fact, Ivan had long anticipated the means that Count Roberde might use to assassinate him. Among them, the heavy military crossbow was the most difficult to resist. Ivan had witnessed its power with his own eyes. It could easily penetrate the walls of the villa.

And another unexpected and deadly move was to burn him to death in the villa with a big fire.

Ivan had never forgotten the dangerous situation when facing the sky full of fire arrows in the Bart Forest. Mr. Hyde's completely burned carriage often appeared in his mind.

Because of this, on the roof of the villa, he had already placed a water tank filled with water. Once the villa caught fire, the water tank would release the water, which would flow along the third-floor floor all the way to the ground floor. Although this couldn't ensure that the fire would be completely extinguished, it could at least prevent the fire from spreading further.

Ivan had already heard the sound of water flowing rapidly on the third-floor floor.

Suddenly, there was a long and sharp shout from the third floor, followed by the sound of someone opening the window and jumping out, the sound of falling and breaking the branches of the trees below, and finally the sound of falling to the ground and wailing in pain.

Obviously, the person in front of him was desperate to save his life and didn't care about his companions upstairs anymore, so he started the fire.

Ivan was facing such a ruthless guy. His fierce expression and burly physique were definitely not something he could deal with.

After the just-dangerous situation, he truly realized the strength gap between these knights and himself. In the past, he always measured these knights by Herbert's skills, so he didn't think they were scary and could even easily find many of their shortcomings. However, his own strength was still not enough to turn the enemies' weaknesses into victory.

Fortunately, Herbert's harsh training had made Ivan get used to fear long ago. Although there was still fear in his heart, at least the psychology that might affect his actions, such as timidity and fear, had already left him.

Ivan was waiting for the moment when the firelight went out. That would be the best time for him to shoot the crossbow bolts in his hand. The knight in front of him used a long sword and was much slower in reaction than himself.

However, before Ivan could make a move, the knight obviously couldn't hold back anymore. He used his left arm to protect his face and swung his sword with his right hand to cut at Ivan.

Ivan took several steps back and went down a few steps to open up a distance from the knight. Then he raised his right hand and pulled the trigger, and three crossbow bolts shot out quickly.

The knight was also on guard. He dodged aside, avoiding one crossbow bolt. The other two crossbow bolts, one was deeply embedded in his arm, and the other shot into his ribs.

The arrow in the ribs seriously injured the knight but didn't kill him.

Ivan didn't want to fight with the dagger against the long sword. The escape skills taught by Herbert came in handy at this time.

Ivan jumped over the railing and flew down the stairs. This speed was much faster than turning around and running away.

Just as his body flipped over the handrail, the long sword had already swept over, and the sharp blade cut the hardwood railing in half.

Ivan narrowly avoided this fierce strike, and the broken railing hit his back.

The knight didn't expect that Ivan could escape. Wearing armor as he was, he couldn't jump down like that. Moreover, it was pitch-black below, and the young man must have already prepared his crossbow.

This fierce knight rushed downstairs, hunched over, trying his best to hide his head. Not wearing a helmet was really a big mistake for them.

The knight turned the corner of the stairs and wanted to escape to the garden living room, from where he could get out of the villa.

His idea was actually good, but unfortunately, his opponent was a killer, not a knight. Facing an enemy with his back turned, a knight might be helpless, but a killer was just the opposite.

Killers liked and were best at attacking from behind.

Ivan was exactly like this.

Although the knight lowered his body, used his body to cover his head, and was wearing armor, although Ivan's crossbow bolts could penetrate the armor, their power was not enough to be fatal after penetration.

However, Herbert had already taught him what target to choose in this situation.