Hello again my old friend...

China, Blackthorn City.

The day dawned bright and beautiful without a single wisp of cloud in the startlingly clear blue sky. 

The sun's warm rays chased away the cold of night and shone upon a war ravaged land at the borders of China.

The endless stretch of barren land was the only evidence of the earth-shattering battles that took place around the area in the past 15 years since the start of the war.

That, and the massive ruins of a megacity near the western border.

Blackthorn City.

Fallen Jewel of the East.

Once the biggest and most prosperous trading center between China and the European Empire, it had become a heartbreaking symbol of the relationship between the two powers.

The symbol was simply… Destruction.

Its once tall skyscrapers now littered the city as inglorious ruins. 

The web of highly intricate roads and train tracks was barely visible, covered by fallen debris in many areas. 

Destroyed buildings were the only things there, filling up one's vision for as far as the eye could see.

The utterly destroyed Blackthorn City had lost all strategic military value, and it had been completely abandoned by the Military Command of both sides.

In the years that followed its destruction, it had become an informal battleground for young Awakened from both sides to come and temper themselves against each other, and for all sorts of characters to do their shady business there. 

It was a hotbed of violence, and many people die there daily. 

And because there was an abundance of the enemy as well as violent people very willing to kill for a dime over there, many academies, clans and large families from both sides had started to organize hunting missions to kill three birds with one stone - kill the enemy, train their troops and weed out the weak!

All sorts of missions with various rewards started to appear in the settlements near Blackthorn City.

There were usually one man, five man and ten man missions available, spread across 5 different ranks, corresponding to the recommended rank the mission participants should have.

D Ranked Awakened should take D Ranked Missions, and so on and so forth.

Damien Bloodbane, an extremely weak E Ranked trash of the famous Bloodbane Clan, was undertaking a C Ranked five man assassination mission - alone. 

As weak as he was, it was a near suicidal mission. 

But strangely, it was his third such mission, with the two previous ones being resounding successes!

Damien Bloodbane's attitude was simple. 

E Rank was E Rank.

So what? 

A C Rank's neck will split open as easily as an E Rank's. His dagger will do the talking and prove his worth!

And of course, he took those dangerous missions to earn for himself the all-important resource in life.

Money.

After awakening into E rank, the Bloodbane Clan had ruthlessly expelled him and cut him off from the Clan's resources, refusing to even give him a single dollar to buy food.

Even the Aquafrost Clan had renounced the arranged marriage contract they had made with him, claiming that since Damien Bloodbane is a piece of trash, he had lost any and all qualifications to even be associated with their genius A ranked princess, Jennifer Aquafrost, much less be her husband!

It was a tragic fall from grace.

One day, he was the exalted young master of a powerful military clan in China. And the next day, he became a useless, homeless, penniless and friendless piece of trash. 

His only hope to survive and progress in life was to earn money by completing dangerous missions and somehow find a way to enter Military College, graduate and then join the military.

There, he would be able to gain some sort of stability in life and slowly climb up the ranks.

Pathetic?

His heart burned with desire to be powerful! 

He wanted to pay the Clan back for treating him like trash!

He wanted to marry the most beautiful and powerful genius in the world and spit upon the Aquafrost Clan!

But those desires must take a back seat, and give way to pragmatism.

His only hope was to prove his intellect and strength in the fields of battle.

And for that to happen… the first step was to enter the highly selective Military College!

At that moment at the break of dawn, a handsome young man around five feet seven inches tall with a lean but powerful physique and a headful of short red hair exploded forth with a burst of speed up the steep slope of the huge hill in the center of the city. 

The distance between Damien Bloodbane and the unsuspecting European Soldier disappeared in an instant.

Slash!!

Damien's sharp dagger sliced through the soldier's neck and severed his windpipe cleanly in two, causing a spurt of blood to spray outwards before his body slumped down to the ground.

Dead.

His sudden attack took the entire European camp by surprise, and by the time the other sentries raised the alarm, Damien had already penetrated the massive central tent.

As soon as he entered the tent however, his instincts blared with resounding might in his heart. Everything about the interior of the central tent was too perfect.

His target was "asleep" right smack in the middle of the tent, and there was a flap at the other end where he could make good his "escape" after he finished his evil deed. 

All he needed to do was to continue dashing forward and do it.

But he didn't do so. 

Instead, he immediately lowered his body and threw himself violently to the right!

BANG!

He smashed into someone and instantly realized that his instincts were right. 

It was an ambush!

At the same time, he also realized that his ambusher was unarmored. Without hesitation, he stabbed his dagger into his ambusher's body multiple times even as they were both falling down to the ground. 

JLEB JLEB JLEB JLEB!! BAM! Slash!

As soon as his body reached the ground, Damien Bloodbane slashed open the tent and dashed back out to escape from the same direction he entered. 

"NOOO!!!!!!!" Came a shocked and anguished roar from behind him as his target who was pretending to sleep finally realized that his ambush had failed, and that one of his ambushers was already bleeding to death. 

Damien Bloodbane burst forward with explosive speed and quickly made his way out of the enemy camp. 

KABOOOMMMM!!!!

A massive explosion rocked the entire camp.

Damien Bloodbane did not bother turning around to see what was happening. 

His target was a young master of a powerful military clan, the Blaze Clan, in the European Empire. 

Blaze Dragon, a C Rank Tier 29 Fire Mage, and the explosion was most probably a fireball he unleashed in anger.

But as long as the fireball did not explode near him, it wasn't his problem. Yet.

An assassin only had a very small window of time to escape in the event of a failed assassination, and Damien Bloodbane was completely locked in to make good his escape.

He knew that if he failed to escape into the concrete forest of ruined buildings, he would definitely die a horrible death that day. 

"CATCH HIM!!! ALL UNITS!! MOVE OUT AND CATCH THAT BASTARD!!!" Howled Blaze Dragon from somewhere behind him. "SNIPERS! SHOOT HIM!!"

BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!

Five sniper fire instantly rang out and the ground near him erupted with startling force as five powerful bullets missed him by inches.

Damien Bloodbane continued to sprint down the hill towards the concrete forest a mere hundred meters away, his heart still completely calm and his eyes not leaving the small hole where he planned to enter. 

Prior to his inglorious fall, Damien Bloodbane had been trained by the best warriors from the rugged borderlands of China. 

At fifteen years old, his mind was a polished sword, razor sharp in its focus and deadly when it struck. 

Bullets whistling past his ears was not something deserving an increased heart rate from him.

"Five seconds." His mind told him as he gauged the distance he still had to cover against his running speed.

But he didn't have five seconds.

He knew for certain that the five snipers missed their first shots simply because it was their first shot. 

They had to assume many factors such as wind speed and elevation. However, after that, they would be able to make adjustments based on where their first shot landed. 

Without a single doubt, their second shots would hit him. 

IF he maintained his current speed and direction, that is. 

He gave the snipers half a heartbeat to adjust their rifles before he abruptly accelerated and changed his direction a few degrees to his right.

BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!

As expected, the ground erupted as five powerful bullets exploded at the spot where he was a mere split second ago. 

He did it! He dodged their second wave of attacks!

But only one second had passed in that time, and four more seconds remained before he reached the concrete forest.

He had to dodge eight more consecutive rounds of shots by five different snipers.

And in that moment, even though he knew that his odds of survival were astronomically low, a smile finally appeared on Damien Bloodbane's face.

Death was staring at him squarely into his eyes, and its long, bony arms were slowly curling themselves around his body. 

Very soon, he would be cradled tightly within Death's embrace and his life would be sucked out of him.

He was seconds away from dying but he had never felt so alive!