Rei moved to the front of the waiting room door, probing for presences inside before he reached for the handle.
(Six... no, seven?)
Though he sensed them, there was almost no murderous intent. That was proof they were highly skilled.
(Well, I just have to do what needs doing.)
He prepared to pull the Death Scythe from his Misty Ring at any moment and opened the door.
The waiting room was fairly large. It wasn’t the cavernous space that had held hundreds of participants at the start of the Fighting Tournament, but it was big enough for a combatant to move freely. More importantly, it was large enough to swing a long weapon like the Death Scythe.
(I got lucky there.)
He stepped inside and scanned his surroundings, hesitating for a moment.
(I’d like to take out one or two with a preemptive strike, but I don’t know for sure if that female soldier was an ally.)
The dagger she had shown him was identical to the ones held by Kyuken, whom Daskar had introduced. However, he couldn’t ignore the possibility that someone had stolen it to lure him into a trap. If he struck first and killed them, it might turn out they were guards prepared by the Empire.
(It seems unlikely, but I’m in the tournament on the Chancellor’s recommendation. I’ve advanced past the fifth round, so the Empire’s eyes are on me. Given my reputation and the people targeting me, it wouldn't be strange for them to assign me protection.)
Killing guards would be a diplomatic nightmare. Rei leaned against the door and scanned the room, deciding he had to let them make the first move.
Even knowing he was there, the hidden presences remained calm.
(None of them are wavering. That’s a bit suspicious. I thought they’d jump me by now... fine.)
Sitting down and being ambushed would be a pain, so he decided to force the issue.
"Whoever is hiding, come out. If you’re my guards, I’d expect a proper explanation."
Silence met his words. Even with the knowledge that they were compromised, they didn’t show a flicker of agitation. He began to wonder if the female soldier had led him into a different kind of trap.
But the doubt vanished in the next heartbeat.
"Whoops!"
Sensing a spike of murderous intent, Rei lunged forward.
Simultaneously, a figure dropped from a blind spot in the ceiling, landing exactly where he had been standing. If he hadn’t moved, the puppet man’s poison-coated dagger would have dealt him a lethal blow.
The other hidden figures revealed themselves. Including the one from the ceiling, there were six in total.
(There’s still one more lurking somewhere... but I’m glad it’s only six.)
The lack of hiding places in the room likely capped their numbers.
"Uuuuuuh..."
Moaning low, the six figures readied their weapons. They all carried daggers—perfectly suited for combat in confined spaces.
But they weren’t ordinary blades.
"Poison, huh?" Rei muttered, seeing the liquid glinting on the steel.
Worse, the liquid wasn't uniform across the group. Blue, red, black, purple—the variety made it clear they were using several different toxins.
(Considering they’re assassins, regular antidotes probably won't work. Even if I had a specialized one, I doubt it would cover every variety. One scratch and I’m done.)
He assumed the poisons weren't something minor like paralysis. He steeled his nerves. From an outside perspective, being surrounded by six poison-wielding assassins was a death sentence.
Rei smiled beneath his hood.
"This is it. If I overcome this, I’ll grow even stronger. Come! Become the foundation I need to surpass Noise!"
The six puppets reacted. Though Mura's Tuning should have stripped them of fear, they seemed to feel the weight of Rei's presence.
Still, they followed their orders. Wordlessly, they lunged at him.
One from the front, back, left, and right. Another performed a leap that defied human anatomy to strike from above. The final one hung back, observing, ready to strike if Rei dodged.
"You're quick enough... but that’s about it."
Facing attacks from five directions, Rei chose to charge. If surrounded, the simplest solution was a breakthrough at a single point. Of course, "simple" only applied if one possessed Rei's monstrous physical ability and combat experience.
"Hah!"
He charged to the right. The puppet man slashed down with a toxin-slicked blade. To an ordinary person, that dagger was as lethal as the Grim Reaper's Scythe.
(Only if it hits!)
Rei twisted his body, letting the blade whistle past his side, and hammered a dagger from the Misty Ring into the puppet's ribs. He hadn't drawn it; it was an ordinary material stripping dagger still in its sheath. The heavy impact pulverized the puppet's ribs and sent him flying.
A wet thud echoed through the room as the body hit the wall, but no one flinched.
(Six left, including the one in hiding.)
As Rei broke the encirclement, the puppet who had been observing moved in.
"..."
Rei parried the silent strike with his own dagger. He saw the puppet he had just crushed standing back up, showing no sign of pain despite the shattered ribs. He clicked his tongue.
(Breaking bones won't stop them. Interrogation is off the table. Fine, then...)
Realizing capture was impossible, Rei parried another lunge and finally drew his blade from the sheath.
Three more daggers thrust toward his back.
Rei spun, his arm a blur. He slit the throat of the man in front of him and kicked the body into the pursuers behind him. A fountain of blood sprayed from the severed jugular, drenching the three puppets.
No matter how much Mura had enhanced them, they were still fundamentally human. Their vision remained their primary sense.
The spray blinded them. The sudden, copper scent of blood overwhelmed their sense of smell.
The three puppets swung their daggers at the space where Rei had been a moment ago. Finding their dying comrade in the way, they swatted him aside with a horizontal blow. The man hit the wall again, bleeding out as he crumpled to the floor.
They had no attachment to their fellow assassin. Even cold-blooded professionals usually felt something when a comrade died, but these puppets felt nothing. They only saw their target.
"I knew you’d do that!" Rei laughed softly.
The few seconds they had wasted tossing the corpse aside was all the time he needed to put distance between them. This room wasn't as massive as the ones in the qualifiers, but he backed himself against a wall.
"If I can't swing it, I'll just thrust!"
In a flash of light, the dagger in Rei's hand was replaced by a spear—a nearly broken spear he usually used for throwing. Its tip was chipped, making it useless for a standard warrior.
But in Rei's hands, it was a different story.
"In a narrow room, you're bound to overlap eventually!"
He roared and threw the spear. Even with a chipped head, his monstrous strength turned the weapon into a streak of light.
The puppets weren't in a straight line, having been adjusted to stand half a step apart for mobility. The spear tore through the lead puppet's stomach, caught the second in the right flank, and pierced the third in the left. The sheer momentum pinned all three to the back wall.
"Tch. Still no sound of pain?"
True to his word, the men simply tore themselves off the wall, widening their own abdominal wounds to regain their freedom. Pain was clearly a concept they didn't recognize.
"..."
Daggers in hand, they closed in again, showing no signs of slowed movement. The puppet with the broken ribs joined them, his face a void of expression.
"Even with your guts spilling out, you’re still coming!?"
Four daggers lunged in a coordinated dance, though there was a mechanical quality to their movements that felt unnatural. Rei parried with a fresh dagger from the Misty Ring, deciding it was time to end it.
(Still one left hiding.)
He leaped backward to avoid a wide swing and threw his dagger mid-air. The sheathed blade flew with such velocity it sounded like it was cutting the air itself. It buried itself deep in one puppet’s forehead.
The man's limbs spasmed for a second before he collapsed.
Rei landed and finally summoned the Death Scythe.
"Hyaaaaah!"
With a kiai, he delivered a Horizontal Flash. The massive blade swept through the air, bisecting the puppet to the right of the one with a dagger in his skull.
The scythe severed the puppet’s weapon arm, his torso, and the other arm. The arm holding the poison dagger spun through the air, bouncing off the wall before hitting the floor. The bisected torso fell apart, spilling blood and entrails.
The rest was a blur. The return stroke carved through the remaining puppets. Within seconds of drawing the scythe, Rei was the only one standing.
The room was thick with the stench of gore.
"No matter how many times I smell this, I never get used to it," Rei muttered, grimacing.
The waiting room was a wreck. Between the assassins and Rei's scythe, the shelves and walls were carved to pieces.
Rei sighed and began collecting the poison-coated daggers, storing them in his Misty Ring.
"I hope they don't expect me to pay for the damages. It's the Tournament Management Committee's fault for letting assassins in. ...What do you think?"
Scythe in hand, Rei spoke to the one remaining figure still lurking in the shadows of the ruined room.