"It's Rei! Rei is here! He's coming this way!"
Of the assassins who encountered Rei, only one managed to escape unharmed.
...No, considering Rei's strength, the fact that even one got away deserved praise.
The moment that assassin spotted the place where the others who had infiltrated the Fusetsu hideout—though they were hardly comrades—were gathered, he screamed those words.
A stir ran through them.
Those who heard the fleeing assassin's words began to clamor. However, there were two distinct kinds of commotion.
One was excitement that their intended prey was coming to them of his own accord.
The other was the dawning horror of realizing they would have to fight Rei, bearer of the Crimson moniker.
The latter group, in particular, included many who—even while confident in their own strength as assassins—could not honestly believe they would stand a chance against Rei in a straight fight. They understood all too well the gulf in ability between them.
The former consisted of the hot-blooded ones, those with excessive confidence in their own abilities, or... a truly small minority... those who either didn't know Rei's reputation or dismissed it as exaggeration.
At any rate, there was no doubt that the situation had shifted dramatically for those gathered here.
The first to act amid all this were the hot-blooded ones.
They had been eager to storm the Fusetsu hideout, but upon actually arriving, they had been ordered to stand by in this location, leaving them thoroughly dissatisfied.
With Rei—the ultimate target of this operation—having shown up, it was hardly surprising that they decided there was no longer any reason to wait here.
Their superiors or employers had originally ordered them to capture Rei alive if at all possible, but they had erased that from their minds completely.
For the Dolan Workshop, the originator of those orders, the directive existed because they needed to secure the necromancy altar presumably stored inside Rei's Misty Ring.
If killing Rei meant the altar trapped within the Misty Ring could no longer be retrieved, that would be the worst-case scenario for the Dolan Workshop.
That said, there was no way the hot-blooded assassins could comprehend such considerations.
They charged forward as if replacing the assassin who had been screaming about Rei's arrival... and in the next instant, the majority of those who lunged out before Rei were bisected vertically and killed instantly.
Even those spared bisection by sheer positioning met grim fates—some collapsed on the ground with wounds so severe their innards spilled out, while others were sent flying as Death Scythe's shaft shattered their ribs.
Internal organs, bodily fluids, blood, and worse were scattered about, radiating a foul stench across the area.
Silence fell.
At a sight beyond extreme, the assassins who witnessed it were struck dumb.
"I see. With this much space, Death Scythe works just fine."
Breaking through that silence, Rei appeared—now wielding Death Scythe in addition to the Twilight Spear he had been using to hunt down the fleeing assassins.
Seeing that there was enough room to swing Death Scythe, a weapon that was his signature in an entirely different sense than Seto, he bared a ferocious grin.
Rei possessed the sheer power to literally annihilate several assassins at once—and not just fodder, but men who, while hot-blooded, carried considerable skill.
Among those who witnessed that display of strength, some immediately fled the scene.
That was undoubtedly the best course of action, but only a truly small number managed to escape.
Some tried to bolt in the wake of those who had broken first, but their reactions were far too slow.
"Hah!"
Hurled with a spirited shout, the Twilight Spear punched through several—no, nearly ten—bodies in a single throw, drastically thinning the assassins' numbers in an instant.
"Multi Slash!"
Charging into the cluster of assassins who had been stunned by the spear throw and frozen for a heartbeat, Rei activated the Multi Slash skill.
What should have been a single slash became ten unleashed strikes.
And this was no longsword—it was a scythe, a long-handled weapon with devastating reach.
The arc of those slashes was enormous. Several who took the Multi Slash head-on were reduced to chunks of flesh, while others nearby suffered wounds of varying severity.
"Underground Transfer Slash!"
With the next strike, Death Scythe's blade was driven straight into the ground.
Some of the assassins watching wondered what on earth Rei was doing... until one of those very skeptics had his leg severed by a blade erupting from beneath the earth.
It wasn't a direct attack from Rei—his leg was quite literally cut off out of thin air.
Underground Transfer Slash—one of the skills possessed by Rei's... or more precisely, Death Scythe's—arsenal.
It was a skill that used the ground as a medium to transfer Death Scythe's blade itself, allowing it to attack from an unexpected angle, making it peerless at catching opponents off guard.
Its drawback was that it was still only Level 1, with a range of just a five-meter radius centered on himself. But that five meters wasn't much of an issue in a situation like this, where enemies were packed tightly together.
"Scatter! Rei can attack at range using some unknown method!"
While he likely didn't fully grasp the mechanics of Underground Transfer Slash, one assassin who sensed the danger of Rei's attack shouted the warning.
At his cry, the assassins near Rei swiftly created distance...
"Do you really think I'll just sit back and watch that happen?!"
Rei roared, surging forward in a single burst with Death Scythe in one hand and the Twilight Spear, freshly returned to his grip, in the other.
From the assassins' perspective, they had been attacking as a group precisely because they stood no chance against Rei in small numbers. Yet the very instant they sensed the danger of his skill and pulled back, Rei lunged straight into their midst. It was unbearable.
There is something to be said for seizing the moment, and Rei was exactly that—not once missing the timing of the assassins' retreat.
Their pullback meant the encirclement of assassins surrounding Rei had naturally thinned.
Had they been dispatched from a single organization and able to coordinate with one another, the encirclement might not have thinned at all, or even if it had, the gaps would have been minimal.
However, the assassins present here came from numerous organizations, and their skill levels varied wildly from person to person.
They had banded together—many guilds and in some cases even independent operators—to take down Fusetsu, the largest assassin guild in Egginis. But ultimately, it was nothing more than a patchwork assembly.
Expecting flawless coordination from them under these circumstances was the unreasonable expectation.
What Rei targeted were precisely those gaps.
Gripping Death Scythe and the Twilight Spear, Rei plunged into the thinned encirclement and swung Death Scythe in a wide arc toward those who couldn't fight at their full potential because they operated under different combat doctrines than his own.
"Power Slash!"
That skill, which prioritized raw strike power over sharpness, no longer sent any shock reverberating through his wrist as it had at Level 4. It performed to its full potential... and sent the assassins standing before Rei flying in the most literal sense.
Those reduced to chunks of flesh and blown away were fortunate, in the sense that they never felt a thing.
The unfortunate ones were those who caught only a partial hit from Power Slash.
Many suffered grievous wounds, with pieces of their bodies quite literally torn away.
Had they been wearing metal armor, they might not have sustained such catastrophic injuries.
But assassins fundamentally preferred light, agile gear. While there were some who, like former Blood Blade members, bore equipment more befitting a warrior than an assassin, the majority disliked heavy kit.
In a battle inside a hideout with no place to hide, it was undeniable that metal armor would have given them an edge. Even so, having worn nothing but light gear all their lives, they were set in their ways.
As a result, the assassins had come dressed in their usual light attire for this battle, and that oversight proved fatal.
The assassins who had been watching from the periphery were dumbfounded for a moment by the sheer devastation of Rei's strike... and there was no way in hell he would let an opening like that pass.
"Haaaah!"
The Twilight Spear, launched through the air, pierced through several bodies and snuffed out their lives.
At precisely that moment, Crow, Roaby, and the rest of their group arrived on the scene.
They hadn't fallen that far behind Rei, yet by the time they got there, a great number of the assassins present had already been slaughtered.
This was likely because Rei's strength had exceeded even Crow's expectations.
"Roaby, we're backing up Rei!"
"Hold on—backing him up?! Aren't we going to attack?!"
Roaby voiced his displeasure at Crow's instruction, but from Crow's perspective, if they carelessly attacked the enemy assassins now, they risked being caught in the crossfire of Rei's sweeping strikes.
Given that, he concluded it was better to fall back and play a supporting role rather than forcing themselves onto the offensive.
...In truth, even if they moved to support Rei, there wasn't much they could actually do.
After all, Rei fundamentally refused to let enemies get close.
Or even when he did let them approach, it was nothing more than a trap to lure them in.
Under those conditions, being told to support Rei didn't suddenly make them capable of doing so.
That said, Roaby understood he couldn't get in Rei's way, just as Crow had said. Though he'd pushed back, he quickly shook his head.
"You're right. Protecting Rei takes priority for now. Honestly, I'm not entirely sold on that, but..."
"Just keeping Rei safe means we've done our job. For now, we focus on what we can do."
Roaby nodded reluctantly at Crow's words and turned his gaze toward the invading assassins.
Whether Rei actually needed protecting was highly questionable, but still—just in case something happened.
(Though if there's something we can actually do, we'd be better off doing that. Specifically, making sure nobody escapes from here, and above all else, finding the invasion point the golems must have created.)
The assassins had breached the hideout by creating a new invasion point with golems.
That was what Rei and Crow had told him, but in truth, it hadn't yet been definitively confirmed.
Even so, Roaby could accept that it was the most likely explanation.
(Where is it?)
While checking whether any assassins were closing in on the rampaging Rei, Roaby scanned his surroundings.
He had come here to scout earlier, and more importantly, this was the Fusetsu hideout. He knew exactly what kind of place this was.
Even so, identifying which spot served as the newly created invasion point wasn't something he could do at a glance.
The biggest problem was that with so many enemies packed in, he couldn't see the far end of the area.
Rei had already cut down a considerable number, but there were still over thirty remaining.
Considering there had been about thirty when he scouted earlier, the numbers clearly didn't add up.
(Which means there really is a place nearby where enemy reinforcements are pouring in... an invasion point. If so, it has to be somewhere close.)
While keeping watch on his surroundings, Roaby called out to his companions.
"Compared to when we scouted earlier, the enemy's numbers have grown significantly. There has to be an invasion point somewhere nearby. We're going to find it."
"Huh? You sure? Weren't we supposed to back up Rei?"
"Look at him. Does it look like Rei needs our help?"
Put that way, Roaby's companions had nothing to say.
Rei was wielding Death Scythe and the Twilight Spear with absolute abandon, and it certainly didn't look like he needed anyone's support.
In fact, even Crow—the one who had advocated supporting Rei—couldn't find a single opening to assist and was reduced to merely watching the carnage unfold.
Seeing that, it was only natural for Roaby's companions to think his suggestion had merit.
"Besides, Crow and Rei were originally searching for the enemy's invasion point, weren't they?"
Roaby likely brought up Crow's name first because he still felt a stronger bond with Crow as a comrade than with Rei.
Some of them noticed the implication behind Roaby's words, but they let it slide and nodded in agreement.
If the goal was to support Rei, then searching for the invasion point seemed like the right call.
Preparing for the worst was important, but Crow alone was enough for that.
So what should they be doing in this situation...? With that thought, the companions nodded at Roaby's proposal.