The bodies of assassins lay scattered before Rei.
Among them were some who had sustained severe injuries but were still alive, though he decided to leave them be for the time being.
If he wanted to avoid trouble later, it would probably be better to kill them here.
Fusetsu, however, would surely want to secure those who had infiltrated their hideout as sources of information.
Whether they could actually extract information from skilled assassins that easily, Rei did not know. Still, judging from his conversation with Crow, it seemed that the more informants, the better.
Of course, given that they were already critically wounded, whether they would still be alive when Fusetsu personnel came to secure them was something even Rei could not say.
Nor did he have any intention of using potions on such individuals.
(There's a chance these bastards might be hiding potions on them... but there's no time to loot them now.)
Rei glanced at the still-living assassins, then immediately set off in the direction Roaby and the others had gone.
Under normal circumstances, he would have stripped the dead assassins of anything usable—weapons, potions, and the like.
But with Roaby's group and Crow operating separately from him, his first priority was to rendezvous with them.
Crow and Roaby were both skilled enough, as befitting members of Fusetsu.
Even so, they did not possess the overwhelming strength needed to handle a large number of assassins on their own.
Well, if the enemy consisted only of weaklings, they might manage it. But anyone bold enough to infiltrate the Fusetsu hideout was likely highly skilled.
That was exactly why Rei needed to catch up with Roaby and Crow as quickly as possible.
(I've dealt with the ones left behind to stall me, but a fair number went after Roaby and the others. ...Don't die.)
Rei understood full well that Roaby was by no means well-disposed toward him.
Even so, there was no way he could just abandon him.
Setting off at a run in pursuit of Roaby's group, Rei noticed several corpses lying in the passage along the way.
They had likely been killed fighting Roaby and Crow's group.
...However, not all of them were enemy corpses, naturally.
Among the dead was one of Roaby's companions.
"See ya."
Without breaking his stride, Rei uttered just those words and passed by the body.
Continuing down the passage... before long, the sound of clashing metal reached Rei's ears.
Given the situation, it was obviously not the sound of a blacksmith at work, but rather the clashing of weapons in combat.
(The source... isn't far from here, is it?)
Rei's body, created using the Zephyle Clan's technology, possessed sharper senses than an ordinary person's.
Even so, the metallic sounds echoing from ahead in the underground passage made it impossible to determine the exact direction.
It would have been manageable if there were only one path, but the tunnels formed intersections and branching corridors.
The reason Rei did not stop was that he was using the corpses on the ground as markers.
Relying on trail markers that could not have been any clearer, he kept running...
"Found them!"
Upon spotting Crow, Roaby, and the others fighting multiple opponents ahead, Rei's running speed increased even further.
Naturally, the assassins battling Crow's group also immediately noticed the figure of Rei rapidly approaching with Death Scythe and the Twilight Spear in hand.
"What...! It's Rei! Crimson Rei is here!"
The first man to spot Rei shouted, and those who heard him immediately prepared to intercept.
Though not as spacious as the area where Rei had been fighting earlier, the location still had sufficient room. The moment Rei stepped into it, those who had been preparing to attack launched a simultaneous assault.
Short daggers and Long Needles were hurled at Rei all at once, but...
"Magic Shield!"
Two Shields of Light—Death Scythe's ability that could block an attack, though only once each—materialized.
As a defensive measure, Magic Shield was quite powerful, but it was not suited for blocking attacks like this where numerous weapons were thrown simultaneously.
Since a Shield of Light dissipated after blocking a single attack, that was only natural.
Even so, Rei had activated Magic Shield purely as a precaution.
Swinging Death Scythe and the Twilight Spear to deflect the daggers and Long Needles flying toward him, or dodging them, his forward advance never faltered.
The Shields of Light, which could block all attacks, never even had the chance to demonstrate their effect.
"Rei!? Alright, now that Rei's here, we just need to hold our ground! If we do that, victory is guaranteed!"
Crow, seeing Rei's figure, shouted to Roaby and the others around him.
Surrounded by numerous assassins and believing that they would all die at this rate, Rei coming to their rescue was extremely fortunate for Crow and his group.
That said, considering Rei's abilities, they had expected him to defeat the assassins left behind as a stalling force rather than pursuing Roaby's group, and then come after them.
In a way, the current situation was exactly as expected.
Even so, having been in mortal danger, being saved here was undeniably significant.
"Damn it, he actually came! Listen up, hold the line!"
Roaby, who was not well-disposed toward Rei, was nonetheless seized by intense emotion at the fact that Rei had shown up to save them.
He called out to his surviving companions, desperately rallying their morale.
Fortunately for Crow, Roaby, and the others, many of the enemy assassins present were shaken upon seeing Rei, perhaps not expecting him to arrive so quickly.
Even those who did not know Rei's abilities would, upon seeing him in combat, naturally conclude that they stood no chance against him.
(Just one more push here.)
Crow surveyed the surrounding situation and, to further tip the scales in their favor, shouted to Rei the greatest reason they had come here.
"Rei! Over there! There's an invasion point over there, probably dug out by golems or something! If we destroy it, no more reinforcements will come!"
At Crow's words, several of the assassins flinched.
If the invasion point were destroyed here, it would mean being trapped inside the hideout of Fusetsu—the largest assassin guild in Egginis.
Having participated in this operation, every one of them had confidence in their own skills.
Some even believed, without any basis, that they would be fine regardless.
However, even in such a situation, there was an underlying premise: if it came down to it, they could escape through the invasion point.
If that premise were removed, the likelihood of being trapped with no way out was high.
In fact, several who realized this immediately looked toward the invasion point, considering whether to flee right away.
There was no way Rei would miss the unease spreading among the assassins.
He immediately cut down the assassins in front of him with Death Scythe, and right after, threw the Twilight Spear, piercing the bodies of several assassins.
"I'll destroy the place you're planning to escape through! If you don't like that, then get out of here now!"
Rei shouted, loud enough for everyone present to hear.
If someone other than Rei had shouted such a thing... or if it had been someone without the strength to back it up, the assassins would have looked at him with exasperation, or perhaps contempt.
However, in the current situation—where Rei alone had already inflicted heavy casualties on the assassins—those words carried enormous weight.
Rei understood that, which was exactly why he shouted them.
His shout was effective enough to throw the assassins into disarray.
From Rei's perspective, the difference in strength between them was already overwhelming.
If the enemy wavered on top of that, there was no option but to launch an all-out offensive immediately.
"Power Slash!"
The unleashed Skill turned several assassins into chunks of flesh, ending their lives on the spot.
Even those who did not die were left with missing body parts.
If the survivors of those who had been stalling Rei earlier were present, they would not have been so shaken even upon witnessing his Power Slash.
However, the majority of those who had stayed behind to stall him were either dead or too severely wounded to move.
There might have been survivors among those who pursued Roaby's group, or perhaps some had managed to hold their own... but unfortunately, they were already dead by this point in the battle, so that was moot as well.
"Wha...! Don't screw with me! What the hell was that attack!?"
One of the assassins remaining in the area shouted, as if in disbelief.
Being active as assassins, they were accustomed to death.
Accustomed, yes, but even so, such overwhelming death was something they could not accept.
There were many skilled individuals in the world, and among them, many could perform attacks like the one Rei had just done. But for those who knew only the narrow world of Egginis, Rei's attack must have been beyond belief.
(Among golems, it wouldn't be strange for some to have attacks like this, and among noble bodyguards, it wouldn't be strange for someone to have that kind of ability either.)
Rei, who had unleashed Power Slash and was already attacking again with Death Scythe and the Twilight Spear, thought to himself as he listened to the assassin's shout.
Of course, since there were very few instances of targeting someone with such powerful bodyguards, perhaps few had experienced it firsthand.
"Multi Slash!"
The swung Death Scythe unleashed multiple slashing strikes.
Compared to Power Slash—a powerful single strike delivered with a wide swing of Death Scythe—the effective range of Multi Slash itself was not as large.
Small, yes, but in exchange, the power of each strike within its effective range was undeniably formidable.
After all, unlike Power Slash, the number of slashes themselves increased.
Shredded by those slashes, some were effortlessly bisected, others had arms or legs severed... and the unlucky ones had their heads cut off.
Those whose bodies or necks were severed died instantly.
Without paying the slightest attention to the enemy's plight, Rei pressed forward, forward, ever forward.
From Rei's perspective, destroying the invasion point that Crow had just shouted about took priority over fighting the assassins here.
Once that was destroyed... or more precisely, once the golem that could burrow underground, which had presumably created the invasion point, was destroyed, no more assassins would be able to come as reinforcements.
Additionally, he had heard from Ilunara and the others that golems capable of burrowing were highly valuable due to their specialized nature. In that sense, destroying such a golem would inflict significant damage on the Dolan Workshop.
(More than anything, if the invasion point is gone, the invading assassins' morale will drop... right? Then again, they won't go on a desperate rampage because they've lost their escape route, will they?)
The thought crossed his mind, but either way, if the invasion point was not destroyed, reinforcements would keep arriving.
Of course, there was a possibility that no more reinforcements would be sent, but Rei had no intention of continuing the fight endlessly regardless.
Considering the Dolan Workshop's methods, they might even go so far as to send adventurers once the number of assassins dwindled.
Given that, it was only natural for Rei to want to destroy the invasion point and the golem capable of burrowing here.
"Damn it, someone stop him! If the invasion point is destroyed, we'll be trapped here!"
The assassin shouted desperately.
However, both the one shouting and those being shouted at were already desperately trying to stop Rei.
In this situation, shouting such things would not produce some hidden trump card.
And then... an event occurred that drove the assassins even further into despair.
"Reinforcements! Enemy reinforcements are here!"
The one who shouted was one of the invading assassins.
It was not Crow or Roaby who declared enemy reinforcements had arrived, but the invaders themselves who screamed about enemy reinforcements.
In other words, it was not reinforcements for the invading assassins, but reinforcements for Fusetsu.
When you thought about it, it was only natural. Those moving on Fusetsu's side were not limited to Rei and his group.
Given that Rei fought without any regard for the assassins' combat methods, it was inevitable that Rei's group had stood out.
However, separate from Rei's group, Fusetsu had been moving properly as well... and their reinforcements had now arrived.