The Martial Unity

A few days passed as Rui did his best to gather all the information that he needed on his target smoothly. He had to admit, the musician was definitely a good idea. Having play pieces that hit all notes across audible and inaudible ranges conveniently allowed her to accelerate the process of figuring out her innate resonance frequency.

It wasn't long before he got the right combination of the triple frequency in the right layers to bypass the layers of the head to hit her brain.

As always, he chose to assassinate her when she herself was out and about fulfilling a commission.

The best time to strike his prey, was when his prey was about to strike its prey. Their minds were consumed by their target, making it less likely that they would detect threats to their own life.

That was why one moment she was walking on a bridge towards her target, a famous public figure with Squire-level security detail, and the next moment, her consciousness faded and her body collapsed, falling into a rapid river below the bridge, before being swept away beneath the powerful rapids.

Nobody bothered to try and save her, not even the Martial Artists who could.

That was within Rui's calculations. 

After all, this region just wasn't that kind of place.

Two Martial Seniors down, several dozen more to go. He was satisfied with his progress. It had been ten days since he returned from training and two of his assassination targets were already dead. 

That was progress. 

Funnily enough, because nobody knew that the disguised woman who fell into the river was actually a Martial Senior, nobody had known that she had died.

She just disappeared.

"Tsk, Damn Sele. She didn't even finish her commission. She's making us look bad."

"We have received a complaint, a demand for a refund, and appropriate compensation." 

"But where did she go?"

"Maybe she left the Shadow Isles to go somewhere else. She was ranked close to the bottom of Martial Senior assassins after all."

Suddenly, a Senior-level aura washed over the two conversing members of the Daelgul Assassination Service.

"She did not abandon us." The Martial Senior narrowed his eyes. "She was taken out. She would have been back now even if she failed in her commission which she wouldn't have."

This drew a gasp from the two of them. "Could it be...?"

"Yeah. It's that same bastard who took out Sam." 

Many had come to suspect the connection between the two cases. It wasn't hard to link them. After all, there were some commonalities. For one, once again, they were killed before they could put up a fight or resistance. 

"Furthermore, Sam was definitely the weakest of all the Senior assassins in the archipelago, Sele may not be the second weakest, but she is very close to the bottom nonetheless. We may see some more of the bottom-ranking Martial Seniors be targeted, and that will definitely confirm the connection."

And confirm it did. In the coming weeks, several more Martial Seniors either disappeared or just apparently died out of nowhere. 

It could no longer be denied. It could no longer be speculated around. The truth was clear to anyone with any intelligence. Someone was targeting Martial Seniors. From the bottom, making their way up the totem pole.

Many knew that it was probably time to nip the problem in the bud. In a room with many dignitaries, Martial Seniors, and a single woman at the head of the table, that was exactly what was being discussed.

"It's the beggar's sect." On Martial Senior spat with an angry expression. "Maybe I should massacre all the humans on this island that no doubt hide many of their spies just to shove it to them."

"Please abstain from doing that, mam." A high-level executive in the Crina Foundation sighed. "Not only would I rather not die, but you would be declaring war against the Beggar's Sect. It is possible that they may very well upgrade the Shadow Isles to a priority issue and deploy one of their few and scarce internal Martial Masters to wipe us all out. I highly doubt that the Silent Shadow will come out of hiding to protect us if and when that happens."

Although they resisted the Beggar's Sect, everybody in that room knew that the Beggar's Sect in its totality possessed the power to wipe them out. This was an organization that had led to the fall of a Martial Sage, largely through their ability to manipulate human civilization. A bunch of pesky Martial Seniors were no different from insects if the Beggar's Sect summoned its full might.

Thankfully for them, the Beggar's Sect was spread extremely thin since they made it a point to involve themselves in any and all matters across the continent. Which meant that they could only summon a smidgen of their full power for any one issue in a given region.

"That is the only reason that they haven't wiped out the Shadow Isles." One executive of Area Crina remarked. "They have deployed Senior-level forces against us before but..."

"Interesting." Skia Crina murmured at the head of the table, drawing everybody's attention. "Fighting fire with fire. Assassinating assassins with assassins."

A soft smile arose on her delicate elderly face. 

An inscrutable emotion rang deep in the depths of her unfathomable eyes.

"Wait, we don't even know if the Beggar's Sect is involved." One Martial Senior remarked with a nervous expression. "I don't know if I want to fight them."

"Tsk, don't be a wimp." Another Martial Senior remarked contemptuously. "I don't care who is behind this. I care for the actual individual or individuals who eliminated Sam, Sele, Bayron, Gilles, and Artor. Whoever this is, it's clearly an elite veteran high-grade Martial Senior who has dedicated their entire life to the art of killing."

Many nodded across the table in agreement. The sheer quality of the assassinations meant that there were only a few candidates at the highest echelons of the Senior Realm.

"A veteran who has dedicated their entire life, hm?" Skia Crina murmured, drawing everybody's attention. "Is that really what you all see?"

Nobody knew how to respond to that, even as a knowing smile spread on her face.