The Martial Unity

The Beggar's Sect was clearly eager to get him to work because he got the information that he sought immediately. Rui narrowed his eyes as he scanned through the various Martial Seniors present in the Shadow Isles.

The number had gone up in the time that he had been training, increasing the difficulty of wiping them all out.

"Can you get access to their assassination commissions?" Rui wondered.

"Of course." The professor snorted. "That's trivial."

That was good news. It meant that he could target them while they were outside the Shadow Isles. He had been concerned about trying to assassinate Martial Seniors in a place infested with Martial Artists, it seemed extremely difficult to actually accomplish.

But, if he knew what their assassination commissions were in the Derschek Region, then he could target them while they were operating in the Derschek region which was much larger and less densely packed with fellow assassins.

That was part of the decisions he made while considering exactly how he was going to execute the mission.

Another good thing about the intelligence that the Beggar's Sect provided him was that it detailed many relevant matters, including their stealth capabilities and their sensory ability.

The latter was especially important to him. He had pretty good sensory capabilities; he highly doubted that there were many Martial Seniors with better senses, to the point where they could potentially sense the attack. However, he couldn't afford to be careless.

"I'll take him first." Rui tossed a sheet on the table, drawing the professor's attention.

[Sam Sevian]

The man was a low-level Martial Senior who hadn't been in the Senior Realm for too long. His senses weren't the best according to the information provided by the Beggar's Sect. That meant that he was the ideal target for Rui to begin taking down.

As long as he took him down, he could proceed to take down stronger targets. If something did go awry, then the consequences would be minimal in such circumstances.

Thankfully, there were no high-grade Martial Seniors in the Shadow Isles. It made sense because high-grade Martial Seniors were most likely not that attracted to the tutelage of a Martial Artist of the higher Realm.

He wasn't sure if he would be able to kill a high-grade Martial Senior. That seemed like an incredibly daunting task considering how wide the Senior Realm was.

"I'll begin immediately." Rui nodded. "I need his current location."

"Our agents in the Shadow Isles can supply you with that." The professor remarked.

Rui nodded. He was going to have to spend quite some time stalking the man while building a predictive model on him. He was also going to have to determine the man's innate resonance frequencies.

Rui immediately began heading to the Shadow Isles. Funnily enough, it was his first time heading there. He exchanged away his Martial attire for something less attention-drawing, though he highly doubted it mattered.

The Shadow Isles were for assassins.

He even avoided sky-walking to the Shadow Isles to avoid drawing attention, going out of his way to take a ferry ride over to the archipelago.

The Shadow Isles were a collection of dozens of numbered islands in remarkably close proximity to each other. The islands were connected with large sturdy bridges to allow for smooth travel back and forth between them.

It wasn't long before arrived at Island One, before tipping the ferry rider and making his way through the town.

Instantly, one could feel the darkness. Metaphorical darkness, given that it was in the middle of the day.

Yet not even the Sun was able to hide the sombre edge of the entire town. It gave an eerie sensation that one was not entirely able to place their finger on.

The infrastructure of the island was really good, it was not a rundown place, which made sense to Rui, given how much assassins earned from their various commissions. There were lavish buildings that blatantly announced their purpose.

[Aramin Assassination Association]

[DAP Assassin's Guild]

Organizations formed with Martial Artist assassins that catered to clientele and served as brokers between clientele and assassins openly did business in broad daylight on the island.

There was not shortage of people who walked into those buildings, either. Yet Rui recognized that nobody who had the wealth to go to the Shadow Isles and commission a Martial Artist did it in person.

All the people he saw walking in and out of these establishments were most likely not the actual clients, but rather people that served as representatives for the true clients. The actual clients did not want to be caught on the island, probably because they had enough wealth to the point where their image mattered.

Yet Rui highly doubted that it was anything less than an open secret. It was the norm in the Derschek Region and had been the norm for quite some time, ever since the Silent Shadow had arrived at the Gana Archipelago, turning it into the Shadow Isles as a result.

He bet that if he revealed his identity as a Martial Senior, he would immediately be scouted by various organizations to sign a contract with them and become a member of their organization.

He knew that he probably was already being scouted the moment he entered the island. The fact that he didn't have any aura was meaningless, hiding their attention-drawing aura as Martial Artists was a basic ability for assassins, it was the bare minimum.

It would actually be better if Rui pretended to be a Martial Squire than a normal person, the former more believable for people residing in the Shadow Isles.

Furthermore, he didn't want to draw any attention by being too suspicious either, thus perhaps it wasn't a bad idea to join an organization like the average assassin that came to the Shadow Isles did. He wouldn't stand out if stuck with the herd.

The issue was that he would need to use a different style of assassination than the one that he intended to kill Martial Seniors with if he did do that. He had some difficult choices ahead of him to make.