Vile Evil Hides Under The Veil

Wilfer's expression turned serious when he realized that some kind of conspiracy was brewing.

"Who are you?" he asked, looking at the man vigilantly. "Guards!" he shouted, calling forth his royal guards who should be nearby, mixed with the crowd in disguise.

Wilfer also had a bad feeling at this point, making him believe that a part of what the man had said was true. The Eldorathian king was really not in good shape the last few years. However, if he was dead, it had to be an assassination.

Wilfer was about to get up from his seat but was made to stay seated by Eren's simple gaze. Of course, Eren had also informed Arman not to make any bold moves, preventing him from leaving his position.

"Hm? This sack— it's empty?"

The E-Ranked man who wanted to kill Wilfer realized that there was something wrong with the plan. The alchemy sack he was handed didn't have the weapons he wanted.

In fact, the sack was completely empty, not even containing the usual resources meant to be given to the new and genuine young Practitioners.

"Where? Where the fuck is my sack?" the man roared at the young woman who had been standing beside Eren with a confused look on her face. The supposed killer's eyes were bloodshot, and there was some form of confusion on his face at the same time.

"Are you looking for this?" Ren Roman Idril pulled out a runic knife out of thin air and presented it to the man. He had a vibrant smile on his face as he looked at his supposed killer.

"You!" The man stared daggers at Ren, his eyes full of anger and all sorts of emotions. "Give it to me," he said before snatching his knife away from him.

He didn't know where Eren had taken his stuff from the alchemy sack, but that didn't stop him from wielding his weapon and activating the runes on it.

By this point, a cacophony of noises was coming from the crowd below. Some screamed all sorts of slogans; some wanted to stone the man who was about to kill Wilfer and the city's only E-Rank potion-maker. Some had started blaming the city's security measures, while some had started to retreat from the venue in a hurry, anticipating chaos.

The sounds of heavy footsteps were approaching the stage.

Some F-Ranked guards had started to use their movement-type Skills by using some privileged tokens that allowed them to use the Skills in a banned area. Wilfer's royal guards had already arrived on the stage, but they didn't approach him casually, lest the crazy man initiated an attack.

"I don't want to judge your professionalism but you are holding that knife wrong," Ren said casually and shook his head in disappointment as he observed the man's weapon-wielding stance.

"What the hell are you saying?" he said, taking one more step forward and pressing the knife under Eren's head.

"Didn't you hear the first time?" Eren said, looking into the man's eyes with calm and collected expressions.

"That kind of knife shouldn't be held like a sword. Don't just grip the hilt. Use your two fingers to sandwich the blade and hold it as if you were holding a sheet of paper between them.

This way, you'd have more blade control, and the grip would also be compatible with the fire-element runes carved on the blade," Eren replied calmly, as if an old veteran were teaching a young hunter.

"Hmph!" the man snorted, clearly not wanting to follow up on Eren's directions. He sensed the guards behind him, but they were all in the initial or mid-stage of the E-Rank and clearly no match for him.

After all, the ranks obtained by these guards were acquired through the consumption of elixirs and rare royal resources. They didn't have the kind of battle experience they needed to take someone like the E-Rank veteran down.

"You are an E-Ranked potion-maker, right? I hope you have some good stuff in your Inventory. Hehe," the man chuckled at Eren as he activated the runes on the knife and swung it across Eren's neck, expecting a stream of blood to come out. It seemed that he had the means to rob Eren's stuff from his Inventory after his death.

However, in the next moment, the assailant realized that there was something wrong.

The man clearly felt that Eren had not deployed his mana defense layer to protect himself. Eren's flesh was exposed, and his body didn't carry any defensive artifacts at the time.

By this point, someone from Wilfer's guards unit came forward holding a runic gem.

He crushed the gem and activated a defensive layer that isolated Eren, the assailant, the scared young girl beside him, worried Wilfer, and stressed Arman, along with a few guests, from the rest of the crowd as well as the city guards who just landed on the stage.

"What the hell are you doing? Finish up the job quickly. We gotta go," the gem-crushing man yelled at the E-Ranked man. He ignored the angered gaze given to him by Wilfer.

Since he had betrayed this royal scion, he wanted to leave Sunhaven as soon as possible and go somewhere else in wealth and prosperity. He clearly had been given a ton of advanced payment by Wilfer's enemy faction.

"Aaaaah!" The E-Ranked man screamed and channeled the E-

Ranked mana throughout his body before initiating his attack on Eren.

'Haah! Five years of peace and then this.'

Eren sighed as he looked at the incoming attack before suddenly raising his hand and gripping the man's attacking hand by his wrist with such agility that the E-Ranked man couldn't follow with his Mana Sense.

Eren could have just stood there and let the man attack all he wanted without achieving any form of success. Even if he were to allow this man to attack him until the evening, there would be no scratch on his body. There was a high chance the man would die from over exhaustion before he managed to make Eren feel a bit of pain.

However, Eren decided to take action because he didn't want to waste his time.