Nobody noticed Ken's actions during the ruckus, as everyone's attention was focused on the siblings' fight. The woman rose from the ground slowly, a faint blush decorating her cheeks and disclosing the fact that she was drunk.
"You shitty sister, I can't believe you had slept with my fiancée, with your sister-in-law!"
"Huh? That flower came to me first, so why are you blaming me? Blame yourself if your tool was so underwhelming that she craved a -hic- woman instead!"
The man's lips quivered in anger for a moment before he lashed out at his sister. His face and unfocused gaze showed he was not any less drunk than her. Their shaky stances seemed anything but threatening to the onlookers.
"For your information, she never stopped -hic- screaming when I entered, and my tool is just fine. It's even bigger than any other -hic- man's tool I've ever seen!" He shouted in anger, hurrying to defend his honor.
"Why would you see others' -hic- tools? The husband is into men and the wife is into women, it makes even more sense now why she wanted a taste of these-" The woman reached out to her chest with her hands when she was interrupted.
"You damn drunken! Make way for the young master of the Sue clan and move out of the path!" Max shouted impatiently. He'd be interested in the gossip normally, but the stress of being after an assassination attempt made him eager to just get to safety first. The bodyguards have been on edge ever since.
"Huh? Why are you intervening in a family -hic- feud of others? Don't you know that even a good official can't judge domestic cases?" (1)
Emma shouted back while raising a wine gourd that appeared from her storage ring and started chugging it in big gulps.
"Maybe a good one can't, but a bad one sure can. Both of you are idiots, now get out of the way before we attack."
Follow on NovᴇlEnglish.nᴇt"Huh? Do you want to push your nose into our family -hic- business? I'm going to lie here and not move, what are you going to do about it? kill me in broad daylight?" The woman said stubbornly and lay down on the ground, her limbs spread wide like a rebelling child.
"Stupid sister, not only did you ruin my marriage, but now you want to get us both killed by an elite family? Good sir, please forgive -hic- my sister, she's very impulsive sometimes." Noah leaped forward and landed behind Ken. Now, the drunk twins trapped Ken in both directions.
"That's your final warning, scum. You either move out of our way right now, or I attack," Max brandished his two short swords and threatened.
"Hmph, do your worst," the woman changed her position slightly.
"You asked for it!" Max shouted and dashed forward, ready to put an end to the woman's life. When he did so, the woman pushed the ground with her palm and was shot swiftly toward Ken, no trace of her drunken state remained. Her sixth-stage aura became obvious and overbearing.
Simultaneously, her twin brother kicked the ground with all his might, planning to ensure the kill from the other side.
Emma was ready to casually deflect the attack from a fifth-stage cultivator with her palm while using the other hand to claim Ken's life when strong pressure assaulted both her and Noah, degrading their power significantly and catching them off by surprise.
Max sword technique managed to cut through the woman's hand, separating it from her arm just above her elbow in a swift strike. The man who already shot himself forward, failed to attack on time with the sudden weakening effect and simply brushed against Ken's shoulder lightly without even swinging the poisoned blade.
Ken spun in his place, avoiding Emma's dagger by a hair's width and the woman landed on the ground behind him.
"Assassins!" Max and Jake shouted. Jake took out his two daggers and the two stood between Ken and the twins.
"Suppression Formation Scroll!" Noah groaned as he got up on his legs and readied himself to attack again. As a cultivator at the sixth stage, he believed he could deal with the new challenge even with the scroll in effect as long as he attacked without any regard for his own safety.
After all, scrolls had weaker effects than normal formations, and he was a whole stage above the bodyguards. Previously, the effect caught him off guard, but now he could adapt to it.
'I will take him down at the cost of my life!' Both twins clenched their teeth in determination as they resolved themselves to die for their nephews' sake, their thoughts aligned perfectly.
Although they loved their sister, she had lived a long and good life and would die from old age soon even if the Four Seasons Sect did not capture her. That was the fate any cultivator had to face if they came from a mortal family. However, the nephews were relatively younger and had kids of their own.
Just then, he suddenly fell to his knees, his eyes widening in surprise. The strength left his body all at once, and he fell forward, face down.
"Noah? What happened?" Emma asked her brother in worry. Their positioning did not allow her to approach him and check, so she could only ask worriedly.
The twins loved each other beyond reason; the two regarded each other as an extension of themselves. Their only regret about giving up their lives for their nephews was that the other twin would die too.
"Noah!" She screamed in pain when her brother did not react. As a sixth-stage cultivator, she could sense through her mind that his consciousness was fading slowly, but there was no visible wound on him.
The robes' folds hid a tiny cut, not even a centimeter long, that let out a single drop of black blood out of it. The edges of the wound were turning black at an alarming pace as well as the skin around them.
'I must kill him quickly!' She gathered herself together and launched forward, setting aside the worry for her twin.
There was no choice, it had been almost five seconds since their first attack, a time that was perceived by cultivators of their rank as a long while. It wouldn't take much time for an elder to find out and intervene. Once a seventh-stage elder enters the picture, she would lose any chance at assassinating Ken.
She placed the hilt of the poisoned dagger between her teeth. She had to use her preferred weapon, the saber, in order to fight two fifth-stage cultivators and a fourth-stage one while being suppressed by a formation.
She rushed toward Ken and brought down her saber, sending Jake flying a few meters back after trying to block her charge by crossing his two daggers. She then coated her foot with Saber Qi and performed a roundhouse kick, meeting Max's sword and making him lose his footing with the momentum.
Their techniques countered one another. She ducked and launched herself at Max's abdomen, receiving his knee straight to her face. However, she expected it to happen. The poisoned dagger was only 20 centimeters away from the bodyguard, and she spat it out while being sent backward from the blow.
Follow on Novᴇl-Onlinᴇ.cᴏmA hand grabbed Max's collar and pulled him away from danger, making the dagger miss. Looking to his side, Max found out Ken had saved him.
With her mind's connection to the weapon, Emma called it back to her and dashed into another round of attacks. 'I can't fail now! Noah had already died for it, and I will die soon too. I must not die without achieving our goal!'
She caught the dagger's hilt with her teeth while still running, a spark of madness appeared in her eyes. This time, Max was the first to intercept her, and her saber sent him a few meters away. Jake, who had already made it back, faced her next with a sequence of swift stabs and cuts of his daggers.
To his surprise, she did not fight back this time. She coated herself with Saber Qi and charged straight into the daggers, ramming him away like a charging rhino while taking numerous wounds on her body. The Saber Qi was just enough to save her life from sure death, but not from being heavily injured.
She finally stood in front of her target, and her crazed eyes met the cold, calm red eyes of her enemy.
'I only have to graze him once!' She thought to herself.
Ken took a few steps back as if in panic, but the distance between them was closed almost instantly when she bolted toward him, and her saber technique met with his own Slash which he executed with a sword summoned from his storage ring.
Ken was overpowered by the blow and was slammed into the ground. Before anyone could do anything, she dove with her mouth aiming at Ken's chest, targeting it with the dagger.
"NO!" Jake and Max shouted. They both were already in the middle of the leap to fence her off, and four bodies crashed into one another. First, Ken pushed himself a little bit away, making Emma's strike hit his abdomen 20 centimeters below his chest. Second, Emma smashed into Ken. Third, Jake and Max arrived and their attacks reaped Emma to shreds.
It was nothing less than a suicide attack from the female assassin, and her only thought before she died was depressing.
'I forgot… the rumors say he's hiding his sword in his belt… but why is he wearing it so high?'
After realizing it, two swords sliced her up, while two daggers were plunged repeatedly into her body.
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A/N: Even a good official can't judge domestic cases – problems between family members are hard to judge and resolve.