Requiem Of A Failed Hero

Doubts immediately overwhelmed his thoughts and were pretty evident in the way he hesitated when he usually would have lunged at Raith already. He was the fast one after all.

Raith gave a second look and curled a corner of his lips.

"If you don't come at me, then say welcome to me?"

Unlike his hesitant opponent, Raith charged forward with a punch that slipped past the assassin's belated defense and wrenched into his stomach. He was sent flying as he was rammed by some incredulous mighty rock and slamming his back against the wall, he slumped to the ground.

Even his nose mask could not hold back the blood as he coughed and held his belly in pain. But he had no time to grieve, Raith's presence manifested before him like an impregnable wall, it was hard not to notice that such a wall was moving closer to him, that too at an amazing speed.

He managed to drive himself to the left, avoiding Raith's darting kick by the skin of the teeth. The formidable metal door crunched to a point at the impact of his kick and was sent flying into the narrow hall.

Raith paused for a moment and looked at his smoking feet.

'That was one hell of a kick.'

[Notice. Your physical strength has increased by a considerable amount since you have now evolved to the race High Human]

'Oh? I did remember you saying the numeric representation of my skill wasn't accurate'

[Indeed]

The assassin's eyes shook in horror at what he just witnessed. There's no telling him, he wouldn't have survived that kick.

A bead of sweat broke out of his forehead, and in only a few seconds more were stagnated right there on his face, fear had gripped him so much that even his perspiration was so strangled by fear that they couldn't help but shiver at a point.

'I should try to hold back my punch'

He said in his thoughts, dilatorily noticing the webbed dent carved into the beautiful marble floor when he crushed the guy's head to the ground.

He had been fighting with the same measure of strength he would often use to fight monsters, it had become his muscle pattern, save the fact that these guys were not monsters, he was now a high-human. A race above humanity, the limits that his human body placed on him which were already quite different compared to other humans thanks to the abyss had now been removed.

Of course, there still existed some limits but he had not come anywhere near them right now.

"Ay ay...we can do this the hard way or we can do this the simple way."

"What's the simple way?"

Raith's face went round. He wasn't expecting the assassin to ask that question. It was as if he was waiting for him to give him an option.

Raith brought his brows together to carve out a frown on his delicate face.

"Wait, no. You don't deserve a simple way. It was you guys who knocked on my door and attacked me, so why should you get a second chance? Actually, I should beat the crap out of you and make you tell me who sent you to me."

The assassin's face broke in horror.

"It was him"

He pointed to his partner who had passed out on the ground. Raith's attention naturally sailed towards the guy he was pointing to.

"He has most of the information about our contractor, I was merely meant to support him"

'I just need to buy a little time for it to be ready'

In his eyes could be found careful stares of hope... the hope that Raith would bite the bait and continue to do that. He put more information forth to spice things up.

"He has the ability to block out other's awakening power and that is why he was sent here. This is a top-secret mission and I don't even know anything about it..."

'...at the very least he would want to wait for him to wake up, I just need two minutes'

His plan seems to be working. Raith was lost in thought as he heard what the guy said, he froze for a moment and then a couple of seconds later said:

"That means, there is someone in this country, possibly high up who wants to prevent me from clearing the gate? Because why else would they send an assassin after me just the night I enter the country."

'Does Ruan Zhaohui even know about this?'

Raith thought deeply about it and it still made no evident sense to him. Even if there was an existence of someone who didn't want the gate to be defeated. What was the person's reason?

Why would anyone in their right mind not want a gate that claimed the life of an unranked hunter to be defeated?

Or should this be considered with more reasonable logic?

Raith scratched his head, thinking that it was a headache. Since did he become the type of person that thinks?

But a thing Raith has been able to deduct, at the very least in its simplest form is that something in this country is fishy.

Was he planning to get to the bottom of it? Definitely not! But if it would jeopardize the peace of his mission then he just might get very pissed.

This was Raith's conclusion after his considerations. This means that he doesn't have to complicate the matter by beating the shit out of the assassins.

He can just let them go and ask them to report that they were able to escape luckily but could not defeat him.

'Who in their right minds sends two assassins to kill a catastrophe-ranked hunter'

Then again, they had a trump card. Maybe for any other hunter or if Raith had not evolved, the guy's ability to lock skills would have worked on Raith.

Too sad they had to meet him just when he evolved. But no issue, he was ready to let them go.

"So..."

The assassin who had been silently suddenly fired himself at Raith with a knife tightly gripped by both his hands–the attack was short noticed and the assassin was sure it was a successful attempt.

'Yes! I did it!' Or so he thought.

But Raith looked down at him with a strained frown.

"You bastard. What do you think you are doing?"

The guy slowly took his eyes to Raith's stomach, where he was sure the knife stabbed into. His eyes widened... Raith had managed to block his stomach hence taking the stab to his palm and not to his stomach.

'How....'

His thoughts shivered in unbelief.

He was very sure he caught Raith off guard and that this was a sure hit.

"What the hell were you expecting to accomplish by stabbing my stomach with a military knife"

The assassin frowned, a sudden confidence washed over his face and he slowly stood up.

"It means nothing, whether it is your hand or your stomach it is still the same effect."

Raith's face became straight, the nasty demeaning look he had on his face was instantly wiped as a stinging pain struck his palm.

His palm suddenly became so heavy that it fell to the ground, his veins became purple and began to enlarge his palm, taking it out of shape.

"What did you do to me?!!"

[Received. Do you want me to analyze the cause an–

"Yes! Do you even need my permission for something like this?!"

[Received. Analyzing internal threat]

"It would have been much more interesting if I managed to stab it into your stomach. Imagine the form of your organs being reshaped due to mutated microorganisms. The sight of you crying and writhing in pain would have been something I would relish so much"

"What?"

"You are dying to know what is it right?"

Raith stared at him angrily. His hand was on the ground, constantly undergoing an irritating reshaping and reforming, over and over again.

The pain was excruciating and the stinging feeling was evidence that something was right there in his hands.

[Source found]

[The source of threat is a mutated organism. It survives by feeding on the red blood cells, meanwhile excreting a harmful microbial parasite that multiplies and infects an area within seconds. If left it would keep multiplying until the entire body becomes a mass reshaped irritation]

Raith became tense. A pearl of swear dropped down his face from his temple.

"Ah, indeed. You got me. I've never been hard this way before. America sure is a different country."

"Thank you for the compliment"

At this moment, Raith learned that there is more to a battle than physical prowess, might, and battle experience. Until now, he had never met someone who could be so crafty and cunning with their skills.

It challenged him in a different way.

'Damn! I wanna devour him!'

Raith yearned to learn from him so much and wished he could adopt this craftiness in just an instance. It was amazing, very amazing. With this, he doesn't have to be crafty about everything he does.

"Alright then... so as long as I don't allow it to spread, I'm safe"

He bit off the flesh of his hand fiercely, with a crazy grin adorning his face. Blood flowed out and in a millisecond the blood transformed into a black sword that Raith grabbed in the air and brought it down on his hand.