\nChapter 3664
A strange figure suddenly appeared behind Xia Chen. After that, a dagger stabbed toward the back of his head as quickly as a bolt of lightning, without any sound.
However, the dagger went straight through Xia Chen’s body; the latter was nothing more than an illusion. A foot-long talisman two inches wide then spun through that person’s neck. Without even being able to grunt, that person’s head was cut off by the talisman.
Xia Chen waved his hand, and the talisman flew into his hand like a cyclone. It was clearly a piece of paper but was as sharp as a divine weapon. It came and went without a shadow, slashing through defenses.
The most shocking thing to Long Chen and Guo Ran was that the moment Xia Chen was attacked, even Long Chen didn’t manage to see how he instantly moved himself. His movement art was bizarre. There was no premonition at all.
“Damn, this movement art, this attacking style, it’s all badass!” Guo Ran finally had a chance to see Xia Chen fight. His movements were clean and sharp. Seeing it, Guo Ran was envious.
“This fellow was an expert. He already gathered six tablets. Let’s split them, two each,” said Xia Chen.
“I don’t need them. I’ll gather them myself,” said Guo Ran proudly.
“Take them for now in order to not be exposed. Only a dead person wouldn’t have any tablets on them. It would be troublesome to be noticed,” said Long Chen.
Since Long Chen said that, Guo Ran took two tablets. They continued onward, growing increasingly familiar with the terrain here. The three of them were linked by formation discs. As they gradually grew more confident, they spread out a bit more and started the trial.
It had to be known that assassins didn’t fight in groups. Even if they had the same target, they would fight for themselves.
The number one rule for an assassin was that they could only trust themselves. The allies beside them might be even more dangerous than their enemies.
Long Chen, Guo Ran, and Xia Chen weren’t skilled in sneaking like assassins. They just randomly ran around the forest, intentionally drawing other assassins to them so that they could kill the assassins.
It was unknown if it was Guo Ran’s acting that was simply too good, but other than the first person to try to assassinate him, no one else targeted him even after an hour. Most likely, it was because his display was just too exaggerated. The assassins were no fools. The more he acted like he was trying to draw other people over, the more they felt that something was wrong.
On the other hand, Long Chen and Xia Chen had killed over ten people. After killing those people, Long Chen would directly soulsearch their soul fragments. He finally understood the rules of the trial.
This was the greatest trial for the Nine Underworld Hall and was only held once every ten years. It was the strongest and cruelest trial.
This trial region had a special magnetic field. If anyone dared to leave the region, without that magnetic field, the poison pill that they had consumed in advance would erupt, and they would die a miserable death.
Thus, no one dared to flee. What they had to do was obtain nine other tablets to protect their lives.
When it came to ordinary assassins, staying alive was their main priority. But to the experts, hunting down more people was their goal. Then they could directly advance to the final trial.
Other than this trial, there were three more coming up. Every trial was filled with dangers, all with one in ten chances of surviving.
If they could obtain one hundred tablets this time, they could directly skip the next few trials. That would save them quite a bit of effort and allow them to avoid some dangers.
However, all the true experts were at the core of the trial region. That was because they were experts with confidence in their power. They would hunt down their enemies as quickly as possible, as there were only a total of three hundred spots available for those who could skip to the final trial. If they were too late, they would not get that privilege.
As for the region that Long Chen was in, it was the outer region. Those that had come here were comparatively weak. Their goal was only to gather nine tablets and live.
Once they gathered nine tablets, they could leave the trial and obtain the reward for passing.
After that, they had two options. One was to continue participating in the trials and gaining further rewards, or they could simply give up. They would then be sent to branch halls to carry out their own missions, starting their assassination careers.
To these weaker people, gathering nine tablets was their ultimate goal. If they were lucky, they might only need to kill a single person. If that person had eight tablets, they would directly pass.
Of course, the opposite was also true. You might kill several people and gather eight tablets, only to be killed by your final target. You could only accept your bad luck in that case.
The Nine Underworld Hall’s trial was bloody and cruel. However, those that were here didn’t have much fear. They had long since grown numb to life. They weren’t just indifferent to other people’s lives but also their own.
It was this indifference to life that let them abandon any fear, maintaining a cool heart at all times. That would allow them to truly unleash the power of an assassin. To put it frankly, they were nothing more than killing machines with no emotions.
Contrary to the Bloodkill Hall’s assassins, the Nine Underworld Hall’s assassins focused purely on assassination arts and the techniques involved. The Bloodkill Hall’s assassins also focused on assassination arts, but they were more specialized in scheming, traps, hidden weapons, poison, honey traps, tricking enemies, and other things.
One pushed assassination arts to the limit, while the other came up with all kinds of various stratagems. They were both assassins, but both looked upon the other with hostility. The Nine Underworld Hall looked down on the Bloodkill Hall’s scheming, thinking that assassins should specialize only in assassination techniques.
On the other hand, the Bloodkill Hall also looked down on the Nine Underworld Hall for being unwilling to use any means necessary to assassinate their targets. They would rather use their smarts to save the effort.
Since that was the case, the Bloodkill Hall’s assassins looked at the Nine Underworld Hall’s assassins as if the latter were fools. In their minds, assassins pursued only results, so they had to be skilled at scheming and using any means necessary.
But because of the same reason, the Nine Underworld Hall’s assassins viewed the Bloodkill Hall’s assassins as the scum of the assassination world. Even an assassin had to have their own bottom lines. Dirty schemes and third-rate tricks were blasphemy to the profession of assassins. An assassin should focus on assassination arts, both in the open and in the dark. As long as they killed their target, they would be an assassin.
To sum it up, both halls, from the masters to the disciples, were like water and fire. If it weren’t for Lord Brahma restricting them, both of those halls would have long since slaughtered each other.
However, when it came to pure combat power, the Nine Underworld Hall’s fighting power was a level stronger than the Bloodkill Hall’s. After all, their skills were the result of direct kills.
On the other hand, the Bloodkill Hall’s assassins would be forced to flee as soon as they were exposed. If they couldn’t run, they could only accept their defeat. When it came to a head-on clash, they weren’t worth shit.
However, these particular assassins here were clearly disciples. Their assassination arts might be refined, but they were lacking experience. Their movements were clearly a bit tender.
Long Chen’s group of three continued toward the core. Long Chen had already gathered over three hundred tablets, and Xia Chen was about the same. Only Guo Ran was stuck crying. He had killed six people and only gathered seven tablets from them.
It had to be known that the people that Long Chen killed always had a few tablets at the very least. Some even had dozens.
Just as the three of them entered the core region, a figure suddenly descended from the heavens and stabbed at Guo Ran’s head. It was a surprisingly head-on sneak attack.
Guo Ran directly grabbed that person’s sharp sword, shocking him. This was an extremely confident expert, otherwise, he wouldn’t be attacking head-on like this. However, he hadn’t expected his target to be able to grab his sword barehanded.
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Just as he was shocked, an arrow cylinder appeared on Guo Ran’s left hand, and an arrow flew out like a bolt of black lightning, piercing that person’s head.
“Heavens, I’ve struck gold!”
Guo Ran was delighted to find eight hundred and ninety-seven tablets on that person. When he pulled them into his bag that was specifically used to hold tablets, his bag suddenly lit up, and Guo Ran’s figure vanished.
“Not good. This little fellow’s been transported away.”
Long Chen and Xia Chen’s expressions instantly changed. It had happened too suddenly. They didn’t know whether or not Guo Ran was about to be exposed.