Re: Tales of the Rune-Tech Sage

Chapter 533: Shadow Couple’s Assassination

CH533 Shadow Couple’s Assassination

***

About an hour later, the rest of the Fortuna party caught up with the scouts.

They had successfully tracked the fleeing gnolls back to their village. Although the creatures had tried to throw off possible pursuits, their attempts were laughably crude before a hunter of Silver’s calibre.

When Alex saw the settlement, he finally understood how the gnolls had survived in the supposed brutal environment that defined the Wildlands’ core.

A cesspool where berserk beasts, their nest, monster, berserk humans, adventurers, bandits, and all manner of savoury and unsavoury existences collided daily.

The answer was surprisingly simple.

They had found geography that favoured them.

The village lay within a natural hollow— a modest patch of land encircled by low hills.

For the gnolls, those hills were perfect.

They were high enough to break lines of sight from ground level, concealing smoke and movement. While also being low enough that they didn’t isolate themselves or restrict escape.

They were also just tall enough to serve as early warning posts.

’The only real threat would be aerial predators,’ Alex thought. ’And in terrain like this, those can be spotted from miles away.’

For that reason, he had ordered Senu to stay higher than usual, avoiding detection.

While it wasn’t ideal, the queen eagle still provided a workable overview through their shared vision— just not as vivid as Alex preferred.

”We can’t march straight into a gnoll village numbering in the hundreds,” Alex said calmly. ”Not with a Class 4 shaman at the helm. And if they have a worshipped Ancestral Spirit, an open siege with our current strength is suicide.”

”We need to take out the shaman first,” Mordor said.

As a shaman himself, he understood better than anyone what such a figure meant to a tribe of this size.

”Exactly,” Alex agreed.

His wives frowned the moment they saw the look in his eyes.

They knew that expression.

He was about to suggest something they wouldn’t like.

”Here’s my plan,” Alex said with a smile.

”It’s pretty simple. A small group will sneak into the camp and assassinate the gnoll shaman. While they are still in confusion, the rest of us will lay siege to the camp, target the stronger gnolls first, then mop up the weaker ones.”

”And who are you sending to infiltrate the village to assassinate the gnoll shaman?” Zora asked.

Unfortunately, Alex did not miss the veiled edge in her tone.

”Udara and I will go. We probably have the best combination of stealth and strength needed to take down the shaman. Not to mention, we’ll also be able to ensure he doesn’t trigger a Divine Descent like before,” Alex replied without thinking.

Fortunately for him, he had casually provided a valid argument. Plus, Zora trusted Udara to keep him in line. So she did not chew his head off.

Not realising the disaster he had just escaped, Alex and Udara moved immediately while the rest of the party prepared for the assault.

[Shadow Dash]!

[Abyssal Conqueror’s Step: Second Step – Phantom’s Veil]!

Both vanished, swallowed by darkness mana.

Alex plotted a complex path rapidly through the gnoll settlement to arrive beside the shaman’s hut— if it could be called that. By the time he arrived, his back was slightly soaked. It had taken more out of him than he expected.

Udara, on the other hand, simply emerged beside him from the shadows.

Whether she had an easier time or was merely more accustomed to the mental strain of infiltration, Alex couldn’t tell.

The pair did not need to speak.

They both knew what had to be done.

[Delayed Spell: Triple Fireball]!

Without Eleanore’s enhancement buff, Alex compensated the old-fashioned way— by brute force, pouring more mana into the spell.

The gnolls, still shaken from their failure at the gorge and busy tending to their wounded, were struck completely out of the blue.

BOOM!!!

A violent explosion tore through the village.

Three blazing fireballs detonated in a triangular pattern, the shaman’s hut at the centre.

The shockwave blasted nearby gnolls away, preventing them from immediately rushing in to help.

But Alex and Udara, who were far closer, knew the truth.

The strike hadn’t killed a Class 4 shaman.

[Shadow Dash]!

[Amazonian Might]!

Udara burst forward, stacking both abilities in one decisive move.

The instant the shaman’s instinctive defensive [Magic Wall] flickered and dropped, Udara was already behind him.

Backstab!

Her twin shortswords punched into the gnoll’s back before he could re-establish control or raise higher-tier defences.

Even so, the shaman refused to die quietly.

With the last shred of life in his body, he tried to force out one final act.

Alex had anticipated it.

[Abyssal Conqueror’s Step: Third Step – Wraith’s Crossing]!

He moved a heartbeat after Udara.

Wristblade! Assassinate!

Appearing right in front of the shaman, the blade snapped out from the Beta Bracer and drove upward from beneath the creature’s chin, punching into skull and brain.

’I know you can hear me. Come out, now!’ Alex roared inwardly.

That alone should have ended it.

But Alex did not believe in should.

His free palm slammed into the shaman’s chest.

Immediately, Lord Bonsai’s mark flared to life on the back of his hand. A root burst forth, spearing into the corpse and draining the divine energy within, severing whatever miracle the gnoll had been about to unleash with its dying breath.

’Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.’

He would not allow another desperate clergy to gamble on some last-moment salvation.

The entire exchange happened within a blink.

The surrounding gnolls didn’t even understand what they had just witnessed.

[Shadow Dash]!

[Phantom’s Veil]!

Alex and Udara vanished at once, leaving only the collapsed body of the shaman behind.

AAARRRGHH!!!

The gnolls howled in anguish and fury.

Assuming their enemies were fleeing, several remaining Class 3 gnolls rallied their kin and charged out of the settlement.

Alas...

They were completely wrong.

Alex and Udara had not retreated outward.

They had slipped downward — into the underground shrine hidden beneath the shaman’s hut.

The enraged gnolls ran straight into the kill zone waiting outside.

Arrows. Bolts. Glaives. Spears. Swords. Spells.

The full variety of Fortuna’s arsenal rained down on warriors too blinded by grief and rage to defend themselves.

Within moments, the backbone of the village’s fighting strength was erased.

Almost instantly.

***