The Return Of The Exiled Villain

Forty minutes ago...

”AAAAAH!!”

”WHAT’S HAPPENING?!”

”RUN!!!”

Smoke and dust flooded the room, and before it could settle, a couple of dark figures dropped down from above.

The moment Gray saw them, he slipped behind one of the thick stone pillars, pressing his back against it, diminishing his presence to the maximum.

’...What a strong killing intent. As expected from killers from the Shadow Order.’

He eyed them carefully before suddenly, the array in the ground activated, trapping Evelyn, Gloria, and Alina in one go.

However, even as they rushed towards the king, Gray didn’t move, as he didn’t care about the king’s life at all.

Instead, he kept on watching them until the king summoned what seemed to be his personal guard and ran away.

His personal guard started fighting against the fifteen assassins, so Gray took the opportunity to analyze the array.

He knew breaking it directly was impossible. But if he somehow figured out how it works, maybe he could create a weaker version of it to his own benefit.

’It uses demonic energy as the medium, with exactly twenty-three candles being used as the support objects... on, twenty-four since I removed one of them. But strangely... all the other twenty-three don’t have a trace of demon energy... only when the array was raised.’

Cautiously, he approached one of the candles and took a closer look at it before finding a strange yet almost invisible pattern etched on it.

Seeing this, Gray took the leisure to approach another candle and saw the same pattern on it, causing him to stop slighly.

’Same patterns... So, this is a combination that instead creates demonic energy, and then another array overwrites to use that same demonic energy to form the Blood Sword Formation,’ he pondered silently.

With that in mind, instead of looking at the candles, he started searching the trident, holding them, trying to see if he could find anything suspicious about it.

And just like he had thought...

’Another symbol... so that means that there are indeed two arrays instead of one,’ Gray nodded lightly.

’Now, I just need to figure out how the arrays are created... or basically their source.’

He took a few steps back, being careful not to be noticed, and then closed his eyes before maximizing his senses.

His spiritual awareness spread through the ballroom as he started feeling the waves of demonic energy flowing through the air.

Around the fifteen assassins, two pentadecagons were formed instead of the single one Gray had seen with his eyes.

The one from below was extracting the mana from the air before making the mana flow through every trident and then gaining the appearance of demonic energy.

But how was it turning to demonic energy?

That was what Gray wanted to know.

So, instead of focusing on the array from below, he decided to take a deep look at the fifteen assassins.

They didn’t seem to have some kind of object that turned regular mana into demonic energy... or at least... everyone except the leader.

’...Got it.’

His lips curled up slighly as his eyes locked on the green gourd on the leader’s waist. From his speculations, that would be some kind of demonic artifact that could turn regular mana into demonic energy.

Why?

Because actually, there was a hidden passage that was very well hidden.

The mana continuously passed through the trident, but before the final rotation, a shockwave of energy came out from the gourd.

And then, as the final rotation came, the regular mana suddenly transformed into demonic energy!

That was the key that made both the arrays work!

The medium wasn’t actually that candle filled with demonic energy, but instead, the green gourd the leader of the assassins had!

’...Interesting,’ Gray’s eyes narrowed slighly.

’Swap Mark...’

He directly marked the green gourd, because, previously, when his Swap reached level seven, it now allowed him to actually switch the positions of objects with other objects!

[Gray! More assassins are appearing... nine of them, all of them nearing the Great Grandmaster realm.]

Suddenly, Jasmine warned him, breaking his thoughts as he turned in the direction where he felt a faint and hidden killing intent.

Instantly, Gray shot forward, as he knew the advantage of being the one to attack.

”H-huh?”

One of the assassins, still in the middle of closing the net, barely had time to widen his eyes before Gray appeared right in front of him.

THUD!

”K–kuarghhh!!”

A heavy punch slammed straight into his solar plexus. The air was ripped from his lungs in a violent gasp as his body folded forward, hands clutching uselessly at his stomach.

Splat!

And before he could even collapse, Gray’s hand seized his head and drove it brutally into his rising knee.

Crack!

The sound of bone breaking echoed out as blood burst from his nostrils and splashed across the ground as his body went limp.

”Be careful! An obstacle has appeared!”

Seeing this, one of the assassins quickly communicated to the others, and in just a matter of seconds, Gray was surrounded by eight assassins.

”.....”

He remained silent, but then cracked his head slighly.

And just during those actions, four assassins attacked him from four different directions, all of them using daggers to aim at his vital points.

Instead of waiting, Gray stepped into the attack.

He slipped toward one of them, ducking under the downward stab, spun on his heel, and drove his elbow up into the assassin’s neck.

Thud!

The man’s eyes rolled back as his body went slack.

’Seven...’

Gray caught the limp arm without slowing down and swung the unconscious body like a weapon, hurling it straight into another assassin rushing in.

Thump!

One assassin barely managed to catch the crashing body, staggering back, while the remaining two attacked from the front and rear at the same time.

This time, Gray waited for the perfect moment of their attack.

And just as their daggers came within a few centimeters of his body...

Thud, fwump!

His knee crushed into one man’s stomach, folding him in half, while his elbow smashed into the other’s ribs with a dull crack.

Clatter...

Both daggers slipped from numb fingers and clattered uselessly onto the ground as their owners collapsed.

’Five.’

Fwoop!

An assassin rushed from above, causing Gray to jump back instinctively, just to be met with another assassin already swinging both his daggers at his back.

Gray saw this and twisted his body mid-air before channeling mana onto his feet, creating a blade neatly at the sole of his shoe and swinging his legs at the assassin’s dagger.

Clink!

His kick met the dagger’s head-on, the metal screaming as the assassin’s daggers shattered into fragments.

Gray landed lightly, snapped his gaze forward, and flicked his wrist. Three broken pieces flew like arrows, burying themselves in the assassin’s neck before he could react.

Snip, snip!

SPLAT!

The assassin couldn’t react as the three pieces pierced through his neck, causing his blood to erupt violently, spraying outward as the man collapsed, choking on his own breath.

’Four.’

He rushed to the assassin who had come from above before, but this time, the four of them changed strategies as they took out a strange bottle and smeared a thick green substance onto their daggers, the liquid clinging to the blades with an ominous sheen.

’Poison...? Perfect.’

He had been searching for poison for quite a while now, and poison used by the Shadow Order was never low-grade.

He just needed to be extra careful about it.

’...I shouldn’t knock out all of them for now.’ Gray thought.

He still wanted to gather a bit of information from one of them at least, and the target he chose was the one with the stronger cultivation, as normally the strongest is the leader of the group.

Fwip!

Before Gray could act on that thought, one of the assassins suddenly flung both poisoned daggers straight at him.

Gray slid to the side just in time, and suddenly, another figure burst out of the ground behind him, dagger aimed directly at his lower back.

Thud!

”H-how t-the...”

The words never finished.

In that brief instant, Gray pushed his speed to twenty times its normal limit and struck first. His hand flashed forward, snapping the man’s neck with a sharp, dry crack.

The body collapsed lifelessly before the blade could even touch him.

’...Surprisingly, they actually made me use the speed multiplier granted by the Nine Illusionary Dream Steps.’

He was a little surprised.

However, he shook those meaningless thoughts and rushed towards one of the three remaining assassins.

”Number two, now!”

The seemingly leader suddenly called out, and suddenly Gray heard a murmur coming from behind him.

”Shadow Exchange...!”

Fwip!

The assassin whose neck had just been snapped suddenly appeared behind him, his body jerking forward as if pulled by an invisible force, his daggers rushing toward Gray’s back.

At that time, Gray’s voice echoed.

”You don’t learn, do you?”

SPLURT!

His arm moved once.

This time, it wasn’t the neck.

The man’s head flew cleanly from his shoulders, spinning through the air before hitting the ground with a wet sound.

Blood sprayed across the floor as the corpse collapsed, motionless.

The remaining two assassins froze, their eyes widening in pure shock.

”...Alright. I’ve had enough fun.”

Splat!

One of the fallen daggers trembled, then lifted into the air under Gray’s control.

It shot forward like a bolt of lightning, piercing straight through an assassin’s chest and stopping his heart instantly.

Only one remained.

Swish!

Gray vanished from his sight.

The leader staggered backward, his daggers slipping from his hands and clattering onto the ground as he slammed against a stone pillar.

”Y-you...!!!”

Thump!

”KUGGH!”

A brutal strike buried itself in his stomach. His knees buckled, and he collapsed to the ground as Gray appeared before him, standing silently.

Gray looked down at him coldly.

”Now tell me...”

He grabbed the assassin by the hood and yanked him up, forcing their eyes to meet.

”Where does your organization get its poison from?”