Kingdom: The Black Moon Assassin

The pain in Ba Tei's body had intensified to the point where he felt as though his muscles were going to explode. Simply sitting and answering the barrage of questions these great martial artists dressed in black were asking was unbearable.

At that moment, he was forced to recount the entire sequence of events yet again.

No detail was omitted, and everything was said. Up until now, Ba Tei was still furious with the fool who had started the fight and the two Ruan brothers. Naturally, he described the facts honestly. If it hadn't been for those three idiots suddenly fighting each other for no reason, would he—a great general—be in this situation?

He barely managed to finish speaking with sincerity before his body nearly gave out from the pain.

Even after seeing the twins dead, Ruan still hated them for being so foolish as to fight amongst their allies.

As they listened to Ba Tei's story, the expressions of the men in black, one named Kai and the other Zen, became grim. They too were baffled by the sudden conflict between the three.

No matter how they looked at it, the three shouldn't have been so reckless as to fight right on the borders of the villages they were supposed to exterminate!

"Inspect the bodies thoroughly!" Kai ordered coldly.

The men in black approached the pile of corpses and bent over them.

Zen, acting in his usual ruthless style, stripped the body of Ruan Yang completely with a dull sound! Then, with a wave of his hand, he began reconstructing the body piece by piece, managing to restore it fully.

"This Ruan Yang's body has many obvious puncture wounds—on the neck, thighs, buttocks, everywhere. There are a total of 21 impacts."

Kai nodded slightly as he stroked his beard and muttered, "Assassins are experts in throwing metal needles, but in this case, the needles appear to have been made of ice, which is uncommon."

The locations of the injuries were extremely strange, as if he had been pierced by something, but there were no traces of anything.

From the blood, it was highly likely that the wounds were caused by some type of hidden weapon resembling needles. However, there were only a few iron needles found in the area, fewer than the number of wounds.

As martial artists, Kai knew perfectly well what a stabbing wound looked like. Since there were no traces of daggers or swords, it was very likely that the attackers had used ice needles.

"This is our fault..." Zen, naturally, wanted to find an excuse to cover for his men. But the more he analyzed, the stranger the situation became.

He shook his head directly and fell silent towards the end. What kind of stealth attack could stab with such precision at the rear of a martial artist who was fighting a general of the Zhao army?

Even if he wracked his brain, he wouldn't be able to solve this puzzle. There was no way Ruan would obediently lean over and allow his backside to be pierced, right? That would be too ridiculous.

But as Kai had mentioned, it was plausible that the weapon used was a perfectly thrown ice needle.

"If the Wei army is involved, this must be reported directly to the King of Zhao immediately," Kai said, pondering deeply about how to handle this situation.

Zen's face darkened as he conducted his investigation in silence.

"No need to look further. The assassins played with you like foolish children. Now, we must bring our army into these woods and burn every settlement we come across." Kai wasn't too concerned about this; they had an army of five thousand soldiers now marching in this direction.

It was likely that the Ruan twins were enraged after being penetrated from behind to such a degree that they exploded with anger and shame. Thus, their allies, who were fighting amongst themselves, wouldn't rest until the other was dead.

As their commanders fought, how were the common soldiers supposed to know what to do? That confusion led to disorganization, and the disorganization led to them all being slaughtered.

"That's what happened..." Ba Tei couldn't help but admit his mistakes.

This analysis was very close to the truth. It was clear that Kai's analytical abilities were top-notch.

The only thing he got wrong was attributing the ice needles to multiple assassins.

Jun had attacked to kill, not to slowly wound his enemies.

"However, Ba Tei's injuries are the strangest. The truth is, he will die soon, but what I don't understand is why he wasn't killed the moment they had the chance," Kai murmured, looking at the unconscious Ba Tei, who, if he survived, would be crippled for life.

Zen glanced around and asked, "Is it because he didn't listen?"

"I don't think so. They had enough time to kill him and escape, but they didn't. Maybe they wanted us to know who attacked us, so informing the higher-ups would be pointless if they're already dead," Kai replied, shaking his head. His intuition was truly terrifying.

Jun had left Ba Tei alive to send a message to the attackers that Wei was once again encroaching on their borders.

What he hadn't expected was that Kai, the new general tasked with eliminating the assassins of Zhao, was so perceptive.

This would be a problem, but of course he was unaware of it.

...

A few hours later, near a mountain, there was a hidden cave where Chen lived. Until today, he hadn't acted with so much freedom.

"I don't want to boast too much, but I think it's time for me to present myself again to the council of assassin clans." Chen felt proud when he said this, though it was evident that his influence wasn't significant.

If anyone refused to follow him, it was likely a battle would break out to determine who would once again lead as the king of assassins.

Considering that they were about to be attacked soon, they had to move.

"Are you sure they'll follow you?" Jun was sharpening the blade of his sword, skeptical of Chen's claims, who could barely hold his own against three people.

"Will we get into another fight?" Shen asked nervously, having been carried to this location, feeling quite useless on this mission.

But strength wasn't Shen's quality. Jun had brought Shen along because his ideas were often spot-on in diverse situations.

In normal circumstances, Jun listened to Shen's advice, so he looked at him carefully and asked, "What do you think could convince those people to follow us?"

"Only if you know who a Black Moon is, future Crescent Moon of the Asura village, which is part of the Haiyue assassin clan." Shen had been clear that Jun should be the new king of assassins.

Chen had disappeared from the world of assassins, and obviously, many would question his abilities. If that happened, Jun would have to step in to help Shen or, on the other hand, become the new king of assassins.

"Well, it's that, or let them die here," Jun murmured while looking at the twins, who had fallen silent.