Chương 280: 280： Hunting the Phantom Assassin

The twilight at Abysswater Keep was colder and more oppressive than anywhere else in the world. When the last sliver of the sun's dying light was swallowed by the horizon, a freezing, biting wind began to howl through the labyrinthine streets and alleys. The human laborers, having endured brutal whippings and bone-crushing oppression all day, were now consumed by frantic terror.

They shivered and scrambled back to their dark, drafty hovels, utterly terrified of drawing the wrath of the Orc patrols during the impending curfew. Soren pulled his tattered burlap cloak tighter around himself, leading Lyra as they hugged the shadows of the ruined walls. Just as they were about to turn a corner, a violent gust of wind rattled a loosely nailed piece of parchment against the stonework. Soren's footsteps halted.

Illuminated by the faint, flickering firelight cast from a distant Orc watchtower, his eyes locked onto the wanted poster. The edges of the parchment were stained with dark, dried blood. Written in crude, jagged Orcish script, accompanied by a barely legible line of Human Common, was a glaring bounty:"Reward: 100 Pure Gold Coins! Capture the Human Fugitive: Felix! Crime: Serial Infiltration and Assassination of three Overseers of the Blood Province!"

Beneath the bounty was a brief background description of the madman. Surprisingly, the assassin who had caused such an apocalyptic uproar in a heavily occupied, entirely hostile fortress wasn't some desperate, lowborn street thug. He was a knight—born to an orthodox human noble house, raised on strict, classical military etiquette.

"One hundred gold coins..." Lyra leaned in, her silver eyes widening slightly beneath her hood as she read the astronomical sum.

"My Lord, Orcs are notoriously stingy. In their eyes, a human life isn't even worth a sack of damp sorghum."

"To force them to post such a heavenly bounty... just how much absolute panic has this man, Felix, caused them?" Soren stared intently at the resolute, rugged face roughly sketched in charcoal on the poster. A profound, intense interest ignited in his heart. In the eyes of anyone else, this was a dead man walking—a desperate rat being hunted by an entire army of Orcs. But in the eyes of Soren, a former elite special forces operative, this was an unpolished diamond!

A prodigy with terrifying raw potential for Special Operations, who simply lacked professional, modern tactical training!

"Deep inside a heavily guarded enemy fortress. Zero logistical support. An absolute intelligence blackout."

"Operating entirely alone, he executes multiple covert infiltrations. He successfully assassinates three high-ranking Orc officers who possess physical stats and raw power vastly superior to a human's... and manages to safely extract every single time..." Soren rapidly calculated the gold-tier value behind this astonishing combat record, his heartbeat quickening slightly:"His psychological fortitude for covert infiltration, his impeccable route planning, and his lethal commitment to the one-hit kill...

he already possesses the absolute core framework of a modern Special Reconnaissance Operative!"

"Right now, Greywater Village has the Macedonian Phalanx to hold the frontline meat grinder. We have the Longbow Battalion to provide ranged saturation fire. But we strictly lack elite personnel capable of penetrating deep behind enemy lines to execute precision decapitations and sabotage missions!" Soren turned his head, his gaze seeming to pierce through the heavy, suffocating night of the fortress.

"Lyra, before we head to the tavern for the rendezvous, we are going to try and find this knight."

"Find him?!" Lyra was genuinely stunned.

"My Lord, Abysswater Keep may be a ruin, but it still holds tens of thousands of people. Finding a master of stealth right under the noses of thousands of Orc guards and a terrified civilian populace... it's practically impossible!" Soren merely offered a cold, predatory smile. [Eagle Eye Perception] instantly activated!

"He is a knight born of a noble house. He harbors an inviolable pride deep in his bones. He won't hide in a latrine or a cesspit." Soren's piercing gaze rapidly swept across the architectural layout of the fortress in the distance:"He just assassinated an Orc officer, which means the fortress is on absolute lockdown. He requires a location with elevated lines of sight for early warning, a complex layout with multiple extraction routes, and the shadows necessary to blend into the darkness."

Soren's eyes finally locked onto a massive, sprawling sector in the northwest corner of the fortress. It was a former slum. The buildings were densely packed and mostly collapsed, creating a chaotic, labyrinthine maze of crisscrossing alleys.

"Let's go. We head for those ruins. If my tactical intuition is correct, this lone wolf is hiding right in that blind spot." The two figures melted silently into the night, moving with ghost-like precision toward the northwest corner. Along the way, they flawlessly evaded three heavily armed Orc patrols. The Orcs carried blazing torches and led demonic tracking hounds with hyper-sensitive olfaction.

The grim, murderous atmosphere saturating the fortress made it abundantly clear that the Orc high command was in a state of frantic desperation to catch this assassin. As Soren and Lyra pushed deep into the foul-smelling, garbage-strewn alleys of the slum, a harrowing, miserable scream suddenly tore through the silence of the night. Soren raised a hand, instantly signaling Lyra to halt. Pressing tightly against the cold stone, the two nimbly vaulted onto a half-collapsed roof.

Using the jagged, broken wall for cover, they peered down into the depths of the alleyway below. If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. Two massive, hulking Green-skin Orcs were currently forcing a ragged human woman into a dead end. The woman looked no older than seventeen or eighteen. Chronic malnutrition had left her face sallow and her body frail, but the sheer, unadulterated terror contorting her features right now was stronger than the fear of death itself.

"Run! Why aren't you running anymore, you weak little human?" One of the Green-skin Orcs, whose face was disfigured by a grotesque, pulsating tumor, let out a brazen, sadistic laugh. He violently ripped off his grease-stained leather armor, exposing a massive chest covered in coarse black hair. Foul, foul-smelling saliva dripped heavily from his jutting tusks.

"I've been fighting grueling battles on the front lines for half a month! Today, a tender-skinned human bitch like you is exactly what I need to vent my frustrations! And when I'm done, I'm going to rip out your organs and roast them over a fire!" The woman shrieked miserably. Driven by absolute despair, she frantically grabbed loose stones from the muck and hurled them at the Orcs, but the pitiful projectiles only drew more brazen, twisted mockery from the monsters.

Just as the Orc's massive hand, tipped with filthy, razor-sharp nails, reached out to rip the rags from the woman's chest... A flurry of hurried, chaotic footsteps erupted from the entrance of the alley.

"Who's there?! What are you doing!" Eight human soldiers, clad in inferior, mismatched leather armor and gripping rusted iron spears, rushed into the alley. The flickering light of their torches fully illuminated the sickening sin taking place within. Up on the roof, Lyra frowned deeply. Her face twisted with profound disgust as she whispered to Soren:"Human slave auxiliaries. Collaborators. A pathetic bunch of traitors willing to act as lapdogs for the Orcs just for a few bites of leftover scraps."

Soren remained silent, his eyes calm and utterly devoid of emotion as he quietly observed the situation unfolding below. The captain leading the slave patrol was a man nearing thirty named Bart. He had originally been a regular soldier in the city defense force of Abysswater Keep. Ten years ago, when the fortress fell, to spare his own life, he had no choice but to don the leather armor universally despised by his own compatriots.

When Bart used the torchlight to get a clear look at the cornered woman, the hand gripping his iron spear trembled violently. He knew her. She was the daughter of the old carpenter from the south side of the city. Just a few days prior, the old carpenter had been beaten to death in the streets for failing to deliver his daily tribute of firewood to the Orcs.

"Are you blind?! Get the hell out of here!" The tumor-faced Orc snapped his head around, his face contorting into a mask of violent, bloodthirsty rage.

"A bunch of lowly, filthy slaves dare to interrupt my fun?! Believe it or not, I'll flay every single one of you alive and use your tendons for bowstrings!" Faced with the Orc's explosive wrath, the slave soldiers behind Bart instinctively flinched, retreating a half-step in sheer terror. The torches in their hands shook visibly. In this fortress, the status of a human collaborator was even lower than that of an Orc's hunting hound. For an Orc to butcher them in the streets required absolutely zero justification.

A flattering, sycophantic smile—one uglier and more painful than crying—was forcefully squeezed onto Bart's face. He slowly bowed at the waist:"Two warriors... Please, esteemed warriors, quell your anger. We... we are merely patrolling on orders." Bart swallowed hard. Pointing a trembling finger at the shivering woman, he adopted a thoroughly pleading tone:"Lord Warriors, please! This woman is infected with the deadly Rot-spot disease! She is highly toxic!

If you touch her, or eat her flesh, you will undoubtedly catch the plague!"

"Why don't... why don't I go straight to the storehouse right now and procure two fresh, incredibly fat pigs for your excellencies to enjoy..."

"Bullshit!" The second Orc didn't buy the desperate lie for a second. He took a massive stride forward and delivered a devastating, brutal kick squarely into Bart's chest! CRACK! The sheer kinetic force of the blow was staggering. Bart was violently launched backward through the air, crashing heavily against the ruined brick wall behind him. He instantly coughed up a massive spray of dark crimson blood.

"You lowly, subhuman trash dare to meddle in my business?!" The Orc lazily drew a broad-bladed machete from his waist. He stepped over to Bart, using the flat of the heavy blade to mockingly, cruelly slap the human captain's bloody cheek.

"Not only am I going to fuck her today, I'm going to fuck her right in front of you!" The Orc spat in Bart's face.

"You, and your pathetic, cowardly subordinates... you're going to stand right here, line up, and watch!" Those words... that absolute, soul-crushing humiliation... It brutally shattered the final, agonizingly thin line of their endurance. In this narrow, filthy alleyway, it violently ignited a spark of human defiance that had been buried deep in the mud for an entire decade. Bart slowly, unsteadily pushed himself up from the bloody, freezing muck. He casually wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth.

The numb, sycophantic, and cowardly expression that had defined his face for ten years vanished entirely. In its place was the terrifying, unyielding resolve of a desperate beast backed into an absolute corner, fully prepared to fight to the death!