Chapter 98: Blood Phantom
"Dammit!! Fight back!!" Ronny roared, swinging his massive Greatsword and forcing Vincent backward step by step.
Then, Vincent suddenly felt the presence of 8 and 7 moving away and heading directly towards the ruined estate, and his eyes darted toward the ruined estate.
’Tsk... the Young Master is still there. And I also feel another familiar presence there... is it Isaac?’ Vincent thought, while jumping backward to create distance from Ronny’s blade.
"Can you at least tell me why you killed him?!" Ronny asked in a low voice, stopping his assault and glaring at Vincent with pure anger. "Because with my knowledge of his character, the chances of him ever betraying you were zero! So why did you kill him?!"
"...?!"
Vincent didn’t say anything for a moment. He just stared at the grieving father.
"ANSWER ME, GODDAMMIT!!!" Ronny yelled, his voice breaking with emotion.
"Yeah... you are right. The chances of him actually betraying me were really low," Vincent admitted, looking down at the ash-covered ground. "But I didn’t want to take any chances at all. Even the slightest information leak could have led to the complete annihilation of the Thorne Family."
Vincent slowly looked up, his eyes completely devoid of warmth. "But who could have guessed that killing them back then would eventually lead to these attacks today? To the destruction of our home, and the deaths of so many of our workers and innocent villagers."
Vincent tightened his grip on his glowing swords. "My only real mistake... was that I should have burned their bodies to ash, or buried them in a deep ditch somewhere so you never would have found them."
"You bastard!!" Ronny screamed, tears streaming down his scarred face. "I thought you were maybe repenting for what you did! But once a scum, always a scum! I should have really killed you a long time ago!!"
Ronny dashed forward with blinding speed, but to his surprise, Vincent didn’t even try to dodge.
SHLUCK!!
Ronny drove his greatsword directly through Vincent’s gut. But instead of screaming, Vincent only looked at him and smiled peacefully.
"Why... why didn’t you dodge...?" Ronny asked, a complicated, hollow look forming on his face as he stared at Vincent.
"I just felt too guilty," Vincent whispered, a sad, apologetic look in his eyes.
"What...?!"
"I see... so this is what you desperately wanted to happen," a cold, familiar voice suddenly echoed from behind Ronny. "But too bad for you. I don’t see myself dying today."
"Huh?!"
Ronny whipped his head around. Standing perfectly unharmed behind him was Vincent.
Ronny quickly looked back at the Vincent he had just impaled with his Greatsword. Suddenly, the body completely lost its shape, melting into a disgusting, gooey puddle of thick blood that splashed onto the dirt.
"How is that even possible...?!" Ronny gasped, staring at the bloody puddle in absolute shock.
"Ohhh, that? It’s just a simple trick I used... that’s all," the real Vincent said calmly from behind him.
"You call this simple?! How the hell is that simple?!" Ronny yelled, turning around to face him. ’Is it magic?! Or a spell?! But I didn’t sense him using a single drop of mana at all! This entirely defies the understanding of the sword!’
"You must be thinking if I am secretly a Mage, right? Or if I somehow used a spell to—"
SWISH!!
"Don’t act cocky! If I can cut you once, I can easily do it again!!" Ronny roared, swinging his blade and cleanly cutting the talking Vincent entirely in half before he could even finish his sentence.
But once again, the body instantly melted into a puddle of crimson blood.
"You can cut as many of me as you want. It won’t change a single thing," another Vincent casually said, suddenly appearing sitting on the edge of a burning rooftop above him. "I already won this fight the exact moment you inhaled my blood mist."
"Blood mist?! What mist?!" Ronny demanded, frantically looking around.
"You didn’t notice, huh? It makes perfect sense. Since you were so blinded by your anger and attacking me non-stop, you didn’t notice the air changing at all," Vincent said, lazily leaning back against the roof tiles.
"But whether you noticed it or not, it won’t make a difference anyway. Since you are already dead."
"Dead?!" Ronny spat.
Suddenly, a thick, gurgling sound escaped Ronny’s lips. A fountain of dark blood abruptly burst from a deep, invisible gash across his throat.
"What the..." Ronny choked, his hands frantically flying to his neck as his vision faded to black.
"Just be grateful. Since you are the father of one of my past friends, I decided to give you a quick, painless death," the Vincent lying on the roof whispered, slowly fading away into thin air.
...
THUD
"Boss!"
Standing a few dozen yards away in the street, the remaining two masked assassins jumped in shock. They watched as Ronny suddenly dropped to his knees, clutching his bleeding throat, before collapsing completely dead in the dirt.
Vincent was standing perfectly still directly in front of the corpse.
"What the hell just happened?! They were just standing perfectly still for the past three minutes! I thought they were only talking!" one of the assassins panicked, rushing forward toward Ronny’s body.
"Huh... hey, wait. Something is not right," the other assassin suddenly said, grabbing his partner’s shoulder as they got closer.
"Yeah... what is up with this heavy bloody smell in the air?" the first assassin muttered, looking around in confusion.
SWISH!!
"The bloody smell you are sensing... is the blood mist," Vincent whispered coldly, suddenly appearing directly behind them. With a flick of his wrist, he cleanly sliced the second assassin’s head off.
"What...?!" The first assassin stopped dead in his tracks, desperately trying to raise his sword to defend against Vincent.
"Blood Lotus Twin Blade Art – Second Stage: Blood Mist,"
Vincent stated coldly, staring at the thick red mist pouring out of his twin blades. "It completely messes up the sensory perception of any opponents who ingest the red mist in the air."
Vincent tilted his head. "And what I just used to kill your Boss was the Third Stage: Phantom. That’s my favorite technique, I can effortlessly kill anyone just by showing them a simple illusion..."
’Illusions?!’ The final assassin thought, his heart pounding out of his chest as he frantically looked at the Vincent standing in front of him. ’Then... does this mean that this is also...’
"It seems you have finally guessed it," the Vincent in front of him smirked. "This is an illusion too."
SWISH!!
Just after the illusion spoke, the real Vincent swung his glowing blade from the shadows directly behind the assassin, cleanly severing his head from his shoulders. As the assassin’s head hit the ground, the ’Vincent’ standing in front of him slowly faded into a wisp of red mist while waving