Chapter 12: Revenge

Jordan always went to great lengths to appear shrewd and alert, but in truth he was merely too clever for his own good. He thought that since they were both Strong-rank ability users, they ought to be evenly matched. He failed to realize that even within the same rank, skill in using an ability and combat experience could put two fighters worlds apart. Besides, Gambling Snake had already learned about Jordan's ability through Gilson II's Book of the Heart. For a seasoned assassin like him, knowing both himself and his enemy meant he could fight a hundred battles without defeat.

When the distance between them fell below two meters, Gambling Snake slipped behind Jordan in the blink of an eye and thrust with his sleeve blade. Jordan could readily keep up with that speed. He turned, dodged the thrust, and caught Gambling Snake's wrist in the same movement. At that instant, Jordan even thought he had already won.

His ability was Mental Infection. Once he had maintained contact with a target for at least two seconds, it could take effect immediately. Sure enough, Gambling Snake began behaving strangely at once. With a roar, he wrenched his wrist free through brute force, then retreated more than ten meters. His whole body shook uncontrollably. His composed expression vanished; his face flushed red, its veins bulging. A dozen or so seconds passed, and he seemed unable to contain himself any longer. He suddenly burst into laughter, his expression contorted, waving his sleeve blade about at random like a drunken lunatic.

A cold smile crept onto Jordan's lips. He was very pleased with this reaction. Those affected by his ability behaved much like someone suffering a drug overdose, except that they would neither foam at the mouth nor die of poisoning.

Mentally, it was like taking a full fifty methamphetamine pills. Even a little of the stuff could keep an ordinary person stimulated for at least five hours. Imagine dozens of times that effect unleashed in a single instant, and Gambling Snake's behavior made perfect sense.

Smiling smugly, Jordan said to Gilson II, “My lord, he's essentially lost all awareness now. Every muscle is working flat out, and the blood is racing through his veins. I'll take you to the safe room so you can shelter there. We can leave him here to thrash about by himself. An ordinary person hit by my ability will collapse unconscious from exhaustion within an hour at most. Someone like him probably won't last more than a few minutes longer. Then you can take him alive, and after that…” What came next went without saying. Torture worthy of hell, of course.

A morbid smile appeared on Gilson II's face, as though he had been transported from hell to heaven in an instant. “Hahaha… So your time has finally come!” he bellowed at Gambling Snake, who stood waving his sleeve blade wildly at nothing.

“My lord, we'd better leave first,” Jordan said. “He's still somewhat dangerous in this state.” He was right about that. Mental Infection destroyed a target's reason, but their instincts remained, and might well be heightened. Jordan had long since developed a secret fear of Gambling Snake. In this state, Gambling Snake was the last person Jordan wanted to approach.

He bent down and reached out to help Gilson II up. At that very instant, a sleeve blade pierced the back of his neck and emerged through his throat, its point almost touching Gilson II's eye. Jordan's blood ran along the blade's fuller and dripped onto the count's cheek, making him realize that he had never escaped hell. He had fallen to its lowest depths.

Gambling Snake spoke into his still-living opponent's ear. “If you don't understand, I can explain. Before coming up here, I took a large dose of sedatives. I also slowed down that thrust at you just now, deliberately giving you a chance to touch me.

“That's why you underestimated my top speed and fell for my act of going mad. In the end, you did something as stupid as letting your guard down and turning your back on an armed assassin.”

He pulled out his sleeve blade, splashing blood all over Gilson II. Jordan's throat rattled, but he could not speak. Gambling Snake stabbed him once more in the back, behind the heart, and only when he had stopped breathing did he fling the body aside.

Gilson II's face was ashen. He was a lamb awaiting slaughter, utterly defenseless before a hungry wolf. No, a devil.

“My teacher once taught me that if you have something to say to your prey, wait until you've cut their throat before you start talking. I've always done just that.” As Gambling Snake spoke, he turned and walked toward the coil of hemp rope he had thrown on the ground earlier.

“But I'm going to make an exception for you, Count.” Gambling Snake picked up the rope. “Because seven years ago, you already made me break my rule. Everyone I set out to kill dies. Yet you somehow managed to survive.” He advanced a step at a time. “Fortunately, I still have a chance to put that right and finish something that should have ended long ago.”

“You…” Gilson II had managed only a single word before Gambling Snake interrupted him.

“I know what you're going to say. I've seen that look on your face before. If I were someone money could buy, you'd have bought me seven years ago.” Gambling Snake crouched until his eyes were level with Gilson II's. “Between you and me, this isn't a matter of money. It'll take a life to settle it.”

“Why… Surely you stopped being a Qianming assassin long ago… Let me go! I admit I made a mistake having you hunted down. You must understand. I swear that from now on…” Gilson II was interrupted once again.

“Of course I understand you.” Gambling Snake took out a book with a plain black cover. “I know you far better than you can imagine.” As he spoke, he set the book alight with a lighter and casually tossed it aside. “If there's anyone in this world who can find the slightest thing in you deserving of pity, or anything worth redeeming, that person would have to be me.”

Gambling Snake's gaze and voice grew colder. “There's a story. One day seven years ago, nearly a thousand people gathered around Count Gilson's residence in protest. They were ordinary civilians who could no longer stand the Trade Partition Decree. But they had no way to change the policy, so all they could do was gather with placards, shout slogans, and curse the count's entire family to die horrible deaths.” Gambling Snake continued, “And so a great many of them were arrested. Not by the police, but by you, by a nobleman's private troops.

“About a hundred people were taken that day. Afterward, every last one of them vanished without a trace, casting a shadow of terror over Double Eagle Commandery. In an instant, more than half the voices that dared speak out fell silent.

“Qianming knew where those people had gone, of course. Every last one of them died. You had them secretly executed to vent your anger, and the charge you pinned on them was actually treason. What a joke…

“The governor at the time was your accomplice. He paid no attention whatsoever to those deaths. He condoned this brazen slaughter and even helped cover it up.

“That incident was the direct cause of our operation that December.”

As Gilson II recalled those events, his expression changed several times. Then he said, “You want revenge for those people? What did they have to do with you? They were just a bunch of lowborn scum! Must I die for a reason like that?!” He screamed hysterically. In his eyes, his life was indeed far more precious than any commoner's. In fact, many commoners shared his values. This was an age with little justice or fairness to speak of. A person's worth had long ceased to be measured by moral character; money and status had taken its place.

Gambling Snake did not answer the question. He went on, “My mentor, Qianming's great master Giovanni Petrarch, wasn't a particularly high-ranking ability user, but he was an elder every one of our brothers respected. He taught us the spirit and skills of an assassin, taught us to shoulder slaughter and darkness for the sake of justice and light, and branded Qianming's mark upon our souls.

“That was the kind of man he was. That year, when the organization's leaders decided the mission was impossible, my teacher resolutely chose to go alone to rescue those hundred people.” Gambling Snake paused and steadied his breathing. “He was over sixty. In the end, skill and will must yield to time. His aging body and the accumulated injuries of many years defeated him. The rescue failed, and he was captured.”

Something flickered in Gilson II's eyes. He seemed to remember now, to recall something that boded very ill for him.

“You interrogated him and tortured him, but couldn't get a word out of him. In the end, he couldn't escape death. But perhaps on a whim, you chose to hang him. Afterward, you even displayed his body on your own grounds for all to see.”

Gilson II no longer dared look Gambling Snake in the eye. Gambling Snake continued, “You shouldn't have done that. You murdered the civilians who opposed you and treated their lives with contempt. That alone was unforgivable. But hanging an assassin was an insult to him. You trampled on my teacher's honor.

“You see, the noose is meant for the guilty.”

As he spoke those words, a loop of hemp rope slipped around the count's neck.

Gilson II finally understood what had brought about that bloody night so many years ago, and what had made Gambling Snake, a killing machine with countless ways to take a life, choose to hang him outside the clock tower with a rope.

Murderers and arsonists wear golden belts, while those who build bridges and mend roads go without a proper burial. Perhaps that really was how things worked most of the time. But sometimes, in this world, retribution truly did come.

The square in front of the hotel was already packed with police cars. From the roof, one could see the evacuated guests, hotel staff, passersby, and a large number of police officers.

Then a beam of light suddenly shot from the hotel's roof, and a red signal flare lit up a patch of sky like a firework.

Everyone looked up to see a man with blood all down his front thrown from the roof. A thick hemp rope tightened around his neck, leaving him suspended outside the building dozens of stories above the ground, as though on the gallows.

The corpse swayed in the wind high above, its face twisted with terror, its eyes still open in death. That face told a long and terrible story, a story of revenge seven years in the making…