Chapter 348: You Gotta to be Kidding Me

Colten POV

He felt more perplexed than anything else. In all of his years, he hadn’t quite met a target like this one. It was like the boy didn’t care that he was trying to kill him. It was as if his life didn’t matter at all.

It was deeply concerning, and it was obvious that his target had some deep mental issues. Colten would have tried to help him if he hadn’t been in the middle of trying to assassinate him. However, he must do his job, which he was hired for, so he kept throwing his darkness-aspected blades at him.

However, it was quite unexpected that the boy was still alive even after a couple of minutes of Colten attacking him. He was much faster than the reports said he was. This was concerning because the boy was supposedly only at Tier 3.

That said, what was most intriguing was that the black-haired boy had some type of perception skill that could sense his attacks coming, even though they were invisible.

Even if he had some advanced mana-based skill, it was unlikely he could have detected the attacks before it was too late. The skill might have been the upgraded version of [Sixth Sense]. He had heard from others that the epic version has specialized aspects of fate magic, which allowed it to aid the user in avoiding attacks. But that still didn’t explain why he was still alive.

Colten was good. That wasn’t arrogance either. When it came to other Tier 4s, he was toward the upper ranks, especially when it came to sneaky battles like these. The fact that his opponent was still alive, even after a couple of minutes, was an insult, and he could imagine that the others would laugh at him for not being able to kill a Tier 3.

Gritting his teeth, he ramped up his mana and threw more of his blades. Each one started to scream through the air with more speed, one after the other. His [Dark Gate] skill allowed him to basically attack from any angle as long as he could create a gate. It was an overpowered skill, one that allowed him to kill many other powerful people and monsters in the past.

It was one of his staple skills and one that always caught his opponents off guard. Yet, for some reason, it wasn’t working on this target. He had injured the boy, but for some reason, each wound he managed to inflict only made his target smile more widely.

What was even more unbelievable was that he believed that the boy might have been actually training his movement skills as he was under attack. He could barely comprehend what he was seeing. Here he was, a Tier 4, trying to kill him, and the kid was more concerned with practicing his skill.

It was an insult and only made Colten increase his attempts with more fury. However, no matter how much he tried, he was still unable to.

Aggravating. That was one word that described what he was feeling at the moment. His previous feelings of pity for the boy were no longer present. They were fully focused on just finishing the job.

His skills used a lot of mana and willpower. He couldn’t use them indefinitely and had to end this quickly.

And so he increased his efforts, swarming the lone boy with everything he had. However, suddenly something changed. The black haired youth was no longer satisfied with dodging his blades and started to make his move.

A barrier made of mana appeared around the teen. This further proved his belief that the youth hadn’t been taking Colten seriously the entire time. His blades smashed against the barrier, and he frowned when they didn’t slash through.

The barrier was quite durable and managed to take several more of his attacks before it started showing signs of damage.

That wasn’t all, though. He sensed a gathering of mana and instinctively threw his Authority as the source. The black haired boy was trying to create a mana construct over his shoulder. But Colten’s eye twitched in surprise when his Authority washed over the construct, barely able to do anything.

He wasn’t able to break it down or even stop the activation. He could only watch as a spike of swirling blue mana weaved into existence. He knew right away that this construct was a threat. The amount of power coming from this construct was something he had only seen from other Tier 4s.

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He was no longer sure that this boy was Tier 3 like the reports said he was and he was beginning to realize why the last attempt had failed. The Elder who had come to him with this mission had admitted that a team of three other Tier 4s had tried to kill the boy, but the Elder believed that it was because of the interference of other parties.

Colten had agreed with this as well. Beating a Tier 4 as a Tier 3 was extraordinarily difficult, he had beaten a Tier 4 monster with his team at Tier 3 before, so he knew that from personal experience. However, three Tier 4s were another story.

It wasn’t possible. Even if the Tier 4s were weaker than normal, the gap was just too wide.

Yet, if the person who had beaten them was in fact already Tier 4, then that was a different question. If that was the case, then it was definitely possible.