94: Chapter 94 Is this all the strongmen you have?

A dagger was held three inches from his throat.

The ice-cold tip of the blade pressed against his skin; just a fraction of an inch further, and it would pierce his windpipe.

Su Bai did not move.

He couldn't be bothered to move.

The man in black holding the dagger grinned. He had waited three full days for this moment, ever since the destruction of the Li family.

"Su Bai, behind you."

Kyubey's voice rang out in his mind.

Su Bai glanced out of the corner of his eye—a dark purple barrier was slowly opening on the living room wall. From deep within the rift, ten dark figures filed out. Each wore a matching dark green night-suit, with a ghostly green skull emblem embroidered on the collar.

Ten people.

Plus the three in the room.

Thirteen.

All high-rank.

The lowest was Rank 4!

Lin Xiao leaned against the wall, her eyes closed. The moment the window shattered earlier, a mental shockwave had hit her forehead directly, knocking her unconscious before she even had a chance to activate a defense card.

Zhao Dahai was pinned underfoot by an assassin. His chubby face was pressed against the floor, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth.

Chu Yin lay on the sofa, her fingers twitching twice. She wanted to move, but the aftereffects of having her mana completely drained during the day had not worn off yet, leaving her unable to lift even a single finger.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk."

The assassin leader holding the dagger tilted his head, lightly tapping the blade against Su Bai's Adam's apple.

"A genius of the card-making world, a personal disciple of the Truth Sanctuary, and the founder of the Magical Girl system."

He tapped the blade with every title he recited.

"Sounds pretty impressive."

The assassins behind him let out a low burst of mocking laughter.

"Too bad—without those 9th-tier Supremes shielding you, what are you supposed to be?"

The leader withdrew his dagger and took two steps back. He spread his arms as if showing off.

"Li Qingyue isn't here, Deputy Commander Xiao Hongyan isn't here, Armored Mage Emperor Lu Chen isn't here, and your Rank 7 little girlfriend is lying over there like a dead fish. As for you—"

He tapped Su Bai's chest with the tip of his blade.

"Rank 2. Your mana from during the day must have been drained long ago, right?"

Another assassin drew two poison-coated short blades from his waist, their surfaces smeared with a dark green liquid that glowed ominously under the moonlight.

"Boss, stop wasting words on him. The higher-ups said to hack him into pieces, along with that cat."

"What's the rush?" The leader licked his lips. "It's rare to get such a juicy prey. It would be a waste not to play with him a bit longer."

Su Bai looked down at Lin Xiao.

There was a small bruise on her forehead. Her breathing was stable, so she had probably just passed out.

Then he looked up.

"Are you finished?"

The leader froze for a moment.

"...What?"

"I asked if you're finished talking." Su Bai's tone sounded like he was confirming a food delivery order. "Villains like you always have to recite a monologue before you act. I get it. Sense of ritual. But if you're finished—"

Time, stop!

Silent.

Lightless.

There was no warning of any mana fluctuation.

Simply the entire world—stopped running!

The assassin leader's mouth was open, his expression frozen in a half-smile. Droplets of flying spit hung suspended in midair like a string of tiny glass beads.

The dual-blade-wielding assassin was frozen mid-charge, his right foot off the ground, his poisoned dagger just a fist's width away from Su Bai's left shoulder.

The other ten assassins were scattered around the room. Some crouched in the shadows of the ceiling, some clung to the corners, and some were halfway out of the barrier rift.

All frozen in place.

Like a three-dimensional photograph encased in amber.

Su Bai took the dagger from the leader's hand. His movements weren't fast; in fact, they were rather leisurely.

He tossed the dagger up and down.

"Thirteen. That's a bit many."

"Su Bai, how do you plan to handle this?" Kyubey sat on his shoulder, its red glass eyes scanning the frozen assassins.

"Let's see. At the very least, I need to interrogate them to find out who ordered this. No one can handle these continuous assassinations; I'm not a guinea pig."

Su Bai walked over to the dark purple barrier rift and bent down to peer inside. The inner side of the rift was densely carved with runes, each slowly breathing. This was a highly sophisticated space-concealing formation that could completely seal off any mana fluctuations inside the barrier, making it impossible for the outside world to detect.

No wonder Kyubey hadn't sounded the alarm until the very last frame.

"This is nice." Su Bai reached into the core node of the rift, gripped a glowing purple crystal core with his fingers, and yanked it out.

Crack.

The crystal core was dismantled by him like a piece of Lego.

The barrier rift instantly solidified, and its edges began to collapse.

"I'll study it later. Maybe I can use it to upgrade Chu Yin's soul gem enhancement card."

Su Bai stuffed the crystal core into his pocket.

"Then he walked over to the assassin leader and sized him up. The guy's expression was frozen in a moment of extreme arrogance, with his mouth still curved in a "you're dead" smirk.

"Did you just say you were going to hack me into pieces?"

Su Bai pulled a high-explosive grenade from his shield's storage space.

He pulled the pin.

Prized open the leader's mouth.

And stuffed it inside.

His movements were smooth and fluid, like stuffing a turkey.

"Su Bai, the blast radius of a high-explosive grenade is three meters. At this distance—"

"I know, which is why I need to pick a few survivors next."

Su Bai walked around the frozen assassins. He poked each of their faces with his finger to test their expressions. He selected three who didn't look as arrogant, tied them up securely with Quicksand Spider Silk from their own material storage, and threw them into a corner, stacking them in a row.

The remaining nine.

Su Bai thought about it, drew all of their prized poisoned daggers from their sheaths, arranged them in a circle with the blades pointing inward, and stuffed two more grenades right in the center of the circle.

Finally, he walked over to Zhao Dahai.

He moved the foot that was stepping on the fat man's face.

Then he straightened Lin Xiao's slumping posture slightly so she wouldn't look so uncomfortable leaning against the wall.

Then he stepped back to his original position.

He stuffed his hands back into his pockets.

"That should do it."

He reached out his right hand.

Pinched the edge of the hourglass with his thumb and index finger, and gave it a gentle turn.

The hourglass resumed flowing.

The gray ripples retracted.

Time resumed.

"—Die, kid!!"

The assassin leader's maniacal laughter was still on his lips.

And then his mouth was blown away.

Not metaphorically.

But literally blown away!

The high-explosive grenade detonated inside his mouth, the shockwave tearing his entire lower jaw clean off his skull. Flesh, shattered bone, and shrapnel sprayed in all directions, engulfing the two nearby assassins who hadn't even had time to stop their forward momentum.

BOOM!!!

Immediately after, a second explosion went off!

Right in the center of the ring of nine poisoned daggers, two high-explosive grenades detonated simultaneously. The dagger fragments and grenade shrapnel created a 360-degree metal storm with no blind spots, shredding all nine of the still-dazed assassins.

A mist of blood erupted in the living room.

A dark red rain showered down from the ceiling, pattering heavily against the floor.

Three seconds.

The entire living room had turned into a slaughterhouse.

Meanwhile, the expressions on the faces of the three bound assassins thrown in the corner went from arrogant to completely blank.

Utterly blank.

It was as if their brains had crashed, failed to reboot, crashed again, and rebooted again.

"...Huh?"

The assassin on the far left let out an extremely short sound, like a goose being choked.

His eyes stared straight ahead.

Staring at the red liquid that used to be his comrades.

Staring at the smoking grenade fragments on the floor.

Staring at Su Bai, who stood right in the center of the blood mist, without a single drop of blood on the hem of his clothes.

"You—you—what did you do—"

His voice cracked.

"They—how—when did—"

He couldn't form a complete sentence.

Because he hadn't seen a thing.

Nothing at all. In one frame, their leader was laughing maniacally; in the next, everyone's heads were flying off. What happened in between? Did Su Bai move? Or did he not? He wasn't even sure if Su Bai had ever left the spot where he was standing.

The reactions of the other two assassins were even more extreme. One began to retch violently, while the other wet his pants on the spot.

These guys were Rank 5, the elite assassins kept in reserve by the Ghost Guild. Every single one of them had gone through hundreds of life-and-death missions. They had seen corpses blown to dust by forbidden spells, and abyss monsters sliced in half by a single strike from a sword saint. But they had never seen a death like this.

This kind of—

Completely illogical way of dying.

What about time?

What about the continuity of time?

Why was everyone laughing at this Rank 2 trash in one frame, only to be completely shattered in the next?

Lin Xiao's eyelids fluttered.

She was jolted awake by the sound of the explosion.

Opening her eyes, the first thing she saw was the dark red liquid still dripping from the ceiling. Then she saw the shredded flesh and broken blades on the floor. Next were the three men in black shivering in the corner. Finally, she saw Su Bai, standing right in the middle of the pool of blood, flipping through a notebook.

"Su Bai—you—"