Chuck's POV.
When I was sent on a infiltration mission into a rival country. I didn't expect to run into a child with enough of a presence to make even me worry.
I could since no ether from him whatsoever, but pure menace radiated from almost every movement he made.
If he was maybe a foot and a half taller, and a Full foot broader. I wouldn't have bothered even pursuing him after losing the measly amount of money I did.
But a mix of his unimpressive stature and his little scheme fucking up a plan that have been orchestrated for nearly 6 months caused me to go after him anyway.
My eyes were on the swivel as I stepped out of the gambling den. A truly odious place.
For a second, I thought I had lost the kid, until I saw the tail of a black cloak disappearing around a corner. Somebody.
Narrowing my eyes, I followed at a sedate pace.
I stayed just far enough back for him to not send to me, but close enough that I didn't lose his trail completely.
"You're a wary bastard aren't you?" I thought, as I saw him using anything and everything around him to watch everyone and anyone.
Seeing that I quickly observed my own surroundings. Making sure I didn't come into his sphere of observation.
And then I saw my chance. He walked between two buildings, his eyes still on a swivel for anything that could be a danger.
But how could the inferior senses of a immortal perceived ether?
I narrowed my eyes in concentration as the ring of shadow elemental ether began TO spin quickly in my soul.
As either pour into my palms, I began to quickly write a seven star spell.
The scale had been his bread and butter since coming to this nation. And it was the most valuable thing, his higher ups have given him before sending him here.
Thinking about how they had just tossed him behind enemy lines with no prior Intel other than two. "Kill the Duke of iron blood." Pause his teeth to clean and his grip on his knife to tighten.
"Fucking pencil pushers. Always willing to throw out orders from behind a desk,. BUT never willing to get out in the field and get your hands dirty."
I thought my lip curling and discussed.
When THE spell was finally ready.
I Felt the hum of unity run through It before I quickly directed it towards the shadows in the alley, and at the shadows under my feet.
I could feel the tingle in my ether pathways that told me THE spell had connected, and in a flash, I was suddenly behind the brat.
With no delay, I stabbed forward, the knife, aiming for a spot between his ribs.
The stab should have killed him. It. Should have pierced his heart and left him on a ground convulsing, but it didn't.
Instead, he twisted, almost as if he knew the blow was coming. Before jumping forward and whirling to face me.
In the process the hood, that had hidden all of his features was slightly pulled back.
When I finally saw his face, I really chastised myself again for ever believing this was an old man.
"I can't believe I got tricked by a Welp that's barely a third of my age." I thought, my eye twitching and an annoyance.
The boys face seemed almost frail, or even delicate due to either genetics or a lack of sustenance I couldn't tell.
His skin was in almost unnatural shade of white and his shoulder length brown hair looked like it needed a haircut urgently.
But that wasn't what caused me TO raise my guard for a second, it was his eyes.
They were a shade of silver that seemed to almost glow in the small amount of moonlight that reached the alley, and the glacier look in them, made them even more ephemeral then they probably should be.
It wasn't the eyes themselves that unnerved me.
It was the emotion eye saw in them, or the lack of.
What he saw in those eyes was not a child's fear, it was not a child's panic. It was cool, cold calculation, with a hint of distain.
"Those aren't the eyes of a child at all" I thought the hairs on the back of my neck standing on end. "Those are the eyes of a monster."
My t train of thought was broken when he finally spoke."You aren't just any Random commoner are you?"
The words may have sounded like a question, but I knew they weren't.
Desperately fighting to keep my calm I smiled.
"What gave it away , was it the cloak?"
The kid didn't answer, he just continued to observe me.
His eyes seeming to catalog everything and anything about me that looked out of place.
For a second, neither one of us moved, as if we both knew the next word, the next shift, or even the next breath could signal the start of a fight. One of us wouldn't walk away from.
"Just why the fuck am I wary of a kid. He doesn't even have ether for legions sake."
I thought my awareness, turning into humiliation and anger.
I was so consumed by my anger, that I almost didn't hear the next words the boys said.
"How disappointing. I thought you would be more interesting than this, but you're only a first ring assassin."
Ray said, his voice only showing a hint of his dissatisfaction with my identity.
Hearing his words, the grip eye had on my knife grew tighter. As I suddenly , Without warning stabbed for the kids right eye.
The stab should have been too fast for any one without ether running through them to Dodge. But the kid somehow managed.
He jerked his head to the side, causing the knife to cut a line from the edge of his eye nearly to his ear, instead of taking out his eye itself.
Third person POV
Wasting no time, Ray lifted a hand from the inside of his cloak and caught HIS wrist.
Just as Ray had expected Chuck quickly yanked backwards, but instead of trying to keep the man's wrist still.
He lifted his feet from the ground.
The strength of a first ring, could easily lift a malnourished child.
So chuck lifted him into the air with almost no effort, but it's just as he was about to slam Ray against the wall.
Like a bug that needed to be squashed. Ray quickly sent out a kick.
A normal kick wouldn't have hurt a first Ring cultivator coming from a child normally.
But the kick landed directly on Chuck's solar plexus.
Combined with Ray being stronger than the average 12-year-old caused chuck to flinch and loosen his grip on the knife.
The flinch only lasted for a second, but that was all that Ray needed. In a flash, he used his other hand to grab the knife by it's blade, and let go of Chuck's wrist with the other hand, causing him to fall.
But before he had even reached the ground, Chuck was lunging at him. Twisting so his back was facing Chuck, he sent out another kick, but this time with his heel leading.
He wasn't so lucky this time as Chuck shrugged off the kick as it was nothing more, then a slight tap. His hands quickly locked around, raise ankle before he could pull his foot away.
Then, with the ease of a man with too much strength and not enough brains, he tossed Ray down the alley.
If the alley had been a dead end, the throw could have been fatal, but the thing was that it wasn't.
So when Ray finally stopped flipping head over heel through the air, he landed safely, but not so softly on the ground
Throughout the entire throw, he had been able to get hold of the knifes hilt before hugging the weapon to his chest.
When his back finally hit the ground, the force of the throw cause the knives, razor, sharp edge to cut through his shirt and draw more blood.
That's along with the sound of what Ray was sure had to be a broken rib along his left side, told Ray that a confrontation was a bad idea. But even so, he scrambled to his feet preparing for Chuck to appear from any direction.
Ray knew with Chuck's first ring speed, he would be here unless less than three Second flat if he decided to run.
But considering Ray had been waiting here for nearly 5 minutes and he hadn't seen hair nor hide of Chuck, he came to the conclusion that he had taken a different route.
"assassin's and their shadows." Ray thought, his silver eyes flashing with annoyance.
Chuck could out Wait him if he truly tried. But Ray did not have that luxury.
Even as he stood here his wounds continued to bleed, and he could already feel the edges of his vision growing fuzzy.
"Blood loss. After barely 5 minutes of being wounded and I'm already getting dizzy. Damn this child body."
Ray thought, grinding his teeth in helpless rage.
Ray was just wondering about what to do to draw c chuck out. When he felt a presence behind him. Thinking the same thing would happen as last time, Ray quickly jumped to the side.
But he was wrong, with Chuck no longer having his knife. He was forced to resort to other means.
As soon as he appeared behind Ray. His right arm snapped out and around the boys neck in a arm bar.
Ray quickly duct his head, causing the forearm to be stopped by his jaw instead of cutting off his breathing.
If he was facing any normal person, this would have been enough, but Chuck's strength was leaks above anyone normal.
Chuck feeling the resistance, just flexed the muscles of his arm harder.
Then slowly, but surely the pain, that had been slowly rising in intensity through his jaw began to become more blinding.
To his shock, the sound of cracking bone began to sound out in his skull.
Quickly, the knife, which he had been inching towards Chuck's arm. Quickly was passed to the other hand and reversed.
This was all done with raises hands inside of his cloak, so Chuck wouldn't be alerted.
But even so, Chuck realized something was wrong. Using his free hand, chuck pulled back the edge of race cloak.
"There it is. I was looking for that." Chuck said, the smile, easily stretching ear to ear.
Then he can't raise hand, with a twist, pulled it from his hand. Before plunging it into a side.
The sudden flash of pain caused ray to flinch before his eyes grew distant.
Even as Chuck was taking the knife back and stabbing Ray with it, he had never stopped increasing the pressure of his arm on raise jaw.
So at this point blood freely flowed down the front of Ray shirt, and the knife in his side only increased the amount.
Even with that, Ray still reached out with a hand that hadn't been holding the knife and slightly reap positioned the blade in his side.
Chuck didn't seem to have noticed his slight movement as he just continued to squeeze, raise jaw, even harder.
Then Ray began to speak.
"You know one thing I hate about fuckers that just gain their ether pathways. No matter how weak they see they are compared to everyone else. No matter how disgustingly subpar the power is compared to every other cultivator. They all seem to forget, they can bleed too."
With that as the only warning, Ray quickly angled the knife in his side upwards before pushing it forward.
The knife continued on through his side before coming out of his back at an angle, and just as he had planned stabbed directly into Chuck's liver.
Ray knew when the blade had reached its target because as soon as it did, Chuck suddenly jerked and released him.
He tried to move away, but Ray reached up with his free hand and grabbed on to Chuck's collar.
"You didn't actually think you could kill me and still live to see the sunrise, how delusional."
Ray said, his words a garbled mess due to his shattered jaw.
On Chuck's side of things, he couldn't even hear him through the all consuming pain that was running through his body.
He managed a single step backwards before falling over. Raise weight along with him still continuously, pushing the blade down, caused the knife to stab even deeper.
Chuck managed a silent screen before he was drowned in his own blood, and then he knew no more.
On raise side of things, he was trying to find a way to free himself from the knife without dying almost immediately of blood loss.
"Goddamnit let the fucking knife go. I was just joking when I said I was dying today. How the fuck could I die to an assassin? I could've killed with a goddamn fart less than less than a decade ago."
Ray shouted in his mind, as he felt the knives resistance due to being buried in Chuck's body.
Realizing the knife wasn't coming free, and the shakiness in his limbs was becoming more and more apparent by the second Ray came to one conclusion.
"awakening is the only way I'm making it out of here alive." Ray realized his eyes darkening with a unknown emotion.