Angelo opened his eyes to darkness—not the kind that brought rest, but the kind that came before a purpose. The sun hadn’t touched the horizon yet, but his body moved on instinct, honed by years of waking in the early.

  He ran a rapid body check. Muscles tensed, breath steady, mind already clear. ‘It was a good rest.’

  He y still for a moment, listening. No birds yet. Just the quiet thrum of his heartbeat and the faint echo of memories pressing in.

  A life sharpened on the edge of a bde—monster blood under his nails, human screams fading in alleyways. He didn’t count the bodies anymore. Somewhere along the way, it had stopped mattering. What mattered was precision.

  Purpose.

  The mission.

  His hand brushed the hilt of the dagger at his side—cold, familiar, like an old friend.

  The human realms were shaped by many organizations. The Merchant Guild traded. The Adventurers Guild fought monsters. The Church of Light preserved knowledge.

  His did none of those.

  His belonged to the dark.

  The Assassins.

  He was one of the few names that raised the organization from nothing, carving its name into the underworld with every contract fulfilled. And for a time, he had ruled it—cloak soaked in silence, boots echoing in halls lined with shadows.

  But that was another life.

  Now, something stirred again. A reason to kill, to move, to hunt.

  He stood.

  ‘Those were good times,’ Angelo thought. Of all the memories he cherished, raising the guild’s young ones stood out the most. Now, they were the ones paving the way forward.

  After securing a worthy successor, Angelo slipped back into the shadows, resuming the cold practice of kills. True to the mantra that his master had left him.

  For the next few years, he was like a ghost, given a target to kill, and each life taken was another addition to the guild's notoriety. He earned the name Cauter—because after the kill, anyone who tried to stop him was left lifeless, their bodies marked by burning cuts that never bled.

  As the human realms stabilized, he thought that he was already at the end of his purpose, nothing more to accomplish, just help the guild grow more by its fame. He thought that he was about to die of old age somewhere in the dark. But now his true purpose was about to be fulfilled.

  The true purpose of the Assassins.

  It made his blood boil in a good way.

  As the sun peaked over the dark sky and the world held its breath, Angelo prepared to honor a custom—an old, sacred rite that bound him to honor the hunt that he was about to do.‘I have to prepare and honor my predecessors.’

  All my life for this moment, many assassins that came before me were stronger, more talented, and contributed more to the assassin’s guild. But none of them have fulfilled their true purpose; it would only be me.

  I unsheathed my knife and pced it on the wooden table, closely inspecting it for any damage. Then, my short sword, ‘I have to sharpen it,’ I used this a few times to kill some monsters on my way here.

  My other weapons were throwing knives of different shapes, and my personal favorite was this: ‘Made out of a rare monster snake bones and a Phoenix Cw,’ the chained knife named Fme Tongue. We were trained to use conceable weapons, mainly knives, and out of the arms inside the guild's vault, this was the one gifted to me after so many accomplishments.

  It was this weapon that bound me to my nickname.

  I pced my weapons on the table. It's funny that all my weapons could fit on a single table that was within my shoulder’s length, considering all of the lives they had taken.

  Taking out a special whetstone, I poured a cup of Blood Rose Oil over it. This oil was one of my favorite poisons. Unlike ordinary poisons, its true purpose was to weaken anything I inflicted with it. This worked well if my enemy had a resistance against sudden-death poison.

  With the whetstone encased, I could simply flip it, allowing it to be fully submerged in the poison again and again.

  As I sharpened the bde, I kept my Bisa flowing through it without interruption, ensuring the poison was properly absorbed. Small incisions lined the metal, paired with a retention rune that allowed the poison to cling to the bde.

  We called this technique Infusion. It allowed guild members to employ poison regardless of root, bypassing affinity through technique rather than magic.

  I positioned the bde, ‘there.’

  Careful strokes were the key to a straightened edge.

  Hearing the sound of the bde and the whetstone grinding together, I was put into a trance, sinking deeper and deeper. Each of my weapons must be sharpened to the limit and double-checked for the time of need.

  The trance only stopped when I felt one of the bdes I sharpened prick my finger. I raised my hand to check it, and the pain of the poison slowly consuming my hand made me tremble. ‘{Ex-Remedy},’ the pain peaked and slowly subsided, and the poison evaporated in the air.

  My weapons were ready now. I looked out from the window, and the sunrise was beginning.

  ‘Now for my predecessors, I offer a prayer,’ I took out a small container, popped it up, and the smell of the bck ink filled the room.

  ‘One life for the many, one soul for the nd.’

  I dipped my two fingers into the container, ensuring they were covered with bck ink.

  ‘I honor my predecessors, I honor my nd.’

  Marked my face, from my nose, over my cheek, and closer to my ears. Right and left.

  ‘To maintain bance, to prolong the peace that was given.’

  Then from my forehead to my chin.

  “I'm ready. Watch over me…” I murmured softly.

  It was the prayer taught to us after our first kill—meant to sharpen resolve. A sharpened resolve led to a sharpened body, and a sharpened body to sharpened magic. It was time to pack up my weapons. Angelo began securing the weapons across his body, each one within arm's reach.

  He tapped his body for a final check, and once satisfied, took a deep breath, filling his lungs. Holding it for a moment, he let the air out slowly as his whole body tensed, then rexed. When he moved this time, his steps were completely silent. He felt more at ease moving this way than he ever did walking like ordinary people.

  After all, he was an assassin, trained to blend seamlessly into his surroundings. He walked down through the INN, where vilgers and warriors alike still y sprawled on the floor.

  The hunters were already gone, ‘they must have gone early to hunt outside.’

  Angelo pced another bag of gold on the counter. He appreciated the previous night—the stories and cheers of the vilgers had lifted his spirits.

  He opened the door and stepped outside… that was when he disappeared.