"Alright!" Victor nodded, though doubt lingered in his mind.
He felt everything was going too smoothly. A key elder of the Bonfire Society was actually guarded by just a few ordinary rebels.
"Found him!" Elena's delighted voice came from ahead.
Victor hurried over. In a cell deep in the dungeon, he saw an old man in a white prison uniform, sitting on the ground with his back to them.
"Teacher, I'm getting you out now." Elena pulled out a dagger and slashed the cell lock open with one strike.
"Elena, be careful," Victor whispered, standing beside her.
"Victor, this is my teacher!" Elena frowned, her tone unusually sharp.
"I'm not doubting your teacher. I mean—" Victor trailed off and said no more.
"Teacher, why aren't you speaking?" Elena looked at the silent old man and walked toward him.
Just as Elena was about to get close, the old man on the ground suddenly turned around.
At the same moment, a throwing knife snapped out from his mouth and shot toward Elena's throat.
"Watch out!" Victor raised the Silent Hunter and fired a bolt.
The bolt struck the knife and knocked it away.
If Victor had fired even a heartbeat later, Elena might have been in grave danger.
Elena was also shaken by what happened. She staggered back a few steps. After looking closely, she suddenly shouted, "You're not my teacher!"
"Ha!" The old man stood up and tore off his disguise, revealing a burly man with a full beard.
"Jackson!" Victor and Elena cried out at the same time.
"Beast, what did you do to my teacher!" Elena shouted in fury, seeing no sign of him.
Jackson stood with his hands behind his back and sneered. "I didn't do anything to your teacher. Mr. Hall, say hello to your student."
As soon as he finished, a figure appeared out of thin air beside him, dressed in a black robe, head lowered, silent.
"Teacher, you..." Elena stared at Hall in disbelief. She had never imagined he would betray the organization.
"I'm sorry, Elena. At first I tried to hold on, but their torture... I'm sorry. I betrayed the Bonfire Society oath."
Victor looked at the man with cold eyes and felt he was just putting on a righteous face.
If a top expert wants to die, he has ten thousand ways to do it.
And the fact that he was alive now, standing at Jackson's side, said it all.
"Mr. Hall, help me get rid of these two," Jackson said with a light laugh, looking at Hall, who kept his head down.
Hall froze, turned to look at Jackson, and said in a low voice, "Didn't I already say it? I won't take part in this!"
Jackson let out a cold laugh, pointed at Elena, and said, "They know all your secrets. Do you want to let them escape and then expose that you turned traitor?"
As soon as he said that, Hall's expression clearly shifted; besides guilt, a hint of doubt showed in his eyes when he looked at Elena.
"Teacher, you still have a chance if you choose to repent now!" Elena urged, unwilling to give up.
"It's useless. The mistakes I made won't be forgiven." Hall let out a long sigh toward the sky, then said in a trembling voice, "Elena, I'm sorry."
With that, two short halberds suddenly appeared in his hands.
The calm on Victor's face finally broke a little; at this moment he also realized the situation had changed.
At first, facing a Jackson over level thirty, they had planned to rescue Hall, and with the three of them together, killing Jackson would be easy.
But in the end, Hall chose to defect, and the three-on-one was flipped into a two-on-two.
And Hall and Jackson's strength still crushed theirs.
Elena's lips trembled. After a moment, she looked at Victor as if she had made up her mind. "Victor, use the scroll and leave. I'll hold off the two of them."
"Ha, you think it will be that easy?" Jackson glanced at them with disdain.
Then he pointed at the ceiling and said coldly, "This place has long been fitted with anti-teleport devices. Did you really think I'd be that stupid?"
"Anti-teleport?" Victor paused, surprise in his eyes.
In his mind, a teleport scroll was almost a one-hundred-percent life-saving plan.
But now someone was telling him that a rebel had already developed a device to block teleporting.
"Surprised? You always think we're just a group that brainwashes people, but you don't know our tech level is not what it used to be," a hint of scorn flashed in Jackson's eyes.
"Damn it!" Elena clenched her hands tight, and for the first time, despair flashed in her eyes.
She had never imagined that a rebel group seen as terrorists could develop tech like this.
"You two should count as geniuses of the Federation. If I kill you, headquarters will reward me well—of course that includes you too, Mr. Hall," Jackson said lightly, then turned to look at Hall and added.
"Sorry, Elena." Hall gave Elena an apologetic look.
"Enough. You don't deserve to say my name!" Elena growled under her breath.
"Elena, calm down!" Victor stopped her, his eyes locked on the two of them as he searched for a way to break this.
"Elena, how long can you hold Hall?" Victor looked at her and asked in a low voice.
After thinking for a moment, Elena said, "Ten minutes. I know his strength. I can last at most ten minutes."
"Good." Victor nodded, then decided, "You hold off Hall. I'll fight Jackson."
At those words, even Hall, still sunk in guilt, froze for a second; he and Jackson looked at each other, then burst into loud laughter.
Holding his waist, Jackson laughed and said, "Small fry, do you know who you're facing? Saying that out loud—don't you find it ridiculous?"
"Save it. Do you dare accept the fight?" Victor drew his longsword and asked coldly.
"Joke—why wouldn't I dare?" Jackson said as he summoned a short blade; it was his weapon.
"Hall, deal with your beloved student. I'll finish him fast." Jackson pointed at Elena and spoke calmly.
"Alright." Hall let out a soft sigh, turned to Elena, and showed a complicated look.
Meanwhile, Jackson held the short blade and glared viciously at Victor.
Victor didn't dare be careless. The man was a Level 32 Hunter, the strongest opponent Victor had faced so far.
"Die!" Jackson sneered and activated the skill "Silent Assassination."
In an instant, his whole body faded into the darkness.
Victor refused to be outdone and activated the skill "Phantom Trail."
What surprised him was that Jackson recognized the skill at a glance.
"Phantom Trail? That's a Level 5 skill. Looks like you really are a genius," Jackson's voice came from the darkness, a bit surprised.
Victor ignored him and drifted through the cell like a wraith, searching for Jackson's trail.
Soon, he found a faint trace of him.
The way "Silent Assassination" works is to lower one's body functions to the minimum, then hide in the darkness and wait for a chance.
What Victor found was a single footprint from Jackson.
At a dusty corner, there was a clear footprint left by Jackson.
Victor was about to follow the direction of the print when he suddenly grew wary, thinking, "As the Red Rebels' leader, Jackson shouldn't make such a low-level mistake."
With that thought, Victor made a quick decision, drew the "Silent Hunter," and fired a bolt in the direction of the print.
The bolt tore through the air, but after flying a few dozen meters it suddenly hovered in place, then slowly twisted and warped.
"So you caught the counterweight trap I set with care," Jackson's disappointed voice came from the dark.
Then he gave a vicious laugh. "Forget it. I'll just send you off now!"
Right after he spoke, Victor felt a chill behind him and snapped his head around.
In front of him, Jackson had already raised his short blade and was chopping down at him.
The short blade hit Victor's chest and was suddenly blocked by a wave-like ripple.
It was the armor Victor wore—"Azure Tide Armor."