Tang Ron was done eating his late lunch. It's almost 5 when he gets back to the cafe. When he asked for an available seat, Little Tang recommended something on the first floor in area A. There are only a few people; Ron doesn't really mind the place, so he never considered that she would deliberately arrange things for him.
For now he wants to do the task: assassinate a player from Glory's Tenth server named Thousand Creation. He was an ace player from the famous Blue Brook guild and famous for stealing kills and annoying some players.
The client obviously had some bad blood with Thousand Creation but couldn't dare to make a move, as for reasons there are too many; perhaps they were not skilled enough to take on Thousand Creation, or there might be a situation where they couldn't attack him due to guild restrictions (no internal conflict). Regardless, that's the part where the mercenary comes in.
Ron logs into his tenth server account and searches for the player name, Thousand Creation. He has already passed level 20 and gone through class selection as a battle mage.
This could be crafty since they can buff their attacks with magic (Chasers). Battle mages in early stages have lots of CC compared to assassins, such as Sky Strike and Falling Flower Palm, so fighting them head-on wouldn't be a great idea.
But Ron knows his business. Knowing his opponent's class and level, he could easily find him. The first thing he does is check the achievements/records regarding first kills on bosses and first clears on dungeons. If this person named Thousand Creation is considered one of the aces of the Blue Brook guild, then it's likely he would accompany them in boss clears and dungeons, but he wasn't involved in dungeon clears, so it's likely that he is on the reserve teams or operating solo. As for his location, it wouldn't be difficult; he is probably leveling in the Bone Yard.
Players always focus on efficiency; as a reserve player, he must be available when needed, so keeping up with their level is a must. Guilds would probably be targeting the Bone Yard boss next, which could be interesting. Since the leveling area was close, Ron headed into the Bone Yard, ignoring the Frost Forest and Grave Yard.
By coincidence Lord Grim was also clearing the dungeon in Bone Yard. There were not many players in there because only experts could deal with level suppression, and besides, only a few had high levels. Ye Xiu controlled his Lord Grim into a suitable leveling area and casually killed monsters. Taking only a few breaks to recover his mana—as for his health? He could avoid 100% of their attacks all the time, so it's not a problem.
While taking a rest, someone notices Lord Grim. It was Ron's target, Thousand Creation. He was paying close attention to Ye Xiu and planning to steal a kill and reason it to compare notes later. But seeing him recovering, Thousand Creation chooses to wait.
Little did he know, Ye Xiu noticed him before but simply didn't care since he only wanted to level up. Additionally, Thousand Creation was also being watched from behind by Tang Ron.
When Ye Xiu made enough recovery, he casually headed into the monster standing idle, but before he could attack it, Thousand Creation used Sky Strike to knock the monster away from Ye Xiu.
"Senseless..." Ye Xiu thought. There are not many people in the leveling area; there's no reasonable way to steal kills. This particular behavior can only be defined by being an attention seeker and a show-off.
No wonder people hired mercenaries to assassinate this guy. He was annoying but skilled. They couldn't beat him, so they had to hire someone who could.
Thousand Creation activates his one and only available Neutral Chaser. Battle mages have only 5 Chasers, each of which could last 30 seconds as a boost; it can also increase movement speed depending on the level.
When Thousand Creations knocked up the monster, he quickly moved behind it and stabbed it with Dragon Tooth.
Ye Xiu has different views towards this; he didn't think he would encounter such a show-off guy. Thousand Creations just stood still as if mocking him, and when Ye Xiu was about to leave, he asked. "Are you Lord Grim?"
"Yeah, and you are?" Ye Xiu asked. He wasn't surprised; he knows him. But it might be someone from the cafe, so he double-checks his friend list.
"I heard you're quite good; want to compare notes?" Thousand Creation asked.
Ye Xiu didn't respond, not seeing the Thousand Creation name on his friend list. He didn't bother talking to him; he just made Lord Grim turn his back and leave.
"Hey, don't leave!" Thousand Creation wanted to stop him, but the monster he aggroed earlier came back to him. At the same time, Tang Ron controls his character; his No Name 2 rushes towards Thousand Creation's blind spot and activates the highest damage assassin skill he has, Triple Slash, followed by Double Stab and Side Kick, pushing him in the direction of the monster.
Ye Xiu, who's about to leave, turns his back again only to see a familiar name attacking Thousand Creation.
"Oh? It was you!" He said.
"Yeah, nice seeing you, Lord Grim," Ron replied. He didn't actually use the voice feature and typed it instead, showing his incredible APM, putting Thousand Creation in a complex combo while having the luxury to type a message that's disrespectful.
Thousand Creation notices this; his character received a few seconds of crowd control. Ron pushes him at the perfect angle to receive the monster's slash, which also pushes him back into Ron.
The monsters in here had a higher level than Thousand Creation, so their damage was high, taking a huge chunk of his HP. Seeing his life losing Thousand Creation, he gritted his teeth. He only wanted to fight Lord Grim. Who in the world is this show-off interrupting him?
"Just wait, once I'm done, I'm going to finish you off!" he cursed, but no one paid attention to him.
Thousand Creation plans to use the few seconds gap in crowd control to activate Quick Recover and fight back, but Ron was anticipating this movement. He uses the assassin skills Heart Pierce, followed by Cut Throat, and the brawler skill Face Slap, finishing him off.
Ron maximizes the uses of his skills and times it perfectly; some trigger hidden attributes such as armor decrease and bleed. The face slap in the end was completely unnecessary, but it deals some damage.
Seeing his character get burst, Thousand Creation slammed his keyboard and screamed, "Fuck!"
Why didn't everything go according to his plan? His death also loses some experience points, which could affect their boss' run later.
"Damn it, I will make sure to pay you back for this!" he said, glaring at Ron.
Seeing his corpse disappear, they know that Thousand Creation chooses to revive instead of staying.
"That was an impressive assassination, but was the face slap necessary?" Ye Xiu asked while controlling his Lord Grim closer to Ron.
"Thanks for the compliment," he said. "Yes, the client asked me to humiliate and kill him."
"I see..." Hearing the word "client," Ye Xiu figured things out. He understands that Thousand Creation killing must have offended someone and that person hired an assassin to kill him since they couldn't make a move themselves.
"Did you visit this server just for him?" Ye Xiu asked. It's hilarious that someone from Heavenly Domain would make his way into the tenth server just to kill someone. Ron doesn't seem to be that type.
"Not really, I'm also playing on this new server to test my new silver weapon," he said. "Killing him was just a side quest."
"Oh? Another silver weapon…how envious..." Ye Xiu said. His Thousand Chance Umbrella was still on level 15, and this guy's silver weapon was on level 20. Where did he get the materials anyway? Did he purchase it from the guild? That's unlikely, or perhaps he was the son of Glory's creator?
"I received a tip from someone that Blood Gunner Yagg was being targeted by several guilds. Want to check it out?" Ron asked.
"A wild boss..." Ye Xiu wasn't unfamiliar with this boss. In fact, he was interested because the boss had the item he needed to upgrade his weapon. "Are you planning on stealing it? Quite ambitious."
"Not particularly; I just received a task earlier to assist in killing it, but I'm not interested. That boss doesn't have the item I needed to upgrade my weapon," Ron explained.
"I see... I'd say I'm tempted," Ye Xiu replied.
"Okay, let's head to these coordinates." Seeing Ye Xiu get interested, Ron leaked the coordinates to him. It wasn't private or anything; in fact, lots of players already know it. It's just that Ye Xiu doesn't have a wide network.