Anfey, like a cheetah, slowly and arrogantly walked to the third floor. It seemed that he was looking straight forward, but his eyes were not focusing on anything. Things were never perfect. Anyone who gained something would lose other things at the same time. A person would neglect other things easily if he focused too much on one thing. Details were captured only if attention was diverted away from your focus.
Anfey was not blindly confident. He was able to quickly analyze and then utilize the advantages and disadvantages of both him and his opponent, no matter where he was or whether or not it was a good time for him to do so. He learned a lot from Saul and Ernest recently. Judging from the current situation, Anfey thought he held the advantage in this battle. When advanced-level people fought, they searched their opponents for magic surges and combative vibes, to identify both surprise attacks and counter attacks. Anfey did not possess any combative vibes and only had very slight magic surges. In other words, they couldn’t find him unless they saw his actions with their bare eyes. However, Anfey could easily locate all of them with his senses.
Anfey walked into a room on the third floor and blew out the candle behind him. He waited there for a while before he took a small package, wrapped in a piece of cloth, out from his shirt. He unwrapped it and took out a magnet he’d bought today, but hadn’t expected to use so soon.
Anfey checked Saul’s, Ernest’s, and his own room. He found every door in the Rose Home Hotel was locked with a snap bolt. The outside layer on the edge of the door bulged out, which made it very hard to open the door with a card. He hadn’t brought a card anyway. It might sound stupid to unlock the door with the magnet but it could be very effective.
In two minutes, Anfey was already in the room. There was a bald, middle-aged man sound asleep. "Dumb luck! It is fortunate to be a commoner. He can neither feel the surges from the flaming dragon nor notice me walk into his room. Even if the flaming dragon turned the hotel into a flaming hell, he wouldn’t notice. He would die without any fear or pain," Anfey thought aloud.
Anfey walked quietly toward that middle-aged man and chopped, with the edge of his palm, towards the man’s neck. That man was sleeping deeply earlier, but becoming unconscious now.
Anfey stood in the middle of the room, pulling out his sword from its sheath in slow motion. He thrust it downwards and stuck it into the ground. Anfey pulled out the sword afterwards and fell into thought while making observations.
The gloomy old man was worried. Tanan should have already gotten down to the sewer and escaped from Saul, according to the timeline. It meant that Saul could come back at any minute. However, he didn’t understand why there were no messages from Mott or Kalibim, or why there weren’t any loud fighting noises.
"Stupid pig! I have to do every little thing myself!" The gloomy-looking old man cursed. He couldn’t wait anymore, so he stood up and walked outside.
Anfey suddenly opened his eyes in the dark. He sprang up and thrust his sword upwards, like a poisonous snake launching a sneak attack.
Anfey had done the experiment three times in his room and one time in the lab on the third floor. The structure of Rose Home Hotel seemed to be all wood. He noticed the floor was only five to six centimeters thick; to be more exact, he only needed to use 60 percent of his power to punch through the floor. Therefore, it would be a piece of cake to pierce it with a sword.
The gloomy-looking old man never expected the attack to come from beneath the floor. Anfey had already stuck his sword into the man’s foot before the man realized something was wrong. The sword pierced his foot all the way up to the lower leg. The old man screamed out loud.
Then, there was a huge banging sound. The floor behind the old man was punched through by Anfey. The old man was a medium-level swordsman and his ability was way above that of Mott or Kalibim. No wonder he could still stay calm even when in serious pain. The old man slashed the sword backwards instantly. Even though he did not use any combat power, there was still the sound of the blades whipping through the air.
Anfey was moving so fast that the old man didn’t have time to think before making a move. The old man responded totally out of instinct, causing him to neglect a few things he shouldn’t have.
Anfey did not pull his sword out from the floor after his first successful strike. The sword was still stuck in the floor. The old man’s heels inevitably turned at a certain angle to allow him to slash backwards. The blade was turning and twisting inside his lower leg. What torture! This torture was tearing his tendons and breaking his bones. It was so painful that it went beyond human endurance. The old man screamed out one more time. Anfey punched the ceiling so hard that it almost fell. He jumped to the fourth floor through the hole and landed three meters away from the old man. Anfey ran to the old man and stabbed the old man’s chest with a pointed candlestick.
No wonder the old man was a medium-level swordsman, he was still trying to fight back by slashing his sword all over the place, even after he suffered a few surprise attacks. The old man slashed the candlestick by accident. Anfey was forced to drop it because of the pain in his hands. The candlestick hit the ceiling, fell onto the floor, and rolled a few times before finally stopping.
Anfey stepped back to keep some distance between him and the old man, saying with a smile, "Not bad, you are very tough!"
The old man could barely contain his rage. Usually, he was the one stabbing people from behind, not the other way around. He felt that what had happened this time was really unfair. The old man stared at Anfey with hatred. He put all of his weight on his left leg to keep the right one still. However, the right leg had to bear some weight to keep him balanced. He felt sharp pain from his right leg. The old man tried very hard to focus, gathering his Qi. A Qi-covered long sword shone with white light.
Anfey jumped swiftly on the sill. The window was open, so Anfey grabbed the top edge of the window frame and lifted himself upwards, leaving the room with a fleeting smile.
Anfey’s climbing skill was not as great as Qing Gong[1]. It did not allow him to jump up and down freely, but he was able to climb up and down as long as there was a place for his hands to hold. He climbed onto the roof easily, then he took out something from his shirt and tossed it upwards.
What he tossed was dried peas he had prepared. They made loud sounds when they rolled down from the roof.
The old man could not let his guard down despite seeing Anfey disappear right in front of him. He held the sword and pricked up his ears for any suspicious sounds. What confused him was the continuous sounds made from the peas hitting the roof. He had no idea what Anfey was trying to do.
Anfey had already returned to the third floor and was quietly looking at the sword hilt in the ceiling. Looking through the hole on the ceiling, Anfey found the shadow was moving. Anfey was trying to find a perfect spot to attack the old man. Could he create some illusions? Yes, every great mage is a master of creating illusions to distract the audience!
Anfey climbed up to the roof and made some sounds on the roof. The purpose was to fool the old man into believing Anfey was still on top of the roof, waiting for the perfect moment to attack him. The old man fully focused on the roof. However, Anfey unexpectedly climbed down to the third floor, right underneath him again.
"You cannot step into the same river twice." Deceiving a person twice in the same way shared the same idea. If an assassin tried to kill a person twice in the same way, it only showed how impotent he was. Anfey would be the one to suffer if he couldn’t deceive the old man in a different way.
The old man was in a disadvantage in this fight since he was suffering from severe pain. Moreover, Anfey’s unusual tricks frightened him. He subconsciously considered Anfey to be his most dangerous opponent. He did not think Anfey had left. He believed that Anfey had not had a chance to show his finale yet. Anfey was such a formidable opponent that he would not act silly and repeat the same tricks. The sounds on the roof continued.
The gloomy-looking old man was covered by a cloud of white light, as was the tip of his sword, as he gathered all his strength onto himself and his sword. He knew he could not move much, so he tried to do a quick attack against Anfey with the Qi on his sword. He was trying to turn this fight around even though he knew he at a disadvantage.
Anfey was hesitating about whether to kill or just hurt the old man when he found a spot to attack from. Anfey held a candlestick in his hand. If he tactically attacked the old man’s crotch with a candlestick, it was unlikely Anfey would kill him in time! If he waited until Saul came back… This was not what Anfey wanted to happen. He did not want to lose the trust Saul and Ernest and given him.
Anfey made a quick decision. He raised his arm and jabbed the candlestick upwards into the ceiling. There was huge pain from the old man’s left foot while he was still looking upwards at the roof. He screamed and fell onto the floor. It did not matter that he was a medium-level swordsman, even an advanced swordsman would not be able to continue to stand up if both feet were severely hurt.
The old man was forced to pull the sword and candlestick out of his feet as he fell. The momentum had almost gone away after the candlestick pierced through the ceiling. The force left on it was not very strong, so it didn’t cause too much damage to his right foot. The sword was deep in his leg. It hurt unbearably when it was broken by his body weight. The old man fainted, the pain so bad that his body curled up into a ball.
Anfey jumped up and punched a hole through the ceiling with his right fist. The old man sprang up instantly when the ceiling pieces fell and smashed into his chest.
Anfey jumped through the ceiling to the fourth floor. He shook his hands and a set of forks and knives slid down his sleeves. They disappeared the moment his fingertips touched the forks and knives. The next second, they were stuck in the throat of the old man. Anfey breathed out lightly. He turned around and rushed downstairs. He needed to take care of a few things before Saul and Ernest came back.
In fact, Anfey could have chosen to hide away and waited for Saul and Ernest to return after killing Mott and Kalibim. Mott and Kalibim were never threats to him. Anfey needed to compare his ability to someone else. He targeted the strongest person he could sense. The reason he needed to judge his own ability was to make sure he would not fail to do things beyond his ability in the future.
[1] There is a Kung Fu skill called Qing Gong, which allowed the practitioner to come and go as swift as the wind.