Chapter 120: Persistent Pursuit

When it comes to the chaotic regions in the southwest of the continent, the Fallen Towering City is its representative and general term. This disordered and deformed city is located at the border of multiple nations and is renowned in the main world as a city of crime, deception, and chaos. Most of its inhabitants are thieves, scoundrels, fugitives, or evil professionals.

Due to the constant threat from orcs, the surrounding nations have never had the chance to eradicate this cancer. Over time, the power of the Fallen Towering City region has grown to such an extent that it is now extremely difficult to completely eliminate, turning it into the evil haven it is today.

The Black Dagger Alliance, an assassin organization originating from the Fallen Towering City, is a new organization that emerged in recent decades. Its members are mostly assassins and thieves, with even the weakest being bronze-level experts.

Silver-level assassins like Poison Sting, who can operate alone, are elite members of the Black Dagger Alliance. Only experienced senior members can hold such positions.

However, Poison Sting is different from those cold-blooded killers trained by the organization, who have no other desires beyond completing missions. As a member who joined later, Poison Sting still has his own personal hobbies outside of missions.

His hobby is to toy with his targets like a cat playing with a mouse, slowly torturing them to death. To ordinary people, this seems like madness, but for Poison Sting, it is the greatest pleasure in life.

Yet this time, his mission has clearly changed—not only is there a silver mage interfering, but his target also happens to plan to travel far away, adding an unexpected complication.

If he fails to complete the mission, the organization will send someone else to take over and punish him, which is something Poison Sting definitely doesn’t want to see.

Actually, Poison Sting doesn’t feel much loyalty toward the Black Dagger Alliance. He joined merely because it provides a convenient way for him to find pleasure. But with so many strong members in the organization, if he fails the mission, he will become a target for others. At that point, there won’t be any talk of pleasure—surviving with an intact body would already be a miracle.

It must be said that mages require much more caution than swordsmen, knights, and similar classes. At least the ability to fly is something that physical combatants cannot match. Even if they reach the gold rank, they can only fly for short periods and cannot travel for long distances like mages. Of course, gold-ranked swordsmen can run at speeds comparable to high-level magical beasts, which is beyond even a mage’s flying skills.

After setting off from Dalaran, the three mages flew straight ahead without stopping. In just half a day, they arrived in the southern part of Stonetalon. There were only a few small villages in this area, and it was still half a day’s journey to Shining Gold Town. So, Donald and his companions chose a flat spot to land and planned to camp there for the night.

After half a day of practice, Donald had mastered flying quite well, though his movements still weren’t as smooth as those of his teacher. Kelthas was slightly better than his master in this regard, as he had learned to fly much earlier than Donald.

As soon as they landed safely, Donald took out camping gear such as tents and blankets from his storage space. Some of it had been stored there beforehand, while others were prepared by the butler, Kord. Being prepared was always Donald’s habit. In his past life, whenever he traveled, he would pack too little, thinking it wasn’t enough, only to regret having too much later.

Now, with the convenience of a storage space, Donald naturally packed more useful and unnecessary items to keep on hand.

Setting up a stove and cooking utensils, Donald prepared dinner himself. This alchemical furnace, powered by elemental crystals through a magic array, was extremely valuable—costing at least a thousand gold sols. Such equipment was usually used only by royal families or noble families on hunting trips.

Moreover, these furnaces were rare. Few alchemists bothered to produce large quantities of such flashy yet functionally limited devices. Initially, alchemical furnaces were created merely to facilitate experiments for alchemists and mages.

But for the wealthy Donald, an ordinary elemental crystal was enough to create a convenient stove that could burn for half a month, so it wasn’t much of a cost. Besides, this natural and pollution-free energy source was far superior to the portable liquefied gas stoves of his past life.

The aroma of dinner quickly filled the temporary campsite. After Kelthas set up the tent, it was time to eat.

This time, Donald prepared his favorite dish from his past life—braised pork with vegetables. He used braised pork that had been prepared and stored in sealed containers in his territory, along with some potatoes and vegetables from his storage. The dish was a balanced mix of meat and vegetables, flavorful and delicious, with multiple dishes in one pot. Even an elf like Kelthas, who wasn’t very fond of meat, couldn’t help but eat several bowls.

After eating and drinking his fill, Donald summoned a stream of clean water to clean the pots and dishes. The old mage, who had set up a seat outside the tent, asked, “Is that guy still following us?”
Donald smiled and said, “Still! But he’s having a hard time eating. Probably afraid we’ll notice, so he doesn’t dare light a fire and is just gnawing on cold dry food!” Since they set out, Donald had summoned two owls, which had been following from a distance in both the front and back, keeping him well aware of the area within several kilometers. As long as the enemy wasn’t hidden underground or behind cover, nothing could escape the owls’ eyes.
The assassin thought he was moving stealthily, not realizing he had already been spotted by Donald.
Realizing that an assassin at least at the silver rank was following them, Donald immediately informed his teacher, Maelthor, of his discovery.
However, the assassin was experienced and had been secretly following them all the way here without daring to approach their effective attack range. Even Maelthor, a powerful silver-tier mage, couldn’t do much about him. If they turned around to chase him, Donald’s speed via magic flight would not be a match for a silver-tier assassin, not to mention that the assassin had a horse as well. So, they could only let the assassin continue following.
Donald thought about using teleportation to surprise the assassin and launch an attack, then shared this idea with his teacher.
“How about I use teleportation to sneak up from behind, hold this guy off, while you and Kaelthas fly over to join me and finish him off? Otherwise, with that tail following us, I’m worried he might cause trouble while we explore the ruins!” Maelthor knew something about his own disciple’s abilities, and as long as they were prepared, a silver-tier assassin shouldn’t pose much of a threat. So he agreed.
“Be careful. He’s not from our northern lands and might have some abilities you’ve never seen. Don’t get caught off guard!”
Donald had planned everything in his mind… Then, seeing through the owls that the assassin was still eating in place, he gave a signal to his teacher and the two others, before vanishing from sight in an instant.
This ambush plan… was quite feasible, but Donald had underestimated the assassin’s vigilance.

The Silver Assassin proved to be unexpectedly tough and cunning. Even when stopping to rest and eat, it never stopped keeping an eye on its target. Upon realizing that one of the three mages in the distance was missing and the other two were flying toward it, it immediately dropped its rations and fled from the area.

Donald’s teleportation location was fixed, so when he teleported there, his innate spell Frost Nova was released instantly, but it missed its target, allowing the Assassin to luckily dodge it.

After witnessing the powerful spell explode behind him, the Assassin lost its arrogance as a Silver Assassin and its confidence in facing the target alone. Filled with fear, it flew in another direction, wishing it had two more legs.

Donald’s speed was not fast enough, and his ambush failed. After chasing a few steps and seeing that the distance between him and the Assassin grew instead of shrinking, he gave up in disappointment and went back to reunite with his teachers.

Back at the camp, Donald said angrily, “That guy is too cunning! He’s more cowardly than a moose and runs really fast! It’s a shame my teleportation spell has a cooldown period; otherwise, I would have definitely caught him!” “If nothing else works, Kelthas, summon the Phoenix to help me. This time, we must teach that guy a lesson!”

However, Donald’s uncertain proposal was rejected by his teacher, Maelthor. “For a Silver Assassin like this, the same plan can only be used once. Next time, they’ll be on guard, and it will be hard to succeed. Trying again is just a waste of time. It’s better to conserve our strength and act as if they don’t exist. Let them follow if they want! Once we reach the Ansel family’s territory, things won’t be as easy as now!”

Donald agreed. With his teacher by his side, given that guy’s cautious nature, it was unlikely he would take any action. Once they reached the Ansel family’s territory, they could consult Ferdinand and find an opportunity to deal with the Assassin!

As Maelthor predicted, after escaping once, the Silver Assassin realized it had been discovered. It stopped hiding and openly followed Donald and the others, staying carefully a few kilometers away, constantly changing positions to avoid Donald’s attack range—so much so that Donald’s teleportation spell couldn’t be used either.

So Donald stopped worrying about dealing with it and focused on traveling leisurely. After arriving in Shining Gold Town, he stayed there for a day in the bustling town and purchased some goods.

Compared to Donald, who was in high spirits, the rather unlucky Silver Assassin, Mr. Stinger, appeared rather distressed. Not only did he have to endure rough conditions along the way—things even worse than these—he also suffered from poor food and sleep, while his targets enjoyed delicious meals every day. At night, they had well-made tents that kept them warm and dry, allowing them to sleep soundly until dawn. He wanted to launch a secret attack to teach his targets a lesson and make them suffer from lack of sleep. But he forgot that his targets were summoners who would summon several summoning creatures to keep watch at night. Although those creatures were only at the second or third level and easy to deal with, they seemed to have an innate ability to detect invisibility. With his Silver-level stealth skills and his own concealment spells, whenever he got within a hundred paces of them, those creatures would react like alert hounds. Stinger naturally didn’t realize this was due to the sentry Donald had placed at the campsite, not the abilities of those summoning creatures. Though Stinger knew they couldn’t actually see him, they could sense his presence through some mysterious ability. Any attempt to attack would surely alert the mages inside the tents, forcing him to abandon his harassment plan. Every time he thought about this, Stinger was filled with rage, wishing he could charge forward and fight his targets. But reason told him that such an action would only be suicide. “Damn those mages! They really know how to enjoy life!” While his opponents rested and dined in comfortable hotel rooms in Flashgold Town at night, he could only sleep outdoors in the cold wind outside the town. The cold winters in the north were extremely uncomfortable for this assassin from another continent. Even though he was a Silver-level expert who could withstand extreme temperatures and survive buried in snow for three days, he still didn’t enjoy being in the cold wilderness. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to go into the town, but approaching his targets in a bustling city meant that although there were many hiding spots among the streets and buildings, those obstacles also prevented him from using his speed advantage, making it easy for his targets to surround him. So Stinger could only curse alone in the cold wind outside the town, powerless against this situation.