Instance , night.

In this world, unless it encounters special weather or is in a particular environment, it's very difficult to encounter a moonless, windy night.

But this didn't stop Liens from treating it as a night for murder.

After deciding to assassinate Marvin, and having endured countless attempts and immense pain, he finally felt confident enough to deliver that one sword strike.

As usual, he first went to find a "lucky" patrolling guard to "borrow" a longsword.

Then, holding the blood-stained longsword, he arrived at Marvin's house, skillfully pried open the window, and entered.

Liens leisurely approached Marvin, who was sleeping on a soft wooden bed.

Numerous infiltrations had made him extremely familiar with this place.

He no longer needed to move cautiously, slowly, for fear of touching something and waking the sleeping Marvin.

Moreover, there was still a faint light provided by the Magic Stone Lamp in the house, so as long as he was careful, it was difficult for him to encounter any obstacles.

Liens quietly came to the bedside, didn't hesitate, and directly swung his sword down.

It was only then that the constraint of the contract belatedly began to take effect.

The punishment had already begun, but by then, his sword had already been swung.

This was a loophole he discovered after many attempts: for unconscious attack behaviors where killing intent was suppressed, the contract's reaction would be slightly delayed.

This loophole also made Liens realize that although the contract was a magical item, it was ultimately just a rigid tool and didn't possess much intelligence.

If he had attacked Marvin with killing intent,

then the moment before he truly swung his sword, he would have been punished by the contract.

But as long as he didn't carry an intention to attack, swinging his sword casually as if playing,

then the contract's punishment would only take effect when the longsword was about to hit Marvin.

It could be said that this unexpected discovery greatly saved Liens's time and reduced the number of times he suffered torment.

Compared to continuously increasing his pain tolerance, this method of suppressing killing intent and unconsciously attacking the target was much simpler.

After swinging the longsword, he only needed to hold on and not let the sudden intense pain interrupt the attack trajectory.

Intense pain came from his brain, but Liens gritted his teeth and held on, his right hand still firmly gripping the longsword.

Numerous attempts had indeed greatly increased his pain tolerance; simply put, he had gotten used to it.

Although he still couldn't directly endure the punishment and forcefully kill Marvin, he could hold on for a short while and prevent himself from immediately losing the ability to move.

No sooner said than done.

Just as the sharp blade of the longsword was about to touch Marvin's head, and just as Liens's face, contorted with pain, began to show joy,

an unexpected event occurred.

A thin curtain of light blocked the longsword Liens swung down.

"This is… a magic barrier?"

This thought surfaced in Liens's mind.

The scene at this moment reminded him of that Instance three months ago.

It was also a Instance , also night, and also a light curtain.

The difference was that the protected object had changed from a gate to a person, and the attacker was now only himself.

The longsword sliced through the light curtain, missed Marvin's body, penetrated the soft mattress, and struck the wooden bed frame.

"Thud!"

The sound of the longsword striking the bed frame was loud, instantly waking the sleeping Marvin.

"Ah?!"

Marvin, startled awake, immediately sat up halfway in bed and exclaimed.

Then, Marvin quickly saw the figure standing by his bed, holding a longsword.

Marvin shifted his body and, with some panic in his voice, asked the figure in front of him, "Who are you?"

Because Liens was backlit, Marvin couldn't clearly see his face directly, so he didn't immediately recognize the person in front of him as his important experimental subject.

Liens didn't reply, silently enduring the pain until the punishment ended.

He withdrew the longsword, reversed his grip on the hilt, and plunged the tip towards the ground. Liens used the longsword to support his somewhat exhausted body, breathing slightly heavily.

He still had some things to say, so he wasn't in a hurry to return to the Instance .

"Teacher Marvin, could you tell me where the light curtain on you came from?" Liens asked Marvin softly.

Although the possibility of Marvin answering this question was very small, what if? There was no harm in trying; perhaps he really could get an answer.

"It's you! Liens."

Marvin recognized him by Liens's voice.

"The light curtain… You just attacked me? You can actually attack me!" Marvin continued, his tone shifting from confusion to lingering fear, then to shock.

He couldn't believe that a family Slave who had already signed a contract could attack him and even trigger his life-saving item.

This indicated that Liens had just launched a fatal attack on him.

"That's not worth mentioning. Instead, what about this light curtain, Teacher Marvin? Could you explain it to your student?"

Liens continued to ask, with some anticipation in his tone, like a student waiting for a teacher to clear his doubts.

Unfortunately, Marvin did not have the magnanimity a teacher should possess.

He didn't want to engage in casual conversation with a dangerous person who could threaten his Life.

So he directly activated the contract's strongest punishment, bestowing a death upon Liens.

This was indeed a night of murder, only the object of murder was the assassin himself.

Although Liens was very important to his experiment, compared to the experiment, he still felt his own Life was more important.

If this experimental subject was gone, there would be another, but if he died halfway while pursuing his obsession, that would be his true lifelong regret.

...

White Space.

"It seems it's not as simple as I thought… Why is that old man so hard to kill?"

Liens, having returned here after his death, couldn't help but sigh.

"That magic barrier, similar to the Training Camp gate, must have been caused by some magical item on him."

"But what kind of magical item could it be? Are they those rings… or something else?"

Liens muttered to himself. Fоr а bеttеr rеаding еxpеriеnсе, visit

He had noticed before that Marvin wore several rings on both his left and right hands.

However, Marvin, as a member of the Glenbagen Family, was presumably also an upper-class person in Kara City.

Wealthy people liked to wear expensive rings on their hands to show off their status.

So, Marvin wearing rings seemed like a very normal thing to him, not worth paying attention to.

But who would have thought that magical items might be hidden within these rings, or even that these rings themselves were magical items?

However, upon careful thought, it seemed quite normal for Marvin, an "Alchemist," to possess magical items.

And for one of them to be protective equipment was even more normal.

"Never mind. I'll enter the Instance to confirm if those rings protected Marvin."

"If so, being able to strip away the influence of those rings would be the best-case scenario. If not, it will be troublesome."

"If not, then I'll have to re-examine where Marvin's magical items are located."

Liens muttered to himself, a hint of difficulty on his face.