Kayn marked a name off of his list, matching the description of the woman to the one he killed. She was listed as one of the glass-cannon type mages whose entire defense relied upon her knowing that her enemy was there first. She was probably only moving around alone within the city due to the only remaining threats being holed up at the palace. Otherwise, Palatine had been within their complete control for years now.
He knew that not all of his targets would be that easy to kill, but it wouldn't diminish his happiness at having such a simple kill for once. The Shadow's Embrace spell was a godsend and made his job so much easier, but these idiots were also just having fun without paying attention to their surroundings now days. Not to mention, they weren't liches.
If Kayn subtracted the time he took to save and set up a semi-safe zone for the family, he dealt with this target within 30 minutes of finding her. If only every target could be like this, he would be ecstatic but he knew it wasn't going to be that easy.
Fortunately, with Shadow's Embrace, Kayn was practically always going to get the first move. If he could kill or cripple the target with that first move, all the better. Unfortunately, he wouldn't be able to charge up a spell outside of his body to attack, he could only use Mana Threads or internally concentrated mana, otherwise he would be revealed.
The best course of action was following what he had done with this first target, slicing their head off with Mana Threads. This would work with any of the weak bodied mages, but he wasn't positive it would work on any of the magic warriors. In fact, he was quite sure that it wouldn't. If he was in the 6th stage or even the upper 5th, he wouldn't have any issues, but as of right now the threads would probably break before they could cut through a true magic warrior's defenses.
It was times like this when he wished he had a good quality tier 5 or higher sword. Mana Threads were great and all, but they had their flaws. Until Kayn could grow and truly master all they could accomplish, much like the essence of the All-Seeing Eyes, he was only utilizing the tip of the iceberg.
Kayn silently moved through the city once more. He found a couple more 6th stage targets, but they were all in groups of two or more and outside of his desired kill conditions. The first one that he came upon who was alone was a giant of a man, covered head to toe in plate armor wielding a giant mace.
He seemed to be patrolling the area and was more than a little vigilant. Kayn stalked his prey for a little while as he examined the area to make sure no one would interrupt his fight before he could finish it.
Without a weapon to pierce through the armor effectively, Kayn was going to have to either use his fists, or barrage the man with spells from a distance. He felt good about his chances in a fist fight after fighting Barabato, but this target was covered with thick metal armor and Kayn wasn't sure how tough it actually was.
However, according to the notes from Talaro, this armor was enchanted with high resistance to magic. Kayn was stumped as to how he was supposed to quickly kill this man when he was a walking tank decked out with resistances.
Kayn considered switching back and forth between summoning firestorms and blizzards around him to try and break his armor shell, but he wasn't positive how effective such an attack would be against highly magic resistant items. There had to be a limit to what the armor could block or reduce the effect of, Kayn just needed to find that limit and go beyond it.
Kayn followed the man around for an hour just thinking how to best deal with him before he realized that he was a complete idiot. He had numerous tools to deal with almost any type of situation, he just neglected some of them or completely forgot about them.
Strapped to his chest were 10 sharp throwing knives that were enchanted specifically to pierce through things. These were one of Kayn's most underutilized weapons, but why was that? They were extremely powerful if used correctly and they even had the Return spell enchanted on them!
Once he realized that he had what he needed, he immediately drew five into each hand and prepared to throw them at the bulky man. Now he truly felt like a ninja assassin, moving through the shadows and throwing kunai, he just needed to run with his arms behind his back for fun. However, Kayn wasn't supposed to be messing around, he needed to be deadly and efficient.
Kayn infused his muscles with the wind and lightning elements in order to throw the knives with as much strength as he could muster. He also prepared a wind elemental spell that would further enhance the speed behind the knives as soon as he started throwing them. Once the first was released, the target would surely be aware of the situation, but his end was inevitable.
Kayn's opening move was still going to be Mana Threads though. He wound strings around both of the target's legs and arms to try and keep him still long enough for the knives to do their job. As soon as the Mana Threads tightened and constrained the movement of the bulky 6th stage man, the fight began.
Sounds like gunshots going off exploded into the air as Kayn threw his first few knives. They were enchanted to not be seen very easily, but the speed at which they were currently moving did the job all the same. The man briefly struggled against the threads trying to hold his arms and legs in place before giving up on his legs and casting a quick spell into his arms.
Within milliseconds, the man broke his arms free and swung his massive mace in a wide arc, deflecting two of the three knives Kayn threw. The last pierced straight through his armor and into his dense leg muscle. It wasn't a deep wound, but that didn't matter as Kayn coated each knife with a thick amount of the dark element.
The more the dark element stacked up within the man's body, the more he would begin to struggle as his body decayed. The man looked around in a craze as he freed his legs, trying to find where his attacker was. The three knives came from three different directions almost at the same time, but not exactly and he started tracking the direction the perpetrator was most likely moving.
Small sonic booms denoting things breaking the sound barrier began sounding off one after another as Kayn circled the man on top of the surrounding buildings. His barrage was seemingly endless as the knives were thrown again as soon as they were deflected or struck their target.
The man, fed up with constantly being on the defense, stomped the ground beneath his foot with enough force to cause the road below him to break and fold up as a temporary wall around him. With the small window in which he wasn't visible, he put all of his strength into his legs and launched in one direction. He had accurately predicted where the next knife was going to be thrown from and swung his mace with all of his might, blowing away the building and everything else several hundred meters behind it.
Kayn narrowly avoided the bone crushing impact as he now had to begin a close quarters dodge and throw pattern. The ground and buildings around the battle were constantly being destroyed by the powerful swings of the man's mace.
After a few minutes of this, Kayn noticed he was being led around by his target and not the other way around, and just as he shifted to try and gain the upper hand, a wall of earth appeared behind him as the man had once again stomped the ground, but this time he cast a spell at the same time as his mace moved just a little faster than it had before.
Kayn was barely able to cross his arms in front of the mace head before he was slammed directly into and through the several meters of earth risen behind him. He had to grit his teeth as he decided to fry his arms' pain receptors by infusing the dark element into himself as he flooded his arms with the light element at the same time.
Pain was an old friend, but having both of his arms' bones crushed into several pieces was still excruciatingly painful. He didn't have time to concentrate on healing his arms properly, so all he could do was send enough of the light element into them so that they functioned. Once he finished this fight, he could rest and heal them properly.
With hardly any time to compose himself after the hit, the 6th stage man was already on top of him, trying to land another blow with his mace. Kayn still couldn't move his arms properly yet and his back was screaming in pain, but he managed to swiftly jumped out of the way nonetheless.
All he could do for now was dodge and weave around each swing of the mace, keeping vigilant of his surroundings and his opponent. He had already been caught off guard once and lost the upper hand in this battle with the temporary loss of his arms, but he wasn't out of options yet.
Using his teeth, he pulled one of the knives from the bandolier and spat it at the ground where his foot kicked it with all of his might at his opponent. Not expecting such an attack, the man was too slow to react to it and the knife penetrated deeply into his gut. Kayn then used the Return spell and repeated the same practice.
Thus began the second phase of the fight where Kayn elegantly danced around his opponent with flopping arms while occasionally kicking a knife towards the man. As this continued, Kayn secretly began to feel out how much he could move his arms without letting his target know about it.
Once his arm was healed enough to move with precision, he grabbed five knives and threw them all with one rapid motion. Two skimmed off the man's shoulder guard, two were blocked by his mace, but one stuck into the middle of his helmet, where his forehead should be. Unfortunately, it didn't have enough force behind it to pierce through the helmet and was now nothing more than a helmet decoration.
Kayn decided not to return that particular knife and instead of throwing more knives, he continued dodging all the while waiting for the right moment to act. The moment soon came as a half-hazard swing by the man caused the mace's trajectory to be perfect for Kayn's counter.
Imbuing his fist and arm with multiple elements to give it strength and durability, he struck the head of the mace with his full force. He could instantly feel the bones in his hand breaking and his forearm bones once again shattering, but his gamble paid off.
The impact sent the mace flying back in its owner's direction at an astonishing speed. The head of the mace smashed directly into the butt of the knife sticking out of his helmet. Acting as a hammer would to a nail, the mace slammed the knife straight through the remainder of the helmet and deep into the man's head.
As soon as the man's ghost left his body, Kayn pulled the body into his Void Loop and fled the area after activating Shadow's Embrace. The battle had lasted long enough and was loud enough for someone to have noticed. There were crashes and explosions all the time within the city as army personnel let out their frustrations, but the sound of a battle was recognizable.
Kayn paused inside of a building to rest not long after exiting the area. He needed to heal as quickly as possible and move on to the next target he could find. It would only take a few missing 6th stagers and visible battlefields before someone put two and two together.
It would only be a matter of time before someone realized an assassin was targeting the 6th stage powerhouses of the Carnet and Inmortuae Empires.