The Martial Unity

She turned to the lean man with a drawn blade. "Sir Thunder Viper, please abstain from engaging in any disruptive manner towards your colleagues while you are on our premises. You may indulge them after you have exited the premises, lest we remove you with force non-compliance."

The Thunder Viper stared at her for a second, turning back to the Voidreaper, snorting before sheathing his blade and taking his seat.

"Without further ado, let me begin the briefing session."

A board featuring a screen instead of a surface was brought over, featuring an image.

It was that of Rui Quarrier.

Rui narrowed his eyes as M cut to the chase, featuring the target of the operation.

"As you have been informed, the target of the information is one Rui Quarrier, a grade-thirteen, as last verified, Martial Senior of the Kandrian Empire. The objective, of course, is to assassinate him and supply us with the body," She explained. "This much you have all been informed about. Today, I will go into the constraints and requirements we have for the assassination."

The screen changed, demonstrating immense data on Rui's travel and time habits, including how much time he spent in each location during the day.

It was incredibly creepy to Rui, but he wasn't surprised. Stalking one's assassination targets was completely normal in the industry. One needed to gain every ounce of information to ensure that the assassination went perfectly.

In fact, it was what he was doing right now, at the moment. Even as she spoke, he wasn't paying too much attention to her.

She was not going to be the one trying to kill him.

It was the assassins around him.

He paid attention to all their movements, every twitch, and every shift. Their reactions to every word, the things that preceded each movement. He hadn't yet begun creating predictive models; he could do that later. He first just wanted to gather as much data as he could.

"First, the assassination needs to be covert, ideally," M began. "We wish for you to kill him, having drawn as little attention as possible. This involves minimizing the energy output of the fight as little as possible. Please ensure that it does not cross a certain threshold so that it will draw the immediate attention of the Martial Union."

'Figured,' Rui narrowed his eyes. 'Their game is to ensure that there is little to no way in which the Martial Union will intervene before they successfully kill me and take my body away.'

"This would generally mean ending the assassination quickly and swiftly, although there are exceptions…" M glanced at the Maneater.

She was known to spend time with her targets if she found herself enjoying her assassination, killing them slowly rather than swiftly.

"Truly a shame…" A seductive feminine voice escaped her mouth as she eyed the image of Rui on the board. "I dislike rushing the cute ones to death. There's no harm in giving them the time of their life before they die, is there?"

Her expression grew more intense.

The men in the room stirred as she inadvertently began employing her Martial Art.

'I see…' Rui felt blood rushing to his groin. 'That's a powerful Martial Art. I'll have to be careful about this one.'

Her Martial Art bypassed other Martial Art fundamentally. At least, it bypassed those of heterosexual men and homosexual women. She was useless against anybody else, but within those two groups, she could completely bypass resistance itself.

It was lethal.

In fact, Rui wasn't sure that it was strictly limited to the Senior Realm.

'I know Master Zeamer is a Master, but…' A strange expression appeared on his face beneath his mask. 'Would he really survive if she tried assassinating him?'

He desperately wanted to believe that the Hypnomaster, by virtue of being a particularly formidable Master, would easily be able to handle her seduction-assassination, but he unfortunately couldn't be himself to muster confidence in Master Zeamer.

The man's sex drive was his Martial drive.

Could someone like that possibly resist her at all?

He didn't know.

Yet, he did know that he didn't intend to succumb to her. While he would be lying, as a man, if he said he wouldn't mind a taste of what she had to offer under more amiable and consensual circumstances, he was not going to toss his life for it.

"Madame," M addressed the seductress. "Please abstain from employing your Martial Art. You are affecting this briefing."

No one had missed the changes in the male assistants and assassins.

"Ah…my apologies," She giggled, restraining herself.

Rui inwardly heaved a sigh as he felt relief immediately. Outwardly, he hadn't so much as twitched, maintaining his shadowy mystique and implicit peril. Yet he was quite wary of the seductress.

While the other assassins were all high-grade and threatening more directly, he was much more concerned about a woman who could affect his mind and remove his will to resist. That was far scarier than even the most wicked of blades.

"As I was saying," M continued. "The first constraint of the assassination is that it must be as furtive and quick as possible. The second is that you must provide us with the body and get rid of any evidence of the assassination swiftly after its success."

She turned to the screen as it shifted to a map of the Kandrian Empire, zooming in on the spot outside of the Great Jrava Mountain Range.

"This is the most optimal spot for the assassination and also the third constraint," She explained. "We require you conduct the assassination here and ensure that it ends here. Under no circumstances must the operation shift locations. It will be considered a failure."

"That's simple enough," the Thundering Viper snorted. "We just need to kill him then and there, right?"

"Indeed," M nodded. "That's the third constraint."

"Trivial," he glanced at the picture of Rui. "Especially with all of us working to assassinate him, he won't stand a chance."