Martial Research Master

108 KILLING TWO BIRDS

“You must be thinking ‘how did he know’, am I right?” Nightshade was surprised even further. This guy seems to be mocking him at the moment. But his thought was exactly as proclaimed. “No need to be so surprised. I can explain it to you, now that you are about to die.” There wasn’t a ting of fluctuation in Long Tao’s smile. That was the thing which got on nightshade’s nerves. “Long Tao indicated at a table nearby with three seats. He himself sat on one of them, the other was occupied by Sable. The third was left empty.

“I won’t be wasting time with pretentious courtesy. I suppose you must have sent one of the assassins with a rank similar to yours to assassinate the princess.” Nightshade was silent the whole time. He had two adversaries in front of him. Killing them was out of the question. He didn’t have the ability to do that. What he could do is run away. He was trying to search for a pathway to do that.

“No need to try anything. Let me brief you about the situation. We shall start with how I knew that the attack will be tonight.” Long Tao turned his head towards Sable. “I think your man has been compromised, dear.” Sable was taken back. How could Long Tao accuse one of his subordinates to have betrayed him? “Do you have any proof of this accusation.”. “You are the proof yourself.” Long Tao gave out a mocking look at Nightshade.

“tell me what message did the messenger give you.”. Sable took out a letter.” The instruction in this letter was the only message I got.” Long Tao smiled “Can you tell me the timing of the visit.”. “The time was right now. “. Long Tao laughed, clapping his hands together.” Exactly, the point that gave it all away. I asked him to report to you that the timing of the meeting is midnight. It means the messenger didn’t personally meet you, did he?”. Sable was surprised. It was true that he didn’t receive the letter from the messenger’s hands.

“No need to answer that. I suppose our friend here can comprehend what happened from here on.” Nightshade was able to make a theory. Long Tao laid a trap for him to step on, and he foolishly followed along with the play. ” Now let me tell you what might have happened. The first case would be the simplest. He gave out the letter but forgot about the message. But a messenger doesn’t have such a laid-back memory. The second option would be he was caught by this guy here, tortured by him, and gave up on the letter. He would have struck a deal with him.”

“But it is unlikely. Since this guy didn’t know the message, neither did you get the message. Which means only the third case remains. He was captured and killed by our friend here and his possession ere taken by Mr. Nightshade to be used by him to give a necessary boost for his plans. But he did it so rashly that he didn’t get all the elements right. “Long Tao was still mocking Nightshade. But nightshade wasn’t feeling angry. He was starting to get nervous.

“Now comes the plan. He must have asked his other partners to carry it out while he stalls me by keeping an eye. But the problem here is the elements involved in the mixture. “Long Tao picked up the pawn from the chessboard. “The placement was the right one. The targets were simple enough. One stalls me while the other group carries out the assassin. From this scenario, I suppose you have just three people in the group. Two except you.”. Nightshade’s nervousness got converted into an instinctive scare.

“No need to show that expression. I will tell you how I derived that. You need to separate the whole group into 2 portions. One who will stall and keep an eye on me, while the other kills the princess in her sleep. From the records of our past encounter and the reports regarding me, you knew that I am not someone whom you can stop. But you are here all alone. You need at least two guys in the other group to take care of any unknown factors. If you had any more members, you should have at least one more with you.” Sable was shocked silent by these assumptions and derivations.

“Do you know that chess resembles real life very closely. It just a game of deception. The better you manage to distract the opponent; more are the more chances of a win. Now the game of chess is one of strategy and counter-strategy. From what I presume, you thought my first strategy was to gather all the help I could and then attack your group, killing every single one of you. You took the necessary steps to counter that. You killed the messenger and got the letter delivered. the real strategy was to attack the princess tonight and catch all of us by surprise.”

.....

“The second thought of yours, when you were planning was the fact that all of this might be a big trap. It might have been designed by me to lure all of you in for the kill, while I would attack from the shadows. It is the reason why you chose to keep an eye on me rather than attacking the princess with the full strength of your group. “Nightshade was getting pale form the realization. Sable was still just comprehending the scenario that Long Tao just described.

“The next scenario is the one you played along with. It was a scenario where you were sure about the fact that I know about you keeping me under surveillance. And hence while I will stall you with my movements here, I will have another person who will be guarding the princess form shadows. Hence you sent the two of them to finish the job off. You came forward to keep tabs on me, as you are the one who is most confident in his combat abilities.

“But here is the one mistake you did. You thought that I would be using the second prince as my ace up the sleeve, just like the king. But I would like to enlighten you about another one of my strategies, the fourth scenario.” Nightshade had a sudden realization of what the fourth scenario could look like. He looked at the table where the enemy was cornered from one side. In general, people would find to be one ace attack.

But when looked closely, a sudden realization appears. The enemy, even if it manages to dodge the first attack, would still die. Because the first character was a planted one. The real ace is the second pawn, which hides in the shadow of the first, making the whole set up a sure kill. “I suppose you realized what I have planned for your group.” One of eth life plates in Nightshade’s possession just burst. Life plates were the indication of whether the person was alive or not. One of the assassins sent just died. Soon enough the other plate burst too.

Nightshade was having a serious nervous breakdown now. Both the assassin sent were killed. Just how many aces did Long Tao hide in the dark? “Rather than thinking about what might have occurred, you should be thinking about how to get out of here my friend.” Nightshade came back to reality and used what looked like a ball on the ground. It was an artificially created smoke bomb. The smoke contained a Qi canceling powder in it which prevented any detection with the help of QI usage. Sable wanted to chase after the guy, but Long Tao stopped him.

“You should let him go, my friend. He needs to get back and report to his master about his failure. His must serve as a warning to those who dare to put an eye on something that is under my protection. I have called you here for a different reason. I want you to meet someone. He is a recent acquaintance of mine. I want you to team up with him. He can give you an extremely powerful boost in terms of manpower. I would like to have you two assist me in the future, the return journey is the nearest in future.’

“With your invincible strategic mind and devious plans, we won’t need to worry about these assassins getting hand son you. Why act so scared.”. Long Tao gave out a smile. “You just saw the result part and didn’t think about the plan itself. Although everything happened according to my prediction, and I managed to kill two birds with one stone, you need to understand that the counter-strategy worked, because the enemy had the strategy in the first place. What do you think would have happened if they have decided to attack the princess with their full force? ”

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