Sighing, he got dressed and returned to the twenty-third floor. The receptionist recognized him and rolled her eyes, but then gave him a small wink.
Ringo waved at her and pretended not to notice. He was tempted, but he didn't like casual encounters. He had no problem hooking up with random women, but he didn't want to sleep with women who changed men every night. He preferred to get to know someone before committing to anything, and he didn't have time to try to date the woman now.
He'd had a few relationships in his previous life, but due to his condition, none of them lasted more than a few months.
As for Hila and his dream woman, Emma? Well, he's single now, so what if he dates someone?
He picked up a tablet and started researching jobs. This time, he'd been thinking about where to go, and first thought of Felonia. But Felonia was important for old Han's growth. If Han Xiao wasn't strong enough and died along the way, leaving him to fend for himself, he could only cry without tears.
He still didn't remember much of the story's ending, it was driving him crazy. He felt Han Xiao would be very important, so he wouldn't easily take away his growth.
So, he decided to change targets. He remembered that the northern continent was extremely cold, making it a great place to start.
He took out the tablet and quickly found a suitable mission.
Target: James Hornedge
Value: 2 million.
...
The target is a Raylen senator. The motive for the murder was unspecified, but he bought the information about the target for 20,000. There, he saw a series of crimes like bribery, extortion, and even rape. It seemed like his type of target.
After accepting the mission, he sold the Falcon's jewels to the organization for 200,000 and put the remaining 600,000 on his credit card, he didn't want to carry that much cash.
In the end, his card had over 800,000 left, while he carried less than 100,000 in cash in his backpack, along with daily necessities, mainly granola bars and energy drinks.
He exited the Star Dragon with ease through the Dark Net channels, very different from before. Once he was far enough away, he removed his clothes, stuffing them into his backpack, before transforming into a two-meter-wide eagle and grasping the backpack by the handle with his talons, soaring toward the northern continent.
The trip itself would be a training exercise, strapped to his leg, a satellite GPS he'd purchased.
Flying away, he climbed higher and higher. The air pressure, low oxygen levels, and cold didn't bother him at all. So he continued climbing, stopping after 15,000 meters, already feeling a bit heavy. Then he felt his body adapting much faster than before. In less than half an hour, he managed to climb to 16,000 meters, in two hours to 20,000 meters, and when he reached the northern continent, he was already at 23,000 meters. He flew a little further until he was ten kilometers from Raylen before descending.
Even if a satellite caught him, so what? He wasn't even the largest eagle on this planet covered in mutant creatures, but the eagle carries a backpack? So what? The level of intelligence of mutant animals cannot be underestimated.
Transforming back and stretching his sore muscles, he felt he'd made significant progress today. Satisfied, he ate and took a nap in a tree before advancing toward Haylen again.
The environment this time was cold, but still far from what he'd experienced. He needed to go further north to be truly useful, but first, he would complete the mission.
Entering Haylen was simple. He could have flown directly, but he wasn't well-versed in the technological advancements of this world and could be bombarded by missiles if someone thought his backpack contained some kind of bomb to use in the capital or if they simply considered him a danger to civilians.
He didn't bother to think too much and simply used the Dark Net channel, it was truly convenient to have joined this faction.
It wasn't even illegal, as a neutral organization. Even if an assassin killed a senator, as was the case with his future endeavor, only the assassin would be rewarded, the Dark Net would be seen only as an enabler, a better evil than wiping out the Dark Net and having hundreds of shadowy organizations take its place, causing chaos everywhere.
The Dark Net was the necessary evil, the dark side that kept the heinous assassins on a line between darkness and light.
In the end, Ringo didn't care about the motive, he only cared about the target. At Raylen's Vitória Hotel, he rented a room and went out during the day to investigate.
This senator's mansion was much more cramped than a mere gang leader's, with cameras covering every blind spot and hundreds of security guards. This man truly feared death.
It took him a few hours to map it out. Eventually, he returned to the hotel, and when night fell, he flew out in the form of a black bat. It took a lot of energy to force his body into a half meter long form, only increasing in size after reaching some altitude, increasing him to two-meter wingspan. He could finally breathe a sigh of relief. He felt like a 17th-century woman trying on a corset.
He figured a giant bat might attract attention, and he didn't want to use his eagle form for assassination. At the very least, if he were discovered, he could point to his Esper ability is being a bat transformation, sound and such, it made sense.
He flew a few hundred meters over the mansion to take in the final details before shrinking back down and entering through a chimney.
Of course, there was a grate barrier on the chimney, so he had to transform into an extremely long and thin snake to get through the small hole.
He crawled through the flue before transforming into a half meter long black cat. It was actually a Shadow Lynx, an interesting creature that excels at concealment. Lin Wei Xian was trying to improve his concealment skills with this. Apparently, the shadows swallowed the lynxes themselves, making their already easily concealed bodies even more concealed. Even creatures with excellent vision like owls couldn't even spot the Shadow Lynxs.
In any case, the black cat with long legs, half a meter tall and almost a meter and a half long, advanced through the flue, its padded paws blocking out any noise.
He soon found an exit. In an empty, dark room, he transformed into a thin snake and climbed out of the duct again.
Inside, he transformed back into a lynx as he opened the door with his long tail.
Peering out, he saw the dark hallway as he opened his mouth and let out an unheard scream. Waiting for the sound to reverberate, he scanned the room, clear.
He left the room and left the door ajar in case he needed to escape.
He continued forward as he searched for his target.
The mansion didn't have tight security, after all, no one would want to live with security guards everywhere, but there were cameras, so he had to hide in the shadows to slip past them unnoticed. He mentally thanked Lin Wei Xian while wishing the devil's trident had some lubrication as it entered his ass.
When he heard the light breathing of two people, one heavier than the other, he approached. He saw that the door had three cameras pointed at it from different angles. He bet this was the right room.
Watching the cameras for a moment, he didn't want to look for a air piping, after all, this was supposed to be the most protected room in the house. What's the point of looking for something that probably doesn't exist?
Trying to open the door would reveal him and destroy the cameras, so he thought for a moment and turned around. He could actually kill the man and the woman together if he wanted, but he didn't know if the woman was evil, so he decided to take the more complicated route.
He continued avoiding the cameras while searching for the surveillance center. Luckily, he was inside the house, in the basement to be more specific.
The door was also armored. Smart man, it seems this guy is really paranoid.
Ringo heard the sound inside and discovered at least four distinct breathing patterns, along with the sound of mouse and keyboard clicks.
Thinking for a moment, he opened his mouth and got to work. He didn't want to kill strangers, so he first used the sleep scream. Soon, the group there began to fall to the floor or onto their keyboards and began snoring. Ringo nodded calmly.
The next moment, he changed the frequency, switching precisely to the CPU's internal components.
Soon he heard the faint sound of components breaking and smelled a faint burning smell.
Satisfied, the soft hum of the cameras gone, he waved as he ran back to the Senator's room.
He opened his mouth and destroyed the internal components of all the surrounding cameras just in case, then used the sleep scream.
When he noticed the pair inside had fallen into an even deeper sleep, he used his tail to open the door, locked.
Sighing, he opened his mouth, and the door latch and hinges began to shake fiercely. They broke faster and faster before shattering from the inside. After half a minute, the door fell open on its own with a dull thud, the metal pieces falling apart with woody and metallic clangs.
No one woke. He approached the bed and jumped on the man, fast asleep. He sat on him chest, still in his cat form and began making vibration sounds, but this time with his mouth closed.
The solid medium carries sound much faster than gaseous. Upon contact with its victim and emitting a sound frequency not into the air, but through its own body, it can use its ability on only one target, as long as it is in direct contact with the victim.
So when the man bled from his ears and nose, he wasn't surprised. His vital signs died shortly afterward. He quickly retraced his steps and exited the chimney, like a bat again, flying away.
Once back in his room, he left the hotel through the front door for half an hour before sending a mission complete message. It wasn't until two hours later that the mission was confirmed.
That's how long it took for the group to realize the monitoring system was dead. After breaking into the monitoring room and seeing the four sleeping, the group, and the black screens, the group panicked and went after their employer. But when they found the door broken, they had a bad feeling. Just as they expected, the senator was dead in his own bed!
Ringo, who sent the assignment, only realized upon his return that it would be suspicious to have completed the assignment without leaving the hotel. This would make the administration think he had left by another means and start searching for how. He preferred them to find nothing.
So he took the risk of waiting half an hour before reporting. Of course, the risk wasn't great. Only if another assassin took the same mission and lied that the death was his.. This was unlikely and easily refuted by the way the target died. So the risk was very small.
So when the target was discovered dead, after his report, he received 2 million in his account within two hours, but by then he was already asleep.
The next day, he went to take another assignment. This time, he chose a mission in the far north of the continent, with an organization called Ice Spikes. Its leader, Zhou Ming, an Esper with Ice abilities, D Grade, had a 6 million bounty on his head.
Since he was already heading to the far north, he decided to accept the assignment.