Lake was silent as he listened to Liam. What he just heard revealed some unspoken rules of their society that he had never thought of.
What really happens to martial artists who commit a crime? Why doesn’t he ever see news or reports on such incidents?
’They’ve been restricting information on it...’ Lake sighed as he thought of this.
Without a place to house criminal martial artists, there really was no point in capturing them alive. As soon as you look away, no wall or bullet will be able to stop them from escaping. They could cripple the martial artist’s limbs and body, but such a method would be too inhumane and spark too much moral conflict among the populace.
Naturally, the best option in such a situation is to just directly eliminate the threat, but the government can’t go around just telling people that. They don’t know how the public would react to such news or even the other martial artists.
If the revelation of such news would potentially cause chaos, the government would much rather keep it a secret.
Lake looked at Liam. Seeing his serious demeanor, Lake couldn’t tell whether this was the real him or if the teasing senior before was just an illusion.
’It seems he’s also quite two-faced.’ Lake smiled as he felt his understanding of Liam’s character deepen.
"From the way you talk, it seems as if you want me to kill him, yet you used the word neutralize. What is it exactly that you want me to do?" Lake asked while Liam suddenly started back smiling.
"Well, that depends on you. You can kill him if you want, or just disable him if you can. It wouldn’t change the end result."
Hearing Liam’s answer, Lake finally knew what he had to do and no longer hesitated. Turning to look at the skyscraper before him, his eyes eventually lowered to the people walking on the ground.
"Do you need me to tell you information about your target?" Liam asked as he observed Lake’s strange behavior.
"Sure," Lake replied casually.
"The target this time is a middle-aged man named Adrian Bail. As I said before, he has seven counts of murder, two reports of assault, and over twenty cases of robbery. There are a few other crimes that could be related to him as well, but we unfortunately have no evidence to support them. We’ve been tracking his whereabouts for the past three days and confirmed him to be hiding somewhere within that hotel, thanks to a tip from the staff. Notable traits of him would be the snake mark tattoo behind his neck." Liam gave a brief recount of the case and the criminal, to which Lake listened passively as his eyes flashed a cold glint.
"He’s been confirmed to be a High-Rank Martial Warrior in recent reports, so you’ll have to be careful."
"Thanks for the information. If there’s nothing else, I’ll start now," Lake replied as he removed one of the pistols from its holster. The sleek black design featured a silencer at the end. The gun itself was unique, with a specialized firing mechanism and bullets that used mana to greatly enhance their speed and force. He fiddled with it a bit before pulling back the slide and infusing his mana into the loaded bullet, prepping the gun to fire.
Liam smiled at Lake’s seeming familiarity with the gun as his eyes narrowed back to his usual foxlike expression. "You don’t want the information on his room number?"
"No need," Lake said as he carefully aimed his gun towards the streets below. "I already found him."
Liam opened his eyes wide. Before he could even react, Lake had shot four times into the crowd below.
"You..." Liam was stunned as he stared at the smoke coming out of the barrel of the gun.
"You said that I could disable him. I’ve put four bullets in him, one in each of his knees and elbows. He won’t be moving anytime soon, so I’ll leave the clean-up to you," Lake replied calmly as he spun his gun before holstering it.
Liam took a step closer to the edge, overlooking the area Lake had just shot. The body of a groaning man could be seen lying on the ground. He had a bald head and a snake tattoo running up the back of his neck.
When Liam saw the tattoo, he knew that Lake had hit the correct target.
"Ha...haha...hahaha!" Liam started laughing out loud at the sight.
He didn’t know how Lake had managed to pinpoint the target without even knowing who he was or how he managed to accurately shoot the pistol at each of the target’s limbs in quick succession, but he was sure of one thing.
"No hesitation....Hahaha!" Liam couldn’t believe his eyes. When Lake pulled the trigger, he sensed zero hesitation in his actions. He was absolutely confident. Not a hint of doubt existed in his mind. He had a target, and that was all that mattered.
With this, Liam was able to confirm one thing. Lake wasn’t just a killer. The way he talked, the way he carried himself, and even his actions. It was all too calm and calculated. He knew exactly what he wanted and what he had to achieve, and he had a clear path to accomplishing it. While it doesn’t clear Lake from complete suspicion, Liam didn’t have to worry about Lake killing anyone without a reason, which was already good enough for him.
In Liam’s eyes, Lake had already turned into the perfect assassin for their department—no, he was more than that.
He was a master assassin.
Lake returned to the academy a few hours later.
Liam had called in the standby members who were nearby for the operation. Everything happened so quickly and methodically, as if this were a common procedure. Clearly, it wasn’t their first time doing it.
Within the hour, Adrian Bail was dead, and his body was disposed of. Lake remembered sighing when he saw just how efficient they were with everything.
Although he didn’t deal the finishing blow, he couldn’t help but feel a little thrown off by it. He had just contributed to the murder of someone, and there was no changing that.
It wasn’t the first time he had killed someone. During the Prestige terrorist attack on the theater, he killed several of the weaker members around the stage. Back then, he was too overcome by rage and hatred to even register them as humans. In his eyes, they were simply anomalies that needed to be removed, and he felt nothing or thought anything of them. But the truth still remained.
He had blood on his hands, and he had no intention of denying that.
Liam then took the time to explain a bit more about how his "punishment" was going to proceed from now on, which took up another hour.
After dropping Lake off at the academy, Liam quickly left. He told Lake that he would contact him once another mission was ready and to wait on standby until then.
Lake didn’t know if he had unofficially joined the Execution Department or if this was temporary, but he did know that Liam planned to use him again.
Entering his dorm room, Lake collapsed on the bed as he began to revise his plan. He now had to account for these new "missions" that he would have to accomplish on the side.
"At least they’re letting me keep the suit weapons..." Lake murmured to himself as he soon fell asleep. It was already three in the morning by the time he got back, and he had to wake up early for classes since he couldn’t afford to miss them if he wanted three meals a day.
As Lake woke up, he checked the time and saw that only three hours had passed since he fell asleep.
Getting up from the bed, he cast a clean spell on himself and was about to go and change into his uniform when he noticed a message from Alec on his wristwatch.
Reading its content, Lake felt his eyelid twitch.