The Martial Unity

The two Martial Seniors in disguise serving as secretaries were probably the reason that Chairman Deacon survived past assassinations based on what Rui could see. Intelligence concealing, especially if the intelligence was important and impactful, was one of the most subtle and passive ways of sabotaging assassins.

An assassin that had prepared to take down four Martial Seniors would most likely fail in their assassination if they ran into an additional two Martial Seniors. It was the best way to sabotage all assassinations in general.

Now that Rui knew about this, however, he didn't intend to let it get in the way.

'If the Beggar's Sect is unable to supply me information on them, then I'll just have to find out myself,' Rui mused. 'Well, I'll have to do that for all six Martial Seniors protecting him regardless.'

He was definitely going to need to formulate rigorous predictive models on all of them. There was no question about that. This was not a head-on fight where his main goal was to push himself by fighting fairly.

His main goal was to succeed, by any means necessary. He didn't have any bottom lines, aside from making sure innocent people didn't get hurt.

'I definitely can't let Chairman Deacon die inside the Shionel Confederation,' Rui noted.

If he did, the death of millions of people would be on him. As much as Rui wanted to kill Chairman Deacon, he was unwilling to sacrifice millions of innocent people. 'It's a shame that this isn't the Gereign Region. If these were people who profited by spreading human suffering, I would have much less of a problem killing all of them,' Rui heaved a sigh, shaking his head.

That instantly ruled out the Shionel Confederation and most certainly the Kandrian Empire when it came to killing him. It ruled out any population center for that matter.

'That leaves only one option. I need to kill him while he's traveling.' Rui concluded. 'It's easier to kill him if he's outside his highly fortified bases and branches. A carriage, as good as it is, simply cannot compensate for all that.'

According to the intelligence supplied by the Beggar's Sect, Chairman Deacon is always accompanied by a security detail and convoy when traveling. Consisting of eight Martial Seniors, including the secretaries, seventy-four Martial Squires, and two-hundred and fifty Martial Apprentices.

'What's the point of having the Martial Squires and especially the Martial Apprentices?' He scratched his head. 'I suppose it does avoid dragging Martial Seniors away from Chairman Deacon. It would be possible to pull them away from his side by sending some weak Martial Artists. So the Martial Squires and Apprentices exist merely to ensure that the Martial Seniors aren't bothered.'

'Hmmm…Normally, I would just use Death's Sympathy to snipe a target from a huge distance away, but in this case, Chairman Deacon has protected himself too well,' Rui noted. Not only was the carriage, that he never stepped out of until the destination had been reached, highly fortified, but he donned attires that actually served as armor and even had invisible protective measures around exposed parts of his body thanks to some rare but powerful esoteric substances.

Death's Sympathy was extremely powerful when it came to assassinations, but it required unbarred access to his target's head. That was its one and only flaw. That wasn't a problem most of the time, but against someone as paranoid as Chairman Deacon, it was going to prove to be not viable.

'That means I'll need to kill him up close, or knock him out up close and then kill him away from a distance,' Rui sighed. 'Direct up-close assassination while he's away from a population center. Loos like I'm going to have to prepare an ambush for the carriage.'

For the most part, he had narrowed down on what manner of assassination he wanted to go through with. Had he been more adept and experienced with indirect assassinations and poison he might have been able to accomplish something with that, but all of his assassination experience was in the field of direct assassinations.

'What are the conditions for a successful assassination in such circumstances?' Rui asked himself.

First, he needed to not die, either to the Martial Senior guards or to a desperate suicide by Chairman Deacon.

For the Martial Senior guards, there was only one solution and it was a proven tried, and tested solution. He needed to form thorough predictive models on all of them and find their resonance frequencies.

With those two weapons, he could operate at a level of combat that far exceeded his standard. Even six Martial Seniors, an ordinarily overwhelming barrier, could be overcome easily. His covert prowess had increased significantly since his training under Master Reina and Master Zeamer.

However, it needed to be executed quickly and swiftly. It needed to be over before Chairman Deacon could realize that he was going to die. If Chairman Deacon realized his eminent death before Rui reached him, then he would undoubtedly kill himself and take his assassins down with him. Thus not only did Rui need to display an overwhelming dominance when it came to taking out the man's guards, he needed to do it with finesse that made it difficult for someone inside the carriage to realize of his impending doom.

That was much harder than just killing them. 'The predictive models need to be immaculate. In fact, just watching them walk and do ordinary tasks is not going to be enough, I need to see them fight,' Rui tutted. Usually just observing them allowed him to make great partial progress when it came forming predictive models on his targets, but this time he needed to actively intervene in some way to witness their Martial prowess.

The preparation phase of this assassination could possibly be harder than the actual execution phase of the assassination. Thankfully, he had the tools to be confident of his own success when it came to ensuring he had everything he needed.