Bloodhound’s Regression Instinct

Chapter 7

“I’m sure there’s someone who didn’t go to the royal palace and came back among the high-ranking officials… Now that it’s come to this, I have no choice but to use Plan B.”

Yan bit his lips hard.

Out of habit, he had prepared another plan in advance in case of an emergency.

But he really hated that option.

First of all, there were too many restrictions.

If he could use mana freely, he might have considered it, but at least not now.

“Let’s give up on the idea of getting out easily.”

Then what can he do? Just do it.

The signs of life around him gradually began to decrease.

Yan lifted his head slightly and looked around.

He confirmed that the distance between them was not easy to catch.

The opposite cliff.

Yan lowered his head again and moved quietly, killing the sound and presence.

Shasha.

* * *

Yan moved to the front of his destination by crawling, and sighed as he felt the presence of the surrounding people.

“Damn it. I’m being chased more and more as time goes by.”

A huge encirclement was built around him.

It was a net of heaven and earth.

A tens of layers of encirclement that was formed only when the special forces chased the most wanted criminals.

In this situation, even if he was a strong man who could fly, escaping was almost impossible.

Let alone him, who couldn’t even use mana properly.

There was only one way, if any.

To soar into the sky.

“Or disappear under the ground.”

Yan sighed deeply.

“I guess I have no choice but to run now.”

Plan A was to sneak out through the escape route he had prepared in advance based on his previous life’s knowledge, when the instructors were distracted by other baits.

But that was already ruined as soon as the high-ranking officer appeared.

Then the only thing left was Plan B, which had a very high risk of danger that he had to stake his life on.

“There’s a very deep river below the cliff over there. The current is fast enough to make it hard for the instructors to catch up.”

It was a secret escape route that he had marked in case of an enemy attack in his previous life.

“But there are also many rocks in the river, so you have to be prepared to die.”

But it was still better than being caught and killed.

At that moment.

A flash of light caught Yan’s eye.

There was no point in hiding anymore.

He sprang up from his seat and kicked the ground, running towards the cliff.

He soon arrived at his destination and looked down.

A high cliff.

He could see the river flowing rapidly along the narrow gorge.

It was a sight that anyone would think they would die if they fell.

‘But I made it here well.’

The only escape route that could ‘disappear under the ground’ in this situation.

‘I have to avoid making them continue to search for me after I fall.’

Yan held his breath in tension.

‘I have to convince them that I have no choice but to die.’

To do that, he had to give them a good show.

Yan finished his thoughts and took out two daggers from his chest and lowered his posture.

“Come out, I know you’re hiding.”

As he said that, the instructors appeared one by one from around and formed an encirclement.

They all had a murderous look on their faces, who had been troubled by Yan.

But such a fierce scene was overshadowed by.

Clap clap clap!

Suddenly, someone else clapped cheerfully and walked out in front of the instructors.

Yan snorted when he saw the other person.

‘It was impossible to escape safely from the beginning.’

The other person asked with a grin.

“Is the hide and seek over?”

“Hide and seek? It seemed too intense for that.”

Yan answered, shrugging his shoulders.

The other person was the chief instructor, who he thought had gone to the palace.

Something that never happened in his previous life.

Moreover, at that time, the chief instructor had caused a big accident in the palace and almost got a prison sentence.

And he was here, not in the palace?

It was not a problem that he could easily pass over.

‘Was it some kind of butterfly effect caused by me? But I didn’t do anything to provoke him while I was in the training camp?’

He racked his brain, but he couldn’t think of anything.

‘Well. Nothing will change now that I’m here.’

He was the chief instructor who would reach the peak of swordsmanship and be called the ‘Three Swords of the Continent’ in the future.

But not yet.

So he could do it.

If he showed him that he fell with a big wound, there would be no one to chase him.

Even if there was, it would be very small.

‘As long as I don’t die.’

Yan clenched his daggers. His hands were full of sweat.

Seeing him burning with fighting spirit.

The chief instructor burst into laughter.

“How did you become number 974? Did all of our instructors’ eyes break or something?”

For a moment, the other instructors turned pale, but the chief instructor couldn’t help laughing.

He was actually amazed by Yan, who had entertained him so much.

The meaning of the numbers given to the trainees was potential.

The instructors naturally thought that the trainees with 0 numbers were the best, and the trainees with 900 numbers were nothing.

But Yan shattered the instructors’ prejudices very nicely.

He didn’t cause confusion to the instructors by using various tricks.

He didn’t break through the encirclement with his bare body.

Judgment, boldness, guts, perseverance, and excellent physical strength.

He had everything.

And he even killed two instructors with his ruthlessness.

He had the best talent as an assassin.

He seemed to be born for this special force.

‘If only he had talent for mana too!’

Maybe a monster would have been born?

The reason he was able to catch him now was because he was still young and weak, and alone.

‘If it wasn’t for the mass attack… Maybe I would have missed him?’

Thinking that, he felt a ‘desire’ rise in his head.

The chief instructor smiled.

“Shall I give you a chance?”

“A chance?”

“Make me laugh from now on. Then I’ll spare you.”

“…”

Yan pretended to think and thought.

‘He’s crazy.’

He’d rather die than be tormented by him.

But now he had to play along with him.

“…Yes.”

“Good, let’s do that then.”

The chief instructor chuckled and straightened his waist.

At that moment.

Shiver.

The momentum changed.

Yan swallowed his dry saliva and held his daggers.

‘I have to fight with all my strength.’

That was not the only condition.

He couldn’t be caught, nor could he fall off the cliff awkwardly.

‘Why do I have to keep so many things in mind?’

Yan grumbled inwardly, but diligently watched the black energy that was rising from the chief instructor’s feet.

‘As expected, that’s it. The black blade.’

It was a skill that the chief instructor developed based on the ‘Shadow Style’, a lower-level technique of the special force.

A technique that uses shadows as a physical form and pulls them out.

If he had enough mana, he could pull out infinite shadow stems, and if he could sharpen them like blades, he could cut even iron cleanly.

The chief instructor used this to always seize the victory in one-on-one combat as well as in multiple combat.

There were eight stems at the tip of the chief instructor’s boots.

Squash.

The chief instructor pressed the ground hard.

Whoosh.

The black energy that was smoldering under his boots exploded at once.

‘Here it comes!’

Yan spun his two daggers and held them upside down.

Then he began to collide with the black blades that came at him.

The two daggers bounced, slid, and pushed aside the black energy at a fast speed.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

Even though they collided with nothing but energy blades, sparks flew from the tips of the daggers.

A strange friction sound of scraping metal also burst out.

Every time, his arms vibrated.

“Hahaha! You’re really fun!”

He was already exhausted, but he was laughing in front of him. He gritted his teeth at the sight.

But.

‘Fortunately, the mana in the blade is faint.’

He said to make him laugh, but he seemed to be really joking.

Of course, even that would have been enough to chop up an ordinary trainee without blocking a few times.

A bombardment-like attack.

As time went by, wounds appeared all over his body and blood splattered.

His body kept being pushed back.

And before he knew it, he reached the edge of the cliff.

‘That’s it!’

Maybe it was because he lost too much blood, but his eyes were dizzy.

But he came to his senses at the thought that it was all over.

Next time.

Right at the next attack, he pretends to fail to block and get hit hard.

And then he bounces back and falls off the cliff, spraying blood.

Then the escape is over.

He waited for the timing of the next attack, thinking that.

Whoosh!

He turned his body towards the black blade that was stabbing down from above like a whip.

‘Now… I can get out of this annoying place.’

He finally did it, and a faint smile crossed his lips.

It was then.

Swish.

He didn’t know how it suddenly came into his sight.

He might have missed it because he was focused on the black blade.

He might have missed it because he was timing the fall off the cliff.

But at this moment.

As if time had slowed down, something appeared very clearly in Yan’s eyes.

The chief instructor’s neck area.

He didn’t know what had happened, but his shirt was torn very long as if it had been cut by a sharp blade.

A tattoo was visible through the gap.

A tattoo that seemed to depict a flame burning fiercely.

‘That, that is…!’

For a moment, Yan’s eyes widened.

* * *

‘…Boring.

Too boring. I thought I had found a fun toy for a change.’

The chief instructor quickly got bored, as Yan didn’t show any remarkable performance unlike his initial expectation.

‘This clothes is also very annoying.’

He had insisted on staying at the training camp instead of going to the palace, and the wound near his shirt from the sword fight with the special force leader.

As he moved around, his clothes kept fluttering in the wind and bothered him.

He also had to hide the tattoo that he had carved with his comrades a long time ago.

‘I’ll just get rid of them together.’

If he threw the annoying clothes and the kid out of the cliff, he wouldn’t have to bother to collect them.

He was about to launch the final attack, thinking that.

Flinch.

The chief instructor momentarily opened his eyes wide without knowing.

‘That guy, his eyes suddenly…?’

Yan’s atmosphere, which had been dying until a moment ago, changed drastically in an instant.

At that moment, the final attack fell on Yan’s head.

A force that could cut down a maple tree in one stroke.

Yan threw the two daggers he had in his hands towards it.

But the strength contained in them was clearly different from before.

Very fast and fierce, like a dragon swinging its tail.

Bang.

The first dagger collided with the black blade.

As if a bomb had exploded, a loud noise echoed and the cliff shook, creating a cloud of dust.

“…!”

“…!”

“…What is this!”

A shock wave that surprised the instructors.

And.

Swoosh!

A flash of light flew quietly through the dust and reached the front of the chief instructor.

Like a thief cat approaching its prey stealthily.

It was the second dagger that followed behind the first dagger, hiding skillfully and running half a beat late.

“Damn!”

The chief instructor instinctively pulled his body back.

Fortunately, the second dagger didn’t even hurt him and passed by in vain.

But he didn’t know.

That Yan’s aim was not to hurt him in the first place.

Whoosh.

The wound on his shirt that the special force leader had left widened even more, revealing the chief instructor’s upper body.

Dozens of stab wounds all over his body.

A burn mark that almost covered his left chest and various scars.

The upper body of a warrior who had clearly been through countless battles.

But.

Yan only saw the huge tattoo that ran from his neck to his right chest.

‘I didn’t see it wrong…’

He was startled by the tattoo of a flame that looked exactly like the one on the pendant’s lid.