Xing Yuan woke up again, her legs crossed, a pile of corpses before her.
She still held a knife in her hand, seemingly interrogating the sole survivor.
Xing Yuan was a bit dazed, her head aching. Then, under his furious gaze, she slit his throat, cleaned up her traces according to muscle memory, and began to integrate the memories in a remote, desolate forest.
She was an assassin, but she also had other identities, the boss of a notorious mercenary legion.
Xing Yuan knew the assassin trade well, but this particular assassin was quite special.
From childhood, she had entered a certain assassin organization and had been meticulously trained by them.
It had only taken her seven years to go from being clumsy to killing like a butcher.
By then, her humanity had been almost completely eroded. Besides killing and completing client missions, she didn't know what else to do.
So, one day, she had a sudden idea. She dismantled several strongholds of her original assassin organization, faked her own death, and then, as a victim, was "sold" to a second assassination organization.
With the experience from her previous job, she deliberately played the role of a meek lamb at first. Then, she progressed according to normal standards. In just one year, she successfully graduated from the second assassin organization. Upon realizing she could learn nothing more there, she repeated her scheme and once again left the organization.
Next, she successfully obtained a third job, this time selling herself in a different place.
She became a mercenary, infiltrated a brutal mercenary group, apprenticed under a master, and after learning their skills, killed her master. Then, in the guise of a naive newcomer, she apprenticed under another master, and after mastering all his skills, she eliminated him again.
Later, when she had learned all she could, she simply killed the boss of the mercenary group and took over.
But she still couldn't muster any interest. She felt she wasn't powerful enough.
However, she was older then and couldn't successfully sell herself to other organizations to learn.
After careful consideration, she went to school for further education.
She had never studied since childhood, but due to her shallow emotions, she was incredibly talented in combat. After coercing and bribing several professors to teach her everything they knew, she successfully learned several languages and methods for making explosives.
As for other subjects, no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't achieve any results.
Finally, she learned from a kidnapped psychology professor that it was due to a lack of talent in that area; she simply hadn't been "lit up" in that regard.
She accepted this explanation with a clear conscience and promptly stabbed the psychology professor.
After all, an assassin must never be seen, that was the first rule of being an assassin.
After this, she became lonely again.
She roamed various places, preferring challenging missions. She loved the thrill of adventure. Only when she heard her heartbeat did she feel alive, not just a weapon.
Later, she became known as the Butcher.
The title of Butcher was born amidst countless rivers of blood.
The world knew the Butcher was the top assassin, only accepting missions that others couldn't complete, never failing for years. However, if anyone tried to deceive her with a simple task, she would kill the employer.
Such an uncontrollable assassin was feared by many, yet no one had ever seen her, for those who had seen her were invariably dead.
She never needed a reason to kill.
She never even met her employers, even when they offered payment as a reason for a meeting. She would simply extract her due compensation through her own methods.
The world feared her, so after her fame spread, she found it increasingly difficult to receive assignments.
Bored, she turned to developing her business.
She abducted countless geniuses, regardless of their willingness. They were brought to her territory and, to survive, had to act according to her commands.
Thus, the entire mercenary legion was armed, their equipment even superior to that of regular soldiers.
She didn't like managing things, but she enjoyed the sense of accomplishment from standing at the pinnacle.
So, through various means and substances, she controlled the influential figures within the mercenary legion.
Although most of them were indifferent to life and death, they inevitably had hidden weaknesses or secrets. And, being able to live, who would truly want to die!
Of course, she didn't really care about these things. She even welcomed some people challenging her authority. However, before reaching the peak, she didn't want this force, to which she had poured her heart and soul, to collapse.
For some frustrated business prodigies, she had people brainwash them. The brainwashing methods of certain organizations were indeed first-class. After all, she herself was one of the brainwashed. To this day, she couldn't recall anything about her life before entering the assassin organization.
However, she was too lazy to investigate.
They needed faith, to know why they fought. She shaped such a faith for them: herself.
She emulated those organizations, gathering children, brainwashing them, making them willing to sacrifice their lives. Perhaps some would awaken like herself, but it didn't matter. She looked forward to the day she could fight an awakened one.
Under her efforts, although the mercenary legion wasn't the first, it was among the top few. However, the organization was most famous not for its military might, but for its methods.
She didn't care about the process, only the result. To elevate an ordinary mercenary organization to the peak in a short time, some insidious methods were unavoidable.
They collaborated with unscrupulous businessmen, engaging in fraud, drug trafficking, and banditry, and initiating wars.
These were all extremely effective and rapid ways to accumulate wealth.
She only handled bringing in the necessary people and technology, eliminating those who could pose a threat, and then left the rest to their own endeavors.
As for her reputation in this world, it didn't matter.
The person Xing Yuan encountered this time was from another organization targeting this mercenary legion. It was precisely because their origins were unknown that she was interrogating him.
Her ending? Of course, she died.
But Xing Yuan felt no trace of resentment or sorrow, only exhilaration!
Xing Yuan felt her emotions, her brow furrowed tightly.
She didn't really know why she lived or the meaning of her actions. She simply couldn't tolerate doing nothing. A comfortable life was poison to her. Dying on the battlefield was the fate she had set for herself.
However, those people were too weak, too weak. She was unwilling to die at their hands, so she madly made enemies. Even if she died, she wanted to die heroically, to die in the spotlight, known to all.
Thus, she ultimately died in a meticulously planned feast, gathering all her enemies and her own people together, forcing them to slaughter each other, taking tens of thousands of lives as her funeral procession. How insane!