Reincarnated Lord: I can upgrade everything! - Chapter 432

Chapter 432: Hex Witch
Creak.

The door to the small inn room swung open slowly. A man entered—hooded, cautious. The flickering oil lamp revealed little more than the outlines of the space: a modest, dust-ridden chamber typical of roadside inns.

Seated inside were four others, their expressions tight with anticipation. One more sat cross-legged on the floor—a woman, silent, still, like a drawn bow.

“I’ve made one last attempt,” the man said grimly. “I still can’t poison their wine or water. We need to move on to the next plan.”

The others nodded without protest.

For two days, they had schemed, shadowed, and slithered through every opening, trying to slip poison into the celebration’s wine. But the paladins were everywhere—unyielding, vigilant. The best of them had managed to evade their sight… only to find themselves blocked by figures in black—phantoms.

Assassins. Trained and deadly. Loyal not to coin, but to House Ashbourne.

The man stepped further into the room, and with a ripple of flesh and bone, he shrank—morphing into a short, scarred man with rough features. As he took a seat, his eyes instinctively found the woman on the floor.

She sat like a carved statue, legs crossed beneath her, black hair falling loosely around a face that was all sharp edges and danger. One eye was covered by a worn leather patch, and the skin around it bore a twisting black tattoo that crawled down to her cheek.

Before her, laid on a cloth, were two delicate strands of hair—one white, the other green.

Then she spoke.

“Proceed with the next plan. Prepare to leave.”

Her voice was smooth, yet cold enough to freeze blood. She was no ordinary killer.

She was the Hex Witch.

Ranked 19th on the assassin ledger—but when it came to kill rate, she hovered in the shadow of the top 10. Perhaps even more feared.

Her reputation wasn’t forged through brute strength or flashy battles—but by the manner of her kills.

Curses. Twisted, horrifying, irreversible.

She could mummify a man in his sleep, infest bodies with flesh-eating worms, or drive even the most loyal guards to madness until they tore out their own eyes and laughed while dying.

Her work left no trace, only legend. To die by her hand was worse than torment—it was obliteration of the soul.

Few in the High Plains knew of her. Her missions were mostly in Everard, a nation where murder was ritual and abomination was common law. There, she wasn’t just feared—she was a myth dressed in flesh. Nobles whispered her name in dead languages. In Everard, she was the walking embodiment of despair.

And now… her attention was on two strands of hair.

Her one visible eye gleamed as it lingered on the short, scarred man.

He, too, was no ordinary killer.

A supreme-grade talent allowed him not just to shapeshift, but to absorb memories—details, habits, secrets of those he mimicked. He could mask his presence even from higher ranked beings, so long as they weren’t actively searching.

But not even that talent had spared him.

He raised his arm. A thick bandage covered his forearm, stained with dark, dried blood.

“I got this, stealing those hairs,” he growled, voice twisted with pain and rage. “A damned Angel attacked me. I didn’t even cut more than a single strand, but it struck like it had been waiting for me.”

He unwrapped a bit of the cloth, revealing a savage cut, not one but six at different places! Many would have died from such deep cuts.

“And it wasn’t just one Angel,” he hissed. “There were four.”

Gasps rippled through the room, but the Hex Witch did not flinch.

“I want them to suffer,” the shapeshifter said, eyes gleaming with fury. “Twist them inside out. Let them feel every breath of pain I did—tenfold.”

A pause.

Then one of the seated assassins, a wiry man with pale skin and blade-thin lips, leaned forward. “If the Angels saw you, doesn’t that mean the Duke knows someone’s targeting his children?”

“He might,” the shapeshifter said. “But even he won’t expect us to have brought her.”

A slow, crooked smile spread across his face as he nodded toward the woman on the floor.

The Hex Witch.

A curse in human skin.

And now, with two strands of hair between her fingers… She was preparing a death so vile, it would carve itself into the bones of history.

A curse that would haunt a bloodline. One that would instill such dread into Duke Asher’s soul that even sleep would not offer refuge.

He would cower—not before a blade, but before the shadows of fate. In his grand hall, in his private chamber, even amidst loyal guards, he would feel watched. Hunted.

The Hex Witch didn’t need to see his face to know how it would contort. She had broken many of his kind before—men with steel in their eyes and fire in their hearts.

She’d reduced them to whispers in their own minds, scratching at walls, fearing mirrors, begging for mercy that would never come.

Duke Asher was no different.

He merely thought himself different.

He wasn’t.

Suddenly, her head snapped upward, her one visible eye widening with an almost unnatural stillness.

“They’re coming.”

Her voice cut the air like a cold blade.

The assassins around her sprang to their feet, instincts kicking in like a coiled trap snapping loose.

“Who?” one of them hissed, stepping toward the door, blades already drawn.

“The Angels…” she replied, gaze now fixed coldly on the shapeshifter. “You were followed.”

His breath caught. “That’s impossible. I hid my presence—I swear it—”

She raised her hand before he could finish. In the space before her, the air tore like silk, and a swirling portal burst to life—crackling with violet light.

“Wait!” the shapeshifter shouted, desperation in his voice. “If you go far, you won’t be able to curse the children—!”

Two words silenced him.

“It’s done.”

And with that, she stepped through. One by one, the others vanished into the portal, the last assassin casting a glance back—then gone.

The room was silent.

Then—CRACK!

The door was blasted open. Three figures entered, swift as wrath, blades gleaming softly.

Angels.

Their movements were sharp, prepared for blood. But they found only emptiness. No scent, no trail. Just a ripple in the air where the portal had vanished.

One of them stepped forward, eyes scanning the room, his talent allowed him to see echoes of those who were here before them.

“They had a mage with them,” he said darkly. “A strange one.”

Another lowered his blade, jaw tightening.

“We were too slow.”

The third knelt, touching the ground where the portal had been.

A heavy silence fell.

The first Angel looked toward the window, his gaze reaching toward the distant Ashbourne estate.

“…Are they truly gone or is there something we aren’t aware of?”