The Omniversal Assassin Marketplace

The man panted hard as he ran from his pursuers. Perhaps running would be too mild a verb to describe what he was actually doing. His silhouette appeared one moment on top of a building and disappeared the next moment, only to appear again on a building a few metres away. His pursuers weren't slow either as they manoeuvred through the rooftop like seasoned experts of rooftop parkour. 'Damn it! I just assassinated their leader…the old man was at the end of his time anyways, System...time left to return?' A blue screen appeared in front of the man showing a timer that read. 'f**k! Eight minutes! Are you kidding me!? I'm exhausted…fine! I was saving this for the evaluation but…' The man held out his hand in front of him and a golden compass-like object appeared in his palm. "What a waste…", saying so the man used his thumb to press the button on top of the compass. As he pressed the button, the compass needle began rotating and the man suddenly disappeared in a small flash of light. No sooner had he disappeared than the entire rooftop was filled with black outfitted individuals. One of these individuals stopped at the location where the man had disappeared and bent down to examine the location. After a few minutes, he stood up and looking at the group around him shook his head. Meanwhile, the man had already appeared a few hundred kilometres away in a forest. Clutching the compass he saw that the golden glow was gone and the needle had snapped in half, its head nowhere to be found. 'Well, there goes a Tier 5 artefact. The system, time remaining?' The blue screen appeared before the man which read: The man sighed and plopped down on the ground. Tossing away the now useless Artifact, he materialised a bottle of wine and a glass. Pouring the wine into the glass, he didn't bother with any etiquette and directly drained the glass. 'System…why is it so much longer this time?' 'What do you mean by an interference? And why are you telling me this now?' 'Hmmm...Wait…the OAM isn't that umm…your creator? Could it be another operative, but that's not possible. Unless in a team, other operatives cannot take the same job request. Perhaps it was some sort of a notification from the OAM? But they're usually very accurate and mistakes are never made. Damn…hey, can you perhaps pinpoint the location of the interference source?' The bluish screen morphed into a grid-map showing a blue skull icon being overlapped by a large red dot. Seeing the map, the man was confused and asked, 'Hey system, I think there's been a mistake, the source of the anomaly is overlapping with my location on the map. Why is it overlapp-' Just as the man was about to question the system, he felt a terrible premonition and instantly disappeared from his location. Appearing a few meters away from, he saw an omega-shaped blade plunged into his earlier spot. The man materialised two curved daggers in his hands and checked the timer. It was down to less than 3 minutes. Before he could curse his luck, he felt a tingling sensation in the back of his neck and disappeared yet again. The man appeared again clutching his neck and feeling a wet sensation, he instantly knew that his blood had been drawn. "Okay! Stop playing and show yourself!" The man's eyes scanned his surroundings while checking the timer, it showed less than two minutes now. Suddenly an eerie chuckle sounded behind the man and he swung his dagger only slashing through the air. "It's not funny! Show yourself! I don't have much longer to play with you!" The man checked the timer yet again, impatiently waiting for it to hit zero. There was a rustling in the bushes, the man tossed his dagger in the bushes and it clanked against something. 'Gotcha!' Without delay, the man's empty hand glowed with a dim red light before he swung it towards the bushes, launching a swift red arc of energy that sliced through the bushes, exploding on making contact with the ground. 'Didn't hit anything. Damn it, whatever it is it's probably got a high speed and formidable reaction time.' The man once again glanced at the timer, it showed fifty-four seconds now. He didn't let down his guard. Experience had taught him better, even a single second was enough to be killed if you were careless enough. The return cured every possible injury sustained during the job but it wasn't an all-encompassing recovery mechanism. It couldn't cure mental or spiritual damage. Both being commonly employed means to attack. Dividing his attention, he cautiously proceeded to examine the omega-shaped blade. 'The blade is….wait a second. System appraise it....if possible...otherwise, just store it.' Unexpectedly the system gave a negative response. He immediately dropped the blade and looked around vigilantly. 'f**k! Soul-bound! System are there any other individuals from the OAM here?' 'f**k no! This is too scary! Could it be-!? No it's probably just another operator! Competition sure is fierce, people going against Omniversal laws like it's nothing! Damn it twenty seconds left. Just go faster! Once I'm back, none of this will matter till the next time.' As the man was consoling himself and denying the most terrifying possibility, he felt a sudden surge of bloodlust. He was about to use his skill to evade but suddenly found that he couldn't engage his skill. A strange feeling ran up his left leg as he saw another omega-shaped blade that had cleanly sliced off his left foot. However, he didn't see a single drop of his blood spilt, instead, the foot just dissipated after turning into pixelated squares. The wound didn't hurt at all but a very ominous feeling descended upon the man. 'Arghhhhh…fuck, system time to return! Now!' The man tried to ignore looking at his now non-existent left foot and focused. A golden barrier appeared around him as he urged the last few seconds to go faster. The most terrifying likelihood of events had transpired and he just couldn't wait to get away from this place. But as the timer hit 1 second, it froze. 'No no no no! System initiate return now! What's wrong!?' 'It's already been a few seconds since then! System return now! Don't break on me now!' Just as the man was about to curse the system, a cold and playful voice echoed in his ears. "Don't bother waiting for that to happen, it won't." He turned his head to look at the owner of the voice and froze. No, he didn't recognise the individual, but the attire and the omega-shaped mask, he had read of it. This was the worst possibility he had just thought of. What he had read earlier, he had at that point ignored. It had been as fictitious as the Boogeyman or the Tooth Fairy. But now, it all came back. The pixilation, the omega-shaped blades and the warnings. The man slumped to his knees in resignation. He knew exactly what the being in front of him was. "You…they didn't rate this job correctly. They should have. Why did it?..why did it have to be me?", said the man, lamenting his fate in a hushed voice. He knew what came next. The sudden chime of the system notification in his head brought him no joy, no one had escaped, they could not escape it. "Go on. Confirm it. A man like you should be given the chance to know the instigator of their demise. After all, now we have all the time in the world." The man didn't take his eye off the figure who's only discernible feature was the pair of omega-shaped blades in its hands. But a blue screen popped out in front of him anyway. The man didn't react at all seeing the blue screen. Seeing the resignation in the man's eyes, the Omega Enforcer spoke again, its voice no longer playful. "You have been judged guilty. As the judge, jury and executioner, I hereby find you guilty, confirm the verdict, pronounce the punishment...Erasure. Now executing the penalty." The being immediately swung both its blades and lopped off the kneeling man's head. Not a drop of blood was spilt, the man's head disintegrated into pixelated blocks that disappeared into nothingness. His body soon followed. The being slotted the omega-shaped blades back into the scabbard on its back, looked at the empty spot on the ground for a few seconds and walked away, disappearing into the shadows. A few minutes later, a blue screen popped up at the exact spot the man had been 'Erased'. It read: