Asiva entered Max's office not suspecting anything, but she was shocked when she entered the room and found putrid blood alongside very small pieces of food sprawled all over the floor.
The stench of the blood was horrible, it smelled like rotten eggs mixed with elf liver.
Asiva panicked as she glanced at Max who was drenched in sweat from head to toe, sweating profusely as if he had just fought the most intense battle of his life.
" Ar- "
Asiva wanted to say are you okay?, however, the moment she stared into Max's eyes she lost her courage to utter a single word.
Max was not wearing his mask, his full facial expressions were on display as Asiva recognised the look of madness in his eyes from the first time she had seen it when his blood satiety had dropped below 60% while fighting in the university woods.
It was a terrifying look, one that sent shivers down the spine of even a warrior like Asiva who knew Max would never in a million years harm her in any way.
Something about those eyes was just so volatile, as if it was on the verge of doing something crazy with full conviction that Asiva could not gather the courage to ask Max a question.
Max looked pale, his scaly Draconic skin looked like it had lost 2-3 shades of colour as he did not look healthy at all, however, the aura he gave off was completely different.
Max was angry, not the normal sort of angry, but seething angry as he seemed to be ready to butcher anyone standing in his path.
" There's an assassin amongst us, there was poison in my blood " Max said slowly with a chilly edge in his voice.
" No way " Asiva said, gasping as she finally realised what had transpired in the room.
" The Titus clan soldiers are all vetted and sent by Vega, there is a very low probability that the assassin is mixed amongst them.
Which leaves with the Paratus troops, one or more of them is definitely an impostor and we need to sniff them out immediately.
So listen carefully Asiva, for you will follow my instructions precisely now.
Walk out of the room calmly, like nothing happened and start questioning the entry guards if anything peculiar had happened in the last 30 days during immigration.
We have a physical copy of all the immigration forms, where they have signed a system contract stating they cannot harm their superiors.
Shift through the stack of contracts and silently tally them against the members. In doing so you will find out someone who is not on the list but living amongst us...
I will deal with the rest, you do this for me, understand? ". Max said authoritatively as Asiva nodded
Asiva pursed her lips and took a deep breath, someone had just attempted to take the life of the one she loved and by the looks of it had almost succeeded.
She had lost everyone in life, all she had now were her friends and Max, she could not afford to lose him too….NO! The thought itself repulsed her to no end, she was never going to let anyone get away with harming her boyfriend.
With unmatched fury, Asiva walked out of Max's office pretending like nothing had happened as she went straight to the immigration office to do as Max had instructed her.
Whoever the culprit for this was, Asiva swore to find him out within the next 24 hours.
While Max had told her that he would handle the matter himself once she found out who it was, Asiva was not sure she was ready to let Max handle the matter himself.
Someone had attempted to kill her love, and she was definitely not going to take it standing down.
***********
( Meanwhile Arteta )
A deep frown appeared on Arteta's face when he looked at Asiva walk out of Max's office without having a concerned expression on her face.
He assumed that the moment she would enter the office, and see the dead body of Max she would scream and howl, her shrieks shaking the camp to its core, however, she went inside the cabin and walked out without a single disturbed scream, it was like the man was not dead at all.
' It's not possible that he took a sip of the drink and is still alive….. that drink was mixed with the poison of the norodriantic spider. One drop of that poison is enough to kill a giant in under 2 minutes, I used a vial full of it to kill a vampire! ' Arteta thought as he dismissed the idea of Max having survived the assassination attempt.
Arteta clicked his tongue and believed that Max was just a lucky bastard who had survived by some dumb luck and had not drunk his daily drink.
While not common, it still happened in his line of work where an intended target, sure to die from a carefully planned assassination attempt, somehow survived by some sheer dumb luck.
Arteta himself had seen 3 such cases throughout his long Assassin career and felt like today was the fourth one.
' Maybe he spilled it, or maybe he did not feel like drinking it today because of work and by the time he wanted to drink it, it might not be at his desirable temperature' Arteta thought as he reasoned with himself that one of these might be the true reason why he failed today.
Either way, the lucky bastard had survived and Arteta had to wait to try again some other day.
What Arteta did not know and did not think was possible was that Max had actually survived the assassination attempt and was now on the lookout for the assassin.
If Arteta remotely believed that it might be the case he would have taken more cautious measures or decided to flee the planet entirely, however, since he had completely disregarded the outcome that Max had been alerted, he was calm and not worried about his job.
In his mind he would get Max surely in his second assasination attempt, however, he was oblivious to the reality that the hunter was about to become the prey.