The next day was the 5th day of the Throne Wars.
Raven logged in just as the sunlight began to bend orange.
Most players in his tizone were already deep in battle. Raiding, defending, running organized rotations. The global map blazed with chaos markers: siege towers along the southern ridge, folded breach points at the eastern trench. Raven didn’t check the war board. He didn’t need to.
Europe and US tizones hadn’t fully logged in yet. The city was caught in that strange lull where one crowd was burning out and the next hadn’t arrived. For Raven, it was perfect. The noise faded just enough to think.
He started walking.
Not toward the defense lines—everyone else was there. Instead, he turned off the main road, slipping through a gap in the western corridor where old quest lines used to loop through the noble quarter. He wasn’t expecting action here. But he had seen sothing odd on the war map yesterday—a Fold supply line ping had flickered near this region, then disappeared. Just once. A glitch, maybe. Or maybe not. Most players had forgotten this route even existed. The NPCs were long gone. The vendors had been removed. Only fractured marble and overgrown staircases remained.
It was quiet here. Not abandoned, just... ignored. That made it interesting.
He passed beneath a fallen arch and spotted the first body.
NPC armor. Fold-made. Clean stab through the neck.
Not siege damage. Not AOE. No residual burn or structure collapse.
Raven crouched beside it, eyes narrowing.
A few steps later, another body—slumped near a busted cart. Similar wound.
A third body was further along, near a tower entrance that had caved in days ago.
"Patterned. Not random," he muttered. "Soone’s been through here."
And not recently. These kills were too precise, too surgical. Soone had moved through this area, unseen, while the rest of the war distracted everyone else.
Raven adjusted the weight of his dwarven dagger beneath the robe. He didn’t wear his Sovereign gear outside dungeons—only the basic set: old dwarven armor, travel-worn cloak, and a hood low enough to forget his face.
Then he kept walking.
Toward the silence.
The fog deepened without warning.
Raven hadn’t noticed it at first. Just a soft silvering of the air, curling against broken stone and rotted wood. But now, as he stepped deeper into the ruined noble quarter, it thickened fast.
By the ti he reached the old bell plaza, visibility had dropped to twenty ters.
Ten.
Then five.
He slowed his pace, boots tapping stone as the world narrowed around him.
No sounds. No ambient music. Even the distant battle noises—siege horns, spell bursts—had faded into a dull hum beneath the fog’s weight. The whole zone felt cut off, like stepping into a different layer of the ga.
Another body appeared, almost too close to avoid stepping on it.
Still fresh. No system decay.
The stab wound ran straight through the ribs.
Raven looked up.
And there it was.
The courtyard.
Ringed by half-collapsed archways, flanked by dead lantern posts. A cracked fountain stood in the middle, dry and filled with wind-blown ash.
And near the fountain—
A figure.
Crouched.
Still.
Armor of glass-dark plating that reflected none of the light. No UI tag. No na. Just a faint distortion shimring at the edges of its fra.
Raven exhaled slowly, a smile pulling across his face.
"Well. That’s rare."
Adrenaline surged. His fingers tightened around the hilt of his dagger. He knew what this was.
During every Throne War, which stretched across seven days each month, there existed a system-buried event—a hidden encounter known only to those who had studied the ga long enough. Sowhere on the sprawling battlefield map, a small trigger zone would silently wait. Its location changed every month. Sotis it was near the outer trench, sotis deep inside the inner city, or tucked into half-broken terrain no one cared to explore. Most players never found it.
But when activated, it ant one thing:
The invading faction had dispatched a master assassin.
A nad elite.
A duel-based event, ant to ambush a player—or a team—who stepped into the wrong patch of fog. And this ti, that assassin ca from ridian Fold.
Raven had wandered into it by pure chance. A one-in-a-thousand mistake of footing.
And now, he was the one it had chosen.
Raven had just stepped on the trigger.
A sharper smirk curved across his face.
"Let’s make a bet," Raven thought. "Can I take this arse down without a summon?"
Adrenaline flooded his system, cold and clean.
"Guess I’m all in, then."
The fog didn’t move.
But sothing else did.
The figure rose.
Silent. Smooth. Like a curtain pulled upward by invisible strings.
No dialogue. No aggro cue. Just that shimr of distortion vanishing as the assassin launched forward.
As soon as the first strike ca, the na finally appeared—barely a flicker on the UI.
[Nad Elite: Shade-Reaver Velharyn]
Velharyn moved like the world itself refused to track him.
Raven’s dagger caught the first strike—barely. tal screeched. He twisted and ducked under the second blade, rolling backward.
Then the fog exploded.
Steel crashed. Shadows warped. They moved like two wolves fighting on ice—slipping, catching, redirecting. Every motion countered, every blow parried or evaded by inches. It wasn’t a duel. It was a knife fight inside a mory glitch.
Raven dropped low. Hooked a foot behind Velharyn’s leg. The assassin backflipped out, landed sideways on a stone bench, and kicked off it to close the distance.
Raven blinked.
"You... are fast."
Velharyn didn’t answer.
He never would.
Their blades clashed again. Dagger against short sword, parry against blink.
The fight spilled through the courtyard, over cracked fountains and broken railings. At one point, Raven threw a loose lantern at Velharyn and vaulted a stair rail to gain high ground. The assassin warped past him, forcing him to dive back down.
Minutes passed. Cooldowns burned. Raven began to slow. A shallow cut along his left thigh leaked crimson. His robe was half-shredded.
He hadn’t even scratched the bastard.
Then he realized—this zone was sealed.
There were no chat pings. No other player markers.
No strears. No system spectators.
This was a private killbox.
A duel.
And that changed everything.
Raven disengaged for one breath. Just long enough to swap gear.
The interface flickered. Hood replaced. Robes shifted. The chains at his side ignited with abyssal markings.
His Sovereign gear materialized.
Velharyn didn’t flinch. He only pivoted into a new stance—as if he expected it.
So Raven gave it to him.
Dominion Chain lashed out.
The assassin blinked sideways to avoid it—only to find Viper Chain already slithering through the mist from behind.
It caught his ankle.
Raven surged forward with Phantom Step, appearing mid-air, dagger in hand.
The impact slamd them both into the dirt.
One heartbeat.
Then two.
The kill never landed.
Velharyn twisted at the last mont, catching Raven’s dagger between both short blades in a perfect parry. The force of it rattled through Raven’s arms, a sharp jolt that snapped his teeth shut.
"Damn it," Raven hissed. One window. That had been it.
The assassin didn’t speak. He just planted both feet, then launched—a brutal dropkick straight into Raven’s chest.
The impact knocked the air from his lungs. He flew backward, crashing into a cracked pillar with enough force to leave a crater.
Dust exploded. Raven rolled off the rubble, coughing.
His grip tightened.
No more holding back. This isn’t the ti for stupid bets. This is a hidden event—this guy could solo an entire team.
"Duskrunner, co"
With a growl, Duskrunner appeared. Even the beast knew that the monster in front of them was not to be taken lightly.
"I take it that we should take this monster down?"
"Yep"
"And i take it that he hard to take down?"
"Yep"
Velharyn walked slowly toward them, each step deliberate and unnervingly calm, like gravity bent differently around him. His movents weren’t rushed—they didn’t need to be. He walked like a force that knew it could not be stopped. His twin blades still dripped from the last kill, catching no light, making no sound.
"You left"
"That ans you’re right"
"Go"
With that single word, they moved.
Duskrunner lunged from the left, Raven from the right—a perfectly tid pincer strike ant to collapse the assassin’s flanks.
Velharyn reacted without surprise. He didn’t retreat. He advanced.
Steel t claw. Blade t chain.
Raven’s dagger carved low while Duskrunner slashed high, but Velharyn turned between them like smoke. He parried Duskrunner with one blade, twisted his torso to avoid Raven, and slamd a reverse elbow into Raven’s side mid-roll.
Raven recovered and swept a chair leg off the ground, using it as both shield and weapon. Velharyn shattered it with a heel kick, forcing Raven to deflect the splinters while backpedaling.
Duskrunner disappeared and blinked behind the assassin—aiming for the spine—but Velharyn ducked, pivoted, and slamd his heel into the wolf’s face without looking. Duskrunner staggered.
Raven dashed in again, using Viper Chain to anchor himself to a beam and swing sideways into Velharyn’s blind spot. The assassin leaned just enough for the blade to whistle past his neck.
They clashed again in the center of the courtyard, all three.
The tempo slowed. Each move countered. Each breath tid.
And then, a pause.
Velharyn stood untouched, chest rising evenly.
Raven had new cuts along his ribs. Duskrunner panted, blood matting the fur around one leg.
Draw.
But Raven didn’t feel satisfied.
He felt challenged.
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