“I didn’t expect to be found so quickly.”
A faint hiss cut through the silence. A woman rose from the shadows, her movents possessing the slow, viscous grace of a crocodile surfacing from a swamp.
“Hah,” she rasped, her voice tight. “A useful technique, but the way it stifles the breath is a decided flaw.”
“…And you are?”
“Ah, our first proper eting, is it? I suppose I’ve watched you so often I forgot we hadn’t been formally introduced.”
The woman chuckled, idly scratching the back of her head. Her other hand held a dagger, and the energy radiating from it felt sickeningly familiar.
A suffocating malevolence.
Of all the Auras I knew, only two felt like this. One belonged to the assassins of Death Veil.
The other…
“…the Countess of Slaughter.”
The na belonged to one of the Twelve Nobles I had killed in the North: Myu.
I didn’t understand how this woman could radiate her energy, but one explanation ca to mind: the red jewel.
It had to be. Why else would they have sought out the Twelve Nobles?
Just as I had suspected.
“Well now. So you’re the one who killed her?” the woman asked, a disturbingly pleasant smile on her face. “Heh. Made my collection much easier, you know.”
“I was certain I killed her. Can you draw power from a corpse?”
“Hm? Ah, you’ve already pieced that much together?”
A smirk touched her lips, followed by a dry laugh. “As a reward for taking care of the Countess for , I’ll let you in on a secret: you can’t extract power from a corpse. Even for the red jewel, that would be a bit too convenient, don’t you think?”
“Then how did you take her power?”
“How else?” she said, her tone dripping with scorn. “I killed what you let escape.”
So I had miscalculated. The Countess must have had one last trick to cheat death.
And in her desperation, she ran right into this woman.
It made a grim sort of sense. I rembered collapsing from exhaustion after my own battle with her.
“I see.”
“Oh? No denial? I thought you’d throw a fit, insist it was impossible, that you killed her with your own two hands.”
“The possibility existed.”
“Hmm… You’re no fun.”
The woman shrugged. I studied her for a mont before posing another question.
“Then let ask you sothing else.”
“More questions?”
“Why is a mber of Death Veil serving Duke Artezia?”
In that instant, all warmth vanished from her face, leaving it a cold, hard mask.
“…And how would you know that?”
“Your stance. Your gait. The way you hold that dagger. I’ve seen it all before.”
“…It seems the Veilmaster has been busy. Sharing our secrets with an outsider.”
A sharp rasp of leather followed as she tightened her grip on the dagger. She lowered her stance, coiling like a viper.
Then she moved.
A deafening impact echoed as her dagger t my arrow mid-flight.
The instant her dagger was deflected, her form dissolved into smoke, only to erupt from my own shadow.
CLANG!
I t her strike with a Mithril dagger of my own.
The alley rang with the shriek of steel on steel as we exchanged dozens of blows in a blur of motion. Each strike carried a lethal charge of Aura, but I held my ground, parrying her relentless assault.
But I hadn’t anticipated her true power.
Shhhk!
A spiked arm erupted from her back, lashing out like a scorpion’s tail. It grazed my neck, and a line of fire seared my skin.
A single drop of blood traced a path down my collarbone.
“…You’re skilled.”
“I could say the sa. They called you an archer, but you fight like one of us. Or did the Veilmaster train you himself?”
“He was very gracious.”
“Hah! The whole group has gone to ruin!”
She lunged again.
* * *
Three arms blurred toward , a storm of steel. Her already ferocious assault accelerated, and it felt like I was fighting three Countesses at once.
I activated my Halo, the coronet of light above my head spinning faster as I struggled to match her speed.
But I was an archer, not an assassin. Her relentless pace was too much to parry.
Finally, an opening.
“It’s over.”
Her dagger shot toward my heart.
…I have no choice.
I had wanted to avoid using my Mindscape, but defeat was now certain.
The Halo flared, my Aura surging outward.
Just as I prepared to rewind ti itself…
A third dagger, not hers or mine, appeared from nowhere, slicing through the fabric of her tunic.
“…Oh?” The woman leaped back, surprise flickering across her face. “And who are you?”
The boy who had thrown the dagger didn’t answer her. His gaze was fixed on , his lips pressed into a thin line.
Kai. The assassin of my unit.
His eyes dropped to the wound on my neck, and I heard him grind his teeth.
“…Hold on for just a mont, my lord.” His voice was low, tight with fury. “I will make her pay for what she’s done to you.”
Kai’s gaze shifted to the woman, and a nacing Aura coiled around him.
It was a strange power, one that erupted with explosive force yet felt as empty as a vacuum. An Aura like the air itself, invisible and everywhere at once, radiated from him.
“…You. I’ve seen you at Death Veil, haven’t I?”
“I’ve never seen an old woman like you.”
“What? Old? I’m barely thirty!”
“And there’s one right in front of .”
Kai settled into a combat stance, his retorts sharp and cold. His tone was deceptively casual, but I could feel the rage simring beneath it.
The woman seed to recover her composure.
“…Hah. Losing my temper over a brat. How foolish. But tell , kid, where did you learn that stance?”
“From my predecessor.”
“Predecessor?”
“Yes.”
In the space between heartbeats, Kai vanished.
He reappeared directly in front of the woman, the air cracking from the force of his arrival. Her three arms shot up to block his dagger, and her limbs trembled from the sheer power of the impact.
Looking down at her, his eyes like chips of ice, Kai finished his thought.
“Because I am the Veilmaster now.”
* * *
Veilmaster.
The title echoed in her mind. Master of the continent’s deadliest assassins.
She, the Veilwarden of Death Veil, had coveted that position for herself. Born and raised within the guild, she saw the title as her birthright, the only way to beco like the father she so admired.
But the man who succeeded her father, the previous Veilmaster, had no intention of letting her rise.
He had shackled her with safe missions, with administrative duties. Worse, he had driven the entire guild into the shadows, forcing them into hiding.
In her eyes, he was the worst Veilmaster in their storied history.
So she had taken Duke Artezia’s hand. He had promised her the title. He had sworn to restore Death Veil to its forr glory, to make it once again the most feared guild on the continent.
For that, she had willingly beco a traitor.
And now… that senile old fool had finally lost his mind.
To give the title of Veilmaster to so upstart brat from outside the guild? To expose their sacred techniques to a complete outsider?
Either act alone was grounds for expulsion. This was sacrilege.
Her teeth ground together.
“I was already planning to pay the old man a visit,” she snarled. “Once this war is over, I’ll be sure to find him.”
She would demand to know why he had betrayed them. And no matter his answer, she would kill him for dragging the honor of Death Veil through the mud.
“But first,” she hissed, “I suppose I should offer a proper greeting to our new Veilmaster.”
The Veilwarden drew upon her Aura.
No, it was sothing fouler now. Demonic energy.
The sound of popping joints and tearing flesh filled the air as her body began to transform. Muscles writhed and twisted, and a second pair of arms erupted from her back like grotesque wings.
Four arms, four daggers. She was no longer human.
Unleashing a wave of demonic power, she smiled. “Now, let us begin.”
She vanished. The air cracked where she’d stood. She reappeared before Kai, four daggers swinging in a lethal arc that would have diced a normal man to ribbons.
But Kai was not normal.
With an impassive expression, he t her assault. And in the sa fluid motion, his own dagger swept out.
A sound like tearing silk. In a single, blindingly fast strike, Kai severed all four of the Veilwarden’s arms.
A raw, inhuman shriek tore from her throat as she stumbled back.
Shadows swirled around her, clinging to the stumps of her arms. They writhed and squird like living things, and in a nauseating display, her four limbs regenerated in an instant, good as new.
“How dare you…!” she roared, her eyes blazing with renewed fury.
She drew upon her demonic energy, channeling it into a new technique.
A wave of power erupted from her, and dark clouds instantly boiled across the sky.
“What is that?!”
“Dear god… what is it now?!”
The Imperial knights cried out, their faces pale as the sky turned to pitch. From between the churning clouds, a baleful, crimson moon erged.
The Veilwarden vanished.
In the sa instant, crimson gashes appeared all over Kai’s body.
Under the light of the red moon, her movents were invisible. Even when Kai tried to parry on pure instinct, she would simply phase through his blade using Moonshadow—an ability granted by her Aspect—and continue her rciless assault.
He was being cut to pieces. At this rate, he would lose.
Yet through it all, Kai’s expression remained a mask of calm concentration. He endured the cuts, his focus absolute.
Then, after a long mont, he muttered two words under his breath.
“…Found you.”
He swung his dagger into what looked like empty air.
SHWIIICK!
An arm, wreathed in shadow, tumbled to the ground, severed at the shoulder.
Another piercing shriek. The Veilwarden materialized, clutching her shoulder.
Looking down at her, his eyes devoid of rcy, Kai unleashed his Aura.
“Suffer as much as he did,” he said, his voice a low growl. “And then die.”
He moved. His dagger beca a blur, carving dozens of wounds into her flesh.
She tried to dissolve into shadow, to escape, but his blade was always there to et her, anticipating her every move as if he could see the future.
The Veilwarden stared, her eyes wide with disbelief.
Impossible… This can’t be…
To die here, like this? It couldn’t be happening.
But then, as she t Kai’s cold, unwavering gaze, her frantic thoughts stuttered to a halt.
…Ah.
That look. It was the sa look she had seen in the eyes of the father she had so desperately tried to emulate… the Veilmaster from two generations past.
The sa chilling talent. The sa venom.
In that mont, she saw her father’s face superimposed over the boy’s.
“…Father,” she whispered, her expression dazed.
She watched the dagger fly toward her, no longer trying to flee.
The blade sank into her forehead, and her world went dark.
And with that, one of Duke Artezia’s key assets, the forr Veilwarden of Death Veil, was no more.
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