“Now!”

  The red-eyed girl’s voice rang sharp as steel, her grin still fixed.

  A signal. Von’s instincts screamed.

  I must relax. Forget killing them. Flee. Live for now.

  He didn’t hesitate. His hand swept down, shadows twisting beneath his feet as he triggered his trump card.

  [Dissipate]

  The ground flickered purple for a second, rippling like disturbed water. He felt the familiar pull of escape.

  It flickered again.

  Von’s breath caught. No… why isn’t it—

  “You—” he began, but the word barely left his lips before weight crashed down from behind.

  A massive figure dropped from the treeline, a blur of motion in the corner of his vision.

  When? Von’s mind reeled. When did he get here?

  Instinct roared, his body surging to react.

  [Shadow Form]

  Nothing. The skill should have swallowed him, pulled him away into the nearest shadow. Instead—silence. Same human form. Same exact position.

  That half-breath of delay cost him everything.

  The boy’s weapon arced downward with brutal force. Von twisted, forced to meet the strike head-on. His daggers came up, bracing, but the impact thundered through his arms like stone smashing wood.

  He grunted, the taste of iron flooding his mouth. Blood from his tongue. His knees buckled under the weight, the ground cracking beneath his boots.

  What… did they do to me?

  ….

  Boris’s lungs froze when he heard Kana’s voice split the night.

  Now!

  He exploded from the shadows without hesitation. His feet pushed off the soil, his body moving faster than he thought possible—every ounce of practice, distilled into this moment.

  The shadow man’s dagger turned, eyes narrowing at the sudden threat. Too late. Boris’s skill surged through his veins, the world around him slowing for a heartbeat as he swung his spear in a low, crushing arc.

  [Cleave]

  The ground itself seemed to groan as the spear’s tip buried into the earth at the assassin’s feet. Shadows that once answered his call faltered, pinned as if stitched by invisible nails.

  Von’s eyes widened, his body jerking mid-step. His dagger hand twitched, but the skill—the escape—refused to answer him.

  Boris’s heart hammered. He’d done it. The trap had worked. Yet, even as he held the spear firm, sweat rolled down his back.

  Would it be enough to keep the shadow man in place?

  ….

  Kana hadn’t expected Boris to land such a clean blow. The shadow man’s feet cracked into the dirt, buried half a step deep as if a blacksmith’s hammer had driven him into the earth. His fit black cloak rippled with the impact, his frame buckling.

  Kana didn’t waste a heartbeat. A bow shimmered into her hands from [Inventory], string taut with a single arrow of condensed marble energy.

  [True Shot]

  She loosed. The string thrummed, the arrow vanishing into a streak of silver light—aimed straight for his head.

  But the shadow man twisted, impossibly fast even while pinned. The shot drilled into his chest instead, tearing through cloth and bone. The sound wasn’t the crack of ribs but the hollow detonation of something larger. For an instant, Kana blinked. That sounded like… a cannon. What’s a cannon anyway?

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  The man staggered, blood spraying as he coughed. His body shuddered once, then his knees gave out, slumping forward. Boris loomed above, weapon poised, looking less like a boy and more like an executioner.

  Kana stepped closer, the assassin’s ragged breaths pulling her in. His dagger—once gone—shimmered back into existence in his palm. It shrank, folding in on itself until it became a miniature blade, glowing faintly orange and yellow.

  His eyes—glassy, defiant—found hers.

  “I should have listened,” he rasped, blood painting his teeth. “The curse continues.. the master will be killed… once it finds a new master…”

  His body convulsed once, then stilled. Eyes locked wide, staring unblinking at her.

  Kana froze, her gaze lingering on the tiny dagger, light pulsing faintly from within, much like the [Bolt Dagger Style] form she’d absorbed once before. Except this one seemed alive, as if it was waiting for her.

  …

  Chelle Pint never noticed Boris slip away. She’d been too caught up in the impossible speed of the duel, straining her eyes just to catch the flicker of steel, the sparks that burst with every clash. The assassin and Kana moved like shadows fighting lightning, and her breath hitched with every step she lost track of them.

  “Chelle!” Suri’s voice cut sharp, urgent. “Now—activate it!”

  Her hands trembled, but the initial set up was already there. She had traced the construct in her mind earlier, built the framework of mana that only needed a spark to come alive.

  [Nullify Zone]

  Purple light bled into the ground, spreading outward. It pulsed under Boris’s feet just as he swung down with that terrible overhead strike. The earth groaned beneath the weight of it, as if the world itself resisted letting such power exist.

  Then everything blurred. Chelle blinked—Kana stood there with a bow in her hands. When did she…? And the assassin—he was crumpling, chest punctured, blood spilling dark in the moonlight.

  Her stomach lurched. They’d killed him. They actually killed someone.

  “You…” Her voice shook. “You just murdered him.”

  Suri turned, face unreadable, eyes glinting in the dim light. “Your skill was invaluable. Without it, he would’ve escaped. You made this possible.”

  “And that man… he’s a hired killer. Someone who is trying to kill us. Kana is just protecting herself.. Like what you and your friends were trying to do a few nights ago.”

  The words struck harder than any blade.

  “No,” Chelle whispered, hugging her staff tight. “We only wanted to teach you a lesson that night. To scare you. To humble you. We never intended to kill anyone.”

  For a moment, Suri froze. Then her lips curved into something caught between a smile and a sneer. “Strange, coming from you. You tried to ambush me in the dark. You thought I’d go down quietly? Don’t look so shocked when someone dies.”

  Chelle flinched. Her breath came short, her heart pounding as the silence between them deepened, thick as fog.

  ..

  “Messy,” Boris muttered, glancing down at the broken form on the ground. “What do we do about the body?”

  Kana raised her hand.

  [Inventory]

  The corpse shimmered, then dissolved into nothing, leaving only empty soil behind.

  Boris grunted. “Right. That invisible storage trick of yours.”

  “I have plans for him,” Kana said quietly. Her eyes lingered on the spot where the man had lain. “Still… this is the first time we’ve killed someone. Are you all right?”

  Boris rolled his shoulders, spear still in hand. “Didn’t feel any different from smashing dungeon monsters. He was a hired killer. If anything, feels like we’ve done the world a favor.”

  Kana let out a small, wry chuckle. “That’s one way to look at it.” She turned, her expression softening. “Let’s go to the others.”

  Chelle stood pale and stiff, her knuckles white around her staff. She barely registered Kana’s approach until warm fingers closed around her hand.

  “I’m grateful to you,” Kana said gently. Her crimson eyes, fierce a moment ago, now brimmed with sincerity. “Without your help, he would’ve slipped away again.”

  “It’s nothing…” Chelle whispered. Her voice cracked, betraying the tremor in her chest.

  “Nothing?” Suri’s words cut sharp. She stood beside Kana, tilting her head. “She didn’t know she’d be caught up in this. That’s what’s bothering her.”

  Boris snorted, planting his spear in the dirt. “That man’s been hunting us for weeks. If you hadn’t stepped in, he’d have slit our throats eventually.”

  Kana nodded. “Don’t think of it as killing. Think of it as saving us. You spared us from what he would have done.”

  Her voice softened again as she leaned closer. “We owe you, Chelle. Truly. If you ever need help—no, when you need it—we’ll be there. Anytime. Anywhere.”

  Chelle’s lips parted, but no words came. The warmth of Kana’s grip warred against the cold knot in her chest. In the end, all she could do was nod, confusion tightening in her throat.

  ..

  The candles guttered out all at once—fifty small suns winked from the plastered walls and died, as if the room itself had inhaled and held its breath.

  The man at the table didn’t flinch. He only blinked, then rose and walked to the nearest stub, holding the blackened wax to his face like a diviner. The flame’s absence was a thing to be measured. A thing to be accounted for.

  “Von is gone.” The words left him flat, like slate. He tasted them and let them settle. Von had been one of his prize assassins—quiet, precise, the sort of blade that never left a corner stained. That he’d been taken by three academy children was an insult and a complication in the same breath.

  He turned back to the others in the room: men and women who dealt in contracts and soft cruelties, faces carved by long nights and longer calculations. “Raise the classification,” he said. Carried the force of a hammer blow. “Kana. Boris. Suri of Saltrain Village. Gold-class targets. Inform the client: this will cost more. Far more. Their value has increased. I mean difficulty. It's been a while since I mentioned that.”

  A hunched figure moved with practiced speed to a ledger and began to write, ink scratching like a blade. “Consider it done, Master,” he said.

  The master’s eyes narrowed. There was one last thing to be salvaged. “Find Von’s body,” he ordered. “Retrieve his dagger. If the dungeon item has been claimed, we must know by whom. If not—” he let the thought hang, the promise implicit. A man stepped forward from the shadowed doorway as if conjured by the command. “I’ll mobilize them now.”