Chapter 206: Everyone’s busy
"Everyone, we are switching to offensive!" Seraphina commanded over the link, her voice cutting through the panic. "Disregard silent extraction! Our priority is Baron Kiliyan alive, by whatever means necessary! Cinon, lock down the street exit! Emily, Norelia, breach through the front! Aria and I will take the bac—"
Before the order could finish, a thunderous crack echoed overhead.
Aria and Seraphina snapped their gazes upward. A dark silhouette surged from the jagged crater of the opposite building, vaulting straight over the street. Arcs of lightning trailed behind his boots, leaving an incandescent afterimage in the smog.
The two noblewomen froze, struck in stunned awe as Eren launched himself right back into the brothel through the very hole he’d been thrown from.
The golden-masked moved just as fast. The instant Eren breached the threshold, the white-cloaked assassin had already stepped into his trajectory, a sword sweeping in a horizontal arc aimed dead at Eren’s neck. It’s a decapitating strike with no room for a normal mid-air recovery.
Eren activated his dance footwork.
His airborne body bent with impossible fluidity, shifting his torso backward like liquid. The blade cleaved through empty air, shearing a few stray strands of his hair. Slipping inside the attack’s arc, Eren grabbed the assassin’s sword arm, twisting the joint into an iron armlock.
"Sorry," Eren rasped, his voice wild as he cocked back his free fist, fire mana coiling tight around his knuckles. "I don’t have time to play games with clowns."
Before the punch could go, a gloved hand shot out from the smoke to catch his wrist.
Eren looked to the side. Standing there in identical white robes was another figure, wearing a skull mask etched with a bizarre design that looked wildly out of place amid the chaos.
"Not good manners, bro," the black mask said, driving his boot directly into Eren’s gut like a battering ram. The impact launched him backward, smashing his back through the inner wall and leaving a cratered silhouette..
The black-masked turned his head toward the golden mask. "Get the Baron out of here. I’ll take care of the lunatic."
The golden mask gave a silent nod, grabbed Kiliyan’s limp hand, and dragged him through the broken doorway.
Eren coughed, dragging himself out of the wall and spitting a mouthful of dust.
"Seriously?" Eren muttered, rubbing his ribs with a dark grin. "Just how many circus freaks did they hire for this gig?"
***
The corridor was drowning in smoke. Everyone in this building had already been evacuated. The Velvet Rose was silent now, save for the crackling of burning wood and the steady, indifferent scrape of heavy leather against sodden carpet.
The golden-masked assassin hauled Baron Kiliyan by the collar across the floorboards, leaving a sluggish smear through the soot.
"There! Over there! It’s Lord Kiliyan!"
A frantic shout tore through the haze. Four brothel enforcers turned the corner from the eastern service stairs. Coughing against the smoke with rags tied over their noses, their bloodshot eyes widened at the sight of their prime client being dragged off by an intruder in immaculate white robes.
"Wow, Kiliyan," the golden mask murmured, voice sounding entirely unbothered. "It seems your mercenaries are remarkably fixated on securing their tip, Baron. How touching."
"Drop the lord, you masked freak!" the lead bouncer barked, brandishing a notched broadsword and lunging forward.
The golden-masked figure didn’t even break stride, just walking steadily like someone taking an evening promenade through the garden.
The lead bouncer closed the gap, blade hoisted high over his right shoulder for a vicious, downward cleave meant to split the interloper from cowl to navel.
CLINK-CLANK!
From the darkness of the hallway directly behind the golden mask, links of iron chain snapped through the smog like striking vipers.
Before the bouncer’s blade could begin its descent, the jagged iron chain wrapped twice around his throat with precision. The links bit through skin, crushing the windpipe in a split second.
"Gack—hkkk!"
The man’s shriek choked into a wet wheeze as the chain went taut with unnatural force. His boots left the carpet, his bulky frame ripped through the air, sailing past the golden mask’s shoulder and vanishing into the darkness of the corridor.
Two seconds of frantic thrashing ended with a sickening, wet crunch.
The remaining three guards froze mid-step, their weapons faltering, eyes bulging in paralyzed horror as the empty corridor behind the white-cloaked abductor seemed to breathe with unseen teeth.
"W-What the hell was—"
Before the nearest mercenary could finish the thought, two silhouettes drifted silently out from the shadows flanking the golden mask, moving with a grace that made the burning air feel sub-zero.
Both wore pristine white cloaks, but their skull masks were different: one a cobalt blue, the other a red streak across the brow.
"Tsk. Clumsy cattle," the red-masked muttered, voice casual.
The two bolted forward and started a slaughter.
The blue mask moved, taking out a pair of reversed punch-daggers. The second bouncer barely managed to drop his mace into a block before the blue operative slipped under his guard, hooking a blade beneath the man’s breastplate and driving it upward through the diaphragm with surgical, effortless force.
A muffled groan died in the guard’s throat as the operative twisted the steel, planting a palm against the dying man’s forehead to shove the corpse aside.
At the same instant, the red mask vaulted cleanly over the falling body.
Mid-air, a hooked scythe-blade gleamed amidst the dancing embers. The third guard raised his buckler in blind panic, but the red-masked operative hooked the curved tip over the rim of the shield, violently ripping the guard’s arm outward and destroying his stance. In the same fluid rotation, his free hand closed around the man’s jaw.
SNAP.
A single, vicious twist of the neck cracked through the corridor.
The fourth and final enforcer dropped his cutlass, turning on his heel to sprint back toward the stairs in blind, sobbing panic.
The blue-masked launched a short, barbed throwing spike through the smoke. The iron pierced straight through the back of the fleeing man’s calf, pinning muscle to the floorboards. The enforcer crashed hard onto his face, screaming as he clawed at the carpet.
The red mask caught up with casual, lazy strides. Stepping directly onto the man’s pinned leg, the operative leaned down, seized the back of his collar, and slammed the enforcer’s temple against the edge of an oak support beam with a sickening, repetitive rhythm.
One. Two. Three.
The screaming ended.
Wiping the blood from a white sleeve, the red mask turned back toward their leader.
"Sector cle–"
Before he could finish, the corridor’s left wall abruptly dissolved.
BOOM!
A blinding beam of compressed, hyper-dense mana tore the wall in spitting seconds, violently engulfing the red-masked, hurtling through the opposing suite.
Both the golden and blue masks snapped their heads toward the smoking crater.
The beam had punched an immaculate, three-foot-wide circular tunnel clean through the outer ramparts of the Velvet Rose, opening the burning second floor directly to the outside.
And the person responsible was floating in the air. The petite girl was floating, pointing her staff at the intruders.