Chapter 208: Third party
Inside the ruined Suite 4, the black-masked figure was pinned against the intact back wall, held by translucent spurs of glacial ice that clamped his wrists, shins, and ribs like chains. With his arms splayed wide and the white cloak frozen rigid around his shoulders, he looked less like an elite assassin and more like a modern-art ice sculpture of a fallen angel.
"Damn," the black mask wheezed, rattling against the frost. "You two ladies are ridiculously tough. Honestly, I really didn’t see my evening going this way."
Seraphina and Aria lowered their guards only a fraction, their chests heaving in ragged unison. The imperial princess held her frost rapier low, while Aria’s summoned sword crackled with small bolts of lightning. Her blue hair was slightly disheveled, but her golden eyes were fixed on the captive.
The earpieces chimed.
"Everyone!" Emily’s voice came through the piece, panicked. "The Baron is gone! He was lying right here on the corridor runner, but while everyone was locked in combat, he vanished! The body is gone!"
Seraphina’s jaw tightened, her red eyes flashing with frustration. "What are you talking about, Emily?! A fat unconscious noble doesn’t simply sprout wings and flutter out a window! Everyone! Find him now!"
Aria’s teeth clicked together in a vicious snarl. Taking an aggressive stride forward, she leveled the tip of her sword right beneath the black mask’s jawline.
"Was this your squad’s play? Speak, you rat, or I’ll run lightning straight through your spinal cord and let your brain boil in that ridiculous mask!"
The black mask just tilted his head against the ice, sounding genuinely bewildered. "Hey, lady, I’m literally stuck to a wall like a frozen butterfly and the fifth guy had not even entered this building. If we had a phantom sixth guy wandering around, I’d be bragging about it right now."
***
Out in the main corridor, Gold was lying on the floorboards with Eren’s boot planted, crushing the leader down, while the tip of the broadsword hovered at the gilded mask.
Both froze the second Emily’s shout came through from the end of the corridor.
Eren blinked, slowly shifting his blue gaze down toward the floorboards where Kiliyan’s limp form had been resting five seconds ago.
"Emily... please tell me this is a joke," Eren said into his earpiece, his voice flat. "Did our fat piggy really grow wings and fly away?"
Beneath, the golden mask shifted, a soft voice squeaking in sudden disbelief. "Wait—what?! The Baron is missing?!"
Eren looked back down, his eyes narrowing into slits. He drove the tip of the broadsword down an extra half-inch.
"Don’t play dumb with me," Eren growled, his boot pressing harder. "Is this your squad’s sleight of hand? Did you bring a sneaky rat in the rafters to scoop him up while we were trading pleasantries?"
"Are you completely out of your mind?!" Gold snapped back, genuinely affronted, all mysterious edge instantly evaporating. "There are only four of us on this hit! If anyone takes him, it’s your people playing dirty!"
"We don’t have a stealth squad, you idiot!" Eren roared in frustration
.
Furious, Eren ripped the broadsword back and slashed it violently through the empty air, letting out a roar that drowned out the roaring flames. "Damn it all! We orchestrated an entire plan and I traded blows with four psychotic circus acts just for the target to evaporate into thin air?!"
"Hey!"
Norelia’s sharp voice cut through his rant.
Eren spun around. A few paces away, the petite professor stood amid a ring of smoldering craters, her hand pointing toward the door of Suite 1 at the far end of the hallway.
"There," Norelia said, her voice tense. "A mana signature. It wasn’t there a second ago. It just flickered into existence right behind that door."
The red-masked man behind her tilted his cracked mask toward the same doorway.
"Leader..." Red wheezed through his teeth, clutching his bruised ribs. "The brat’s right. Someone’s inside that room."
***
Eren didn’t bother knocking; he kicked the door, blowing it into splinters.
Inside, a slender guy in a brown hood stood over a glowing, hastily sketched chalk diagram etched into the wooden floor. The guy was sweating, hauling the heavy, limp carcass of Baron Kiliyan by the armpits toward the circle’s epicenter. The moment the door exploded inward, all the blood drained from his face.
"Well," Eren said, his eyes narrowing, lightning crackling along the broadsword. "We just got third-partied by an amateur guy."
The hooded guy completely panicked. Dropping Kiliyan’s flabby shoulders with a sickening thud, he threw his hands into the air and began frantically babbling a high-speed incantation.
"Eren, stop him!" Norelia’s panicked voice tore through the smoke from the corridor behind him. "Look at the vector lines on the floor! It’s a teleportation matrix! If it works, Baron could end up anywhere we couldn’t reach!"
"Shit!"
Eren dropped the broadsword, his boots igniting with cerulean sparks as he surged forward like an unleashed missile. Closing the distance in a fraction of a heartbeat, Eren drove his elbow straight into the chanting guy.
The slender guy hurtled across the suite and slammed hard into the furniture.
The chalk lines flared blindingly violet. The spell had already begun.
Eren lunged forward, skidding across his knees over the glowing runes, his hand snapping out to snatch Baron Kiliyan by the leather belt to yank him out of the circle.
At the same microsecond, another grabbed the Baron’s collar.
Eren snapped his head up to see the golden mask across the glowing circle from him. For a second, the two enemies locked eyes through the searing violet glare.
"Fuck," Eren muttered.
"Fuck," Gold echoed in a strangely feminine, breathless gasp.
BOOM!
The matrix detonated in a blinding flare of violet lightning.
Out in the doorway, Norelia and the battered red mask threw their arms up against the blinding flash, shielding their faces from the scorching spatial backlash. When the purple glare finally evaporated, leaving behind a charred floor, they slowly lowered their arms.
The center of the room was completely scorched black.
Eren, the golden mask, and Baron Kiliyan were gone.
"ERE—!" Norelia shrieked, her staff clattering to the floor as she rushed into the smoking crater, hands clutching at empty air in blind panic.
Beside her, the red mask staggered into the doorframe, clutching his ribs. "L-Lady—! Leader! Where the hell did you go?!"
Footsteps echoed down the hallway as the rest of the members finally reached Suite 1.
Aria charged through the smoke, followed by Seraphina. Right behind them, Emily hauled the groaning blue mask by his collar, while the black-masked stumbled stumbling along in tow under heavy iron cuffs.
"What happened?!" Seraphina demanded, her eyes sweeping across the empty, scorched room. "Where is Kiliyan?! Where is our idiot?!"
Norelia turned slowly, her round spectacles crooked, her small finger trembling as she pointed at the blackened floorboards. "H-He... the idiot... he got swallowed by a spatial rift. Along with their memeber."
____
{Image of Emily}