Rose froze.
The mont those words left my mouth, it was as if an unseen force had slamd into her, locking her in place. The re ntion of Eclipse and Sesillian seed to chain her to the ground, her body tensing as though shackled by sothing unseen.
Slowly, deliberately, she turned her head toward , her expression caught sowhere between disbelief and dread.
"What did you just say…?"
Her voice was quiet, but it carried weight. A demand. A plea. A warning.
I t her gaze without flinching.
"I'm telling you—Sesillian is just a cog in a much bigger machine. Sothing far greater is pulling the strings, and he's nothing more than their puppet."
The silence between us stretched, thick and suffocating.
Shock flickered through her eyes, barely concealed beneath a veil of composure. I could see it—the war inside her mind. The struggle between rationality and the sheer impossibility of what I was saying.
Sesillian was powerful. Too powerful. He had built Eclipse into an empire, a cult whose influence stretched across continents. His vision had been grand enough to blot out the very sun, to shroud the world in darkness with the Great Darkness.
And yet, I was telling her that he was just a pawn.
She wanted to deny it. But she wasn't stupid. She had spent years chasing shadows, unraveling truths. If there was anyone who could recognize the sheer weight of what I was saying, it was her.
Even I struggled to believe it sotis.
Rose studied for a long, agonizing mont. Then, she exhaled slowly, as if forcing herself to let go of sothing.
"Look, I'm not involved with the administrators anymore. I'm no longer an agent. Anything that would benefit them is no longer my concern."
Her tone was flat. Distant. Final.
I had expected as much. It was natural for her to be disinterested. But I also knew the truth—whether she liked it or not, she wanted to know more. She needed to.
She just didn't want to deal with .
Without another word, she turned, ready to leave.
And then—
A suffocating wave of bloodlust crashed down on us.
It was instant. Sudden.
One mont, the air was still. The next, it was as though the very atmosphere had been poisoned, thickened with an overwhelming, suffocating malice.
It wasn't just sothing I felt—I could see it, dark and oppressive, seeping into the air like an invisible fog. My instincts roared in warning, every nerve in my body snapping into high alert.
But this wasn't the bloodlust of an assassin preparing to strike.
No.
This was a warning.
Then—she appeared.
A woman materialized from thin air, as if the very shadows had birthed her into existence.
Long, flowing red hair cascaded down her back, a hue so deep and vivid it seed to burn like embers in the light. Yet it was nothing compared to her presence—towering, suffocating, predatory.
She was tall.
Taller than Rose, and exuding an authority that felt almost unnatural. Her very presence warped the space around her, making her feel larger than she was, more dangerous than she had any right to be.
Her face was sharp, refined—but it was her eyes that drew in. Or rather, the one visible eye. The other was concealed beneath a dark eyepatch, adding to the eerie, almost spectral aura she carried.
I hadn't even seen her arrive.
One second, she wasn't there. The next, she was.
Then—
A gleam of silver.
In a movent so swift it barely registered, she was behind Rose, pressing a dagger against her throat.
The blade kissed her skin, a hair's breadth away from slicing into her flesh.
"Hey, you two."
The woman's voice was light, almost playful—but it carried a razor-sharp edge, laced with sothing dark, sothing lethal.
"It's not exactly polite to have a conversation like this outside the pub, you know? Didn't you realize these kinds of transactions are prohibited?"
As she spoke, she pressed the dagger just a fraction deeper.
Not enough to cut.
Just enough to remind Rose that it could.
I didn't move.
Not a single muscle twitched.
Because I knew.
The mont my body so much as hinted at aggression, the blade would bite into Rose's throat without hesitation.
So I remained still.
The red-haired woman smirked, tilting her head ever so slightly.
"Hmm. Smart choice, kid. You're young, but you've got a good head on your shoulders."
She had noticed.
The way I didn't react. The way I controlled my breathing, kept my body unnaturally still.
One wrong move.
One misstep.
And Rose would die before I could even blink.
"Now then, I just overheard a rather intriguing conversation."
The red-haired woman's voice carried an eerie amusent, yet beneath that casual tone lurked sothing dangerous—sothing lethal. Her blade remained pressed against Rose's throat, the edge so close that the slightest misstep could end her life in an instant. The dim light glinted off the tal, a cruel, gleaming promise of what would happen should I make a wrong move.
"You two were discussing Eclipse… Tell , what business do you have with that dead cult?"
My eyes narrowed.
She wasn't just aware of Eclipse—she spoke of it with familiarity, as though she knew exactly what had beco of them. That alone sent alarms ringing in my mind.
This woman—she was no ordinary attacker.
That speed, the seamless way she had materialized behind Rose, her movents honed to perfection—she wasn't just skilled. She was sothing else entirely.
Underworld? Assassin? Enforcer?
There was an unsettling grace in the way she carried herself, an aura that reeked of bloodshed and shadows. Her presence alone set every instinct in my body on high alert.
But more than that—she had chosen Rose as her hostage instead of .
That ant she had assessed us within seconds.
She knew that between the two of us, Rose was the easier target. Not because Rose was weak, but because I wasn't soone she could afford to take lightly. That single realization told everything.
This woman had the instincts of a survivor. She didn't pick fights she wasn't sure she could win.
And yet, she had made a mistake.
"Put the blade down from Rose's throat. Then, I'll talk," I said, my voice asured and calm.
She let out a dry chuckle.
"Talk right where you are. And don't even try to bullshit ." Her grip on the blade tightened slightly. "You're speaking while my knife is at her throat. You don't get to make demands. This is a hostage situation. I take her, you talk. Simple."
I exhaled slowly.
And then—I moved.
The shift was so sudden, so precise, that she barely had ti to register it.
Her instinct kicked in, her wrist twisting as she attempted to slit Rose's throat in a reflexive motion—
But she wasn't fast enough.
Before the blade could carve into Rose's skin, my hand shot forward, gripping her wrist in a vice-like hold. The force of my grip made her fingers tremble slightly, the deadly arc of her knife completely halted.
Her eye widened.
"Wha—?!"
Without hesitation, I swept Rose's legs from beneath her, catching her mid-fall in a flawless, effortless princess carry.
For a mont, Rose simply stared at , her mouth slightly parted in shock. Then, realization dawned—our close proximity, the way she was cradled in my arms—and in an instant, color flooded her cheeks.
She averted her gaze, visibly flustered.
I ignored her reaction, my focus locked onto the woman in front of .
She hadn't moved.
She stood there, montarily stunned, her expression frozen in disbelief.
I could see it in her eye. She wasn't just shocked—she was processing. Trying to understand how I had done it.
She had executed her attack with flawless precision. A move that should have been impossible to counter.
And yet, I had countered it effortlessly.
Her expression shifted.
The disbelief vanished. What replaced it was sothing sharper—a new assessnt.
She straightened, her stance shifting ever so slightly.
She wasn't retreating.
She was preparing for a fight.
I sighed. So be it.
With a flick of my wrist, I called forth Ayuru.
A suffocating presence filled the air as the Cursed Sword materialized in my grip. The mont it appeared, the surrounding temperature seed to drop, a dark, pulsating energy emanating from the blade like a living entity. The ground beneath cracked slightly from the sheer force radiating off of it.
The woman's reaction was imdiate.
Her visible eye widened in recognition.
"A Cursed Sword!?"
Shock, followed by swift calculation.
I could see the shift in her deanor—the mont she realized exactly what she was dealing with.
But she was quick to recover.
Her gaze flickered toward Rose.
She was planning to go for her again.
Not a chance.
She lunged.
I intercepted.
The mont she struck, her blade beca a blur, slicing through the air in rapid, precise bursts. Each movent was like a flash of lightning—sharp, unpredictable, deadly.
But I was already moving.
My body responded before my mind even processed the attacks, weaving through the storm of blades with unnatural ease. Each slash ca within inches of my skin, but none landed. I twisted, sidestepped, countered her movents like I had seen them before they happened.
Her speed was insane.
But mine was greater.
"Kuh…!"
Frustration crept into her expression.
She ca at again, this ti with everything she had.
Her strikes grew heavier, more violent. Every swing carried a force that sent tremors up my arms upon impact.
But pain never ca.
Instead, sothing else stirred inside .
Excitent.
My blood roared. My muscles burned with exhilaration.
My lips curled into a smirk as I t her attacks head-on, blocking, countering, pushing her back with relentless precision. Every ti our blades clashed, the air itself shuddered from the sheer force behind our strikes.
And then—
She stopped.
Her breathing remained steady, but I saw it in her eye.
Realization.
The mont she knew—
She couldn't defeat .
For the first ti since she appeared, her voice carried sothing different.
Not mockery. Not arrogance.
Curiosity.
"Who… are you?"
That was the only question she could ask.
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