Rhyse tapped the crystal once in acknowledgment before slipping it back into the hidden pocket of his coat.
"The courier signal was sent," he said, turning to Vance. The northern warrior didn't flinch, his broad shoulders squared with readiness. Flint and Bellweather exchanged glances—Bellweather with the sharp anticipation of a hound on a scent, Flint with the grim calculation of a soldier who had seen too many ambushes go wrong.
"Whisper has a team secured?" Flint asked, cracking her knuckles absently—a nervous tic, one Rhyse had learned meant she was already running logistics in her head.
"Expensive, and untested." Rhyse adjusted the cuff of his sleeve, not bothering to mask the edge in his voice. "But we don't have the luxury of time."
A beat of silence.
Rhyse glanced at the false window—mottled lantern light bleeding through cheap stained glass, casting the room in anemic hues of green and rust. "Flint, coordinate supply requisitions from here. I will leave you with enough gold for everything."
Flint opened her mouth—likely to argue—when the crystalline display above Rhyse's wrist flared with a new message. Whisper's new meeting point.
Rhyse said. "Vance, we'll meet Whisper's team at a new location."
Bellweather frowned, "Aren't we trusting this Whisper too much?"
"We don't have another choice." Rhyse flexed his left hand, feeling the phantom weight of the Synkar Seal against his palm, "And we are not blindly trusting him; we are trusting his greed for my gold."
He caught Flint's eye. The silent command passed between them—watch the outpost, watch the exits, be careful. She dipped her chin in understanding. AS sson as they moived out, the safe house door had barely clicked shut behind them when the world exploded.
There was no warning. One moment, they were stepping into the grimy, steam-choked alleyway; the next, a net woven from solidified arcane energy slammed down from the rooftops, sizzling as it hit the ground where they had been standing seconds before. It was a high-grade suppression net, designed to deaden magic and movement.
"Ambush! Form up!" Vance's roar was a thunderclap, his war-glaive already in his hands. But the enemy was on them before they could even form a proper defensive circle.
From the shadows of the alley, from the rooftops above, from alcoves that had seemed empty, figures emerged. They were not common thugs. They wore matching, non-descript black leather armor, their faces hidden by full-face helms of dark, non-reflective steel. They moved with the silent, coordinated efficiency of a professional wet-work team—at least a dozen of them. This wasn't a random mugging; this was a targeted, professional hit.
A hulking brute with a massive, two-handed power maul charged directly at Rhyse, his weapon humming with a malevolent crimson energy.
"My lord!" Vance bellowed, throwing himself in front of Rhyse. He met the charge head-on, his war-glaive clashing against the power maul with a deafening shriek of protesting metal. Sparks flew, and the force of the impact sent shockwaves through the alley. Rhyse was thrown against the wall without time to react. Vance held his ground, but a sickening crack echoed as his left arm, raised to brace the block, bent at an unnatural angle. He grunted in pain, but his feet didn't move an inch. He was a stone wall between his lord and death.
The battle devolved into a chaotic, desperate brawl in the tight confines of the alley. Bellweather and Flint fought back-to-back, their blades a whirlwind of steel against two swordsmen who pressed them relentlessly. These were not the clumsy bandits of Dawmoor; every parry was met with a calculated riposte, every thrust aimed at a vital point. A blade slipped past Bellweather's guard, leaving a deep gash along his ribs. He staggered, but Flint was there, her own dagger lashing out to create space.
Rhyse got up, still disoriented from the impact. As if recognizing the danger, his system-assisted tactical view flared to life, painting the alley in threat-markers and projected attack vectors.
System! Basic Ward on Vance! Now!
A shimmering shield enveloped the wounded Vanguard, just in time to absorb a follow-up strike from the maul-wielder.
Summon Golem!
[1,500 Gold Sovereigns Expended.]
Summon Basic Bodyguard!
[500 Gold Sovereigns Expended.]
The Basic Combat Golem materialized in the cramped space, its silver-plated form immediately intercepting two more assassins, its heavy gauntlets slamming into them with crushing force. But it was outnumbered. The Construct Bodyguard hovered around Rhyse, parrying attacks and protecting him the best he could.
A cold, bitter thought sliced through Rhyse's focus. Whisper. He betrayed me. He sold my location. The timing was too perfect, the attack too well-coordinated. The information broker had taken his gold and sold him out to the highest bidder.
The situation was growing more dire by the second. An archer appeared on a rooftop, and a searing bolt of energy slammed into the Combat Golem's back, causing it to shudder. Flint cried out as a duelist's rapier found a gap in her armor, piercing her thigh. Rhyse quickly used a ward, but his reaction was too slow due to the earlier blow. They were being systematically dismantled.
Vance, seeing the tide turning, let out a defiant roar. Ignoring the pain from his broken arm, he activated his class skill. "Aegis of the Unbroken!" An aura of pure, indomitable will erupted from him, his body glowing with a fierce, golden light. For a few precious seconds, he became immovable, unstoppable. He drove the maul-wielder back with a series of furious, one-handed blows, his war-glaive a blur of desperate, brilliant offense.
It was a magnificent display, but it was a last stand. He was burning through his aura at a fatal rate. They were all wounded, outnumbered, and outmatched.
Then, from the mouth of the alley behind the attackers, a new voice cut through the din, calm and laced with a chilling amusement.
"Twelve of you against a boy and his three guards? You're getting sloppy, Iron Brotherhood."
Every head turned. A lone figure stood there, silhouetted against the Sump's dim light. She was tall and lean, clad in practical, yet exquisitely crafted light armor, a long, curved blade held loosely in one hand. Her face was obscured by the shadow of a hood, but two points of silver light gleamed where her eyes should be.
The leader of the ambush team spun around. "This is not your contract, sell-sword! Back off or you'll be buried with them!"
The figure laughed, a low, melodic sound that held no humor. "Unfortunately for you lot," she said, taking a slow step forward, "it is."
In the next instant, she moved. She wasn't just fast; she was a blur, a phantom that seemed to flow between the assassins. Her curved blade became a ribbon of silver light, and with every pass, a man fell. She didn't engage in duels; she simply moved through the enemy ranks, her strikes economical, precise, and utterly lethal. A sidestep, a flick of the wrist, and an assassin clutching his throat crumpled to the ground. A spin, a reverse-grip thrust, and another fell without a sound.
Her arrival shattered the enemy's coordination. Rhyse seized the opening. Ward on Vance! Now! The mysterious swordsman had given them an opening—now was the time to press the advantage. Through the Synkar Core's neural connection, he issued rapid commands. Full attack pattern! No more holding back! The towering Combat Golem, which had until now focused on shielding, abruptly abandoned its defensive stance. Its reinforced knuckles snapped with stored kinetic energy as it lumbered forward, swinging its massive arms in wide, devastating arcs that sent black-clad mercenaries flying like ragdolls. One unfortunate assassin crumpled against the alley wall with shattered ribs while another barely rolled clear of the war machine's piston-driven punch that cratered the cobblestones where he'd stood.
Simultaneously, Rhyse triggered the aggression protocols of his lesser summoned construct. The Basic Combat Bodyguard—a slender figure of enchanted steel—darted between the enemies, its razor-sharp sword fighting without hesitation, without mercy—exactly as its summoning parameters demanded.
Not to be left behind, Rhyse leveled his hand crossbow, the weapon's compact frame humming as quarrels slotted into place. The first shot took a would-be flanker through the shoulder, the bolt's impact sending the man spinning. The second caught another assassin mid-leap, punching through his thigh in a spray of blood.
The sudden intervention of the silver-eyed warrior ignited a renewed fire in Bellweather and Flint's battered forms. Bloodied but unbroken, they pushed through the pain—Bellweather's saber becoming a blur of desperate strikes that punched through weak points in the mercenaries' armor, while Flint's daggers carved brutal arcs through the remaining assassins. The Synkar guards fought with the berserk energy of those who had seen death's face and spat in its eye.
Vance gritted his teeth against the white-hot agony radiating from his nearly broken left arm, his aura flickering like a dying ember. Every breath came ragged through bloodied lips as he squared off against the towering mercenary—a mountain of muscle wielding a two-handed power maul that had already cratered the cobblestones around them.
Though his aura reserves had dwindled to nothing, though his vision swam with exhaustion and pain, the old knight found fury enough for one last surge. As the brute swung that monstrous weapon downward, Vance pivoted on his back foot, letting momentum carry his war-glaive in a rising crescent of steel. The blade sheared through leather, sinew, and bone with a wet crunch, cleaving upward through the mercenary's ribs before finding its fatal mark.
The hulking assassin crumpled, his maul slipping from lifeless fingers to smash harmlessly against the alley floor. Vance staggered back, sucking in air through clenched teeth, his glaive glistening red. Against all odds, he had won.
The alley echoed with the final cries of the Iron Brotherhood mercenaries, their superior numbers meaningless against this sudden, coordinated counterattack. One black-clad figure collapsed mid-lunge, a perfectly placed thrust from Bellweather severing something vital. Another found Flint's daggers embedded in his chest before he could raise his dagger. The last assassin managed a half-turn toward their mysterious savior before her blade flickered once—a movement so fast it barely registered—and he toppled like a felled tree, arterial spray painting the cobblestones in a glistening arc.
Then, stillness. The clatter of dropped weapons. The ragged breathing of the survivors. The mercenaries lay in ruin—some crumpled against the walls where the Combat Golem had thrown them, others torn apart by precise steel or shattered by brute force. The stench of blood and voided bowels thickened the air. A pool of dark crimson spread slowly from the corpse pile, mingling with the alley's ever-present rainwater.
Even the ever-present noises of Rusthaven's undercity seemed muted in this makeshift graveyard, as if the district itself held its breath in the wake of such efficient slaughter.
The newcomer flicked the blood from her blade and turned to face Rhyse, her silver eyes assessing them coolly. "Whisper sends his regards," she said, her voice calm. "And his apologies. The Iron Brotherhood must have had a secondary source. He prides himself on his clients' security. This... displeases him."
Vance, his aura fading, finally slumped against a wall, clutching his wounded arm. As the last of the adrenaline left him, a wave of profound energy, far purer than his own, washed through him. It was the feedback from a desperate battle fought and won, the threshold of experience crossed. His aura, once depleted, now flared back to life, stronger, denser, and more refined than before.
[Ally Progression Detected: Kaelen Vance has broken through his limits.][Rank 2 Vanguard -> Rank 3 Synkar Housecarl.]
Vance flexed his newly empowered fingers, watching as golden wisps of refined aura curled around his knuckles like living filaments. The transformation was undeniable—where his energy had once been rough and unfocused, it now pulsed with disciplined precision. His arm, moments ago a limp and useless weight, twitched with renewed vitality as healing energy knit bone and sinew back together at an impossible rate.
Rhyse took an involuntary step back, his breath catching in his throat. The Synkar Core System's interface flickered to life unprompted, overlaying Vance with diagnostic runes he'd never seen before—readings that hadn't existed when the man was merely a Rank 2 Vanguard. Now, they pulsed with authority: [Synkar Housecarl - Rank 3 - Loyalty Index: Stable.]
For the first time since the ambush, a genuine, unfiltered grin split Rhyse's face. Not just survival. Not just scraping by. Progress. His gamble—to trust Vance, to bind him through the System, to fight with him rather than cower behind him—had paid off in ways he hadn't anticipated.
And yet, beneath the elation, a quiet thread of unease wormed through his thoughts. The System hadn't merely acknowledged Vance's breakthrough; it had modified his class. [Synkar Housecarl] wasn't just an evolution—it was something new, something tailored. A title that bound Vance tighter to the dynasty he served.
Was this the System's doing? Or had it simply revealed what was always meant to be? Rhyse exhaled slowly, watching the last of the golden aura seep into Vance's skin.
"Congratulations on your new rank," Rhyse said.
Vance surprisingly let out a smile, nodding to Rhyse. Their attention was now fixed on the woman who had single-handedly turned the tide of a fatal battle. They weren't sure if they could take her on if she showed ill intent.
"So Whisper sent you," Rhyse said, his voice steady despite his hammering heart.
"He did," she confirmed, sheathing her blade with a soft click. "He called it 'client aftercare.' My name is Seraphina. And for the next seventy-two hours, it would seem my blade is yours."