The alley erupted into a whirlwind of steel and desperation. The moment Lutz's knives cleared their sheaths, Jhin moved. He was a blur, a beautiful, deadly phantom whose speed was an order of magnitude beyond Lutz's enhanced reflexes. Only Rudel's presence, a massive, cursed, but still formidable anchor in the fight, saved Lutz from immediate death.
Jhin flowed around Rudel's powerful but sluggish swings, using the enforcer as a moving shield. He would feint towards Rudel, drawing a roar and a lunge, then use the opening to dart at Lutz. Their knives met in a spray of sparks—Lutz's broader, utilitarian blades against Jhin's needle-like stiletto. The sound was a high, sharp shriek of metal.
Lutz was purely on the defensive, his world narrowed to the flickering point of Jhin's weapon. He parried, dodged, and backpedaled, his agility the only thing keeping him alive. He felt a searing line of fire across his thigh as the stiletto found its mark, slicing through fabric and skin with surgical precision. The pain was sharp and clean, a reminder of his mortality.
But in that same exchange, as Jhin committed to the thrust, Lutz saw an opening. He wasn't fast enough to outright beat the Instigator, but he was precise. He twisted his body, letting the stiletto graze him, and simultaneously drove his own left-hand knife forward in a short, brutal punch. The blade bit into Jhin's upper chest, just below the collarbone, grating against bone.
Jhin recoiled with a hiss, his beautiful face twisting in a snarl of surprise and pain. The wound wasn't deep, but it was the second time this "gnat" had drawn blood. The flawless performance was being marred.
The fight became a deadly ballet of shallow cuts and near misses. They circled each other, a trio bound by violence. Rudel, bleeding from a dozen superficial wounds, was a battering ram of pure fury, his strength slowly being eroded by the cursed sigils glowing beneath his feet. Lutz was the fencer, the strategist, using his two knives to create a defensive web, his mind racing, looking for a pattern, a weakness. Jhin was the artist of death, his movements a fluid, deadly poetry, his stiletto constantly seeking a fatal opening.
Their blades kissed the air around each other's throats, necks, and eyes—a series of near-impossible dodges and parries that left a hair's breadth between life and death. Lutz's heart hammered, not from fear, but from the sheer, overwhelming intensity of the fight. He was holding his own against a superior opponent, but he couldn't keep this up forever.
Then, he saw it. A tiny opening as Jhin over-extended, trying to feint past Rudel's guard to get to Lutz. It was a gamble, a move that would leave him completely unarmed for a critical second.
Lutz took it.
His right hand dropped one of his fighting knives. In the same fluid motion, it dipped into his bandolier, drew a throwing knife, and flung it. It wasn't a killing throw; it was too rushed, the angle was wrong. But it was perfectly aimed.
The small, weighted blade flew straight at Jhin's face.
Jhin, expecting another close-range parry, was caught completely off guard. He jerked his head back, but not fast enough. The throwing knife grazed his cheek, slicing a clean, shallow line from his jawline to just below his eye.
For a moment, time froze. Jhin stood perfectly still. A single, perfect droplet of blood welled from the cut and traced a path down his immaculate skin, a scarlet tear on a masterpiece. The sight of his own blood, the violation of his beauty, was a psychological wound far deeper than any other.
The flat, dead calm in his eyes shattered, replaced by a blaze of pure, unadulterated rage. The Instigator had been instigated.
"YOU!" he shrieked, his melodious voice cracking into a raw scream. All pretense of artful combat vanished. He abandoned all defense and launched himself at Lutz in a blinding, reckless flurry of strikes.
This was the mistake Lutz had been waiting for.
As Jhin lunged, his focus entirely consumed by Lutz, Rudel saw his chance. The big enforcer, bleeding and cursed, summoned a final reservoir of strength. As Jhin passed him, he threw out a meaty hand and snagged the assassin's ankle.
It wasn't a graceful move. It was a tackle, a pure expression of brute force. Jhin cried out as his forward momentum was violently arrested, his body crashing to the filthy cobblestones. Rudel, roaring like a wounded bear, began to drag him closer, his other fist raised for a skull-shattering blow.
Lutz, his own blood dripping from his thigh, saw the kill. He stepped forward, his remaining fighting knife poised to plunge into the downed assassin's back.
It was then that he heard it.
A low, guttural murmur that seemed to originate not from a throat, but from the alley itself. It was a sound that bypassed the ears and vibrated directly in the soul, a cacophony of whispers, pleas, and curses woven into a single, horrendous prayer. It was ancient, evil, and utterly wrong.
Lutz's head snapped up, his Marauder instincts screaming of a danger far greater than the enraged beauty on the ground. His eyes pierced the gloom at the very back of the dead-end alley.
There, on his knees amidst the garbage, was the older man, Taric. His head was bowed, his hands clasped together, but not in pious supplication. His fingers were contorted into a painful-looking symbol. The air around him shimmered with palpable malice, and the horrific murmur was pouring from his lips.
The source, Lutz realized with chilling clarity. The ritual wasn't just the painted cross. It was this man. He was the engine of the curse, the architect of this trap. Jhin was the blade, but Taric was the hand that guided it.
In that split second, Lutz made a choice. Jhin was contained, for now. But the Listener was still weaving his dark magic. He had to break the ritual.
Abandoning his kill-shot on Jhin, Lutz grabbed the knife on the ground and sprinted deeper into the alley, towards the kneeling figure.
Taric's head jerked up. His pale, washed-out eyes, ringed with dark circles, widened in surprise. The horrific prayer ceased. He saw the determined Marauder charging him, knives in hand, and scrambled to his feet. He wasn't a physical fighter; his power lay in listening and speaking to the unseen. He turned to flee, but there was nowhere to run.
As Lutz closed the distance, Taric fumbled in his coat pocket and produced a small, flat piece of crimson metal. It was covered in jagged, spiraling inscriptions that seemed to move in the dim light. His voice rose again, but this time it was a sharp, commanding recitation in a language that felt like shards of broken glass scraping against Lutz's mind. It was Hermes.
Lutz didn't need to understand the words. The bad feeling was a physical wave of nausea and dread rolling off the amulet. This was a focused attack.
He didn't try to block it. He evaded.
Pushing off with his powerful legs, he launched himself at the alley wall, his feet finding momentary purchase on the slick bricks. He ran two steps along the vertical surface, a desperate, gravity-defying maneuver. As he did, Taric finished his incantation and hurled the crimson amulet.
It flew through the space where Lutz's chest had been, striking the wall where he'd just been. Where it hit, the brick didn't just crack; it degenerated, crumbling into black, smoking dust in an instant.
Lutz landed in a crouch, his heart pounding. He was now between Taric and the alley's dead end, with the Listener trapped. Taric stared, his mouth agape, his mystical defenses momentarily spent.
This was the moment.
Still in his crouch, Lutz didn't rise to engage. He threw his weapons. Not with the finesse of a targeted shot, but with the brutal, close-range force of a brawler.
He hurled both of his fighting knives, one after the other, in a single, fluid motion.
The first knife took Taric in the shoulder, spinning him around with the impact. The second sank deep into his thigh with a sickening thud. The Listener cried out, a raw, pained sound, and collapsed to the ground, clutching at the blades impaling him. He was pinned, incapacitated, his terrible prayers silenced.
Lutz stood up. He was now unarmed, save for the remaining throwing knives in his bandolier. He didn't need a specialized tool for this. This was no longer a fight; it was pest control.
He drew one of his throwing knives. Its balanced weight was familiar in his hand. As Taric looked up, his pale eyes wide with terror and pain, Lutz didn't hesitate.
He leaned down and, with a single, efficient thrust, ended the Listener's horrific whispers forever.
The silence that followed was deafening. Lutz turned from Taric's still body, his mind already snapping back to the other, greater threat. What he saw was not a controlled victory, but a tableau of visceral, grinding struggle.
Rudel and Jhin were a tangled, bloody mess on the ground. The Instigator, for all his speed and grace, was trapped in the cage of the enforcer's massive arms. Rudel had him in a crushing bear hug from behind, pinning Jhin's knife arm, but it was a pyrrhic hold. Jhin's free hand was a claw, raking at Rudel's face, his elbow driving back into the enforcer's already bruised ribs. Rudel's face was a mask of blood, his breath coming in wet, ragged gasps. A dozen cuts wept crimson onto his clothes. He wasn't winning; he was enduring, using the last dregs of the Warrior pathway's legendary vitality to simply hold on, to keep this beautiful demon from slipping away.
Jhin thrashed like a pinned serpent, his beautiful features twisted into a snarl of pure, focused hatred. He was trying to wrench his head around, to sink his teeth into Rudel's forearm, anything to break the hold. The stiletto was still in his hand, its point digging futilely into the meat of Rudel's thigh.
There was no time for strategy, no finesse. This was down to animal desperation.
Lutz didn't run. He lunged. His own thigh screamed in protest, the cut there burning with fresh fire. He ignored it. His eyes were locked on the struggling pair. He saw Rudel's strength failing, the big man's grip loosening a fraction, enough for Jhin to start twisting his torso, to bring the stiletto into a more dangerous angle.
This was it.
With a final, explosive push from his good leg, Lutz leaped. He didn't jump over them with acrobatic flair; it was a desperate, stumbling vault. He used Rudel's broad, heaving back as a stepping stone, his boot planting between the enforcer's shoulder blades for a single, precarious moment of purchase before he launched himself forward, into the air above the writhing Jhin.
Time did not slow. It became a frantic, blurry smear of motion and terror.
Lutz was falling. Jhin, sensing the new threat from above, managed to wrench his head back, his dead brown eyes widening, reflecting the falling shape of his death. A guttural sound of panic escaped his lips.
Lutz had no thought. Only instinct. His hands, still gripping the two knives he had retrieved from Taric's body, acted on their own. As he fell onto the tangled pair, his knees driving into Jhin's chest, he brought the knives down.
It was not a clean, powerful thrust. It was a desperate, brutal stabbing motion, born of panic and the need for absolute, final certainty.
The blades, sharpened to a murderous edge by Henrik's grim skill, met resistance. First, the delicate bone of the orbital socket. A sickening, wet crunch. Then, deeper.
Lutz's weight, his momentum, and all his strength drove the knives home, one into each of Jhin's terrifyingly beautiful eyes.
The world seemed to stop.
Jhin's body, which had been a coiled spring of violent energy, went rigid. A short, choked scream was cut off into a wet gurgle. His limbs thrashed in a final, useless spasm, his heels drumming a frantic, dying rhythm on the cobblestones. Then, nothing. Absolute stillness.
The silence that returned was heavier than before, thick with the smell of blood, voided bowels, and the metallic tang of spent terror.
Lutz knelt on the dead man's chest, his hands still locked around the hilts of the knives buried deep in Jhin's skull. He was panting, his body trembling with aftershock. He looked down at what he had done. The face was ruined, a grotesque mask. There was no triumph in it. Only a hollow, cold void, and the desperate, grateful knowledge that he was still alive.
Beneath him, Rudel finally let go, his massive arms falling away limply. He slumped onto his back, his chest heaving, staring at the grey sky as blood seeped from a dozen wounds. He didn't speak. There were no words for this.
Lutz slowly, painfully, pulled the knives free. The sound was wet and final. He stood up on unsteady legs, looking from the corpse of the Listener to the corpse of the Instigator. They had come as hunters, as artists of death. They had left as butchered meat in a filthy alley.