The explosion ringing in my ears was nothing compared to the deafening silence that followed.
The heavy iron grate, weighing easily over two hundred pounds, had been blown off its hinges with a concentrated blast of pure, white magic. The five figures stepping through the settling dust weren't just guards. They moved with a synchronized, predatory grace that screamed elite military training.
They wore midnight-black leather armor layered over chainmail, adorned with the glowing silver crest of the Holy Order—a sunburst pierced by a sword. Their faces were hidden behind featureless iron masks, and their weapons—three swords, a heavy mace, and a crossbow—pulsed with an unnatural, blinding white aura.
Hounds of the Light. The Inquisition's personal death squad.
"Target confirmed," the lead tracker said, his voice magically amplified and echoing off the cavern walls. He didn't sound human; he sounded like a machine programmed only for holy vengeance. He pointed a glowing broadsword directly at my chest. "The Anomaly. Eliminate with extreme prejudice. Leave nothing for the shadows."
"Crap," Lyra hissed, her grey eyes wide.
Kael, the massive bruiser, made the first, and stupidest, move. Roaring in panic, he hoisted his heavy iron-studded club and charged blindly at the nearest tracker, trying to smash his way to the exit.
The tracker didn't even adopt a stance. He casually sidestepped Kael's clumsy swing, brought the hilt of his glowing sword down on the back of the big man's knee—the bad knee I had pointed out earlier—and smoothly drove a dagger into the gap of Kael's shoulder armor.
Kael collapsed with a wet scream, out of the fight in less than three seconds.
Jinx shrieked in absolute terror and scrambled up a pile of garbage, trying to climb into a narrow drainage pipe near the ceiling. A loud THWACK echoed through the cavern. The tracker with the crossbow lowered his weapon. Jinx fell backward, a glowing white bolt protruding from his chest, and crashed lifelessly onto a pile of rusted metal.
Two down. In five seconds.
"Scatter!" Lyra yelled, throwing two knives at the leader's visor before turning and sprinting toward the dark, weeping tunnels she had mentioned earlier.
The knives sparked harmlessly against the leader's magical shield. He didn't even blink. He gestured sharply, and two of his trackers peeled off, sprinting after Lyra with terrifying speed.
The remaining three, including the leader, turned their featureless iron masks back to me.
[WARNING: Threat Level - Absolute Lethal.]
[Suggestion: Evasion is mandatory.]
Tell me something I don't know! I screamed internally.
I had zero Mana. I was wearing a sweat-soaked undershirt and torn trousers. I didn't even have my rusted rebar anymore; I had thrown it on the ground to bluff Lyra.
"Cleanse him," the leader ordered.
The two trackers flanked me, moving to cut off any escape route toward the tunnels. The one with the heavy mace swung it in a wide, crushing arc.
I threw myself flat onto the wet, slimy cobblestones. The mace whistled inches over my head, the holy aura radiating from it searing the air and singeing the hair on my arms. I rolled frantically, scrambling on all fours toward the edge of the walkway, where the toxic, slow-moving river of sludge flowed.
"System!" I yelled mentally, dodging a thrust from a glowing sword that chipped the stone where my foot had just been. "Is there any ambient Mana here?!"
[Scanning... Negative. Humanoid entities 'Kael' and 'Jinx' do not possess active Mana cores. Mana absorption failed.]
I needed a monster. Or a crystal.
I scrambled to my feet, backing away until the heels of my boots were half off the walkway, hovering over the ten-foot drop into the toxic sludge. The three trackers advanced slowly, their glowing weapons raising the temperature in the cavern. They had me cornered.
"You defied the Light, Arthur Valerius," the leader intoned, raising his broadsword. "Your corruption ends here."
I looked desperately around. The fire from the thieves' camp was dying down. The only real light in the cavern came from the weapons of my executioners.
Wait. The weapons.
I focused on the leader's broadsword. Embedded in the hilt was a brilliantly glowing white crystal, powering the holy aura of the blade.
"System! The crystal in his sword! Can I absorb it?!"
[Affirmative. Target is a 'Lesser Holy Core'. Physical contact required for extraction.]
Physical contact. I had to touch the weapon of a highly trained magical assassin who was actively trying to cut me into pieces. It was suicide. But falling into the toxic river behind me was also suicide. I had to risk it.
"You know what your problem is?" I shouted over the rushing sound of the river, forcing a manic, arrogant grin onto my face. I spread my arms wide, leaving my chest completely unprotected. "You rely too much on your shiny toys!"
The leader didn't care about my taunts. He lunged, a textbook thrust aimed directly at my heart. It was too fast. If I tried to dodge, I would fall.
So, I didn't dodge. I stepped into the strike.
At the very last fraction of a second, I twisted my torso violently to the side. The searing hot blade of the holy sword missed my heart but sliced a deep, agonizing gash across my ribs.
I screamed in pain, but my plan worked. The momentum of the thrust brought the leader directly into my space. Before he could pull the sword back, I slammed my left hand down, grabbing the crossguard of his weapon.
My bare skin touched the glowing white crystal.
Consume! I commanded the System with everything I had.
[DING!]
[Energy Core Detected. Initiating forced extraction...]
The leader froze, a sound of confusion escaping his iron mask. The brilliant white aura of his sword flickered violently. The heat radiating from the blade vanished, replaced by an unnatural, freezing cold that shot up my arm.
The crystal in the hilt cracked, turning dull and gray, before crumbling into dust.
[Mana Restored: 8/10]
The holy sword in the leader's hand was now nothing more than a heavy piece of mundane steel.
"What...?" the leader gasped, stepping back and ripping the sword from my grip.
I didn't give him time to recover. The pain in my ribs was blinding, but the rush of eight points of Mana flooding my system was intoxicating. I had fuel. I had a weapon.
"My turn," I whispered.
The tracker with the mace charged me from the right, raising his weapon for a crushing downward blow.
System. Shadow Step. [Mana Depleted: 2]
The world instantly lost all color, inverting into a negative image. The air turned freezing cold, and the sound of the rushing river vanished. I felt myself turn weightless, completely intangible. I looked at the shadow cast by the mace-wielding tracker against the cavern wall.
I willed myself there.
Space folded. In a fraction of a second, the negative world shattered, and reality snapped back into focus.
I wasn't standing on the edge of the river anymore. I was standing directly behind the tracker with the mace.
He brought his weapon down with a massive crash, smashing the stone where I had been standing just a millisecond ago. He stood there, frozen, trying to process how his target had simply vanished into thin air.
I didn't hesitate. I kicked the back of his knee with all my strength, collapsing his leg. As he stumbled backward, completely off balance, I shoved him hard right between the shoulder blades.
With a muffled cry behind his mask, the elite tracker plummeted backward over the edge of the walkway. He hit the toxic, fast-moving sludge river ten feet below with a heavy splash, his heavy armor pulling him under immediately.
One down. Two to go.
I spun around. The leader and the third tracker were staring at me, their body language betraying a sudden, very un-holy hesitation. They had just seen a weak, unarmored noble drain the magic from a holy weapon and teleport through the shadows.
To them, I wasn't just a disgraced lord anymore. I was exactly what they feared. An anomaly.
"He's a demon!" the third tracker yelled, raising a glowing shortsword.
I grinned, blood dripping from the wound on my ribs, and held up a hand wreathed in the faint, dark energy of the System.
"A demon?" I laughed, the sound echoing coldly off the stone walls. "No. I'm just the guy fixing the script. Now, who's next?"
Before they could charge again, a loud, sharp whistle cut through the cavern.
I glanced toward the dark entrance of the weeping tunnels. Lyra was standing there, the two trackers who had chased her nowhere to be seen. She held up one of their glowing crossbows, a wicked smirk on her face.
"Are you coming, Valerius?" she yelled. "Or do you want to stay and play with the rest of the choir?"
I looked back at the leader. I had 6 Mana left. Enough for three more Shadow Steps, or maybe a small edit. But my ribs were bleeding heavily, and I was exhausted. I couldn't fight an entire squad of reinforcements if they showed up.
I offered the furious leader another mocking, two-finger salute.
Shadow Step. [Mana Depleted: 2]
I vanished from the walkway, reappearing in the thick shadows right beside Lyra. The sudden transition made me dizzy, and I stumbled, clutching my bleeding side.
Lyra caught my arm, her strong grip keeping me upright. She looked at the wound, then up at my face. There was a new emotion in her pale grey eyes. It wasn't just survival anymore; it was respect.
"You're completely insane," she muttered, pulling me into the suffocating darkness of the weeping tunnels.
"I prefer the term 'creative'," I grunted, letting her drag me into the abyss as the furious roars of the Holy Knights echoed behind us.
We had survived the first clash. But the Undercity was vast, and the hunt had only just begun.