Chapter 105: The Shattered Anchor (Part 1)

The air inside the lower-district safehouse was thick with the stench of cheap ale and unwashed bodies.

Twelve men sat around a splintered wooden table.

They wore the grime-stained leathers of Forge mercenaries, perfectly blended into the slums. But beneath the dirt, they were elite Zenith sleeper agents.

"The Incubus is losing his patience," one of the spies muttered, slamming his wooden mug onto the table.

"Lord Valerius wants the goblin dead before the Summit. If we can’t breach the Obsidian Bungalow directly, we poison the estate’s primary aqueduct. We melt their organs from the inside out."

"Forget the goblin for a second," a second spy sneered, wiping foam from his mouth.

"The bounty says to capture the women alive. Did you see the Succubus he keeps? And the Aetherion scholar? Once Valerius breaks their minds, I’m putting in a request to get sloppy seconds."

A chorus of cruel, lecherous laughter echoed through the dimly lit room.

"I need to take a piss," a third spy grunted, kicking his chair back. He stumbled down the dark, narrow hallway toward the back alley door.

The remaining men continued to drink, drawing crude maps of the upper district’s water lines.

Five minutes passed.

"Where the hell is Jaxon?" the leader of the cell barked, glancing toward the dark hallway.

"Did he fall into the latrine? Go check on him."

Another spy stood up, drawing a short, poisoned dagger just in case. He walked down the hallway. He turned the corner into the alley.

He didn’t scream. He didn’t cast a spell. He just didn’t come back.

The laughter around the table slowly died. The leader frowned, the alcohol haze instantly burning away into professional paranoia.

He signaled the remaining ten men. Swords were drawn. Wands glowed with highly condensed, lethal fire magic.

"Jaxon? Marcus?" the leader called out.

Silence.

Absolute, terrifying silence.

Before the leader could give the order to breach the hallway, the shadows on the ceiling directly above them detached.

They didn’t make a sound.

There was no battle cry.

Chief Inquisitor Silas and his elite assassins dropped like lead weights.

SHING! SQUELCH!

Throats were slit before the Zenith spies could even blink. Spells fizzled in severed hands.

The entire safehouse was systematically and flawlessly eradicated in under four seconds.

Silas stood over the trembling, bleeding leader of the cell.

He pressed a boot against the spy’s chest and tapped the small, non-magical brass earpiece hidden under his hood.

"Safehouse cleared," Silas murmured into the radio. "We have the leader alive."

Kzzt.

The gravelly voice of the Chief Inquisitor crackled perfectly through my leather headset.

I sat in the center of the underground command bunker beneath the Obsidian Bungalow.

The glowing brass consoles hummed with kinetic energy, feeding the acoustic frequencies across the city.

"Excellent work, Silas," I replied, leaning back in my chair.

A deeply satisfied, predatory smirk stretched across my face.

"Extract whatever information he has about their smuggling routes, then dispose of him. Recall your forces."

Kzzt.

"Understood, Lord Grik. The technology is flawless. They didn’t even know we were in the room."

"This is just the beginning," I said, looking at the glowing map of the Forge on my table. Every single red dot had been extinguished.

"Once the city is completely sanitized, we are setting up radio signal towers across the borders. I want instant, cheap information transfer across the continent. We aren’t just going to defend our territory anymore. We are going to implant our own spies in the Holy Alliance and the Zenith Academy using encrypted micro-transmitters. We are taking the shadow war to their front door."

I pulled the headset off, letting it rest around my neck. The feeling of absolute control was intoxicating.

Valerius Thorne thought he was playing chess, but I had just flipped the entire board. The Kingdom of Iron and Steam was completely secure.

KRA-KOOOOOOM!

The bunker ceiling violently shuddered. Dust and loose mortar rained down onto the brass consoles.

My glowing red eyes snapped upward. That was an explosion.

I bolted up the spiraling stone stairs, kicking the heavy iron door of the bunker completely off its hinges.

I stepped out into the main courtyard of the Obsidian Bungalow.

The estate was under siege.

Hundreds of men wearing the soot-stained robes of the Cult of the Ashen Maw were swarming over the wrought-iron gates.

They wielded jagged blades and hurled crude, chaotic fireballs at the manor walls.

"Hold the line!" Rolf roared.

The Alpha General was already in the center of the courtyard.

His silver fur bristled with mana.

He swung his battleaxe, cleaving three cultists in half with a single, devastating strike.

Nyssa stood on the balcony, her emerald eyes glowing as she wove reality-bending barriers to deflect the incoming artillery.

Kaelith and Lysandra were a blur of shadows and pink silk, dismantling the frontline attackers with terrifying, surgical precision.

Even Anise was there. She wore a simple cloak over her white and gold armor, wielding a basic steel sword.

She was severely restricting her Level 100 power to avoid detection, but her flawless, century-old combat experience allowed her to effortlessly disarm and drop any cultist that got near her.

It was a slaughter. My pack was tearing through the invaders like wet paper.

I drew my steel longsword and engaged my Vanguard Arm. I stepped into the fray, driving my brass fist through the chest of a charging cultist.

But as the man’s body went limp, a sudden, cold wave of realization washed over my mind.

I activated my [Sharp Eye].

[Target Scanned: Hired Thug (Disguised)] [Level: 15]

[Target Scanned: Mercenary (Disguised)] [Level: 14]

I froze in the middle of the bloodbath.

’Level 15?’ I thought, my C-Grade core skipping a heavy beat.

’These aren’t elite Zenith assassins. These aren’t even real cultists. They are cheap, low-level thugs hired from the slums.’

Valerius Thorne wouldn’t send Level 15 street trash to kill a Goblin Lord.

"Stop!" I yelled, parrying a sloppy sword strike and kicking the attacker away.

"This is a decoy! They are just cannon fodder!"

Kzzt. Kzz-kzzzt.

My leather earpiece sparked violently with static. It wasn’t Silas’s disciplined, gravelly voice.

"L-Lord Grik..."

The voice was frantic, bubbling with wet, agonizing coughs. It was the frequency I had assigned to the Royal Palace guard captain.

"Report!" I barked, tapping the earpiece.

"The Palace... breached," the guard choked out. The sound of clashing steel and screaming echoed horrifyingly in the background.

"They hit us from the shadows... elite casters... we are being slaughtered..."

My blood ran cold. The Prime Minister and Silas were on the far side of the capital, dealing with the aftermath of the spy purge. The Royal Palace was completely exposed.

"Protect the King-Regent’s chambers!" I ordered.

"They... they didn’t go for the King-Regent," the guard sobbed, his voice fading. "They hit the east wing... the courtyard... Lady Elara..."

The name hit me like a physical, kinetic blast to the chest.

"What happened to Elara?!" I roared, my eyes flaring a blinding, terrifying crimson.

"They took her," the guard wheezed, his final breaths rattling through the earpiece.

"The leader... a woman in dark silk... she laughed... she shattered Lady Elara’s mana veins... the blood... she’s dying..."

The transmission cut out to dead, hollow static.

The world around me completely vanished. The sounds of my pack fighting the decoy cultists faded into absolute, suffocating silence.

They shattered her mana veins.

Elara. The innocent, beautiful girl who had finally learned to breathe again.

The woman I had held in my arms just days ago.

They had sadistically, intentionally butchered her from the inside out to send a message.

A primal, apocalyptic rage erupted from the very bottom of my soul.

"Rolf! Hold the estate!" I roared, my voice vibrating with a demonic, terrifying fury that made the very air warp.

I didn’t wait for a response. I forcefully bypassed every single safety limiter on my body.

I engaged the [Sovereign’s Conduit] to its absolute, self-destructive maximum.

HSSSSSSSSSS!

The boiler on my back shrieked as I flooded my mechanical Vanguard Arm with raw, catastrophic steam pressure. The brass plates turned a blinding, molten orange.

I crouched low, the cobblestones beneath my boots instantly turning to dust under the immense kinetic pressure.

KRA-KOOM!

I launched myself into the night sky.

The sheer explosive force of my jump shattered the entire front courtyard of the Obsidian Bungalow, blowing the remaining decoy cultists off their feet.

I became a ballistic missile of dark green and glowing orange.

I moved faster than sound, tearing across the smog-choked rooftops of the capital toward the Royal Palace. The wind howled against my face, but I couldn’t feel the cold.

I could only feel the burning, unadulterated hatred consuming my core.

’Hold on. Just wait for me, Elara. I will save you.’