THE MAN WHO WEARS A MASK
sprinted down the winding marble corridors, my boots making no sound against the polished floor.
According to the holographic lens display flickering inside my faceless mask, a mob of exactly eleven surviving royal knights was hot on my tail. The rest of the castle guard had completely abandoned the chase, scrambling toward the outer sectors to protect the King and the high princes.
'The next left turn,' I calculated, eyeing the map. 'That’s where the seven assassins will be waiting.'
Before entering the danger zone, I decided to activate the remaining two miniature eagle drones. I commanded them to scan the upper floors, intending to lock onto Princess Quina's exact coordinates so I could plan her extraction.
But the moment the drone footage fed onto my lens display, I nearly tripped over my own cloak.
She wasn't in her high-security private chambers.
Instead, the white-haired princess was actively sprinting down the central grand staircase, heading straight toward this chaotic warzone. To make matters worse, she was wearing the most hilariously stupid, flimsy masquerade mask I had ever seen in my life—anyone with eyes would recognize her at a single glance. And she was gripping a drawn elven sword.
'Dammit!' I cursed internally. 'In a chaotic three-way battle, neither the royal knights nor I will be able to protect a reckless princess who runs straight into crossfire!'
There was no time to hesitate. I rounded the corner, facing the eastern hallway where the seven elite assassins stood, and immediately triggered my devil's contract.
DEATH’S GAMBIT.
The spectral deck manifested in the shadows of my mind, and I placed my thirty-second bet:
Ace of Spades:The intruders will see me and immediately run away to avoid a fight.
Queen of Spades:They will freeze in total shock and do absolutely nothing.
Jack of Spades:They will view me as an immediate threat and charge me.
King of Spades:They will split up—some attacking me, while the rest pivot to hunt the princess.
My money was firmly on the Ace. These were professional, cold-blooded assassins on a strict timeline. They wouldn't waste precious seconds engaging in a meaningless brawl with a random, masked stranger blocking a hallway.
The exact millisecond I slid around the left turn, the seven intruders locked eyes with my faceless mask. Seeing a mysterious, aura-less figure standing in their path, they instantly gritted their teeth, spun on their heels, and began to rapidly retreat backward down the corridor.
Flash.
The brilliant Ace of Spades materialized before my eyes and shattered into a million black sparks.
In a heartbeat, a terrifying, suffocating heat erupted deep within my phantom core. I felt the raw, unadulterated authority of the Flames of Hell rushing through my veins. Without fully understanding how to control the skill, I unleashed the power directly ahead.
BOOOOOOOM!
A catastrophic, apocalyptic explosion of pitch-black hellfire erupted from my palms. The sheer force didn't just scatter the intruders—it entirely demolished the eastern wing of the royal palace. The blast wave shattered massive stone pillars, blew the roof clean off the corridor, and sent a towering pillar of black smoke roaring into the night sky.
I stood in the center of the smoldering debris, coughing slightly behind my mask as the embers danced around me.
'Well... I just wanted a tiny explosion to create a distraction,' I thought, sweat dripping down my neck in sheer disbelief. 'That was way too much. I seriously need to control my output from now on.'
I quickly tapped the control interface on my mask to check the drone feeds.
Luckily, Princess Quina had survived. She had clearly felt the earth-shaking shockwave and witnessed the terrifying black explosion from the top of the stairs. Realizing the sheer, monstrous strength of whatever entity was fighting in the hallways, she had wisely lost all her bravado, turned right around, and sprinted back up the stairs to safety.
As for the surviving royal knights and the seven elite assassins? The hellfire blast had scattered them completely across the fractured palace grounds, leaving them separated, panicked, and entirely disorganized.
I pulled my twin black blades from their sheaths, the crimson light of my phantom eyes gleaming brightly behind the dark slits of my mask. The stage was broken, the audience was terrified, and the shadow hunt was officially on.
'Alright, now I just need to grab Lady Quina and get out of th—'
SWISH!
A sharp, whistling sound sliced through the night air from behind me. Instinct screamed, and I violently jerked my torso to the side. A heavy, steel-tipped arrow grazed the fabric of my cloak, embedding itself deep into the shattered stone wall beside me. Whoever shot that was terrifyingly fast.
'Calm down,' I told myself, checking the mental clock. 'The Ace of Spades is still active. I have over two minutes left of the Hellfire effect. I’m completely fine.'
The smoke parted. Three men draped in pitch-black cloaks materialized from the shadows, their eyes wild and desperate. The surviving assassins. Seeing me blocked in the ruins of the corridor, all three charged me at once, their blades drawn to kill.
I stood there silently, not moving a single muscle behind my faceless mask.
“Don’t worry! He’s too shocked to react!” the tallest assassin shouted, lunging forward with a frenzied grin. “Whatever this bastard is, we can’t let him use that power again!”
The air grew freezing cold. I could feel the sharp, lethal tips of their blades just millimeters away from piercing my chest. Right as they were about to plunge their steel into my flesh, I willed the remnants of the Ace's power to violently detonate.
BOOM!
A localized, blinding shockwave of black hellfire erupted outward from my body.
The two assassins flanking the sides didn't even have time to scream; they were instantaneously reduced to drifting ash. The tallest one, however, was violently deflected by the blast wave. He was thrown through the air, crashing heavily onto the stone floor a few meters away. I had spared his life on purpose.
“Tell me…” the tall man gasped, coughing up thick blood as he clutched his broken ribs. He stared up at my mask in sheer horror. “Who… who are you?”
“That is my question,” I replied, stepping over the smoldering ashes of his comrades. I drew my matte-black sword and pressed the cold, razor-sharp edge directly against his neck. “Tell me who you are. Who sent you? Why are you trying to murder Lady Quina? Tell me everything and I might let you live. Otherwise, I will slowly incinerate your flesh with these black flames. Your teammates got a mercifully instant death… but you won’t. Don’t even think about lying to me.”
The man swallowed hard, the blade drawing a thin line of blood on his throat. His resolve shattered instantly.
“I’ll talk! I’ll tell you everything!” he stammered, trembling. “Our organization is called The Nemesis. Our absolute goal was to execute Princess Quina so that a catastrophic war would break out.”
I narrowed my crimson eyes behind my mask. “A war? The Krane Kingdom is already locked in a war with the Blood Kingdom, aren’t we?”
“Yes, but that war was supposed to end soon!” the assassin wheezed. “The kingdom is secretly forming a grand Alliance of Nations.”
“An alliance?”
“Yes! A massive alliance between three powerful territories. The Kingdom of Krane was providing its elite knights and high-grade magical equipment—gear built by that damn legendary elf who supposedly died fifteen years ago. He worked for this country for two hundred years!”
My heart skipped a beat. He was talking about Grim.
“The second is the Kingdom of Skull, who handles the resources since their land contains the continent's largest supply of magical ore. And the third is the Elven Kingdom, providing its supreme, ancient knowledge.”
“That’s impossible,” I countered coldly, pressing the sword a fraction harder. “According to the continental truce, the Elven Kingdom is strictly forbidden from forming military alliances with any human nation. In return, no empire is allowed to conquer or attack them. They are supposed to be a neutral, peaceful nation that serves humanity solely with knowledge and experience.”
“That was the case sixteen years ago!” the assassin cried out, desperate to save his skin. “Everything changed after the birth of Lady Quina! The Elven Kingdom has been forced to support Krane from the shadows. Her mother, Lady Stena, was a consort to the human King—but she was also the Second Princess of the Elven Royal Family! Elves possess an absolute, unbreakable law: they support royal blood no matter what. It was only natural for them to back Krane when a child possessing elven royal blood was born into its lineage!”
The pieces of the puzzle were violently snapping into place.
“If Quina dies,” the assassin whispered frantically, “the elves will instantly break the alliance. The Kingdom of Skull will back out as a chain reaction. The war between the Blood Kingdom and Krane will become infinitely more ruthless. Without the elves' magical knowledge and Skull's raw ore, Krane will collapse. The high council is just trying to buy time right now, betting the entire fate of the kingdom on Quina’s survival! That is the grand will of our Lord!”
Everything became terrifyingly clear. The stakes of this war were continental. But a dark question still lingered in my mind—why was Princess Diana assassinated three years ago? And how did Grim’s fated execution play into this?
“Who is this 'Lord' of yours?” I demanded.
Before the assassin could open his mouth, a sudden prickle of danger flared at the back of my neck. I instinctively tilted my head. A black-feathered arrow hissed past my ear.
It wasn't aimed at me.
THWACK!
The arrow embedded itself deeply into the tall assassin’s throat, right where my sword had been resting. His eyes rolled back, and he choked on his own blood, going entirely limp. I whipped my head around. Crouched on a distant roof silhouette was another cloaked figure holding a recurve bow. A sniper from The Nemesis. He had cold-bloodedly silenced his own teammate to protect their master's identity.
Before I could lunge after him, the sniper melted into the shadows, vanishing without a trace.
Clank! Clank! Clank!
The heavy, synchronized stomping of armored boots flooded the ruined corridor. A squad of exactly ten elite royal knights burst through the smoke, drawing their broadswords and instantly circling my position.
“Intruder! Drop your weapons and identify yourself!” the knight captain roared, his blade glowing with defensive holy magic.
I looked at the ten knights, then looked down at the dead assassin. The Nemesis, huh? I had to admit, the enemy organization had a remarkably cool, intimidating name. If they had a title like that, a masterful shadow broker like me couldn't just be an anonymous stranger. I needed an identity that would strike fear into the hearts of the corrupt.
A slow, dangerous smirk spread behind my faceless mask.
“I am…” I spoke, my voice echoing with an eerie, dual resonance through the fractured hallway. “…THE CRIMSON CARD.”
“Crimson—?!” the captain started.
FWOOOOOOSH!
Before he could even finish the word, I unleashed the absolute final, explosive burst of the Ace's hellfire. A colossal wall of pitch-black flames violently erupted inward-out, creating a massive concussive shockwave that blasted all ten elite knights backward, sending them crashing into the stone walls.
When the smoke settled, the corridor was entirely empty. The mysterious intruder had vanished into thin air.
The only thing that remained in the darkness of the moonless sky was the lingering, terrifying ghost of two glowing crimson eyes.