Gone.
Michael laid his head on the table, the weight of loss pressing down on him like a stone.
He had lost all his money.
Every last coin.
He was back to square zero.
Whoever said gambling was the path to fortune was nothing but a cheap liar.
Staring at the empty space where his winnings should have been, Michael felt something hollow settle in his chest.
“Tch.
I was scammed,” he muttered, the words bitter on his tongue.
“Hmm?”
He was still slumped over the table, quietly crashing out, when his acute senses picked up something else entirely.
Someone was watching him.
As discreetly as he could manage, he shifted his gaze toward the source.
A figure lurking near the edge of the room, still as a shadow, eyes fixed in his direction.
“You finally made your move, didn’t you.
Duke.”
A rare smile touched Michael’s face.
The covert way the figure carried himself.
The dark cloak.
The practiced way he blended into the background — too practiced, too deliberate.
It was an easy giveaway.
A secret assassin, operating under the Duke.
How was Michael able to tell so easily?
Well, it was quite simple.
His father — his ex-father, the king — was paranoid.
Not mildly cautious.
Deeply, thoroughly, obsessively paranoid.
He didn’t trust anyone.
Not even his most trusted aide.
Because of that, every secret organisation under a noble had to be quietly introduced to both the king and the heir, as a safeguard against any noble who might one day attempt a coup.
Their strengths.
Their weaknesses.
Their habits.
All of it laid bare and presented.
Any noble who went ahead and built a hidden force the king didn’t know about was up for immediate execution.
And that wasn’t all.
The blueprint of every city and fiefdom under the kingdom had been handed directly to the crown — every secret passage, every hidden mechanic, every concealed route mapped out in explicit detail.
The crown prince, naturally, had full access to all of it whenever he pleased.
When he was still a prince, Michael had found his father’s paranoia exhausting.
Irritating, even.
But now, as he rose from his seat and exited the gambling house, moving toward a quieter and less conspicuous part of the street, he couldn’t help but wholeheartedly agree with every one of those decisions.
It was the right call.
As far as Michael was concerned, it was the only call.
Then he stopped.
“Now.
Why would I have a stalker?” Michael asked, turning to face the exact direction the assassin was hiding.
The assassin, realising he had been made, immediately moved to abort the mission.
But a swiping paw from a two-headed wolf cut off his retreat, forcing him onto the defensive.
He drew his dagger on instinct, catching the strike and stumbling backwards from the force of the recoil.
He steadied himself, eyes locked on the beast, every sense sharpened.
“Dumb move.
It’s me you should be worried about,” Michael said quietly, his voice close — far too close.
Before the assassin could react, Michael drove a roundhouse kick into him, sending him crashing clean through the wall behind him.
The assassin clawed his way back to his feet, fighting through the pain that lit up across his body from the impact.
“Now.
What to do with you,” Michael said, studying the assassin with quiet intrigue.
The assassin said nothing.
He shifted his dagger to his right hand and dropped into a battle stance, gaze hard and unreadable.
He didn’t know how Michael had spotted him.
But it didn’t matter anymore.
He couldn’t let Michael walk away from this.
No one saw the Duke’s assassins at work and lived to speak of it.
“You plan to fight me?” Michael tilted his head slightly, the smile returning to his face.
“That’s cute.
Guess I’ll entertain your audacity.”
From the aura the assassin gave off, Michael clocked him immediately.
C rank.
Despite being an F rank himself, Michael felt nothing resembling fear.
“Sending a C rank assassin.
The Duke has surely lost his touch,” he said, the mockery light and easy in his tone.
The mention of the Duke’s name did exactly what Michael expected.
The assassin lunged.
Fast, precise — dagger angled directly at Michael’s temple, the intent clean and lethal.
Michael reacted just as fast.
He punched the assassin’s arm upward, redirecting the blade.
Then drove his knee straight into the assassin’s chin, snapping his head back and buying just enough time.
Before the assassin could recover, Michael planted a palm strike into his chest and sent him flying into the wall a second time.
The back of the assassin’s head split on impact, a thin trail of blood marking the stone.
He got up anyway.
Slower this time, but still standing, still locked onto his target.
“Alright.
Seems you want more of the same,” Michael said pleasantly.
The assassin moved again — but smarter this time.
His hand dipped into a hidden pouch at his side, and a cluster of dart knives appeared between his fingers.
He threw them with sharp, practiced precision.
But that was the point.
The kunai were never meant to finish the job.
They were a distraction — something to keep Michael’s hands and eyes occupied while the assassin closed the distance.
And it nearly worked.
The last kunai had barely left his blade when Michael caught the movement in the corner of his vision — the assassin, already inside his guard, dagger drawn back and angling for his neck.
Two inches.
That was all the space that remained between the blade and his throat.
Michael’s eyes widened.
He couldn’t react in time.
The dagger found its mark.
The assassin drove it clean into Michael’s neck, and blood came fast — rushing between Michael’s fingers as he pressed his hand against the wound, the carotid artery torn and pulsing.
The assassin stepped back and watched Michael gasp.
Job done.
He turned to leave.
“Hey.
Where exactly do you think you’re going?”
The assassin stopped dead.
He turned slowly, and what he saw made the blood drain from his face.
Michael stood upright.
Hand no longer pressed to his neck.
The wound — gone.
The torn flesh, the blood, the damage — all of it healed, without a scar left behind to prove it had ever happened.
The assassin stared.
Then went again, because he had no other option.
More kunai, thrown with the same sharp efficiency as before.
But Michael wasn’t about to fall for the same trick twice.
He moved fluidly, weaving through each throw, and waited — patient, reading the pattern.
The assassin attacked through the distraction, exactly as expected, dagger driving in toward Michael’s chest.
“Got you,” Michael said simply, catching the assassin’s hand and closing his grip like a vice.
The assassin froze.
Stared at the hand locked around his wrist.
“No need to look so shocked.
I’m better than you.”
Michael’s voice was calm, almost gentle.
“And I always will be.”
He drove the assassin’s head into the wall.
Then, still holding on, buried a punch into his gut — deep and precise, the kind that emptied a man of air and will in the same instant.
The assassin groaned and folded.
His body, operating on the last threads of training, tried to reach the cyanide pill sealed inside his back teeth.
Michael’s hand snapped to his jaw before he could bite down, locking it shut with an iron grip.
“And who told you your life is still yours to end?” Michael said quietly, meeting the assassin’s eyes.
“Your life belongs to me now.”
He struck once more — measured, deliberate — and the assassin dropped, out cold before he hit the ground.