I opened my eyes slowly. The morning sun struggled to pierce through the oak shutters of the Golden Griffin, casting geometric lines of light across the floor. My internal furnace worked absolutely silently. I felt perfectly regenerated after yesterday’s slaughter at the Marquis’s estate. I took a deep breath, feeling the cool air fill my lungs, and stretched until my shoulders popped with a satisfying crack, releasing the tension from my body.
I quickly registered a small movement in the room. Shnee was awake. She sat on the very edge of the bed, her slender fingers clenching the edge of the mattress. The vibrations of her aura betrayed a quiet, deeply rooted fear. This terror had been smoldering in her since I used raw strength to shatter the anti-magic steel on her neck with my bare hands. She observed me with visible tension. In her snowy diamond eyes, predatory fascination mixed with the instinctive fear of a prey facing a completely new predator.
I sat up, resting my elbows on my knees. I scratched my neck and yawned shortly, completely ignoring her stiffness. "Master..." she began, and her voice trembled slightly. "That iron alloy... it was saturated with system blockades. No mage I know could even scratch it. You simply tore it apart". I fixed her with a cold, steady gaze. "Call me Dave," I cut her off firmly, destroying that pathetic tone at the very root. "And take that terrified expression off your face. That collar was just trash. I am not interested in relationships based on slave chains. It is primitive and boring".
She froze. It was not what she expected from someone who had just massacred an aristocrat. I got out of bed, the cold planks feeling pleasant against my bare feet. My body felt stable and heavy, ready for another day of verification. "Change into what Elena left yesterday. I’ll be waiting downstairs," I threw over my shoulder, putting on my black coat with Brazen chill.
I went down the creaking stairs to the main room. The inn smelled of wood and fresh meat. Elena was wiping the counters with surgical method. On seeing me, she immediately smiled with authentic relief. The night had passed peacefully. "Good morning, Dave. Is everything alright with... her?" she asked softly. "Physically, yes. Psychically she has a massive lag, but we will pull her out of it," I replied, sitting at my usual table. "Give me the usual. Double portion".
A moment later, Shnee appeared on the stairs. She wore an oversized shirt and simple pants. Despite the worn material, her exotic beauty immediately caught the eyes of several early patrons. She approached the table, uncertainly shifting from foot to foot. She lowered her gaze. "Dave..." she swallowed hard. "Can I ask for at least a piece of dry bread?". I leaned heavily against the oak counter. "Sit," I said in a gentle but absolutely commanding tone. "Forget about dry bread. You are with me now. In my company, nobody eats scraps. You will eat exactly the same thing I do".
Elena placed steaming plates in front of her without a word. A mountain of scrambled eggs with bacon and thick slices of fresh bread. Shnee stared at the meal like a historical relic. She began to eat. First with hesitation, then with the murderous appetite of someone who had been starving in cages for years. The base was slowly gaining a hard sense of stability. I ate my portion in silence, observing her out of the corner of my eye. My pure logic told me that we needed to gear her up before we hit the deeper floors.
After breakfast, we went out into the streets of Oakhaven. The city hummed with noise and stank of horse sweat and gutter mud. I walked with a slow pace, keeping my hands deep in the pockets of my coat. I didn't use magic. I deliberately released only a minimal fraction of the density of my body to the outside. Traders and armed mercenaries instinctively moved aside before us. They formed a clear path in the dense crowd. Their instincts screamed at them to get out of the way of a predator. Shnee walked right behind me, absorbing this natural spatial dominance with growing intrigue. No one harassed us. No one dared to throw even a crooked glance.
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As we approached the bridge leading to the Upper District, my expanded imagination caught a sensory discord. I activated my analytical grid. Three city guards in polished breastplates were blocking the passage, extorting money from a merchant. "Wait here," I told Shnee, maintaining my Brazen chill. I approached the guards. The leader, a man with a bloated face, looked at my coat with arrogance. "Access to the boutique district costs one silver, wanderer," he growled. I didn't answer with words. I shifted my weight, using pure pure logic to calculate his balance. I simply walked through him. When he tried to grab my shoulder, I used a short impulse of telekinesis to increase the friction of his own boots against the cobblestones. The guard tripped over his own feet, falling face-first into the mud with a loud clatter of armor. I walked past him without even looking back.
From this idyllic walk, a sudden scream pulled me. The sound came from a narrow alley. I stopped. Three thugs in leather armor had cornered a small girl with rabbit ears against a damp wall. She had a rusted collar on her neck. The largest of the brutes was just aiming a brutal kick at her thigh. The same pattern. Zero class. I sighed heavily, adjusting the collar of my coat. "Wait here," I thrown to Shnee.
I entered the alley. The clatter of my soles echoed off the walls. Three thugs turned towards me with complaints. "Are you lost, boys?" I asked coldly, stopping a meter from them. "You are ruining my walk". The leader, a tall kark with half his teeth missing, spat at my feet. He placed a hand on the hilt of his sword. "Fuck off, pretty boy. This is our loot". I smiled impudently. In a split second, I shortened the distance to zero. The thug didn't even blink. My hand tightened on his wrist. I used a hydraulic press. I applied pure, brutal physics of crushing his fibers.
A disgusting crack echoed. The bones broke like dry twigs. The man howled, falling to his knees. I didn't let go. I released only a drop of raw, sapphire aura from my body. The blue pressure hit the remaining two like an invisible wall. Marquis de Valois stood behind his elite guards, his face twisting into a mask of pure fury. "Kill him! Smash this commoner into the floor!" he shrieked, his voice cracking with fear. Five elite guards in full steel armor rushed toward me, raising heavy swords.
I didn't move my hands from my pockets. My expanded imagination measured the tension in their muscles in a split second. I didn't need a blade to verify their defense. I used a Kinetic Siege Press. I focused a wall of crushing pressure onto the group from above. I didn't need to strike them; I simply increased the weight of the space they occupied.
The sound of crushed steel echoed through the hall like a hammer hitting an anvil. The guards' armor became their own metal coffins, buckling inward and breaking bones with a wet crack. They collapsed onto the marble floor, losing consciousness instantly under the mass of my will.
I walked onto the stage and stopped before Shnee. Her snowy diamond eyes watched me with a mix of hatred for her captors and a new, sharp curiosity. I grabbed the heavy anti-magic collar with both hands.
I didn't look for a key. I relied on the density of my fibers and the sheer mass of my body. I pulled the metal outward. The iron heated up from the mana resistance, burning my skin with a hiss. I ignored the pain, pulling until the lock mechanism simply exploded. The collar snapped, and I threw the destroyed scrap onto the floor. Shnee collapsed, her system going into shock as the mana barrier vanished.
I caught her with a gentlemanly precision. We were heading for the exit when the air suddenly grew static. A man in elaborate, gold-trimmed robes stepped from the shadows – the Marquis’s High Mage. He raised a gnarled staff, and glowing runes erupted at his feet. He began a long, theatrical incantation.
On pure logic, this was a total waste of my calories. I didn't use a shield. I activated my expanded imagination and located the primary magic weaves inside his chest. Using a technique I called Clearing the Gutter, I reached out with a thin thread of my will. I didn't strike him; I simply "closed the valve" on his internal mana conduits.
The mage’s voice caught in his throat. His runes flickered and died with a pathetic hiss. He caught a permanent operational lag. His eyes bulged in absolute shock as he realized his power had simply vanished. He fell to his knees, gasping for air, unable to comprehend the logic of his own failure.
I walked past him without a word, my boots clicking rhythmically against the stone.
"Keep your guard up, mage. Your balance is as shaky as your talent," I threw coldly over my shoulder.
We stepped out into the night air of Oakhaven. The remaining guards at the gate simply melted away, unable to withstand the raw Blood Lust I allowed to leak from my silhouette. Our return to the Griffin would be invisible, but the city now knew the system of Oakhaven had a new owner.