Not long before Ryan and Pisces walked into the Hyacinth Tavern.
Several kilometers away, in a small building, a fully armored knight kept his attention fixed intently on the tavern's direction.
The heavily armored knight radiated the thick, unmistakable aura of a top-tier powerhouse. Any onlooker who recognized him would have known him at once — he was none other than Rhein Root, the Magic Swordsman, Special-Grade Retainer of the Ormar Empire's Imperial Retainer Corps and concurrently Captain of the Royal Knights!
One of the Ormar royal family's premier combatants.
For some reason, Rhein had felt uneasy all day. As the man known as the empire's foremost knight, his instincts were terrifyingly accurate.
*Your Highness, please, let nothing go wrong with this negotiation...*
He prayed silently, his grip on his broadsword growing faintly damp with sweat. The instant anything stirred, he'd move to reinforce her position immediately.
Just then, a faint breeze swept through the room, and Rhein's brow snapped into a frown.
Someone had entered.
...
A sharp *clang* rang out as his twin-edged broadsword, wreathed in razor-keen sword-qi, spun and slashed backward in a single fluid motion.
Battle instinct sharpened to a razor's edge, Rhein drew and struck like lightning, moving to cleave the intruder clean in two.
But abruptly, with the blade a mere finger's width from the black-robed figure behind him, the massive sword stopped dead, perfectly still.
The intruder, all the while, hadn't shown the faintest hint of alarm, letting the blade's edge sweep past his face unfazed.
Clearly, Rhein had recognized who this was, and the killing intent drained from him at once.
But the relationship between the two men was, evidently, far from cordial.
The knight commander asked coldly, "Metternich. Why aren't you at the Empress's side? What are you doing here?"
"Captain Rhein, your swordsmanship keeps getting sharper, doesn't it..."
The newcomer let out a light chuckle, his face hidden beneath a black cloak.
As he spoke, the deck of playing cards his fingers had been idly shuffling came to a stop, and he drew out a single card — the Jack of Spades.
Rhein clearly had no interest in reminiscing, issuing an immediate order to leave. "I have duties to attend to. This isn't the time to catch up. Please leave."
Even as he said it, though, a dark premonition stirred in the knight commander's chest.
Rhein was confident enough in his own strength that even facing one of the so-called Ten Legendary Demon Hunters — White Wolf Basil himself — head-on, he wouldn't feel a shred of fear.
But this cold, serpentine man standing before him was, without question, the last person he ever wanted to see. Wherever this man went, nothing good ever followed — like a plague god incarnate. And of all places, he'd traveled all the way from the capital to the southern reaches of Storm Lake.
"Captain Rhein, that's a rather dull thing to say to an old friend..."
The cloaked man chuckled.
Seeing that Rhein had no intention of engaging further, he shrugged again. Not one to keep pushing a losing hand, he got straight to the point. "Well, since you don't want to talk, I'll deliver my orders and be on my way."
"Orders?"
Rhein's pupils contracted sharply, that bad feeling intensifying by the second.
"Indeed~"
A trace of dark amusement flickered in the black-robed man's eyes, before his tone shifted, suddenly, to one of grim formality. "By decree of the Imperial Retainer Corps: Rhein Root, Captain of the Royal Knights, you are hereby ordered to immediately surround and kill White Wolf Basil!"
"What?!"
*Kill Basil?!*
Rhein's expression shifted violently, certain he'd misheard.
He stared, wavering between disbelief and dread, at the black-robed man before him, who wore that same easy smile as ever.
Fighting down the chill in his chest, Rhein sneered. "Hmph! You're nothing more than an advisor at the Empress's side. Her orders hold no authority over me."
"Oh, of course this isn't the Empress's order."
The black-robed man's tone stayed unhurried, as if he'd anticipated this exact response. As he spoke, he produced a golden emblem from within his robes.
The instant he saw it, Rhein blurted out, "The Golden Gryphon Emblem!"
Looking at the golden gryphon carved into the badge, ringed with tricolor stripes, he knew immediately: this was serious trouble. This was House Sprugrin's own personal imperial seal — to see the seal was to stand before the Emperor himself.
This was an order from the Emperor.
How could this be...
The black-robed man's mouth curled slightly, and he repeated the command. "By the Emperor's secret decree: surround and kill White Wolf Basil, immediately."
With those words, there was no room left to turn back.
Even as the Grand Princess's dedicated bodyguard, Rhein had no choice but to obey the highest authority in the land.
"Damn it! How did you get your hands on the Gryphon Emblem?!"
The veins on Rhein's forehead bulged, his fury unmistakable.
Past caring about discretion now, he said flatly, "Metternich, you bastard! Do you have any idea how much preparation Her Highness the Grand Princess put into winning over the White Wolf Gang? Get Basil onside, and the banditry plaguing the empire's south is solved once and for all. What you're doing now will destroy years of her work in an instant!"
"Heh. Bringing him into the fold?"
The black-robed man, evidently already aware of the full picture, let a sneer of contempt tug at his lips.
He shook his head, entirely unconcerned, chuckling softly. "What the Empress and His Majesty want is the total eradication of the banditry — not amnesty for this rabble. And after today, the campaign to wipe out the southern bandits will go down in history as the First Prince's triumph..."
His tone stayed light, but anyone listening could hear the promise of bloodshed running underneath it.
"You...!"
Right when success seemed within reach, someone had swooped in to sabotage everything. These self-serving schemers were about to destroy years of the Grand Princess's careful planning!
Furious as he was, Rhein could do nothing about it. The Grand Princess, the Empress, the First Prince — this had plainly become entangled in the royal family's internal power struggle, and as a mere retainer, he wasn't in a position to say much more.
Still, he refused to let it go entirely, gesturing toward the gathered bandit gangs in the distance. "Eradicate them? Do you see what's out there? Over a hundred thousand bandits — what exactly do you intend to wipe them out with?"
The southern banditry had persisted for decades. If it could be crushed by force alone, would the empire have let these outlaws run wild this long?
"Ah... well, no one else could pull it off, that's true."
The black-robed man waved a dismissive hand, as if the hundreds of bandit gangs gathered before them were nothing more than stray dogs and chickens.
He paused, then flashed a grin, white teeth bared, a dangerous, supremely confident gleam flashing in his eyes. "But then again... I'm here, aren't I?"
At those words, Rhein's expression froze solid.
He didn't believe anyone could truly pull off something this impossible. But this man in front of him...
...had never once failed.
...
And while the Ormar Empire's Grand Princess Yumir and White Wolf Basil sat deep in negotiation at the tavern, another group had slipped quietly into the black market fair, making their way discreetly toward the Hyacinth Tavern.
"Prince William, per the agreement, that woman is yours to deal with."
"Heh heh, your Ormar royal family really does keep things lively, doesn't it? Whichever devious genius came up with this whole 'switch the executioner' scheme — even hearing about it sends a chill down my spine..."
"..."
"And another thing... tossing aside someone with genuine command talent, just like that? Has old Doppler not got much longer to live, is that it?"
"His Majesty is in perfect health. No need for concern on your part, Your Highness. Prince William, please simply honor your end of our agreement as arranged. Everything else is Ormar's internal affair — no need for outside opinions."
"Tch, tch... relax, we of Sid are only too glad to lend a hand on this one. After all, if that woman ascends the throne, it's hardly good news for us. But do remember our agreement — once this is done, the seven mines across the three southern provinces are to be handed over. And that filthy wolf-man, Basil — this time, he dies, no exceptions."
"No problem! Basil is ours to handle. Four retainers from the royal court have come for this, and Lord Helmos himself is here in person. That man is as good as dead."
"Oh? Yama himself, Helmos Zakaria, is here too? Heh heh... then Yumir Sprugrin is ours. Pleasure doing business."
"..."
...
Ryan, following Pisces, made his way up to the tavern's second floor, entirely unaware that the fair had already become a hotbed of hidden conspiracy.
The second floor held a spacious sitting room. Ryan focused every ounce of his awareness on the space, sensing no ambush — save, of course, for the thief who'd been shadowing him from the ceiling for days now.
Pisces said, "Rest here for a bit. I'm going to see a few friends — there'll be a gathering of serum masters here shortly, so don't wander off..."
"Understood, Teacher."
Ryan couldn't quite work out what game Pisces was playing, but he was certain the old man was scheming something.
With that, Pisces turned and left the room.
Once again, Ryan was left alone.
*Seventy-five steps, seventy-six, seventy-seven... huh — Pisces didn't leave the tavern. He walked into a room upstairs?*
Ryan's ear twitched faintly; his enhanced hearing let him easily trace Pisces's movements after leaving the room.
So — the "reinforcements" were right upstairs!
...
Ryan understood perfectly well why Pisces felt so at ease leaving him alone in the room: because of the veteran assassin lurking up in the ceiling.
Heh. Showing weakness to lure the enemy in — and now, finally, the opportunity had come.
*Now. It has to be now.*
The window was closing fast. There was no telling what kind of reinforcements Pisces might turn up with once he reached that room.
But Ryan himself was confident he could kill the assassin overhead in an instant.
The moment he made up his mind, the timid, submissive expression he'd worn a second earlier vanished, replaced by a flash of ice-cold, blade-sharp killing intent in his eyes.
In the next instant, he crouched like a frog gathering its strength, then exploded upward off the floor.
*Boom.* The speed left no time for reaction. A crushing punch tore straight through the ceiling, and Ryan violently wrenched down a human leg with it.
*Crack* — a crisp, clean snap of bone as the ankle broke on the spot.
Then, dragged down by Ryan's brute strength, a great section of ceiling tore open, and a terrified assassin came crashing down hard onto the floor.
Blindsided and grievously wounded, the assassin's face went white with shock as a scream of disbelief tore through his mind: *This — this guy only awakened as a Transcendent a few days ago!!!*
*How could his strength possibly be this absurd?!*