The nights in the Endless Forest were normally steeped in silence, the kind of oppressive stillness that made even the smallest rustle sound like a thunderclap. But tonight, near the mouth of the rat men's cave, that silence was broken by the low voices of four apprentices.
They stood in the cover of thick trees, their forms just visible in the faint moonlight.
"Arthur," a bulky apprentice muttered, his deep voice edged with frustration. The hood of his magic robe shadowed his face, but the irritation was clear in his tone. "We've been waiting here for a week. Not a single sign of him. Maybe the rat men already got him."
The tall, red-haired man leaning against a tree trunk—Arthur—lifted his gaze from the darkness. His green eyes were cold, calculating. "Richard, you've seen the state of the beasts he kills. That man cuts down Pseudo-Magus-level magical creatures as if they were vermin. I was cautious before, but now…" His voice hardened, leaving no room for debate. "Now we must kill him."
They were camped two kilometers from the cave entrance, hidden in a dense thicket where the shadows were thick enough to hide a dragon. Despite having three Rank 3 Apprentices and a single Pseudo-Magus among their number, Arthur had insisted on an ambush rather than a direct confrontation.
'If we'd gone in blind,' Arthur thought grimly, 'even in the best case, only I would walk away—barely.'
Arthur was no reckless avenger. His brother's injury hadn't stirred righteous fury so much as it had triggered his instincts for control. If someone hurt his people and he let it pass, it would breed weakness. Others would follow suit, disrespecting him, and his authority in the tower would erode.
Initially, he had believed killing the two apprentices would be simple. But after watching Zatiel's displays of power, he'd understood the truth—this was a man who could wipe out their entire group.
His gaze flicked toward the cave's entrance, and he called softly, "Martin. Is the spell ready?"
The thin apprentice to his right didn't look up from the palm-sized mirror he held. Within its surface shimmered a faint, distorted reflection of the cave mouth. "The parchment for the Rank 1 spell Mind Break is primed," Martin said. "The moment he steps out, it will trigger. We placed it before he arrived, perfectly concealed. He won't see it coming."
Richard snorted. "Overkill. I don't care how strong an apprentice is—when a Rank 1 spell forged by a true Magus hits them, they die. Simple as that." Bitterness crept into his voice. "Do you know how long it took to save enough crystals to buy that parchment from the Tower?"
Arthur ignored the brawny man's complaint and turned to the last member of the group.
"Linda. Your thoughts?"
Linda was striking—tall, poised, with dark hair framing a face that could have graced a noble's portrait. But she was more than beauty. Her aura radiated the kind of restrained power that came from being just a step below the Pseudo-Magus level.
"You've never steered us wrong, Arthur," she said with a faint smile. "If you think a Rank 1 spell is worth spending here, then I trust you have good reasons."
"Thank you," Arthur replied, lips curling into a small smile of his own.
"I'm just giving my honest op—" Linda stopped mid-word.
Her eyes widened. A shiver of pure, animal terror shot down her spine.
From above, a shape detached from the night sky—a figure cloaked in living shadows, descending in utter silence. Before she could even turn her head, a blade split the darkness.
The sword fell like the judgment of a god, cleaving from the crown of her skull to the base of her spine. Her body fell apart in two perfect halves before it even hit the ground.
Blood sprayed in a hot, metallic mist, spattering Arthur, Richard, and Martin.
For a heartbeat, they froze. Then, training and instinct snapped them into motion.
Arthur was the first to react, incanting sharply as a dozen flaming shields spiraled into place around him. Richard's fists began to glow, and with a roar, he charged straight at the shadowed figure.
Martin's reaction was slower—he was an arcane specialist, not a front-line fighter. Shaking off his shock, he started to shape a consciousness-affecting spell. He never finished.
From the earth beneath him, four black chains erupted like striking vipers, impaling him from groin to chest. His body jerked once, then went limp as the chains withdrew, vanishing back into the ground.
"Bastard!" Richard's voice cracked with rage. He hurled himself forward, swinging a punch backed by his full body-refinement strength.
The shadow met him head-on, answering the strike with his own fist.
Richard's lips twisted into a cruel grin—this was exactly what he wanted. His body, honed and reinforced, was a weapon few could match in raw power.
The grin shattered an instant later.
Their fists collided—and Richard's hand exploded in a crimson burst, bone fragments and flesh scattering across the forest floor. Pain unlike anything he'd felt tore through him as the bones in his arm snapped like twigs, shattering all the way to his shoulder.
His scream echoed into the trees.
The shadow didn't stop. The blade swept up, poised to take his head—
—but a volley of fireballs forced him to leap back.
Arthur, eyes narrowed, was channeling his full strength into offense. Fire rained in rapid succession, the heat searing the air. But the shadow slipped through the gaps like smoke, not a single blast touching him.
The figure's head turned toward Arthur. With a flick of his wrist, black chains materialized in the air, striking at the fire-shields in relentless waves. Arthur gritted his teeth; even with his strongest defenses, the chains were eating through layer after layer. He had no choice but to put all his focus into holding them back.
That left Richard alone.
The shadow descended on him like a storm. Lightning-fast strikes battered his weakened guard before the final swing took his head clean off. His body crumpled, lifeless, to the dirt.
Arthur's stomach turned to ice. Alone. Trapped.
The chains closed in from every side. There was nowhere to run, no space to slip through.
The shadow's face was expressionless—no malice, no triumph, only a chilling indifference to the slaughter he had wrought.
He crouched, the ground cracking beneath him as power gathered in his legs. Then he launched himself forward.
Arthur saw only a blur. A titanic force slammed into his chest. For a fraction of a second, it felt like an entire mountain had fallen on him. His ribcage burst apart under the impact, his heart rupturing instantly.
The blow hurled him through the air, his body smashing through tree trunks before tumbling lifeless to the ground.
The shadow landed where Arthur had stood, the darkness peeling away to reveal Zatiel.
'Easier than I thought,' he mused, eyes scanning the corpses. 'I wonder if I could take down a Rank 1 Magus before advancing myself.'
He moved among the fallen, searching them for anything of value. Arthur's body drew his attention—the man's expression, even in death, was twisted in unwillingness, regret, and perhaps disbelief.
Zatiel gave him a moment's regard. The man had been cautious, competent, and thorough. Another opponent might never have spotted the Rank 1 trap laid at the cave entrance. But Zatiel was no ordinary opponent.
Knowing such a spell waited for him, and aware his enemies were nearby, he had simply taken another route—burrowing through the mountain with his Abyssal Chains to make his own exit. From there, he'd tracked his would-be hunters and turned the ambush back on them.
Now, the hunt was over.