The aqueduct was a tomb, and the two mercenaries walking through it were already dead. They just didn't know it yet. They moved down the clear, central path, their confidence a stark, almost comical contrast to the intricate web of death that surrounded them. Roric, the Hammer, walked with a steady, professional gait, his heavy battle-axe resting on his shoulder. Jax, the Blade, was a few steps behind, idly tossing a silver coin in the air, the soft, rhythmic chink-chink-chink a tiny, arrogant sound in the vast, echoing silence.
Zero remained in his alcove, a motionless predator. His heart was a slow, cold drum. The buzzing, addictive echo of the [Nerve-Wrack Sting] was a faint hum in his palm, a chained beast eager to be unleashed. He suppressed it. Tonight was not about chaotic power. It was about cold, flawless precision.
His plan was a three-act play, and the first cue was approaching. He had chosen a specific spot, a point where the path narrowed slightly around a large pile of rubble. It was a natural chokepoint, a place that would force them to walk single file. Roric, the more cautious of the two, would take the lead.
As Roric's heavy boot came down exactly where Zero had predicted, Zero acted. He didn't move. He simply shifted his weight, his own boot coming down on a small, carefully placed pile of broken glass he had prepared in his alcove.
The sound was a sharp, grating crunch.
It was not a loud noise, but in the echoing silence of the aqueduct, it was as distinct and shocking as a scream.
Roric froze mid-stride. "Did you hear that?" he grunted, his hand tightening on the haft of his axe.
Jax, who had been lost in his own thoughts, fumbled his coin. "Hear what? The wind?"
"No," Roric's voice was a low, dangerous growl. He was a professional, his instincts honed by a hundred battles. He knew the difference between the sound of the wind and the sound of a threat. His head began to turn, his gaze sweeping the deep shadows to his left, directly towards Zero's hiding place.
This was the second cue. The misdirection.
Before Roric's gaze could land on him, Zero threw a stone. His aim was perfect. The small rock sailed through the darkness and clattered loudly against the far wall of the aqueduct, on the opposite side from where he was hidden.
Clink-clatter-skitter.
The sound was a perfect, irresistible lure. Both mercenaries' heads snapped towards it, their bodies tensing, their focus now completely drawn to the wrong patch of darkness.
"There," Jax hissed, drawing one of his short-swords. "Thought you were getting paranoid, old man."
They began to move towards the sound, stepping off the clear central path and into the carefully prepared minefield of debris.
This was the third cue. The trap.
Jax, overconfident and eager for a fight, took a careless, aggressive step into the shadows. His boot came down on one of Zero's noise traps—a hidden pile of loose, metallic refuse.
The resulting sound was a deafening, chaotic cacophony. A clanging, crashing, rolling wave of noise that shattered the silence and sent echoes ricocheting through the entire aqueduct.
In that single, disorienting moment of chaos, Zero moved.
He exploded from his alcove, a blur of motion. He did not go after Jax, the source of the noise. He went after Roric, the true threat. The Hammer.
Roric was still half-turned, his attention momentarily split between the sound of the thrown stone and the new, deafening clangor from his brother. His guard was down for a single, fatal heartbeat.
Zero closed the distance in three silent, ghostly strides. He didn't aim for the head or the chest. He aimed for the back of Roric's right knee. He drove the heel of his boot into the joint with a focused, brutal precision.
There was a wet, popping sound. Roric let out a grunt of pure, surprised agony, his powerful leg buckling beneath him. His professional, disciplined stance shattered. He stumbled forward, his heavy battle-axe slipping from his grasp and clattering to the stone floor.
Zero gave him no time to recover. He used Roric's own falling momentum, surging forward, slamming his shoulder into the larger man's back. He was not just pushing him; he was steering him. He drove the off-balance mercenary forward, two, three, four stumbling steps, directly towards the centerpiece of his entire trap.
The sewer grate.
Roric's full, considerable weight landed squarely on the far edge of the precariously balanced iron plate.
For a split second, nothing happened. The grate held, groaning in protest. Then, with a final, screeching tear of corroded metal, the single, fragile hinge gave way.
The heavy iron grate did not just open; it flipped, a rotating guillotine of rust and iron. Roric's grunt of pain turned into a high-pitched scream of pure, abject terror as the solid ground beneath him vanished. He plunged into the black, stinking abyss of the sewer system below, his scream cut short by a final, distant, and sickeningly wet splash.
One down.
The entire sequence, from the first crunch of glass to the final splash, had taken less than four seconds.
Jax spun around, his other short-sword now in his hand, his face a mask of confusion and dawning horror. "Roric? What the—"
He saw Zero, a slender, dark figure standing where his brother had been a moment before. He saw the empty, gaping black hole in the floor. He saw the axe lying on the ground. He didn't understand what had happened, but he knew who was responsible.
"You!" he roared, a sound of pure, grief-stricken fury.
He charged. He was a whirlwind of motion, his dual short-swords a glittering, silver web of death. He was fast, unbelievably fast, his blades a blur in the dim, flickering lamplight. This was the C-Rank mercenary, the ex-legion scout, in his element.
Zero stood his ground. He didn't even draw his knife. He simply waited.
Jax was on him, his first blade slashing in a vicious, horizontal arc aimed at Zero's neck.
Zero ducked under the blow, the wind from the blade whispering past his ear. He let the attack pass over him, and as he came up, he activated a power he had not used since the library. The one that still left a faint, addictive echo in his soul.
[Nerve-Wrack Sting.]
His left palm glowed with a faint, sickly purple light.
He didn't try to counter-attack. He simply slapped his open palm against the inside of Jax's sword arm as it passed.
The effect was instantaneous. Jax's arm locked up, the muscles contracting so violently that he let out a strangled, animalistic cry. His short-sword fell from his numb, spasming fingers, clattering uselessly to the floor. The lightning-fast swordsman was suddenly, shockingly, disarmed.
He stared at his own twitching, traitorous arm, his face a mask of horrified disbelief. He tried to bring his other sword around, but his rhythm was broken, his balance compromised.
Zero gave him no quarter. He stepped inside Jax's panicked, clumsy defense. He was no longer a strategist. He was a predator, and his prey was wounded, confused, and helpless.
He delivered a single, short, brutally efficient punch to Jax's throat. The blow was not powerful, but it was perfectly placed. Jax's breath caught in a choked, gurgling gasp. His eyes went wide, his remaining sword falling from his grasp. He clawed at his own throat, his body starved for air.
Zero stepped back, his face a cold, impassive mask. He watched as the arrogant, deadly swordsman sank to his knees, his face turning a deep, bruised purple, his life ending not with the clean, honorable clash of steel, but in a silent, suffocating, and pathetic agony.
When it was over, Zero stood in the quiet, echoing darkness of the aqueduct, the only sound the distant, mocking drip of water. He looked at the gaping hole in the floor. He looked at the still, silent body of the man he had just suffocated.
There was no horror this time. There was no revulsion. The ghost of Ashe was silent, its screams finally drowned out by the cold, quiet satisfaction of a flawless execution.
He had just killed two men, two professional soldiers, without receiving a single scratch. He had done it not with overwhelming power, but with a perfectly designed and ruthlessly executed plan.
He knelt beside Jax's body. There was no hesitation. No remorse. He calmly began to search the man's pockets. He had not just come here to kill. He had come here to collect. The note from Marcus Vance, the one that proved his guilt, had to be on one of them. The hunt was over. It was time to gather the evidence.