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 Zero had prepared, 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, Kael's false information was delivered to the two mercenaries. A lone F-Rank porter. They expected a single, terrified boy, not a coordinated ambush.
Zero 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, however, was already moving. He didn't wait for the charge. The moment Jax's fury locked onto him, Zero was already sprinting away, deeper into the aqueduct, deeper into his killing ground. He was not a warrior; he was a trapper, and the first part of his trap had just sprung. Now, it was time for the second.
Jax, blinded by rage and the grief of his brother's apparent death, followed without a second thought, his heavy boots pounding on the stone. He was a bull chasing a matador's cape, and he was being led directly towards the final, decisive act of the play.
Zero ran with a controlled, deliberate pace. He was not just fleeing; he was luring. He glanced over his shoulder. Jax was gaining on him, his superior speed closing the distance with every stride.
Ahead, Zero could see it. The final piece of his trap. The crumbling, weakened support pillar he had spent a night meticulously preparing.
He pumped his arms, pushing his weak, F-Rank body to its absolute limit. He reached the pillar and, without breaking stride, he slammed his open palm against a specific, pre-selected spot near its base. He didn't push. He just focused his will, envisioning the kinetic echo, the release of contained force.
[ECHO OF KINETICS... UNLEASHED.]
It was not a massive, explosive release. It was a subtle, focused, and utterly devastating nudge. A single, sharp, resonant thump vibrated through the ancient stone, a sound like a giant's knuckle cracking.
He was already past the pillar, diving into a roll as a shower of dust and small pebbles rained down from the ceiling.
Jax, his eyes fixed on Zero, was only ten feet behind. He saw Zero dive. He saw the dust. But his forward momentum was too great. He had no time to stop, no time to change course.
He ran directly under the compromised section of the aqueduct just as the structure gave way.
It was not a clean collapse. It was a slow, groaning, grinding cascade of multi-ton stone blocks. The ceiling did not just fall; it folded, the ancient arches tearing away from the walls in a slow-motion avalanche of architectural violence.
Jax let out a choked, terrified cry as his world was suddenly filled with falling stone. He tried to dodge, to backpedal, but it was too late. A massive block of granite, the size of a carriage, slammed down, not on him, but directly in his path, cutting off his pursuit of Zero and blocking the aqueduct channel completely. A second, smaller block caught him a glancing blow on the shoulder, sending him spinning to the ground with a cry of pain.
The aqueduct was now split in two, a massive, impassable wall of rubble separating the hunter from his prey.
Zero pushed himself up from his roll, his body aching, a thin line of blood trickling from a cut on his cheek where a piece of shrapnel had grazed him. He was wounded, but alive.
He turned and looked through a gap in the fresh rockslide. He could see Jax on the other side, struggling to get to his feet, his left arm hanging at an unnatural angle. His shoulder was dislocated, possibly broken. The arrogant, lightning-fast swordsman was now a wounded, one-armed, and, most importantly, trapped animal.
Zero had not just defeated his enemy. He had separated him, wounded him, and locked him in a cage of his own making. The fight was not over. But the hunt was. Now, all that was left was the culling.