Leo scrambled backward, his boots slipping on the blood-slicked mud. He gasped for air, clutching his side where the Wyvern-Leather Armor had been shredded.

He checked his status. It was a disaster.

[HP: 800 / 5000]

He was basically in the red. One solid hit from that glowing rapier, and it was game over. And this time there would be no respawn, no second chances.

Bane walked towards him calmly. He stepped over the corpse of the Guardian Captain like he was stepping over a puddle. He adjusted his monocle, looking at Leo like a butcher looking at a pig that was taking too long to die.

Leo knew he couldn't win. Bane was a Level 28 powerhouse and Leo was a Level 4 and even with all the cool items, an empty HP bar, he wouldn't be able to match a Level 9 in a head to head confrontation.

Leo looked up at the dark tree line surrounding the clearing. He filled his lungs with air and screamed.

"HEY! YOU! YEAH, YOU IN THE TREES!"

Bane paused. He looked around the empty forest, amused, "Talking to ghosts, boy?"

Leo ignored him. He kept yelling at the darkness.

"You have waited long enough! Are you going to sit there and watch me die? Do you want to go back and tell your Mistress she is a widow before she even got to bear my children?"

Leo waved his bloody arm frantically.

But the forest remained silent.

Nothing happened. No ninja dropped. No dagger shot from the trees in the forest.

Leo stood there, arm outstretched, pointing at nothing. He looked ridiculous.

Bane chuckled softly, "Imaginary friends, boy? Or are you praying to the forest spirits? They only listen to dead men."

'Did she bail?' Leo thought, panic rising in his chest. 'Did she fall asleep? Is she taking a dump? Seriously?'

'Or was I wrong?'

'But how can Aiva be wrong?'

He remembered the feeling he had since leaving Auravale. The prickly sensation on the back of his neck. Someone had been watching him.

And when the tail got close enough, Aiva identified the tail as one of Ryana's flat chested cocky bodyguards, Shadow.

That Ryana girl is such a cutie. She hadn't told him she was sending protection, but Leo wasn't stupid. She had an investment to protect.

But the protection was useless as well.

Leo could not believe his luck. From dead Temple Guardians to this flat chested bodyguard. Why did he always got the good for nothings?

"Get your ass down here! Unless you want Ryana to skin you alive for letting her future husband get turned into a shish kebab!" Leo was losing his mind. His death was fucking staring at him in the face.c

"Have you had enough?" Bane smirked, "Stop wasting my time. No miracle can save you now."

Meanwhile, not very far away hiding inside the forest, ready to make her move was Shadow. Her dagger was drawn for a while and when Leo called out, she had prepared to drop on Bane's neck and end him.

But she couldn't.

Standing on the branch right behind her, she felt a presence.

As she slowly turned, Shadow couldn't see a face. It was too dark. She just saw the silhouette of an elegant dress that shouldn't be worn in a forest, and the glint of something sharp pressed against her neck.

It was a hairpin. A simple, golden hairpin. But the killing intent radiating from the woman holding it was heavy enough to crush a rock.

Shadow was strong. She was an elite assassin and the Shadow of the Mistress of the Silver Route. And she hadn't even heard this woman approach.

"Tsk, tsk," the mysterious woman whispered from the darkness behind Shadow's ear.

Her voice was melodic. Amused. Deadly.

"Don't interfere, little shadow. The play is just getting to the climax. It is rude for a woman to interfere in the business of the men."

Shadow's eyes went wide behind her veil. The pressure on her neck increased just enough to draw a drop of blood.

"Stay," the woman commanded.

Shadow stayed. She could only watch helplessly as Leo backed away from the killer below.

Back on the ground, Leo realized no one was coming.

"Plan B," Leo muttered to himself, "Beg. No one in this world will care if I lose my head. My life, My Begging!"

Bane advanced, the tip of his rapier glowing with purple light.

Leo took a step back, "Wait! Hold on! Let's talk about this."

He held up his hands. "We are both civilized men here. Look at your suit. That's velvet, right? You are not a savage like those idiots that are lying dead."

"And that's exactly what sets us apart."

Bane kept walking, "I indeed think of myself as a businessman. but unfortunately for you, my business here is concluded."

Leo retreated faster, stumbling over the corpse of a dead Temple Guardian. He scrambled to regain his footing.

"Don't kill me! We could by all means be colleagues! I got a job offer from the Blackfang Bandits!"

Bane raised an eyebrow, pausing for a second, "Job offer? What offer?"

"Varkas!" Leo blurted out, "He was an Enforcer! This big guy, with an axe or something, and some real kinks?"

"He offered me a spot. Said I had potential. Said I could be a big shot in the Blackfangs."

"He promised me all the riches, any girl I fancied and I could kill as much as I wanted. I mean the offer was really tempting."

But instead of looking amused, Bane laughed. He laughed out loud in a cruel, dismissive sound.

"Hahaha! Varkas?" Bane shook his head, a look of genuine pity on his face, "That meathead? He's dead, boy. Someone put a sword through his chest a few days ago."

"Oh." Leo feigned innocence as if he was hearing that for the very first time.

"Yeah!" Bane took a step forward as he looked at Leo with narrowed eyes, "Some adventurer. I heard he is some kind of royalty at the Lord's house right now."

"Is that so?" Leo took a step back, avoiding eye contact, "I... I didn't know. Poor guy. We have just started to become good friends."

"And even if he wasn't," Bane continued, "Did he think 'Enforcer' made him royalty. It is a title we give the idiots to make them feel important so they die for us. He was a pawn. You really think dropping his name impresses me?"

Leo threw his arm admitting, "Okay. Bad reference."

He backed up again. He was running out of space. The heavy wooden wheel of the cart bumped against his heels.

He was trapped against the Black Sky.

"Money!" Leo shouted, desperate, "I have money! I have thousands of silver coins! I can pay you double whatever your Boss is paying you!"

Bane sighed, looking bored, "I have enough silver."

"Gold!" Leo escalated, "You can never have enough of Gold!"

"Hundreds of gold coins! Cash! As soon as we reach Auravale! I can make you rich!"

Bane's eyes flickered for a second. Greed was universal. But he shook his head. "Tempting. But I would have to decline again."

"Then how about knowing some bigshots?" Leo tried every card he had. "I know the High Priest in Auravale! We are practically buddies."

"I can have you meet him, and then you won't have to stick in the cold forest among hundreds of dudes.

"You can be blessed by plenty of sexy nuns,"

"Think about it"

"And if you are lucky, Sky is the limit. Even the Saintess might fall for your devilish charms!"

Bane stopped. He looked at Leo. The amusement vanished from his face.

"You really don't get it, do you?" Bane asked softly, "No matter however tempting you make it sound, I won't agree."

"You think this is about greed?"

Bane's expression darkened. A genuine, deep-seated terror flickered in his eyes, cracking his gentlemanly mask.

"I cannot be bought," Bane whispered, "Not because I don't want the gold. But because of My Boss."

Bane shudders visibly. It was an involuntary twitch of fear.

"I have sworn myself to my Boss," Bane said, "Ruthless doesn't begin to describe it. My Boss is the only one I would ever long for."

"The look on my Boss's face when the Boss kills the enemy."

"When the Boss grabs that whip and punishes the wrong-doers."

Bane tapped his own chest with the hilt of his rapier. Bane was almost drooling like those BTS fan-girls Leo had seen back on Earth. Leo could swear he saw him sway his ass he thought about his dreamy boss.

"In front of my Boss, even death would be a mercy. My boss has ways of making you wish you had never been born."

"The way the skin is peeled off as my boss makes the victim watch it. That's just so exotic. Work of art."

"So why would I leave my boss to be just with big meat on her chest Saintess? Never!"

Bane announced without a moment of hesitation.

He raised the rapier, pointing the tip directly at Leo's heart.

"So," Bane said. "You have to die. It's nothing personal, boy. It's just self-preservation."

Leo looked at the blade. He looked at Bane's eyes. There was no mercy there. Just fear and duty.

Bane lunged.

He wasn't playing this time. He was ready to end his life.

Leo threw himself to the left.

ZIP!

The rapier sliced through the air where his heart had been. The blade caught his cheek, opening a long, thin cut.

[HP: 750 / 5000]

Leo scrambled up onto the cart bed. He was standing next to the massive Palanquin now.

Bane slashed at his legs, the blade biting into the wood of the cart, missing Leo's ankle by an inch.

"Nowhere left to run, rat!" Bane snarled.

Leo looked at the black box.

He could still hear it.

Thump-thump!

Thump-thump!

The heartbeat inside that black ominous box was louder now. Faster. It sounded hungry.

He remembered what Bane had said. "You are carrying something that my Boss wants very, very much."

He remembered Baez's warning. "Do not open it. Do not touch it."

A crazy, suicidal idea formed in Leo's head.

He looked at Bane. He looked like a cornered animal that had just found a grenade.

"You want the box?" Leo shouted, grinning maniacally. Blood from his cheek ran into his mouth.

Bane paused. He frowned. "Step away from it, boy."

"Your Boss wants it intact, right?" Leo asked, his hand hovering over the skeletal bone lock. "They want the secret inside? They want the prize?"

Bane's eyes went wide. The colour drained from his face.

"Don't you dare," Bane whispered.

"If I am dying," Leo yelled, his voice cracking, "I am going die making a lot angry!"

Bane lunged. He moved faster than he had all night, desperate to stop him.

Leo moved faster.

He grabbed the skeletal finger-lock of the Black Sky. The bone felt cold and slimy in his hand.

He twisted.

CLICK.

The sound was deafening in the silence. The bone lock snapped open.

Leo kicked the heavy black lid.

The lid flew open.

Bane froze mid-lunge, staring at the open box.

There was no light. There was no explosion. There was no demon jumping out to eat them.

There was just a sound.

Sksksksksksksk.

It sounded like a billion insects whispering at once.

And then, something poured out of the box.

** ** ** ** **

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