I Evolve 10,000 Times Faster

Back at the villa, Holden dumped the money on Maeve’s desk.

He pulled it straight out of his Inventory and let it pile up in front of her. The bounty chest’s contents first, five million credits in enchanted gold spilling across the table in a blue-glowing avalanche, then brick after brick of Syndicate cash until the pile covered her keyboard, her tablet, and half of her spare monitor.

Maeve’s eyes lit up.

Not with greed, but with curiosity. Her fingers were already moving before the last brick hit the table. She snatched a coin from the pile and fed it into her tablet’s scanner.

"These have origin tags." Her voice had shifted to her analyst voice. "Every enchanted credit gets stamped with a transaction trail at the moment of creation. I can trace these back to the source accounts."

"How far back?"

"All the way."

The screen filled with a cascading chain of transaction records: account numbers, transfer dates, and authorization signatures.

"This coin was minted fourteen months ago at a private mint owned by the Sterling family. It entered their treasury through their primary holding account, then was transferred to the Crimson Syndicate three days ago as part of the bounty payment."

She fed another coin into the system. Then another. Each one produced the same chain of records, every time.

"Sterling family treasury. Five million credits, all sourced from House Sterling’s operational accounts."

She looked up, her expression hardening.

"This is irrefutable proof of a paid assassination contract. The trail is embedded in the currency itself. It can’t be forged, and it can’t be deleted."

Holden leaned over her shoulder. "What else?"

Maeve’s fingers moved again, faster this time, pulling up a second data stream she had been running in the background while processing the currency. It contained real-time surveillance of every account connected to the Sterling name.

"Holden." Her voice changed again, sounding urgent now. "Aldric is moving money. Right now. As we speak. He’s liquidating everything that’s left, making large transfers out of the operational accounts and routing them through shell companies."

"How much?"

"Five million. It’s everything they’ve got that isn’t land and bricks. He already burned five million on the Syndicate bounty, and now he’s draining the rest."

"Where’s it going?"

She traced the transfer chain, patiently peeling back each layer of obfuscation. Shell company led to shell company, and three layers deep, the final destination finally surfaced: an unregistered holding account linked to a phone number. She cross-referenced it against the dark web contact database she had spent the past month building.

The number matched a known mercenary broker, a man who specialized in recruiting ex-Royal Guards, disgraced soldiers who had fled the capital after the Emperor’s death. They were trained, experienced, and armed, but had no loyalty to anyone except the person paying them.

"He’s hiring mercenaries. Ex-Royal Guards." She glanced at the transfer amount, then at her pricing sheet. "The amount matches a bulk contract, twenty-five Rank 2 operators for a direct assault."

"On what?"

"Before I answer that, Aldric’s phone is clean. Encrypted and untraceable. Kell’s isn’t. I’ve had a listener on the broker’s relay for three weeks, and the call came through forty minutes ago."

She hit play, and a low, rough voice filled the room.

"...twenty-five operators, Rank 2 minimum. Armed assault. The target is the Vanguard Academy. Payment’s five million, all of it up front."

She stopped the recording. "His words."

The room went quiet.

Emric was sitting on the couch with his notebook when his pen suddenly stopped moving. Across the room, Renna froze with a cloth in her hand, her bow forgotten in her lap.

Lyra stood by the window, watching the city lights below. She didn’t move at all.

"He’s going to attack the academy," Emric said slowly. "With twenty-five Rank 2 mercenaries. Our defensive force is roughly sixty Rank 1 and Rank 2 students plus a few crew of Rank 3 instructors, but if those mercenaries are former Royal Guards, they’ll fight like soldiers, not students. Training like that eats raw numbers alive."

"Twenty-five trained killers against students," Renna said, setting the bow down. "That’s not a battle. That’s a slaughter."

"Not the way he’s planning it." Maeve shook her head. "He’s not trying to win a war. He’s trying to cause enough chaos to grab Team Soup in the confusion and eliminate us. The mercenaries are the distraction, the real kill team will be smaller. Targeted."

Holden cracked his knuckles.

pop. pop. pop.

"I can go right now. Before he moves another credit, before those mercs ever see a down payment. I’ll put him in the ground and end this."

"No."

The word came from the window.

Lyra turned from the glass.

"Lyra, those mercenaries are already under contract. People are going to die. Students. Our people."

"I know. And we’ll stop him, but not with your bare hands in the dark." She crossed the room toward him. Lyra reached for his hand, took it, squeezed.

"If you kill him tonight, he dies a victim. A tragedy. A noble house head murdered in his own study by an unknown assassin. The Sterling name and political allies survive. And five years from now, someone else will pick up where he left off and come after us again."

She looked him dead in the eyes, the blue glow in hers steady and cold, filled with absolute certainty.

"I want to look him in the eye when we take everything from him. I want the Sterling name erased, publicly and legally. Every account frozen. Every asset seized. Every ally scattered. I want the entire capital to watch him fall. Not in the dark. In the light."

Holden looked at her for a long moment.

"Okay," he said. "Let’s do it your way then. What’s the plan?"

Lyra let go of his hand and turned toward the table, her eyes settling on Maeve’s screens, the transaction trails, the currency origin tags, and the recording.

"We have the money. We have a transaction trail proving House Sterling paid for an assassination contract. And we have Aldric’s own voice, on record, hiring mercenaries to attack a military academy." She looked at Emric. "Can you draft formal charges?"

Emric already had his notebook open. "A Vanguard Tribunal petition, yes. Under the Emergency Military Justice Act, a Rank 4 academy officer, or their direct subordinate, can summon an emergency tribunal for matters of national security. The charges would be conspiracy to commit murder, soliciting an act of terrorism against a military academy, and criminal misuse of noble house funds."

"How long to draft?"

"Thirty minutes. I’ve been studying Vanguard legal procedure since the tournament, the framework’s straightforward." He pulled a fresh page and started writing.

"Holden." Lyra turned to him. "You’re Vespera’s personal disciple. Under the Act, that makes you her direct subordinate. You can summon the tribunal yourself."

"A televised tribunal?"

"Televised. The entire Capital watching."

Holden looked at the screens. At the evidence. At the money.

Then he smiled.

It was the kind of smile that meant someone was about to lose everything they had built their life on.

"Maeve. Compile every piece of evidence into one file."

"Already on it." Her fingers were flying.

"Emric. Draft the petition, file it under my name as Vespera’s personal disciple. Request an emergency session, televised, open to the public."

"Understood. Filing should be complete within the hour."

"Renna."

She looked up from her bow. "Yeah?"

"Clean your arrows. We might need them."

"They’re already clean! I’ve been cleaning them for an hour!!"

"Good. Clean them more."

Renna grumbled something unrepeatable, but her hands were already moving.

Lyra stood at the center of the room, taking in the screens, the evidence, and her team moving around her with the quiet coordination of a unit that had fought monsters and collapsed a dimension together.

She straightened her shoulders.

"Tomorrow," she said. "The Sterling name dies."

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