Low-Fantasy Occultist

"Ser, please!" Opal wept, raising his trembling hands in surrender. He looked from the man holding him to the girl guarding the door, and recognition lit his eyes despite their disguises. “You are… Of course, the Elpens! Rhea! You must listen to me! We are blood-sworn! I held you when you were babes! Your grandfather understood compromise; he would have—”

Gaelen's fist snapped forward, catching Opal flush in the jaw. A sickening crack of bone was heard as the lord was thrown to the floor, spitting a mouthful of blood and shattered teeth onto the expensive rug.

That seemed to be the signal for the guards.

Realizing their lord had been taken, they tried to pivot, one swinging to clear the vapor and the other rushing to reach Gaelen. But they were too late. The [Conceptual Steam] had done its work.

Throughout the fight, Nick had been attacking their armor. The intricate defensive runes carved into the steel had stymied him at first, but they now glowed a dangerous cherry-red. The enchantments hissed and whined, overwhelmed by the damage, and he knew it would only take a little push to overcome them.

Another wave of steam slammed into them, pushing them away from Gaelen and the lord. They rose in unison, preparing to counterattack, but were halted with a sharp crack as the magical matrices on both sets of armor shattered simultaneously. The steel dulled, becoming nothing more than mundane metal.

Nick grinned. He severed the vapor stream and instantly wove two spheres of red lightning at the Shard's tip. Before they could rebalance, he unleashed them back-to-back with terrifying speed.

The first blast caught the elite square in the chest, caving in the steel breastplate and the ribcage beneath it with a sickening crunch. The second struck his companion directly in the helm, snapping his neck backward and pulping the skull. Both men collapsed to the carpet, dead before their swords slipped from their grasp.

CONGRATULATIONS!

You have defeated [Jorros Masse — Ultimer Elite Knight] [Level 84]

You have defeated [Timeo Kaisi — Ultimer Elite Knight] [Level 82]

+481,300 Exp

Nick felt the substantial flow of experience wash over his soul. It was a rich bounty, filling the hollow ache in his core and bringing him noticeably closer to the Level ninety-two mark. The difference between slaughtering low-level guards and felling true veterans was undeniable.

Across the room, Lord Aris Opal stared at his fallen protectors, his face draining of color.

Remarkably, it took him only a moment to recover. “Gaelen. You are Gaelen, aren't you? We were friends once; we can be again! I told your grandfather going against—”

"Do not speak of him," Gaelen hissed, his eyes blazing with cold fury. "You sold our home to Ephor Ultimer.”

"I had no choice!" Opal sobbed, clutching his ruined jaw. "The Duke is a puppet! Ephor threatened to wipe out my family if I didn't cooperate. I saw what he did to the Elpens. If you couldn’t resist him, how could I?! I was only trying to save my house!”

Nick approached, his boots crunching over the shattered glass in the study. He loomed over the pathetic noble, his suppressed power leaking just enough to make the air in the room feel suffocating.

"What is happening at the Elpen estate?" Nick demanded, tone flat and devoid of empathy. "Who is Ephor working with?”

"I don't know!" Opal stammered, scrambling backward until his back hit the heavy oak desk. “I only saw a priest! A fanatic, if I’ve ever seen one. Ephor commanded me to funnel the city's dregs to him. Vagrants, debtors, the refugees who fled the war... anyone who wouldn't be missed. But I swear, I never took part in whatever they are planning!”

"To do what?" Rhea pressed, her face pale with disgust.

"I don't know! I swear it to the System!" Opal cried out, again denying any involvement. "I just arranged the transfers. I sent dozens of people into the Elpen grounds over the past month. None of them ever walked out, so I can only assume they were killed. But I was threatened with the same fate if I asked questions or snooped around!”

Nick exchanged a grim look with Gaelen.

Surprisingly, Nick believed him. Opal was a coward of the highest order, willing to do almost anything to keep himself safe and comfortable. If that meant sending potentially hundreds of innocents to their deaths, he would do so without hesitation.

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Of course, such actions had consequences, and he would now reap them. But from the tremulous smile on his beaten face, Nick could tell he hoped to make it out alive once more.

Considering the sheer amount of murderous intent the Elpen siblings were radiating, he could kiss his chances goodbye. Nick would consider him lucky if they just slit his throat.

More importantly, they now had a clue. Alexander was harvesting the population, using the chaotic influx of refugees and Toneburg's harsh laws to fuel a blood ritual of staggering proportions.

He didn’t know its purpose, as even now he sensed nothing of it in the ether, but he sincerely doubted it’d be anything good.

“You have to know something,” Nick said. “We already know that Nestor, the Chief Apprentice, is funneling resources to the estate. Surely someone like you has an idea what they are for?”

There was a moment of hesitation, and Nick immediately blasted Opal with a [Spirit Blast] of pure subservience—not an easy feat, given how little of that emotion he possessed.

Yet it was enough. As the lord’s eyes dulled, he began to speak. "He is building a cage," he confessed, his eyes empty despite the tears streaking his soot-stained face. "Deep in the subterranean vaults beneath the old manor. He boasted about it to the other nobles at our last meeting. He said it is a marvel of artifice designed to trap and hold whatever the priest is calling from the dark!”

A cage made of Null-glass to hold a Greater Demon. It certainly made sense, though he doubted it would hold for long. Ephor thought he was controlling the summoning; Alexander was simply using the Artificer's resources to build something, likely a trap for any entity he intended to slaughter.

If it works on a Greater Demon, it might work on a God.

That thought gave him pause. He knew the ex-vicar harbored a deep hatred for Sashara, who had abused his faith in her, and normally he wouldn’t have cared much for the deity. If she could be defeated so easily, he couldn’t really consider her divine.

But the sheer number of deaths required to power such a thing would be multiple times the amount needed to build it. Likely by magnitudes.

He was shaken by his revelation as he glanced at the silver ward enclosing the room. The light was beginning to pulse and fade. Their seven minutes were almost up.

"We have what we need," Nick said, looking down at the weeping lord. He turned his gaze to Gaelen and Rhea. "Kill him. We do not have time to drag a prisoner through a riot.”

Gaelen stiffened, his knuckles turning white around his dagger's hilt. Even without the blade's dark magic pushing him toward mindless violence, he clearly wanted to do far more to the traitor. Torture, both physical and magical, was certainly on the table.

But the overarching revenge took precedence over temporary pleasure, and he exchanged a long look with Rhea, who nodded sharply.

With a grunt of displeasure, he grabbed Opal by the hair and drew the blade across his throat.

CONGRATULATIONS!

You have participated in the defeat of [Lord Aris Opal — Lv.64]

+42,500 Exp

The nobleman slumped to the floor, his lifeblood spilling onto the imported rug.

"Make a mess of this room," Nick ordered, instantly springing into action. “Ephor will send people here once it becomes clear Opal is dead. If he finds this,” he said, gesturing to the relatively untouched study, whose walls had been protected by Rhea’s concoction, “he’ll know this was a targeted assassination. We should make it look like the rioters broke in and tore him apart.”

That snapped his companions out of their dark thoughts, and they moved to comply. Gaelen tipped the desk over, shattering the expensive decanters and scattering paperwork everywhere. Rhea dragged the knights’ bodies closer to the fireplace, then kicked several burning logs out of the hearth with her boot, letting the flames catch the curtains and the dry parchment littering the floor.

It was a clumsy cover-up, and anyone with true forensic spells would eventually see through it, even if one ignored that rioters couldn't take down level eighty bodyguards. But in the chaos of a citywide civil war, it would muddy the waters long enough to buy them the days they needed.

"The ward is done," Rhea warned, watching the silver light flicker and die as it retreated into the shattered crystal.

The sounds of Toneburg burning flooded back into the room. The clash of steel was much closer now, echoing from the streets just outside the estate walls.

"Grab the old man," Nick told them, leading the way out of the burning study. "I will secure the exit.”

While Gaelen and Rhea hurried down the hall toward the suppressed room, Nick bounded down the main staircase. The ground floor of the manor was in total disarray. Half a dozen terrified servants huddled near the kitchens, clutching kitchen knives and fireplace pokers, trembling as they listened to the Black Hounds battering the front gates.

Nick stepped into the light, causing several to scream in fright. His current features certainly didn’t lend him a soothing air, but he managed to seize control of the group’s emotions before they ran wild, cooling them with his magic.

"The front gates will not hold for long," Nick told the head butler, pointing toward the rear of the manor. "The fighting is concentrated along the main avenue. Take your people through the gardens to the back wall. I will clear a path for you.”

With their minds pliant from a healthy dose of spiritual manipulation, the servants didn't ask questions and fled.

Nick followed them into the chilly night air of the rear gardens. The stone wall separating the estate from the quieter residential alleys was thick and lined with iron spikes. He leveled his staff, gathering a sphere of kinetic force, then unleashed it at the masonry.

The stone exploded outward with a boom, creating a wide breach that led directly into the dark, relatively empty alleys behind the estate.

"Go," Nick urged. "Keep your heads down and don't stop until you reach the lower wards. Do not come back.”

As the servants fled into the night, Nick turned back toward the manor. Gaelen emerged from the servant's door, carrying a frail, unconscious form over his shoulder. Rhea was right behind him, covering their rear with a primed alchemical vial in hand.

The sound of splintering wood echoed from the front of the estate. The Black Hounds had broken through the main gates. Shouts of fury and the sounds of looting filled the front courtyard.

For a moment, Nick considered staying to observe. It was very convenient for them that the mercenaries had attacked now and here. In fact, it was a bit too convenient, which made him suspect a shadowy hand was behind it.

But then his common sense reasserted itself, and he shook it off. "Time to leave," he grunted.

He raised the Shard of Human Ambition one last time, pointing it at the eastern wall, nearest the rioting mob. A sweeping pulse of kinetic force slammed into the stone, bringing a long stretch of the wall crashing down into the street.

The rioting mercenaries rushed through the new gap, drawn like moths to the flames now clearly spreading from Lord Opal’s study. The mob swarmed over the grounds, guaranteeing the crime scene would be heavily contaminated by hundreds of muddy boots and eager hands.

Nick wove the [Mire] tightly around his team. Cloaked in its dark waters, they slipped through the rear breach he had created for the servants, then faded into the city.

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