Henry moved.
Not much—just a half-step, a twist of instinct honed by years of cruelty and half-learned combat, wards humming beneath his skin. Or perhaps it was simply the reflex of a frightened loser.
Sam's dagger didn't find the heart.
It struck lower.
Steel bit, then slid—caught, tore.
Henry's scream ripped through the room, raw and animal. He collapsed backward, hands flying down as blood spilled across the stone. The sound wasn't pain alone.
It was disbelief.
His family's future lay bleeding on the cold floor.
Anika scrambled away, choking back a sob.
Sam hit the ground hard, rolled, and came up already moving. Every instinct screamed at him to finish it—to drive the blade into Henry's chest and end the monster once and for all—
But the walls answered Henry's cry.
Mana surged.
The floor trembled as earth magic awakened, veins of power racing through stone and mortar. Another roar shook the room as the stone itself moved—rising, folding, shielding Henry as if the castle were alive. A wall formed around him, thick and pulsing with magic.
Sam felt it in his bones.
"Fuck!" he snarled.
He channeled everything he had into one desperate strike. The dagger ripped through the air—but on impact, the blade shattered with a loud, metallic crack.
"HENRY!" Sam screamed.
He struck with his fist instead.
Pain exploded through his arm as flesh met reinforced stone, blood spraying uselessly across the barrier.
But he hit again, and again, till only bones were left on his hand. He fell back and shook his head, seeing the bloody stone.
He couldn't win this here.
Not yet.
Sam's gaze snapped around the room and locked onto Anika. She stared back at him, wide-eyed but sharp.
"I don't think you have time for my problems," she said, her voice echoing in the chaos. "With this much disturbance, even the guards will be awake."
As if summoned by her words, the sound of clanging armor echoed from the corridor—organized, fast, closing in.
Sam grabbed her wrist and yanked her toward the shattered window.
She shrieked, raising her arms to protect her head.
"Then you're my hostage," Sam hissed.
Anika shook her head violently. "Don't be stupid! If you take me, you'll have an entire country hunting you. Like this, your enemy is only this fortress—"
She stopped mid-sentence.
The marching footsteps were closer now.
Sam's eyes flicked between her, the stone-encased Henry, and the open hole in the wall. His jaw clenched.
If he died here, there would be no revenge.
Not today.
Not in a hundred years.
The boy released her wrist, clenched his fist once, and without another word vaulted back through the window. Glass tore into his skin as he vanished into the dark outside, just as the castle erupted into full chaos behind him.
So Sam didn't slow after the window.
He landed hard on the outer ledge, barely catching himself before gravity claimed him. Stone scraped skin from his palms as he slid, then dropped—ten, maybe twelve meters—into a patch of decorative shrubs meant to soften the castle wall. Branches snapped. Thorns bit deep. He rolled, came up limping, and kept moving.
Behind him, the castle finally woke.
A horn blared—sharp, panicked. Not the ceremonial kind. Boots thundered above, silhouettes appearing in windows. Light flared as mage-lamps ignited one after another, washing the inner courtyard in harsh gold.
"INTRUDER!"
"SEAL THE GATES!"
"PROTECT THE YOUNG LORD AND YOUNG LADY!"
Too late.
Sam hugged the wall, sprinting low along the shadow line where torchlight didn't quite reach. His bare feet slapped against cold stone, then mud, then gravel as he cut across the inner yard. He smelled horses, spilled ale, sweat. Guards were still disorganized—some running toward the keep, others shouting conflicting orders.
He slipped between two wagons, ducked under a hanging banner, and vaulted a low hedge just as a bolt whistled past where his head had been.
Stone shattered behind him.
Sam didn't look back at the stray shot.
He reached a servants' corridor. It looked Narrow and Forgotten. He slammed through the door shoulder-first and barreled down the passage as shouts followed from behind.
A guard rounded the corner ahead.
Sam reacted on instinct.
He ducked low, slid across blood-slick stone, and drove his elbow into the man's knee. Bone cracked. The scream barely left the guard's mouth before Sam smashed his forehead into the man's nose.
He took the stairs two at a time, lungs burning, vision narrowing. The fortress trembled now—wards activating, gates grinding shut, alarm sigils flaring across the walls.
The outer yard was chaos.
Guests were spilling from halls half-dressed. Servants screamed. Soldiers formed ranks that immediately broke as new orders contradicted the last. Somewhere above, Henry roared again—raw, hysterical, carried by magic-enhanced rage.
Sam spotted the postern gate.
Small and Overlooked. Used for waste carts and late-night deliveries.
Two guards stood there, arguing.
Sam didn't slow.
He grabbed a loose stone mid-run, hurled it—not at them, but at the torch bracket above. Fire shattered, plunging the corner into darkness. He crashed into the first guard, drove him into the second, and all three went down in a tangle of armor and limbs.
One hit here and the other there and te metallic people were knocked out. Sam stood up with some bruises and pulled himself towards the wood door.
The gate wasn't fully barred.
Sam wrenched it open just wide enough to slip through, skinning his shoulders raw on iron and splintered wood, and then—
He was out.
The wide streets stretched before him, paved stone flashing beneath his feet as he sprinted harder than he ever had. Manors and polished facades blurred past—the high-class district—silent, arrogant, unprepared for prey that refused to stay prey.
Behind him, the castle of Tarakan loomed like a wounded beast, a black mass of stone. Its towers burned with frantic light. Arrows hissed and clattered against the street now, some passing so close he felt the bite of displaced air against his skin.
He ran.
A second gate rose ahead—thick wood reinforced with iron bands. A guard was already moving, hands fumbling to close the smaller service door set into it.
But he was too nervous, too slow.
Sam leapt.
He hit the man like a thrown spear, all weight and momentum, his knee crashing into the guard's throat. There was a dull, wet crack. The body went limp before it hit the ground.
[Killed 1x Human: 8 EXP]
Sam tore the keys from the man's belt and slipped through the door in one fluid motion, slamming it shut behind him and twisting the lock just as shouts rounded the corner.
The Southern District.
He recognized it instantly, between his heart beats that he could feel sprinting in his head—densely packed buildings, inns stacked atop bars, narrow streets meant to swallow crowds of adventurers during the day.
Now it was empty. Doors barred. Windows dark. The city holding its breath.
Far ahead, the outer gate was visible—massive, reinforced, leading out toward the wilds.
Sam sprinted toward it.
Then—BOOM.
The sound hit him before the pressure did. Stone exploded behind him. He didn't need to look back to know the small gate he'd just passed through had been obliterated by magic, shards screaming past his head by a hair's breadth.
"Tsk!"
Sam veered hard at the next intersection, his naked feets skidding on stone as he threw himself into a side alley. He rolled, came up low, and pressed himself against the wall as dust and shouting washed past the main street.
Footsteps thundered. Sam didnt know if it were the guards or Adventurers that were shouting and running on the streets like angry boars awoken from their sleep.
Light flickered.
Orders barked. Confused. Overlapping.
Sam slowed his breathing.
He moved again—not fast now, but smart. Vaulting fences. Crawling across rooftops. Dropping into courtyards and vanishing through back doors left unlocked by drunks and fools. Once, he froze as a patrol passed so close he could smell the oil on their armor.
„I can't sense anything! These adventures mana aura overlap everything!" one of the patrol shouted towards an commander.
The commander seemed to answer but Sam couldn't understand it, as they were already too far away for understanding in this chaotic situation.
He slipped further, past some angry people and with holding breaths past some patrols.
At the edge of the district, Sam lay flat on an roof observing how the guards locked the gate, standing patrol.
The outer gate was sealed.
He knew the wall wasn't perfect so he slowly leapt of the house and lurked through the shadow of the wall.
Time passed and around the rising of the sun, did he found something.
Sam found the old drainage channel half-choked with debris and weeds, ignored for years because it led nowhere civilized. He squeezed through without thinking, tearing skin, biting back a sound as cold mud swallowed his legs.
Holding his breath, Sam dove forward and forced himself through the choking mud.
It swallowed him whole—cold, thick, clinging to his skin like hands that tried to drag him back. He pushed blindly, lungs burning, muscles screaming.