The "Slave Pits" of Iron-Tooth City were not pits at all. They were a converted slaughterhouse in the Butcher's Quarter, where the drains were already built to handle heavy flows of blood.
It was midnight. The smog was thick enough to chew.
Rylan crouched on the roof of the slaughterhouse, looking down through a grime-encrusted skylight. His shoulder throbbed with a dull, rhythmic ache, but the adrenaline of the hunt kept it manageable.
Next to him was Toran. The former gang boss was sweating, his mechanical arm clanking softly as he adjusted his grip on a heavy, serrated pry-bar.
"Garrick keeps his coin in the foreman's office," Toran whispered, pointing a trembling finger. "But his elites... they sleep in the barracks next door. If we make noise, we have twenty seconds before we are swarmed by thirty men who kill for a living."
"Then we don't make noise," Rylan said.
He pulled out a small glass vial given to him by Lyra. It contained a translucent, purple liquid. Slumber-Wisp Gas. Not lethal, but heavy.
Rylan quietly removed a ventilation pane. He uncorked the vial and poured the liquid into the air duct leading to the barracks.
"Give it two minutes," Rylan murmured.
They waited. The sounds of snoring below deepened, then went silent.
"Now."
Toran jammed the pry-bar into the skylight frame. With a whir of gears, his mechanical arm torqued. The frame popped silent as a whisper.
They dropped down.
They landed on a metal catwalk overlooking the main holding floor. Below them, hundreds of cages were stacked like shipping crates. Inside, human shapes huddled in the dark—refugees, debtors, captured tribals.
The smell of misery was overwhelming.
Rylan ignored it. He moved toward the foreman's office at the end of the catwalk. Two guards stood outside the door, playing dice.
Rylan signaled Toran.
Toran moved surprisingly fast for a big man. He lunged out of the shadows, his mechanical hand clamping over the face of the first guard. He squeezed. There was a wet crunch, and the guard went limp.
The second guard opened his mouth to shout.
Rylan was already there. He drove his sword through the man's throat, pinning him to the wall.
"Quietly," Rylan hissed.
He wiped his blade on the dead man's cloak and tried the door. Locked.
Mei had given him a tool for this—a small canister of Acid-Paste. Rylan smeared it on the lock mechanism. It hissed, eating through the iron in seconds.
He kicked the door open.
Inside, Garrick was sitting behind a desk piled high with ledger books. He wasn't sleeping. He was counting stacks of spirit bills.
Garrick looked up. His reaction speed was terrifying. In one motion, he kicked the desk toward them and rolled backward, grabbing a heavy, repeating crossbow from the wall.
"You!" Garrick roared.
THWUNK. THWUNK.
Two bolts slammed into the doorframe right where Rylan had been a split second before.
"Alarm!" Garrick shouted, slamming his hand onto a red button on the wall.
Sirens began to wail throughout the complex.
"Damn it," Rylan cursed. "Toran! Secure the money! I'll handle him!"
"But the guards!" Toran yelled.
"They're asleep!" Rylan shouted, charging into the room. "But the ones outside aren't!"
Garrick dropped the crossbow and drew a pair of wicked, curved skinning knives. He grinned, his scarred eye twitching.
"You came into my house, Blacksmith," Garrick snarled. "Big mistake. I'm going to peel you while you scream."
He lunged.
Garrick was fast—Late-Stage Qi Condensation speed. His knives were a blur of steel.
Rylan met him.
CLANG. CLANG. CLANG.
Sparks flew as Rylan parried the strikes. His shoulder screamed in protest with every impact. He was losing ground. Garrick was fresh, strong, and fighting in his own territory.
"You look tired, Sterling!" Garrick taunted, slashing Rylan's forearm. "Did the Ice Bitch wear you out?"
Rylan gritted his teeth, stepping back. He couldn't win a contest of stamina. He needed to cheat.
He activated his Imperial Aura, focusing it into a needle-point spike of pressure directly at Garrick's mind.
Garrick faltered for a microsecond, his eyes widening as the psychic weight hit him.
Rylan dropped his sword.
He stepped inside the knives. He grabbed Garrick's wrists.
Stone Serpent Grapple.
Spiritual energy flared, binding Garrick's arms.
"Toran!" Rylan roared. "The wall!"
Toran, who had been shoving money into a sack, looked up. He saw Rylan wrestling the Slaver King, holding him still.
Toran understood.
He charged. His mechanical arm whined as the combustion chamber flared red hot.
He didn't hit Garrick. He hit the wall behind Garrick—a load-bearing wall made of rotting brick.
BOOM.
The wall exploded outward. The roof groaned.
"Let go!" Garrick screamed, realizing what was happening.
Rylan released him and rolled backward.
A massive support beam, dislodged by Toran's strike, crashed down.
It landed directly on Garrick's legs.
CRACK.
Garrick shrieked as his shins were pulverized. He collapsed, pinned under tons of wood and plaster.
The dust settled. The sirens continued to wail.
Rylan stood up, retrieving his sword. He walked over to Garrick. The slaver was clawing at the floor, trying to drag his ruined body away.
"You..." Garrick gasped, blood bubbling from his lips. "The Syndicate... will kill you."
"The Syndicate respects profit," Rylan said calmly.
He looked at Toran.
"Take the money. Go."
"What about the cages?" Toran asked, looking at the floor below. The slaves were waking up, screaming in terror as the building shook.
Rylan looked down. Hundreds of people. Potential soldiers. Potential laborers.
But he had no way to transport them. And the city guard would be here in minutes.
"Open the cages," Rylan ordered. "All of them."
"Master? If we let them loose, they'll riot!"
"Exactly," Rylan said. "Chaos covers tracks."
He grabbed a heavy ring of keys from Garrick's belt. He tossed them over the railing to the floor below.
"You are free!" Rylan bellowed, his voice amplified by Qi. "Garrick is dead! Take your vengeance! Burn this place to the ground!"
The slaves hesitated for a second. Then, a roar of primal rage erupted from the pits. They grabbed the keys. They grabbed rocks. They grabbed the weapons of the sleeping guards.
It wasn't a riot. It was a tidal wave.
Rylan looked down at Garrick one last time.
"Accidents happen," Rylan whispered.
He thrust his sword into Garrick's heart.
[Ding! Threat Eliminated: Garrick (Slave Lord).]
[Reward: Medium Spirit Stone Cache (Secured).]
[Karma Shift: Chaotic Neutral.]
Rylan and Toran sprinted for the hole in the wall. They jumped into the alley just as the slaughterhouse began to burn.
Behind them, the screams of the guards waking up to a slave rebellion echoed into the night.
They made it back to the warehouse as the sun was rising.
Toran dumped the sacks on the table. Gold, spirit stones, and jewelry spilled out. It was easily thirty thousand stones worth of value.
"We're rich," Toran laughed nervously. "Again."
Rylan didn't laugh. He collapsed into his chair, clutching his shoulder. His bandage was soaked through again.
The door to the back room opened.
Sylara stood there. She wasn't wearing the rags anymore. She was wearing a simple grey training robe Lena had given her. The collar was still around her neck.
She looked at the blood on Rylan's clothes. She looked at the money. She looked at the smoke rising from the Butcher's Quarter in the distance.
"You smell like ash," Sylara stated.
"I told you," Rylan wheezed, pouring himself a drink. "I'm building an army."
"You started a riot," Sylara corrected. "I can hear the city bells. You burned down the slave pits."
"I liquidated a competitor," Rylan said.
He looked at her.
"Do you want to know what I did with the slaves?"
Sylara paused. "You sold them?"
"I let them go," Rylan said. "I gave them the keys and told them to burn the masters."
Something flickered in Sylara's silver eyes. It wasn't warmth. It wasn't trust. But it was respect.
"Chaos," she murmured. "A dangerous weapon."
"Effective, though," Rylan said. He pushed a small stack of spirit stones toward her.
"For you," he said.
Sylara stared at the stones. "I am a slave. I cannot own property."
"You are an investment," Rylan corrected. "Buy what you need to meditate. I need you strong, Sylara. Because tomorrow... the Syndicate is going to come asking questions."
He closed his eyes.
"And I need my Ice Phoenix ready to freeze the answers."