Iron Hearth Castle. The Seventh Night – 02:00 AM.
The moon lay entombed behind a thick shroud of clouds, casting a suffocating darkness that seemed to swallow Northreach whole. The ancient castle stood in sepulchral silence; not a single torch flickered along its outer walls, making it look like a monolithic headstone rising from the heart of the valley.
Ten shadows encroached upon the fortress walls with terrifying agility. Their movements were fluid and precise, leaving not a single vibration on the stone surfaces they treaded. They were the elite rank of "The Silent Step" Guild. On the black market, the price for a single head they targeted reached a thousand gold coins.
Their leader, a man known only as Viper, gave a sharp hand signal: Infiltrate. Terminate all witnesses. Secure the Asset.
They slipped through a second-story window that had been left—inexplicably—unlatched. With acrobatic grace, they landed in a long, pitch-black corridor.
Too easy, Viper thought, a smug grin hidden beneath his black mask. The guards are all asleep. Utter amateurs.
Viper signaled again: Advance.
First step. Safe.
Second step. Safe.
Third step...
CRUNCH.
One of Viper's men felt something brittle give way beneath his boot. It wasn't a dry twig, nor was it a conventional tripwire mechanism.
It was glass. Hundreds of jagged shards—waste products from Rumina's experimental crystal factory—had been spread evenly across the dark corridor floor. And directly over the glass, the floor had been doused in a thick, slick liquid that smelled unnervingly of lavender. Soap waste.
"ARGH!"
The assassin's feet went out from under him instantly. Shards of glass bit into his soles as he careened uncontrollably across the slick surface. The sound of his body hitting the wooden floor was a thunderclap in the silence of the castle. THUD!
"What the hell?!" Viper hissed, his hand flying to his dagger.
Suddenly, from the dark ventilation grates in the ceiling, the soft giggling of two children echoed.
The Secret Crawlspace (Behind the Walls).
Ten-year-old Raphael and twelve-year-old Raveena were peering through the spyholes. They both wore oversized cooking pots as helmets to look like "real" soldiers, their small hands gripping control ropes with white-knuckled intensity.
"Gotcha!" Raphael whispered with a suppressed cheer. "How do you like Rianor's 'Dance Floor'?"
"Raphael, now! Pull Rope B!" commanded Raveena, acting as the spotter. Her sharp eyes tracked the chaos below.
"Ready, Commander Veena!"
Raphael yanked the rope beside him with every ounce of his small strength.
Back in the Corridor.
Directly above the assassins—who were now panicking on the slick, lethal floor—a wooden hatch in the ceiling swung wide.
WHOOOSH!
It wasn't a hail of stones or boiling oil that fell, but hundreds of kilograms of fine flour mixed with pure black pepper from Martha's kitchen stores. A cloud of white dust exploded, saturating the narrow corridor.
"HACK! COUGH!"
The contract killers were seized by violent fits of coughing. Their eyes burned with sudden, agonizing fire as the sharp sting of the pepper hit their nasal passages. The sound of explosive sneezing shattered their "silent mode" entirely.
"ACHOO! Dammit! Fall back! It's a trap!" Viper shrieked, wiping his streaming eyes.
They tried to scramble back, but the combination of flour and liquid soap over the glass floor turned them into drunken acrobats. They slipped and fell repeatedly, their movements clumsy and desperate.
"To the Great Hall! It's more open!" Viper ordered through a congested nose.
They crawled and stumbled, crashing into the walls until they finally reached the double doors of the Great Hall. They burst through them with frantic force. CRASH!
The Great Hall was vast and shrouded in darkness. Ten assassins huddled in the center of the room with weapons drawn, their breath ragged, their bodies covered in white flour until they looked like a band of oversized powdered donuts.
"Come out, you cowards!" Viper roared, his fury boiling over.
From the second-floor balcony overlooking the hall, a voice answered with a tone so calm it was infuriating.
"Good evening, gentlemen. My apologies for the messy reception. My younger siblings got a bit too enthusiastic about 'playing kitchen' tonight."
It was Rianor. Beside him stood Rumina. Both of them were wearing something bizarre on their faces: triple-layered, dark-tinted glass goggles.
"Looking for something? A certain piece of blue metal, perhaps?" Rianor asked.
"Hand over the Mithril now!" Viper snapped.
"Oh, certainly," Rianor smirked. "Rumina, if you would be so kind as to turn on the lights."
Rumina sparked a small flame in her hand and tossed a clay sphere into the center of the assassins.
"Eyes shut!" she shouted.
The assassins were baffled. A bomb? But no fire erupted.
FLASH!
The sphere detonated in an incandescent flare of white magnesium light. Its brilliance rivaled the midday sun, yet it occurred within a pitch-black room. The assassins' retinas, already adjusted to the dark, were instantly overloaded.
"AAAAARGHHH! MY EYES!"
"I CAN'T SEE! IT'S ALL WHITE!"
They shrieked in agony, clutching at their eyes as they were plunged into a void of blinding white. The flashbang had worked perfectly.
"Now, let the adults finish this," Duke Lucian's gravelly voice echoed from the shadow of the throne.
The sconces along the walls ignited simultaneously, revealing a grim tableau for anyone still capable of sight. At the left entrance, Sir Riven stood with his battle-axe, a predatory grin on his face. At the right, Lady Rhea spun her daggers with lethal grace. And in the center, Duke Lucian sat relaxed upon his throne.
"End it," Lucian ordered flatly.
It was no longer a fight; it was a systematic execution. Riven lunged like a steel juggernaut, his axe cleaving through plate and bone with crushing force. Rhea danced elegantly among the blinded foes, opening throats with surgical, lethal precision.
Viper, the leader, tried to strike out blindly with his blade. "Where are you?! Fight me like a knight!"
Lucian descended from his throne, walking toward Viper with casual strides. He caught the edge of Viper's blade with his bare, steel-gauntleted hand. CRACK. With one sharp jerk, he snapped the sword in two.
A heavy blow landed squarely on Viper's face. THUD. The assassin leader was out cold instantly.
Nine assassins lay dead. One remained unconscious for interrogation.
"Done," Riven said, wiping the spray of blood from his axe onto the clothes of a corpse. "Too easy. I barely broke a sweat tonight."
They were elite, yes, but they had made the fatal mistake of underestimating their prey. In this world, arrogance kills much faster than a blade.
The Living Room (Upper Floor). Family Mode: ON.
"WUUHUUU! WE DID IT!"
Raphael jumped excitedly into Riven's arms.
"You absolute legend!" Riven ruffled his brother's hair with pride. "Where did you get the idea for the flour and pepper?"
"It was Veena's idea!" Raphael beamed, though his pot-helmet was slightly askew. "Martha got really mad once when a jar of pepper spilled in the kitchen, and everyone couldn't stop sneezing for an hour. So Veena thought, why not use it as a weapon?"
"Incredible creativity," Rianor praised, removing his dark goggles. "The efficiency was remarkable. They panicked, their formation shattered, and they became sitting ducks."
Aurelia entered carrying a tray of fragrant hot chocolate. "My brilliant little soldiers," she said, kissing Raphael and Raveena's cheeks. "But promise me, after you finish this, it's straight to bed. You have history lessons with Master Silas tomorrow."
"Ugh... boring," Raphael groaned. "Trapping bad guys is much more fun."
"Watch your tongue," Lucian chided, leaning back into the sofa with a sigh. "War is exhausting. Look, my back is acting up again."
The room was filled with warm laughter, banishing the lingering scent of death from the floors below.
"But seriously," said Roland, who had just emerged—having been hiding in the safe-room just in case. "We have one prisoner left, this Viper guy, right?"
"Of course," Rhea replied, starting to peel an orange. "He's currently tied up in the dungeon, right next door to General Kael. Grimm is preparing a very special 'warm tea' for him."
"We need to find out who hired them," Rianor said, his expression turning serious again. "If my hunch is right... this wasn't Morvath's doing."
"Not Morvath?" Riven asked, confused. "Wasn't he the one desperate for the Mithril?"
"Morvath is a pure politician. He prefers official military power or legal manipulation," Rianor analyzed, staring out into the dark night. "Using shadow assassins is the style of someone afraid to leave footprints. Someone far more cunning."
He narrowed his eyes, looking toward the horizon. "There's a third player on this board. And I have a feeling... that person is inside the Palace."