The silence of my room had always been my sanctuary, but in the blink of an eye, it became a cage.
I am Rank S. I shouldn't have been caught off guard. But whoever was on the other side of that door was no ordinary assassin. There was no sound of breathing, no nervous heartbeat. There was only emptiness.
"White, back up," I whispered, and with a wave of my hand, I used telekinesis magic to open the door.
A silhouette emerged from the shadows of the hallway. It stopped in the center of my pink carpet, a slender figure wrapped in dark silk bandages and leather that did not reflect the light from the lamps.
A Shadow Walker.
What would one of these be doing here? Had the Demon Lord finally decided that I was too big a problem to ignore? Or had the rumors about the confidential files I kept with me reached the ears of that demon?
"You have a lot of nerve invading my chambers," I said, my voice cold. "Identify yourself before I turn you to ash."
The figure did not move. Its cloth mask covered almost its entire face, leaving only gray, dead eyes visible. It was too fast, too silent. The kind of predator that murders nobles in locked rooms without leaving a drop of blood on the sheets.
"Name," I demanded, increasing the magical pressure.
The silence stretched out for five excruciating seconds. Branco let out a low growl, a vibration that seemed to make the floor shake.
"Odette," her voice was a dry whisper.
"Odette..." I repeated, mentally searching through the list of elite spies from the Demon Realm. "And what brings one of the Lord's tools to my apartment? Do you want something? Have you come to kill me?"
She didn't answer. Her gray eyes shifted away from me for a split second, fixing on White. There was an almost imperceptible hesitation in her posture. She wasn't looking at a cat; she was looking at something that put her on high alert.
I didn't wait for a second answer. If the Demon Lord had sent one of his Shadow Walkers to my home, diplomacy had died before it even began.
"White, get out of here!" I ordered, as I conjured a burst of compressed wind capable of shattering steel.
But to my surprise, Odette didn't draw a dagger. She simply dodged.
"[Flames of the Abyss]!" The cry tore from my throat, and the room was instantly engulfed by the sinister glow of three black fireballs.
The temperature in the room rose violently. The fire didn't just burn; it consumed the residual mana in the air, heading toward that dark silhouette. It was an A+ Rank spell, designed to leave nothing but ashes.
But Odette... she didn't even seem to inhabit the same dimension as me.
With a supernatural fluidity that defied all laws of biology, she tilted her body just a few millimeters. It was a minimal, almost lazy movement. The explosions of black flames hit the wall behind her, disintegrating my silk curtains and opening deep cracks in the reinforced wall.
The crash was deafening, but when the smoke cleared for a second, my blood ran cold. Not a single spark had touched the leather of her robes. Not a single strand of hair was out of place.
"She didn't dodge the attack..." I realized, my teeth clenched in frustration. "She read the trajectory of my mana before I even released the spell."
Damn it! Why is she here? I launched another burst, feeling cold sweat trickle down my back. If the Demon Lord had sent one of his elite Shadow-Walkers personally to my apartment, it meant that my "prestige" on that damn target list had risen higher than I would have liked. This is a disaster. I just wanted my peace, my books, and my cat!
As I fired successive magic projectiles, anger began to mix with fear.
Where are those useless heroes?! I cursed internally. What the hell are those idiots doing? The Kingdom spends fortunes on golden armor and banquets, and an elite assassin roams freely around the capital? Are they polishing their swords or playing cards in the tavern? Incompetents!
My breathing became heavy. I'm an S-Rank Mage, for God's sake! How can I not hit a target less than five meters away? The accuracy that made me famous seemed to have evaporated. Every time Odette dodged smoothly, as if she were dancing, my confidence waned.
But I didn't reach the top with brute force alone. If she was an expert in agility and mana reading, I needed to stop attacking where she was and start controlling where she could be.
"If you can read the flow, let's see how you handle an overload," I thought, my fingers tracing invisible runic symbols in the air.
I adjusted my stance, feigning an obvious frontal attack. While firing a barrage of smaller projectiles to force her back, I silently activated a [Gravity Trap] under the carpet. The plan was simple but lethal: the moment she jumped to my left flank—the only blind spot I had deliberately left—I would detonate a [Vacuum Prison]. Against any Rank S assassin, this would be checkmate. They would be paralyzed for a few seconds, enough time for me to incinerate them.
She took the bait. Odette slid to the left exactly as I predicted.
"Vacuum Prison!" I shouted.
The space around her collapsed. Gravity tripled and the air was sucked out. It was supposed to be the end. But instead of the sound of breaking bones or a paralyzed body, I saw something that defied logic.
Odette didn't fight gravity; she simply... ignored it. With a movement that seemed to break physics, she accelerated within the negative pressure, moving even faster than before.
"Impossible... She didn't use any technique. It's impossible to move without difficulty in the Vacuum Prison." Dread rose in my throat. "Is she... SS Rank? Or something even worse?"
Nervousness took over. Realizing that my best strategy was "nothing" against her destroyed my focus. The black figure disappeared from my field of vision.
I felt the cold metal before I saw it. Odette appeared beside me, a curved dagger glinting toward my neck. My heart stopped. I'm going to die.
But the blow never came.
"Meow."
White shot off the left wall, ricocheted off the ceiling, and hit the right wall with a sharp crack, gaining a speed that my eyes could barely follow. He was a blue and white blur.
Odette, for the first time, showed a reaction: she backed away.
White executed a perfect arc in the air. His claws, extended and glowing with that impossible mana, cut through the air. Odette spun backward, but she wasn't fast enough. I heard the sound of fabric tearing. The Shadow-Walker's shoulder was hit, revealing the pale skin beneath the elite uniform.
Odette realized that the situation had changed. She was no longer facing a panicked Rank S Mage, but a predator she did not understand. Without saying a word, she propelled herself backward, crashed through the shattered window, and disappeared into the night, merging with the darkness of the city.
I stood there, trembling, staring at Branco. He landed softly on the carpet and began licking his paw as if nothing had happened, but his blue eyes still pulsed like stars about to explode.
"Branco..." My voice came out in a whisper. "You're Branco, right...?"
I looked through the broken window. "Heroes... what are you doing?"