"We are short on time," I said breaking the silence, tossing a slip of paper stamped with a frost flower into the fireplace basin. The fire devoured the paper in an instant. "Lysandra and Selena will begin their bureaucratic maneuvers at the Senate meeting at dawn. If that East Sector warehouse is not razed to the ground before the sun rises, our deal is off. Morcant will wash their hands of this, and we will be the ones to hang."
Across the basement of the Outcast Dormitory, which had now been transformed into a laboratory, Virelith snorted softly.
The air in that room smelled of sulfur and hydrochloric acid that choked the lungs. Green smoke billowed from high-grade crystal test tubes, a drastic facility upgrade we purchased using Nightbane's stolen gold.
"Six hours before dawn," murmured Virelith. Her thick glasses fogged up as she stared at the cloudy silver liquid inside a glass syringe. She turned and looked at me with an incredibly serious gaze. "Are you sure you want to do this, Kael? Medically speaking, this is madness."
Ragnar, who was sharpening his greatsword in the corner of the room, also turned his head. "What exactly are you concocting there, Bookworm?"
"Nerve Suppressant Serum," I answered ahead of Virelith. I pulled back my collar, revealing the bandages wrapping my ribs. "My vessel is still cracked. If I force myself to fight physically tonight, the pain will make me pass out before I can swing my sword a second time. Inject it, Engineer."
Virelith hesitated for a moment, but her obedience to military orders began to form. She stepped forward, cleaned the base of my neck with alcohol, and plunged the glass needle straight into the main vein.
Stab.
"Argh!"
I choked hard. It felt like liquid ice was injected directly into my spinal cord. The cloudy silver fluid reacted with my Sanguine Core.
The veins from my neck up to my temples instantly bulged and blackened horrifically for five full seconds, before finally fading slowly.
My ragged breathing gradually subsided. I stared at my hands. The sensation was very strange. The pain that had been torturing my ribs since yesterday vanished instantly, replaced by a cold and silent numbness.
"Listen carefully, Commander," said Virelith with a cold and pragmatic tone, her face very close to mine. "This is not divine healing magic from the church. This serum does not heal your wounds; it merely severs the pain signals from the brain to the muscles."
The girl pointed right at my chest. "You will not feel anything. You can keep fighting even if your stomach is ripped open. But remember your limits. If you swing your sword beyond your physical elasticity limit, your bicep muscles and ligaments could snap, and you won't realize it until your arm falls to the ground. Do not borrow too much time from the devil, Kael."
I rolled my shoulder, testing its stiffness, then nodded slowly. "I just need enough time to burn Silas's empire. Let us move."
Two in the morning. A light drizzle began to fall wetting Aethelgard, hiding our footsteps beneath the cloak of the night.
The three of us arrived at the outer perimeter of the East Sector Warehouse. The giant red brick building stood gloomily amidst the deserted loading and unloading area. There were no academy knights patrolling here. Silas had ensured this area was clear of legal authority.
Ragnar sneaked forward, peering from behind a crack in the broken brick wall. Ten minutes later, the giant man crawled back approaching me and Virelith. His thuggish face looked tense.
"Something is wrong, Young Master," whispered Ragnar, wiping rainwater from his face. "Silas deployed at least three dozen mercenary guards in the front and side yards. But... they are not ordinary guards."
"Explain," I replied briefly.
"Their movements are stiff, jerky like the undead," reported Ragnar. "Their eyes glow red in the dark. I saw one of them scratch his own arm until the skin peeled and bled, but he just laughed and growled like an animal. He felt no pain at all."
Virelith's eyes widened. "They were force-fed Black-Lotus? But that is a very expensive potion!"
"Silas is already at the peak of his desperation," I hissed, my tactical brain instantly rearranging the battlefield variables. "Orvelis's ultimatum must be terrifying. Silas fed pure Black-Lotus syrup to his dogs. They are now Berserkers. If we attack straight from the front, they will keep slashing at us even if we have pierced their hearts."
"Then what is the plan? We go home and sleep?" snorted Ragnar.
"We are soldiers, not stupid gladiators," I said. I turned to Virelith. "Engineer, head to the West Wing of the warehouse. The foundation there looks the oldest and most fragile."
"You want me to bring it down to make an entrance?" asked Virelith.
"No. I need a distraction, not a door," I instructed quickly. "Use your Earth Grinder on a micro-scale. Do not destroy the stone, but create high-frequency vibrations inside the foundation. Make a rumbling sound as loud as possible as if the entire west wing is going to collapse."
Virelith's eyes sparkled recognizing that tactical brilliance. "Guards drunk on Black-Lotus are very paranoid and reactive to loud noises. They will be baited."
"Exactly," I nodded. "Once they swarm to the west, Ragnar and I will infiltrate from the East Wing roof. Execute!"
Virelith immediately broke away, sneaking through the drizzle toward the west side of the building. Ragnar and I moved stealthily to the east side, taking cover behind a pile of empty barrels.
Three minutes later, the ground beneath our feet vibrated faintly.
RUUUUMMBLE!
A very terrifying rumbling sound exploded from the west side of the warehouse. The sound of bricks grinding roughly against each other was heard, as if a giant from beneath the earth were trying to tear down the building.
The tactic worked perfectly. Savage howls from dozens of Berserker guards in the yard were heard.
Losing their sanity, the guards overreacted and ran blindly leaving their posts toward the source of the sound in the west, their swords drawn looking for an unseen enemy.
"Now!" I hissed.
Ragnar took out a steel grappling hook rope. With one strong swing, he threw the hook until it gripped the edge of the East Wing roof tightly. The giant man climbed up with surprising agility. I followed right behind him.
While pulling my body up the rope, I frowned. Without pain as a reminder, it was very difficult to gauge how much force I was exerting. I had to consciously count my muscle contractions, ensuring I didn't tear my own ligaments as Virelith had warned.
We reached the rain-slicked roof. Without wasting time, I crawled toward the glass skylight window. Ragnar pried open its rusted hinges using his dagger.
Clack. The window opened.
We slid down into the darkness of the warehouse, landing almost soundlessly on top of an arrangement of highly stacked wooden crates.
The air inside the main warehouse felt incredibly heavy and suffocating. A sickeningly sweet smell instantly assaulted the sense of smell; this must be the gas aroma from the Black-Lotus syrup.
Below us, hundreds of wooden barrels stamped with Nightbane's purple wax were arranged neatly forming a labyrinth of aisles.
I gave a hand signal to Ragnar to split up and comb the area. We jumped down from the wooden crates, our feet landing softly on the stone floor.
However, my steps stopped when I turned at the end of a barrel pile aisle.
In the middle of a fairly spacious room, illuminated only by a single hanging oil lantern, stood Silas the Snake. The man was not hiding. He was not running.
His luxurious silk clothes were messy and dirty. His face was covered in terrifying dark blue bruises, marks of Orvelis's gravity torture that nearly crushed his ribs. But the most dangerous thing was his eyes; those pair of eyes bulged wildly, radiating absolute despair from a man who knew that his death was imminent.
I drew my sword, stepping out of the shadows. Ragnar appeared from the opposite aisle, cutting off Silas's escape route.
"Mission over, Silas," I said coldly, my voice echoing inside the quiet warehouse. "Surrender this warehouse, and I will let you go as far away as possible from Aethelgard before sunrise."
Silas turned to me. His body trembled, then slowly he began to laugh. His laugh was hoarse, shrill, and born of absolute mental brokenness.
"Go? Go where, Draven?!" exclaimed Silas hysterically, tears mixed with saliva coming out of his mouth. "You think I can run from Orvelis Nightbane? He promised to flay me and my family alive if even one of the barrels in this room goes missing!"
Silas suddenly raised his right hand which he had been hiding behind his back all this time.
My heart pounded fast. In the broker's hand, a torch burned brightly. Its fire crackled wildly, licking dangerously into the air.
And right under his feet, I just realized there was a puddle of thick dark purple liquid. Silas had deliberately punctured one of the largest Black-Lotus barrels. The illegal syrup pooled on the stone floor, emitting highly flammable and explosive gas vapor.
"You are crazy!" Ragnar growled, stopping his steps abruptly. He knew exactly that a drop of fire on that puddle would trigger a chain reaction leveling the entire East Sector.
Silas held the torch just a few inches from the Black-Lotus puddle. His crazy eyes looked straight at me.
"Take one more step, Draven! Come on! Step!" challenged Silas with a shrill desperate voice. "Orvelis will torture me until I beg for death... but if this entire warehouse explodes tonight, along with all of us in it... at least I will not have to die alone at the hands of that demon!"
I stood frozen. My veteran brain spun at maximum speed. The distance between me and Silas was ten meters. The torch was less than three inches from the deadly puddle. Even if I threw a dagger right at his throat, Silas's dead hand muscles would reflexively drop the torch down.
Damn it! This cowardly broker held the most powerful time bomb in his hands. Dawn would arrive soon, time kept ticking backward, and I was just trapped with a man who no longer had any reason to live.