Chapter 15
The lower vents of the Vanguard Vault were a labyrinth of narrow, frost-rimed stone shafts designed to circulate the mountain's natural thermal heat. In the absolute dark of these tunnels, a normal man would be blind, and a magical one would be a beacon. To the Korthusian "Silent Blades" crawling through the shafts, their enchanted goggles rendered the world in shades of heat and mana.
They didn't see Leonard.
Thanks to the Null-Armor, Leonard was a cold void in their thermal vision—a patch of nothingness moving through the dark. He clung to the ceiling of the primary ventilation junction, his fingers locked into the stone like iron talons. Below him, three infiltrators moved with practiced silence, their short-swords coated in a paralyzing toxin.
"Target is in the upper weavers' hall," the lead infiltrator whispered into his throat-mic, his voice barely a breath. "The Princess is with him. Capture the girl, terminate the Null."
Leonard didn't wait for them to move. He dropped.
He didn't make a sound when he landed; the Null-Plates in his boots absorbed the kinetic resonance of the impact. Before the lead scout could turn, Leonard's hand—wrapped in shadow-silk—clamped over the man's mouth. With a surgical twist he'd practiced on the forge's heavy levers, he snapped the scout's neck.
The other two spun around, their goggles flaring as they tried to find the source of the kill. Leonard was already moving, staying low to the floor. He swung his mace, not at the scouts, but at the steam-pipe running along the wall.
CRACK.
Super-heated thermal vapor hissed into the tunnel, blinding the scouts' thermal goggles with a white-out of heat.
"I can't see! He's in the mist!" one cried out, swinging blindly with his toxic blade.
Leonard moved through the steam like a shark in dark water. He didn't need sight; he could feel the vibrations of their heavy breathing against his Null-Armor. He stepped behind the second scout and drove his Blood-Steel dagger through the gap in the man's neck-guard.
Two down.
The third scout, realizing he was facing something he hadn't been trained for, ripped off his goggles and pulled a "Flash-Flare" from his belt. "Die, you hollow freak!"
The flare ignited, flooding the narrow tunnel with a blinding, magical white light. For a second, Leonard was exposed—a dark silhouette standing amidst the swirling steam. But the scout's triumph was short-lived. The Null-Armor didn't just hide Leonard; it dampened the light around him, swallowing the flare's brilliance before it could sear his retinas.
Leonard lunged. He caught the scout's wrist, crushing the bone until the flare dropped into the damp slush on the floor. He pinned the man against the frost-covered wall, his forearm pressed against the scout's throat.
"Who sent you?" Leonard rasped, his eyes burning with a cold, predatory light. "Valerius is on a ship. Who gave the order?"
The scout spat blood, a jagged, defiant grin stretching across his face. "The General... isn't the only one... who wants the Pulse. The God-Slayers have already landed at the Iron Pass. We were just... the distraction."
Leonard's heart skipped a beat. A distraction.
If these men were here to draw him into the vents, who was going for the main hall?
"Clara," Leonard breathed.
He didn't waste another second. He silenced the scout with a single blow and sprinted back toward the upper levels. His Null-Armor was silent, but his mind was a roar of static. He had underestimated the enemy's reach.
As he burst into the Weaver's Hall, he found the Earth-Breaker golems standing in a circle, their arms raised in a defensive stance. In the center, Clara stood with her dual blades drawn, her eyes glowing with a terrifying, sapphire intensity.
But it wasn't the golems that had stopped the second team of infiltrators.
Lying across the floor were five more scouts, their armor melted as if they had walked into a furnace. Clara was trembling, the blue veins in her arms pulsing so brightly they were visible through her sleeves.
"Leonard," she whispered, her voice sounding like two people speaking at once. "I didn't... I didn't mean to. I just felt them coming for her. And then the room... it just screamed."
Leonard rushed to her side, catching her as her legs gave out. The Pulse was no longer just a secret; it was becoming a weapon of its own, one that Clara couldn't control.
"It's okay," Leonard said, shielding her from the sight of the scorched bodies. "We're leaving. The God-Slayers are at the Pass. If we stay here, we're just waiting to be buried."
From the mountain peak above, a sound like a Great Bell tolling echoed through the vault. It wasn't an alarm. it was a Summoning.
Leonard looked at Elena, the Master Weaver. Her face was white as bone. "That is the Horn of the First God-Slayer," she whispered. "They aren't waiting at the Pass. They've brought the Pass to us."