Just as the whisper of steel about to reach his heart, an iron lash cut across the path of death. The sharp clang was subtle but enough to alter the angle. (+50PP)
The blade meant for Ruvian’s heart struck the velvet cushion beside him instead, burying itself nearly to the hilt in a clean, vicious line. The blade simply stood there, still emitting latent mana.
Ruvian turned his gaze toward it.
'That's a close call. I could have been dead.’
A weapon meant to kill. Delivered from below, through barriers, and wrapped in refracted silence. It would’ve ended him, had the timing been even half a second tighter.
His eyes slid from the metal, embedded deep in the plush seat, to the direction it had been intercepted from. Silvena stood one leg over the other, hand still extended, whip arcing in the air like a living thing. A serpentine instrument braided with thin, metallic threads, each strand imbued with subtle runic tracings that glowed in the green aetherlight.
Her weapon hissed softly as it recoiled, folding back into her grip with the smoothness of something that she had done this many, many times before. “Well,” she said, the corner of her lips curving just slightly, “I suppose you’re welcome. You live for another day~”
Her tone was light. Playful, almost. But beneath it ran a fine line of tension. Her eyes flicked to the assailant’s vector. Then back to Ruvian.
Ruvian inhaled slowly, not much in relief but more like in calibration. The moment the strike was launched, the auction house fractured. Security forces, trained to respond to magical assaults, sprang into action. Their formation broke into two. Some rushed down toward the lower floors to shield the crowd, herding nobles and merchants alike toward exit corridors behind gilded curtains.
The rest turned their attention to the VIP lounges.
It was the standard protocol.
However, the protocol hadn’t accounted for what was already inside.
The door to their lounge burst open, and one guard entered first. Three more remained in the hallway, already engaging what sounded like multiple hostiles outside. “Mr Phantom, Mrs Venomous, come behind us—” one began, stepping forward.
And then he froze.
Or rather… he stopped, quite permanently.
A sudden shkkt split the quiet, low and wet, and the guard jolted. For a second, he stood confused, blinking as something foreign registered in his body. Then the blood came. A narrow blade had pierced clean through his back, emerging from his chest.
His body fell sideways.
And behind him, already stepping through the open doorway, was a figure wrapped in disturbing violence.
A man.
Clad in slate-black garb with no weapons in hand, yet reeking of intent. His mask was utterly plain, featureless save for its texture: matte, like weathered bone. There was no smile or markings. Only a single slit for the eyes.
And those eyes were white.
Like milk over mirrors.
No pupils. No irises. And no… emotion.
He wasn't looking at them. His gaze locked directly onto Silvena’s left hand. More specifically… the ring she wore.
Silvena’s eyes narrowed as she shifted her posture. Her weight tilted slightly onto her heels, just enough to prime her stance, while the whip at her side coiled and twitched alive with intent.
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"They need to improve their security more. I'm disappointed." She sighed.
Then, the glass behind them shattered.
A coordinated breach… precise and simultaneous.
Three more figures vaulted cleanly through the tall arched windows, their black-clad forms momentarily framed against the light. The mana wards lining the glass cracked and collapsed in shivering arcs of failed defense, and the air inside shifted denser now.
They didn’t speak much, only arriving in silence. In the space of a breath, there were four of them. Four masked intruders, each mask blank as polished bone, each pair of eyes a bleached, pupil-less void.
Ruvian didn’t flinch, didn’t waste a second trying to catch up to the situation. His mind had passed through the possibilities and into the necessity. He turned to Silvena without removing his eyes from the threat.
“The sword. Now.” That was all he said.
And to her credit, Silvena didn’t hesitate and didn’t ask why… because in that kind of moment, five seconds of delay could be the difference between life and death, the only truth that mattered was simple: if Ruvian needed the sword, then the time for questions had already passed.
Without a moment’s hesitation, Silvena reached into the ring, and the sword materialized in her grasp, its cold steel singing softly with layered enchantments, as though it, too, recognized the urgency of the moment.
Without a word, she turned and hurled it toward Ruvian.
Ruvian caught it effortlessly. When his fingers closed around the hilt, the intruders moved without any warning, their bodies flowing forward, swift and irrevocably.
"Oh my, you guys are hasty~"
But Silvena was faster.
A sharp crack split the air—her whip lashed out in a clean, controlled arc to own the space around her, and dictated the battlefield from chaos.
In a single, seamless motion, she stepped diagonally into the path of their approach, whip coiling low and snapping taut around the leg of the first attacker mid-leap, dragging him off balance.
Then, without pause, the whip reversed course—snapping back in a tight, spinning arc that sliced the space in front of her, forcing the other two to scatter or crash headlong into its range.
And just like that, she was in their midst.
Three against one.
Exactly as she intended. Because Silvena understood the shape of the moment, she understood that Ruvian was not yet a figure made for open combat. She had long recognised that Ruvian’s danger came from planning, from subtlety, from the kind of violence that unfolded only when the board had been set.
But this… wasn't something planned. And if he was to survive long enough to play his part, then she would need to hold the line in the meantime.
That left the fourth man.
A lean, narrow-built figure who moved without sound or hesitation, slipping through the lounge with the unhurried movement of someone who had killed in tighter spaces.
Twin daggers glinted faintly in his hands, their curves designed for swift, decisive cuts that made for ending lives. His steps were low to the ground, each footfall was economical, gliding more than walking. His rhythm was almost like a marionette’s cadence sharpened by the intent of a puppeteer.
Ruvian’s fingers curled tightly around the hilt of [Mountain of Light], and the moment his mana channeled into the sword, something shifted inwardly.
‘Oh wow, I can feel my body surge with strength.’
It wasn’t the kind of reaction that exploded with power; it was quieter than that, more intimate. Like a sleeping creature stirred to awareness, it responded to his presence as a partner, one that had been waiting for a wielder whose movements could match its rhythm.
The enchantments unfolded in stages, each layering itself into his awareness. He could feel his mana was drained by the sword's enchantment.
[Enhanced Precision]’s enchantment struck first, a recalibration of perception, angles became cleaner, the space between thought and action thinner, almost nonexistent. He could feel the weight of each possibility around him, where his blade would need to be a second from now, not where it was.
Then, came [Strength of the Mountain], settling into his limbs. His arms didn’t feel stronger in the conventional sense, but steadier, rooted, as though his spine had found the stance of someone who could hold back a landslide without moving.
And finally, [Lethal Flow], the most subtle and dangerous of the three. It began weaving itself between breath and intent, aligning the motion of his body with the blade’s own momentum, erasing the friction between decision and execution.
‘Time for your big debut.’
When the masked attacker closed the distance… the twin daggers went low, his body glided forward in the language of killers. But Ruvian didn’t meet him with resistance. He moved into the space with a fluid step, sword held not defensively, but as an extension of a rhythm only he and the blade understood.
Their weapons met in a muted clash like two chords striking in dissonant harmony.
The daggers attempted to press forward, to crowd and overwhelm… yet Ruvian pivoted, guiding the blade along the assailant’s motion rather than against it, letting the katana’s arc draw a path toward the exposed hollow beneath the attacker’s elbow.
Even in his past life, his swordsmanship had never moved this way before. For the first time in longer than he cared to admit, Ruvian moved with something dangerously close to a monstrous animosity.
“This freaking sword… is better than I expected!”
Behind the masquerade mask, Ruvian offered a slow, delirious grin… toward The Faceless’s puppet.
PP= 3110
ME= 270