Foxy
Leon stepped into the control room and swept his gaze across the interior.
Pipes, circuits, control panels, and unidentifiable machinery packed every inch of the space.
Beep— beep— bee-beep—
Alarm klaxons blared from every direction. Steam billowed from ruptured pipes, blanketing the air in a thick haze. Flickering lights strobed the chamber between light and dark in relentless pulses.
And then—
A whole lot of dead.
Bloodstains and cold corpses carpeted the floor like tiles.
Haven't been dead long.
Judging by the condition of the bodies, none of them had been dead more than ten minutes.
Most had their throats cut in a single stroke.
There were no signs of resistance, no traces of a fierce struggle. Every wound ran clean across the carotid artery—neat, precise, without a scrap of excess.
It was as if—
They got hit by skilled assassins.
He could picture it clearly: killers silencing their presence, slipping up from behind, clamping a hand over a mouth, and drawing a blade across a throat.
"…"
His grip tightened around his daggers. Both hands shifted into a ready stance—the opening form of his technique. Muscles drew taut. His senses sharpened to a razor's edge.
He was primed to strike at any moment.
The complete absence of presence didn't mean the killers had already fled. If anything, it suggested the opposite.
Leon picked his way through the corpses toward the center of the room, where the Dragon Heart should have been.
Beeeeep— beep— bee-bee-beep—
The alarms never stopped. The grating noise ricocheted from every wall, scrambling his hearing.
Crackle.
The stuttering lights finally died for good. Darkness swallowed the basement whole.
The only remaining light sources were the crimson glow of the alarm panels and the blue mana radiance leaking from the machinery.
Leon flooded his eyes with mana, sharpening his vision. The world washed over in a murky green, as though he'd slipped on a pair of night-vision goggles.
The air around him grew heavier still. A faint breeze drifted past, unpleasantly cold.
A massive water tank blocked his path.
Leon began circling it, keeping the tank on his left as he moved counterclockwise.
Then a blade thrust in from the left—an upward trajectory rising from below the waist straight toward his heart.
Leon twisted, letting the steel glance off his side. At the same instant, his left hand came down hard on the attacker's elbow.
Shhk!
The forearm dropped. A fountain of blood erupted from the stump. Leon sidestepped the spray and swept his right dagger forward in a long, clean arc.
Slash!
Someone's throat opened the full length of the blade.
Only after the cut did he see what he was dealing with—an enemy dressed head to toe in black.
Leon rolled sideways.
Thud-thud-thud-thud!
Half a dozen throwing knives buried themselves in the spot he'd just vacated.
Beeeeeep— bee-beep—
Between the shrieking alarms, Leon's ears caught the faintest footfalls.
Without so much as turning his head, he lashed out front, back, left, and right—four, five strokes in rapid succession.
Squelch-squelch-squelch!
The sharp wet sounds of steel parting flesh rang out once for every cut. The air painted itself red. Black-clad figures tumbled to the floor, missing pieces of themselves.
Leon melted into the darkness and relocated, kicking off a wall and scaling all the way to the ceiling.
Thuk— stick!
He casually drove a dagger into the neck of an enemy who was frantically scanning the room with wide eyes, then pulled it free.
Using the top of the water tank as his landing zone, he dropped. Mid-flight, a storm of hidden weapons came screaming toward him.
Clang-clang-clang-clang!
Daggers met throwing blades in a shower of brilliant sparks. The moment his feet touched down, Leon launched himself in the direction the weapons had come from.
Thuk— stick! Slash! Slash!
Figures clinging to the walls like spiders peeled off and plummeted, trailing sprays of blood. Leon dropped with the corpses.
Fwoosh-fwoosh-fwoosh!
As he hit the ground, a thick violet fog bloomed around him.
Poison mist.
Leon muttered the identification inwardly, reading the color, density, and particulate quality of the fog. A variety he knew.
Slender silver needles came whistling through the haze. Poison darts.
Good thing I got here first.
Aria might have managed, but the other cadets—green and inexperienced—would have been slaughtered without a prayer.
Leon clicked his tongue and drew out his sword aura.
Fwoooooosh—!
Blue flames drove back the basement dark. Twin tongues of azure fire tore through every direction, pouring out mana with terrifying force.
The silver needles withered on contact. The poison mist was shoved bodily backward.
Having carved out space, Leon snuffed the aura and sank back into the dark. His eyes glowed faintly, bleeding a crimson light.
Thuk! Thud-thuk! Thud-thud-thud-thuk!
Wherever the blood-red gaze traveled, the wet rhythm of steel finding flesh followed. Both daggers danced with manic glee, plunging in and out of enemy bodies.
Light drained from eyes already punched full of clean, deep holes.
Corpses littered the floor in careless heaps. From beneath the bodies, blades suddenly thrust upward.
Leon stepped lightly, almost dancing, and slipped past every one of them. The best the enemy managed was a shallow tear in his pant leg.
Concentrating mana into his feet, Leon stomped the floor with crushing force.
Boom! Boom! Boom-boom-boom!
The heads of the assassins hiding under the corpses crumpled like overripe fruit. The floor was left with the messy remnants of shattered watermelons.
"Haha."
Finding the sight genuinely amusing, Leon let out a low laugh.
Apparently deciding this approach wasn't working, the remaining enemies abandoned stealth and charged him all at once.
They came from every side—and more than five dropped from above alone.
"Hmm."
Jecheon Sword Style, First Form—Yeomyeong.
A long shaft of dawn light swept an entire direction clean. Severed limbs and blood sprayed through the air in countless fragments.
"A bit short with daggers, though."
Muttering to himself, Leon unleashed the same form on the opposite side.
Jecheon Sword Style, First Form—Yeomyeong.
Flash—!
The black silhouettes that had closed to within arm's reach of his face were scoured away without exception. Not one of them screamed, even at the end.
"That take care of it?"
Crackle—.
As if answering him, the basement lights flickered back to life.
The brightly lit chamber was piled high with the still-warm corpses of assassins.
And then—
"Kyaah! P-please, help me!"
From far across the room came a woman's shrill cry.
"Hm?"
A survivor?
Leon headed toward the voice, casually collecting throwing knives from the dead as he went.
The center of the control room was where the Dragon Heart had been installed. Every circuit in the facility radiated outward from that core.
And there it was—the heart of the chamber.
A cylindrical pedestal as thick as an ancient tree trunk, topped by a rounded glass enclosure. Inside the glass, countless cables had been connected—all of them unnaturally severed and cut.
So they did take the Dragon Heart.
Leon thought.
"Hic! Please help me…!"
The voice belonged to a woman slumped near the pedestal, both arms clutched around her midsection.
She wore a white lab coat and possessed a strikingly alluring face. At most she looked barely past twenty—almost girlish.
Tears welled in her eyes as she called out to him, her expression crumpling.
"H-hey! Please, help me!"
Leon's eyes went wide. He rushed toward her in a panic.
"Ah—just a second!"
And then he hurled one of the throwing knives he'd collected straight at the center of her forehead.
Whsshk—!
The woman's expression changed in an instant.
Bang!
Black sparks flew. A casual flick of her hand swatted the blade aside with ease.
"What? Boring."
She rose to her feet as if nothing had happened, a wicked smile curling across her lips.
Leon spat the words with open contempt.
"Crazy bitch. What kind of idiot do you take me for? You really think anyone would fall for that?"
"…"
Her smile stiffened, just slightly.
"Young master, that mouth of yours is awfully crude…"
She began releasing the energy she'd been concealing.
Whoooooosh—!
Oh…
Leon was impressed despite himself.
She's damn strong.
Her energy was no joke. Still, it wasn't overwhelming. Not the kind of power that would cut him down in a few exchanges.
If they fought, he could hold out long enough for reinforcements to arrive.
Satisfied he was safe enough, Leon opened his mouth and let loose.
"Scheming bitch. Foxy bitch. Sitting on your ass playing games while every last one of your subordinates dies. Completely unhinged bitch. Stealing the Dragon Heart? Does the Empire look like a joke to you?"
"I won't deny the foxy part."
The woman produced a fox mask and slipped it on.
"And don't worry. My subordinates were always meant to die here. As for the Empire—I'm not particularly afraid of it anymore."
She gave a large bundle a playful little shake. The Dragon Heart was almost certainly inside.
"…"
A sudden surge of irritation hit Leon, and he flung another throwing knife. Come to think of it, this woman had cost him an entire day's worth of dragon mana.
She tilted her head, dodging as she spoke.
"By the way, young master—why are you so good at fighting? You're no greenhouse flower. You smell a lot like one of us."
"Creepy bitch. The kind who sprinkles poison powder in other people's rooms."
"Mm, you've definitely got talent for this line of work. Want to come over to our side? Come with me."
"Sixty-something hag playing at being a young lady. Can't act your age, can't even match your face."
Words were being exchanged, certainly. But this was no conversation.