Chương 20: The Eight Corridors of the Portrait

The silence within the empty room was almost heavy, broken only by the muffled vibration of thunder against the glass of the side window. Kurogami Ren kept his short sword firm in his right hand, his cold eyes focused on the dark wooden lock of the door. Beside him, Liora closed her eyelids for a brief second, activating her assassin senses and expanding her perception through the flow of Internal Mana. She tensioned her muscles, catching the empty echo from the other side.

There were no heartbeats, breathing, or footsteps. She opened her eyes, exchanged a quick nod with Kuro, and turned the doorknob. The door opened without a single creak. The scenario that revealed itself was the beginning of a true architectural trap. The corrupt noble's mansion had been designed under a rigid geometric structure: a perfect square base composed of exactly eight interconnected corridors circling the core of the property.

Through the gaps in the walls, the crimson carpet stretched under the dim light of oil lamps, but the true obstacle was the guard posts. There were ten doors along the path—divided between rooms, guest quarters, and the grand main hall—and each entrance was under the custody of fixed guards. Two of those doors were the only accesses connecting the outer corridors to the inner wing, where the target's study sat isolated right in the middle of the square. The advance needed to be surgical.

Kuro and Liora glided down the first corridor like two masses of floating shadow. The soldiers positioned there were nothing more than ordinary patrol guards, weak men wearing cheap iron armor who relied too much on the security of the mansion's walls. The first combat lasted less than three seconds. Liora emerged from the blind spot of a pillar, spinning her body to deliver an oblique slash that split the first soldier's chest before he could scream.

At almost the exact same instant, Kuro took a step forward with his right leg, deflected a clumsy spear thrust, and buried his short sword straight under the second guard's chin, piercing through the bone. They moved fast, clearing the path. One by one, the five guards standing at consecutive doors were eliminated without a chance to react, falling silently onto the red carpet. The kill count was perfect, and the study wing was just ahead, separated only by a heavy wooden door reinforced with bronze hinges.

But the board flipped the millisecond Liora pushed the wood open to access the central corridor. The sound of bronze hitting the wall echoed through the gap. Mid-way down the path, blocking the access passage, stood a figure who did not belong to the ordinary guard. It was a female mage wearing light combat robes and silver plates, wielding a long staff made of dark metal. At the tip of the artifact, a purple mana stone glowed with an unstable, aggressive luminescence. The woman did not hesitate.

She possessed a terrifying reserve of external mana, and in the blink of an eye, she channeled the environmental energy straight into the staff's core. The air around her distorted, sizzling with molecular magnetism. With a sharp movement, the mage conjured her magic, shaping the air and minerals into massive, sharp steel projectiles—macro projectiles of high density ready to pierce fortress walls.

"Intruders!" her voice echoed, triggering the general alarm through the mansion. Kurogami Ren felt his survival instinct trigger to the limit. His mind cleared instantly, wiping any panic from his eyes. The steel projectiles were fired at the speed of a snap, tearing through the corridor and shattering the plaster and wood around them. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

In a coordinated reflex, Kuro threw his body to the right, rolling flush against the wall while the steel splinters sliced through the air by centimeters. Liora leaped to the opposite side, using her Internal Mana to give herself a vertical boost and run laterally along the wall. Acting like pincers, they attacked the mage from both flanks at the same time. Kuro's short blade tore into her shoulder, while Liora's Katana opened a deep gash along the side of her robes.

The mage let out a cry of pain, blood staining her silver plates, but the thunder of breaking metal and her orders had already taken effect. Heavy footsteps and warning shouts began to echo through all eight corridors of the mansion. City guards and reinforcement units ran desperately toward them. The mage with the purple staff took advantage of the initial confusion, retreating hastily through the service gaps and managing to slip away through the shadows of the secondary hall.

The reflections of the guards' torches were already lighting up the carpet at the end of the corridor. Liora planted her feet in the mud coming through the cracks, spun her body, and assumed a guard stance with her Katana raised, blocking the main passage.

"Go and kill the target!" she shouted behind her Black Mask, her eyes fixed on the avalanche of soldiers approaching.

"I'll handle everything here!" Kuro didn't waste a single frame of time arguing. He spun around, propelled his legs, and ran in a straight line toward the end of the central corridor. In front of the double doors of the noble's study, the last two fixed guards tried to raise their iron shields, but Kuro moved with the speed of a predator.

He leaped, delivered a frontal kick that collapsed the first man's chest against the wood, and in the same downward motion, slashed the throat of the second with a horizontal arc of his short blade. Kuro rammed the door open with his shoulder. Inside the luxurious study, illuminated by a tall fireplace, the corrupt noble was retreating in complete panic near the mahogany desk.

Seeing the masked, blood-drenched figure invade his quarters, the aristocrat drew a decorative sword with a trembling hand, attempting a desperate downward strike. Kurogami Ren analyzed the movement surgically. The target was just a spoiled noble, not a soldier trained for war. Being physically much stronger and driven by raw, naked precision, Kuro raised his blade and delivered a brutal upward interception strike.

The impact of the metal was so incredibly violent that it shattered the aristocrat's guard, breaking his posture and sending the decorative sword flying, embedding it into the plaster ceiling. Without giving the man time to breathe, Kuro took a step forward and buried the short sword straight into the middle of the noble's chest, tearing the blade sideways next with a clean cut across the neck that ended the target's life instantly.

The aristocrat's body collapsed heavily onto the animal-hide rug, blood spurting over the documents on the desk. Kuro took a deep breath, sweat mixed with rainwater running down inside his Black Mask. He began to clean the edge of his blade, preparing to collect the spoils, when the subtle sound of childish footsteps made his analytical mind freeze. He spun his body quickly with his sword drawn.

Standing in the doorway of the inner private quarters, a little girl—the noble's daughter—stared at the scene with wide, completely terrified eyes, frozen by the trauma of seeing her murdered father on the floor. The silence in the study became psychological torture. Kuro's subconscious fired the question raw and naked into his mind: Should I kill her or not? Kuro looked at the innocent, trembling face of the child. The chess player's coldness calculated the variables, but pragmatism and humanity won out.

I am not an irrational monster who kills for pleasure. He lowered his short blade, ignored the witness, and spun around, sprinting out of the study to rescue Liora amid the chaos of the corridors.