Chương 21: The Awakening of Shadow Blood and Guilt

Kuro dashed across the crimson carpet, retracing his steps toward the central corridor. The metallic sound of clashing blades and screams echoed off the mansion's plaster walls. When he turned the final bend of the square structure, the scene he encountered was a meat grinder. Liora was standing in the center of the corridor, but her body was faltering. Around her, a pile of five soldier corpses attested to the lethality of her Katana, but the price exacted had been far too high.

Her combat garments were torn, covered in deep gashes that continuously poured blood onto the carpet. She was out of mana, wheezing, and on the verge of collapsing from extreme physical exhaustion. To make matters worse, the situation on the board was desperate: ten heavily armed city guards had just breached the area through one of the side doors, and the shouts from outside indicated that the mansion was being completely surrounded.

Without hesitating for a single millisecond, Kuro propelled his legs and leaped in front of Liora. He raised his short sword with his right hand, turning his own body into a human shield to absorb the blade strikes directed at his partner. The combat became a blur of violence. Driven by conscious desperation, Kuro pressed forward aggressively. He managed to strike and eliminate three guards in sequence, but biological fatigue exacted its toll instantly.

The pain of his own wounds, which until then had seemed anesthetized by the adrenaline rush, hit with the force of a punch. Amidst the chaos of metal, one of the city soldiers delivered a clean downward slash. The steel sliced through the air. Kuro's right arm—the arm wielding the sword—was severed entirely. The short blade fell heavily to the ground, drenched in blood. In the exact same instant, Kuro felt the human mana in his organism completely bottom out due to the extreme effort.

Lacking the energy to fuel mystical regeneration, the biological process stalled. The veins and tissues stopped weaving themselves together, leaving the cuts wide open. The flesh failed. Biological death knocked at the door. But the organism's survival instinct was faster. Faced with total collapse and with his sanity stretched to the absolute limit, the hidden anomaly within his veins awakened. A cold, abnormal, and terrifying energy exploded from inside his body.

Living darkness and a thick black mist began to violently spout straight from his open wounds and bulging veins. Beneath the jet of shadows, the severed right arm wove itself back out of nothingness by pure biological instinct, the tissues stitching themselves together with the bizarre speed of semi-immortal regeneration. The advancing soldiers froze their feet on the carpet, their eyes wide in complete panic at that impossible scene.

"What... What is that?!" one of the city guards screamed, his voice trembling as he stepped backward.

"His arm was torn off! That's a monster! A real monster!" Liora, collapsed on the floor and entirely devoid of strength, looked up through her torn mask. Witnessing her master's flesh remaking itself amidst the dark mist and terrifying magnetism, a gélid shiver ran down her spine. Even being a veteran assassin accustomed to blood, she felt a deep and genuine fear of the creature rising before her. Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

Kuro extended his fingers, gripped the sword fallen on the ground with his right hand, and advanced. Both of his hands and the metal blade were completely imbued with a living, opaque darkness. Overcome by an overwhelming fury, yet conscious of every single movement, Kuro tore apart the five remaining guards in the corridor. The strikes laden with black mist hurled the bodies against the stone walls, piercing through iron armor as if it were plaster. Kuro did not stop to breathe.

Out of the corner of his eyes, through the slits of the Black Mask, he saw the torchlights of dozens of other guards flooding the mansion's outer courtyards. The perimeter was sealed. He spun around, sheathed his sword, and gathered Liora—already completely unconscious from shock and blood loss—into his arms. He pulled from his cloak the advanced healing potion that Mireya had delivered in the laboratory, placed the girl on his back, and dashed toward the high second-floor window.

Kuro leaped straight into the darkness of the storm. The drop of over five meters against the waterlogged soil was brutal. Kuro rolled in the mud to cushion the impact, feeling the distinct snap of his own ribs breaking under his body weight. With the cold rainwater torturing the wounds that still stubbornly refused to close due to the lack of mana, he adjusted Liora's body on the dark mud before proceeding. The girl was bleeding heavily, and her breathing was faint.

Desperate, Kuro pressed the vial to her lips, pouring the liquid directly into her half-open mouth while whispering with his face close to hers beneath the tempest: *It's alright... I'm here. We are going to live. We are going to live a life together... me, you, Selene, and Mireya. He gathered her into his arms once more.

Dragging his injured leg, he ran between the trees of the dark forest, falling into the heavy mud of the rain and pushing himself up again, driven by pure pragmatism, until he reached the back of Oakhaven. He rammed the inn door open with his body. Mireya appeared immediately in the lobby to receive them and turned pale, paralyzed with panic upon seeing the destroyed state of the two.

Without saying a single word, with a hollow expression behind the torn cloth, Kuro delivered his unconscious partner into the Neko's arms and spun around, heading back out into the torrential rain. Far from there, in the heart of the dark forest, Kuro's legs completely lost their strength. He collapsed to his knees in the middle of the deep mud. The weight of the tactical error crushed his mind. He spent exactly thirty minutes isolated under the storm, broken by guilt.

Tears mingled with the gélid rainwater while his thoughts echoed in a silent scream in the pitch-black of his consciousness: Where did I go wrong? It was so close, dammit... If I were stronger, if I hadn't gone after the target and hadn't left her alone, this wouldn't have happened. I killed people. That noble's daughter became an orphan because of me... and I can't bring myself to regret it. I can't feel anything. Am I even human? But one thing I felt the moment I saw Liora hurt... I lost control.

That's love, isn't it? It's the same thing I feel for Selene... Do I love her? Only after an exact hour from the event did the mana flow stabilize, the body's organic printer resumed working, and every open cut in the flesh closed completely. Meanwhile, at the rearguard of the inn, Mireya worked against the clock. Using her Advanced Molecular Alchemy and expensive components, she stitched Liora's organs and stabilized her biological profile.

Selene emerged in the corridor in tears, desperately asking about Kuro's whereabouts, but the scientist merely explained that he had delivered the girl and vanished into the storm. Suddenly, firm knocks echoed on the inn door. Selene dashed to open it, thinking Kuro had returned, but came face to face with the mysterious client. Without saying anything, the woman extended her hand and delivered the ten legitimate gold coins for the successful assassination of the noble.

Selene collected the heavy gold and walked to the utility room, placing the ten coins directly into Mireya's hand to cover the alchemical expenses and laboratory materials. The job was done, but the party was cracked.