Chapter 87

Behind the Mask

“Death is but a journey, and who ever detests journeys?”

Proverbs

Noah’s expression was extremely dark as he shuffled over the ashen grass. Just as his feet pressed against them, the dust flew up and scattered in the air. He’d been repeatedly probing the giants, having launched well over fifty stealthy attacks. He had to use clumps of hardened earth for the last thirty as he’d run out of daggers. However, no matter what he tried, he only succeeded in causing one more chain reaction that was quickly snuffed out, barely killing a few dozen. It wasn’t even a dip in the ocean of the giants.

Besides those two times, every other attempt was snuffed out by what he believed to be the leader of the army. For the last ten attempts, the rocks he threw barely flew halfway toward the giants before being snuffed out by the fire. Realizing it was pointless to stay any further, he sped away. The giants themselves should be reaching the ramparts within an hour.

On his way back, he couldn't suppress the unease in his heart. Almost all his life, everything that he took part in was within his calculations, and all variables were accounted for and prepared against. However, right now, he was bitter. In front of that army, in front of that absolute power, his plans and schemes and preparations didn't matter. In truth, the only reason he even had people build the ramparts was just a show of force.

The only thing that he could rely on was that the giants couldn’t cross the river. But that was outside the scope of his control, and relying on external factors never allowed him to be calm. He didn’t know Sumnner’s attitude toward the Kindled, or toward the Illuminated even. That creature sounded entirely disillusioned with the world, and a part of its own reality, unperturbed by the external factors.

Even with Sumnner just staying to the side, Noah alone could think of several ways for giants to cross, and considering at least their leader was not a brute, it could probably think of a couple as well.

The ramparts quickly came into his view, and he saw figures lining along the top. However, none of them saw him as he was using the Dark to cloak himself completely. Without Light, he knew that he was virtually invisible to the naked eye as long as he didn’t touch anyone. He easily snuck back inside and saw Asandra and Olivia to the side, surrounded by several dozen guards who were looking around nervously. Again?

Noah frowned and shot out of the ramparts. The lumps inside of him suddenly reacted and pulled him to the right. Bolting by their direction, he reached the far edge of the wall, where he saw several figures cloaked in black chattering in low tones. Noah approached them fearlessly, stopping merely a few feet away, and listened in.

“… that red-haired bitch is the biggest problem,” one of them said. “Despite not even being an Illuminated, she’s still somehow able to sense me.”

“I can toss Cloak, but if I do, I’m afraid other Illuminated will sense it,” another figure said with a sigh. “Especially now that they are alert.”

“… should we just wait for the Kindled to attack and take advantage of the chaos?”

“What advantage? We’ll be lucky to survive ourselves,” one of them scoffed. “Master warned me that if we can’t accomplish this before the Invasion, we should just retreat and keep an eye out to any oddities and report them.”

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“Can we Diffuse the wall?” one of them stretched out his arm and pressed his hand against the curved wall that stretched almost into the river.

“Too big,” another shook his head. “Even if three of us combined all our remaining Charges, we’d at most crush half of it. It’s not worth it.”

“… we should wait a couple of hours until they relax and approach, but just observe for now.” By then, this wall will be fucking gone… Noah was disappointed that no names were dropped, but realizing that they stopped talking, he took action.

As silently as the softest of winds, he wound up behind the two that were facing the wall and with a swift movement snapped their necks within a second. By the time the third companion realized what was happening, there was a hand pressed against his mouth and another pushing him against the wall. Noah kneed the lower part of the man’s abdomen, the latter’s expression contorting in pain.

“Who sent you?” Noah asked, his tone muffled because he covered his face. It was best to be careful as he didn’t know the trickery of Light that was possible.

“You bas—” as soon as Noah moved his hand, he realized that the man was about to curse so he pressed his hand back down and kneed deeper, causing the man to scream. The scream remained muffled beneath Noah’s hand, and he saw sweat beginning to coalesce on the man’s forehead.

“Answer while I’m still being kind,” Noah said. “Who sent you?”

“…” the man remained silent for a moment this time around, but Noah knew that he wouldn’t be answering. Those eyes were too defiant. Without even letting him utter a word, Noah pressed his hand down once again, this time dropping his knee further, just above the man’s private parts, causing the latter’s eyes to almost implode.

"Who sent you?" Noah asked again, momentarily moving his hand, then pressing it back down. Using his other hand, Noah reached out toward man's limp, right arm, and suddenly jerked it up and above, dislocating the shoulder. Despite the muffled scream and the tears in the man's eyes, defiance persisted. They’re decently trained, he mused for a moment before he snapped the man’s arm down and suddenly used his other leg to break it right below the elbow. The man screamed again, trying to thrash around, but was quickly put under control. “Who sent you?” Noah asked again, noticing that besides the defiance, there was also a trace of terror.

“I-I-AAG—” the scream was cut short by Noah’s hand, while his free arm pressed against the dislocated shoulder. The sound of the creaking bones must have been like a nightmare to the man whose body began shaking, terror almost completely replacing the defiance.

“Who sent you?” Noah asked again, all the way through his tone remaining horribly calm and indifferent, as though he was doing the most ordinary thing in the world.

“… Q-Queen…” the man barely managed to stutter through his teeth. Noah’s complexion dropped as he snapped the man’s neck, killing him. Without wasting any more time, he rifled through the three corpses, but after finding nothing of note, he tossed them into the river.

His expression dropped even further as his gaze inadvertently moved toward north-west and Lumina’s capital city, Elucido. Something was happening, and something too big for him to have noticed. In the end, he was one man, and one man with too few chips to play. He’d focused his gaze entirely on the internal aspect of it all, yet still somehow missed this. The Queen? Noah had never met the Queen, much less interacted with her long enough to understand her temperament and character.

There was still a possibility that the man lied, but Noah doubted it. Though he had some training, he virtually had no control over his pain and easily let it alarm his brain completely. Whether it was the Queen or not, however, didn’t matter; this was going beyond the scope of needing to kill Olivia just because she took the spotlight. After all, this spotlight was just temporary, and though she would bask in it, so would many others later on. Did I miss something?

He went back through his memories, trying to locate whether there was a flaw in his plan or execution, or whether he'd missed some signs of this happening before Olivia held that speech. This was not a spur of the moment decision, that much he realized. No, it was better to say that it was a plan that was forced to be executed before it was fully realized; Olivia's speech was like tossing oil into the simmering flames. It forced whoever was behind this into the open preemptively and revealed the few flaws that were being displayed.

Sighing, he slowly began walking back toward where the group was. There was an undefeatable enemy in front of them, and an invisible one behind. Looks like chaos would have descended over Lumina with or without him, as he merely accelerated it. Forget about them for now, he thought, taking a deep breath. The first order of business is to ensure she gets to come back to Elucido to experience a completely new life…