Rella moved through the alleys of the inner city, her senses alert for any threats. She was to meet with the other Blackhoods, and it would be catastrophic if the Shadow followed her. She was confident that three Blackhoods were enough to repel the young Ascendant, but the risk was high that one of them would fall.
No matter how young, Ascendants were still Ascendants, and it would be folly to underestimate one.
Rella soon arrived at a nondescript building on a remote street. As far as buildings in the inner city went, the meeting place was modest. It was a two-story building with a small watch repair shop on the first floor and private rooms on the second. The designs were not too gaudy, but its clean white walls gave it a decent appearance.
A watchmaker was lounging behind the counter, and upon Rella's entrance, he quickly nodded in her direction. “They are waiting upstairs.”
The watchmaker adjusted the time of a static wall clock to 12:00. A click resounded and a section of the wall parted to reveal a hidden set of stairs that led to the second floor.
Rella nodded at the watchmaker and quickly made her way to the sole room on the second floor. Upon entering, the hairs on the back of her neck rose as she felt several enchantments on the doorway scan her person. Despite having passed here several times in the past, Rella still shivered at the thought of the enchantments malfunctioning and treating her as an intruder.
Even she wouldn't escape the defensive enchantments in this room unscathed.
“You sure took your time,” a raspy voice said. It came from a cloaked figure seated at the table in the center of the room, his back hunched and his face covered by the shadows of his black hood.
Rella snorted at Blackhood Razar. “Unlike you, I take my responsibilities more seriously and make sure they are done perfectly.”
“I presume your tardiness is justified?” a deep voice asked. It came from the other Blackhood seated at the table.
“It is, sir,” Rella replied with more respect. After all, she was talking to the Hooded Man, the leader of the entire syndicate. “I am glad to report that I managed to add a powerful mage to our ranks. He could be added to our hidden aces once we make our move.”
“How sure are you that this mage could be trusted?” Razar asked with doubt.
“I hold his companions hostage. He will not make a move against me,” Rella answered curtly as she sat on her seat.
“Pah, holding hostages is not a reliable way of ensuring obedience,” Razar said. “It would be better if—”
“No, I'm not turning my mage into an undead,” Rella said flatly.
“Then you are a fool. Undead minions follow orders from their master with absolute loyalty! Why entertain the risk of betrayal when you can have obedient servants instead?” Razar exclaimed.
“When you say their ‘master's orders,’ you mean your orders?” Rella scoffed. “No thank you. I'm not entrusting my asset to a necrophiliac like you.”
“Why, you little—”
“Enough.” Rella and Razar instantly shut up as the Hooded Man spoke. “We have no time for your childish squabbles. We are already late as it is. The Governor has given us an ultimatum that would be a hindrance to our plans.”
“That lusty old fool thinks he can threaten us?” Razar said with a laugh.
“What's the ultimatum?” Rella asked.
“To submit under his control or be purged from the city,” the Hooded Man said.
Rella and Razar laughed at the ultimatum.
“What's he gonna do? Send his corrupt guards against us?” Rella asked with mirth.
“I sure hope so,” Razar adds. “I wouldn't say no to more corpses I could use.”
“Do not be complacent,” the Hooded Man said, shutting up the two Blackhoods for the second time. “The Governor and his guards are of no threat to us, but they are a threat to our plans. A messenger bearing His Imperial Majesty the Emperor's orders had arrived yesterday. We are to make sure that the Edrian army loses when they clash with the Ocranian army.”
“Doesn't that defeat our purpose?” Razar asked dubiously. “I thought we were sent by the Emperor to this backward kingdom to assist it against Ocrana?”
“We do not. Question. The Emperor.”
The room turned glacially silent as the Hooded Man stared down Razar. Both of the men's faces were obscured by their hoods, but Rella could tell the old necromancer was starting to regret his choice of words.
“M-My apologies, sir,” Razar stuttered.
The Hooded Man returns to the topic at hand as if nothing happened. “Our new orders require us to travel north, to the border. This means we'll have to finish all agendas in this city before we leave. The Governor's ultimatum threatens to delay our departure, which is unacceptable.”
“Couldn't we abandon this city, sir?” Rella asked hesitantly. “Surely His Imperial Majesty's orders are more important than Halros.”
“You are correct, Rella. But our foothold in this city is too important to lose,” the Hooded Man replied. “Our operations in this kingdom do not end in sabotaging its army. The Emperor desires Edria's demise, and this cannot be done in a few months. It would take years to slowly crumble the kingdom from the inside, and this is our job. We would not be able to do that job if we lose our hold over this city. We lose Halros, and we lose our control over the entire syndicate we worked hard to build from scratch.”
Rella nodded in understanding. They've been sent here by the Empire to destabilize Edria, and they've been doing it for years by building a syndicate called the Hoods. With their reach and influence strengthened over the years, the Hoods could continuously weaken the kingdom until the time the Empire decided to invade.
But with Halros acting as the Hoods' seat of power, they would lose most of their control of the syndicate if they were to be purged from the city.
It was unacceptable.
“The Governor has proven to be an obstacle to our purpose,” the Hooded Man said with finality. “Rella. I want you to kill the Governor. Make sure his death doesn't point to us if an investigation is done.”
Rella grinned widely. “You can leave it to me, sir.”
“Razar, I want you to—”
The Hooded Man was interrupted as someone knocked on the door. A moment later, the door opened and the head of the watchmaker peeked in, his features twisted in panic.
“S-Sir! There's been an emergency!”
“Out with it,” the Hooded Man said with annoyance.
“The revolution has started! The rebels are sieging the gates of the inner city as we speak,” the watchmaker exclaimed. “One of our messengers also arrived and said the Hartman Headquarters fell to traitors led by a person named Fang!”
There was a momentary silence before it was broken by Rella's shout. “What did you say?!”
“T-The Hartman Headquarters fell by the hands of Fang, ma'am.”
“Who is this ‘Fang’ person?” the Hooded Man asked, his voice still calm. If he felt disturbed by the news, he showed no outward signs.
“He's one of our Purplehoods, sir. He was the one who tipped me off about moles in our ranks more than a month ago,” Rella replied while seething.
“So you're saying you got fooled by him, then?” Razar asked with a cackle. “I bet those ‘moles’ he told you about were the most loyal to our cause.”
Rella glared at the old man. “No, the ones I weeded out were actual spies. They worked for the Shadow. It seems Fang used us to get rid of them before he made his move. He must've rallied the other gangs against us.”
“U-Uhh, that's not all, ma'am,” the watchmaker said hesitantly. “We've also received reports that a powerful mage was part of Fang's forces that assaulted the headquarters.”
Rella's face fell at the realization, but she still asked for clarification in hopes that she was wrong. “What did the mage look like?”
“They said it was a masked mage, ma'am.”
●●●
Rella jumped from rooftop to rooftop as she rushed towards the Governor's Palace. The inner city was currently in chaos as the affluent citizens hurried to get back home, but Rella didn't register it as she stewed in anger. That damn Mr. Marion. I swear I'll rip his companions piece by piece in front of him when I'm done with my task. Just you wait.
After listening to the watchmaker's report, the Hooded Man had quickly given them new orders. Razar would be reclaiming the Hartman Headquarters while Rella would assassinate the Governor amid the revolution to avoid suspicions from falling on them.
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Rella had pleaded with the Hooded Man that she be given the task of retaking the Hartman Headquarters just so she could retaliate against the damnable Mr. Marion, but she had been strictly refused.
She and Razar were assigned their tasks according to their skill sets to ensure maximum chances of success. Razar's abilities were more effective at large-scale combat while Rella's skills were appropriate for clandestine missions and assassinations. Swapping their tasks would lead to higher chances of failure, and Rella understood that.
But that didn't mean she liked it.
Alas, she had no choice but to obey the Hooded Man. In this primitive kingdom outside of the Empire, his word was law, and she was to obey.
Soon, the Governor's Palace started to come into view. Calling it a ‘palace’ was apt because that was exactly what it looked like: towering spires surrounded a large building that rivaled the huge cathedrals back in the Empire in terms of beauty.
The Governor's Palace reflected Gellius' personality. He loved showcasing his wealth and preferred form over function, as can be seen through his palace's features. The palace could easily be considered a tourist destination with its aesthetics, but in terms of defenses, the Governor's Palace was lacking. The Governor never expected his abode to be attacked by an angry mob.
At least he made my job easier, Rella thought as she jumped down a secluded alley that contained a concealed entrance into the palace. It was supposedly a secret exit in case the Governor needed to stealthily leave his own home due to a threat, but Rella had learned of its existence thanks to a few chatty maids who accepted a few meager gold in exchange for the information.
Rella walked over to the end of the alley where a large tile looked suspiciously loose. She looked at the other end of the alley to make sure that she was alone. When she was confident there was nobody around, Rella lifted the tile.
She was wrong. She was not alone.
Rella's caution was the only thing that saved her life as a dozen spikes made of shadows emerged from the dark tunnel underneath the tile. With an almost-instantaneous reaction time, Rella jumped back and drew her dagger at the same time, slashing at the spikes.
The metal blade passed through the shadow spikes harmlessly as if they were mirages, but when they stabbed through Rella's arms in a shower of blood, she knew they were no simple illusions. To make things worse, she wasn't in a position to dodge.
The pain was debilitating, but years of the Empire's brutal training helped her gather enough focus to use her wounded arm as a desperate shield to block the spikes aimed at her torso.
Rella screamed in agony as she maneuvered her arm to block the sharp shadows coming from multiple directions. Spike after spike of shadows gored her left arm without mercy, stabbing through muscle and grinding bone.
By the time Rella blocked all the spikes, her left arm was now nothing more than a pile of ravaged flesh hanging limp from her shoulder, blood dripping down it in crimson rivulets.
“I didn't expect you to survive that trap,” a voice echoed from the shadows within the secret exit. “It was supposed to kill you outright, or if it failed, to at least disable you. To lose only an arm is quite a feat. It seems I made the right decision to target you first instead of that lunatic necromancer. With your capabilities, leaving you alone would be disastrous.”
Rella glared at the tunnel as she tried her best to keep conscious. The pain from her ravaged arm was more than she could bear, and the blood loss only contributed to her lightheadedness. With her augmented body, she would be able to keep fighting for a few more minutes, but blood loss would eventually claim her if the Shadow didn't get to her first.
She had to retreat.
Rella could start running right now, but she knew the Shadow wasn't so dumb as to set only a single trap for a person of her caliber. Something was sure to follow up, and Rella was confident it would appear the moment she ran. She had to wait for a chance.
“I'm flattered by your compliments, Shadow, but if you think it'd make me surrender, then you're just wasting your time,” Rella said as she warily watched the tunnel. “If you want to take me out, you'll have to face me head on.”
“It would be easier for you and me if you surrendered, but I guess that's too hopeful,” the Shadow replied. “And you're wrong. I don't have to face you to win, Blackhood Rella. It's not me who's losing precious blood every second, am I?”
Rella inwardly cursed. The Shadow had easily seen through her ploy. Rella had intended to draw the Shadow out to get things moving. Things might end up putting her in an even worse situation, but at least there was a chance she could escape. Letting things go on as they were would only end up with her dying of blood loss.
But it seems the Shadow was content to wait, forcing Rella to make the first move and probably spring the second trap along the way.
Rella had no choice. She was not afraid of dying, but she'll be damned if she croaked from blood loss instead of a glorious battle.
Rella clenched her jaw as she prepared herself, then with grim determination, her right arm blurred as she used her dagger to cut off her ravaged arm at the shoulder.
Rella held in her whimper as pain bloomed on the stump of her shoulder, but she fought through the pain and quickly bandaged her wound, her eyes glued on the tunnel for any movement.
“Decisive, are we?” the Shadow said nonchalantly as if she was commenting about the weather. “It takes a lot of determination to cut off one's own limb. I'm impressed.”
Rella growled at the condescension of the Shadow's comments and steadied her breathing. Her ravaged and brutalized arm was beyond healing anyway, so she cut it off to decrease her burden. A stump of a shoulder was less painful than an entire arm completely ravaged, and a limp and broken arm would only make fighting more difficult.
“You'll regret ever crossing me, Shadow,” Rella said darkly. She retrieved a small vial from a hidden pocket and slathered its contents on the stump of her arm, not quite healing the wound but stopping the bleeding at the least, before starting her retreat.
The Shadow simply laughed. “That's if you escape alive.”
Instead of going for the sole exit at the mouth of the alley where a trap was most probably waiting for her, Rella opted to jump between the walls of the alley and retreat from the area through the rooftops, where her escape wouldn't be limited by walls and buildings.
Despite her grievous wound, Rella jumped between the walls with ease, all while keeping an eye on the tunnel. The Shadow would inevitably emerge from it to pursue her.
But even when Rella was almost to the rooftops, nobody emerged from the secret entrance, planting a sense of foreboding in her heart.
When Rella reached the rooftops, her foreboding turned into horror as a lone woman was waiting for her. Her face was hooded and masked, revealing only her dark eyes that seemed to suck all the light like twin voids. She was of average height, but it didn't reduce the danger the woman exhibited.
Nobody knew what the Shadow looked like. Not because of her hood and mask, but because she only appeared to those who were designated for death. Nobody lived to ever tell the tale.
Before Rella could start leaping from rooftop to rooftop, the Shadow lunged, the shadows around her seeming to twist and coil as she brought to bear twin daggers with short blades as black as the night.
Fueled by adrenaline and desperation, Rella tried her best to hold back the Shadow's advance, but with only a single arm to block and parry with, she steadily lost ground in the face of the Shadow's dual-wield battle style.
Even in her precarious situation, Rella admired the Shadow's movements as her opponent displayed technique far more advanced than her own. The Shadow's body moved elegantly as if she was dancing, and the technical precision with which she performed techniques rivaled that of a swordmaster.
The Shadow was an extremely powerful duelist, but that didn't mean Rella was pushed back easily.
The Shadow may be a superior combatant, but Rella was not a mundane soldier. The loss of her left arm greatly reduced her prowess, but the intense training she'd endured as an imperial spy didn't allow her to fall instantly.
The Shadow's initial push started to slow down as Rella became more accustomed to her opponent's style. Where the Shadow focused on fluid and practiced motions, Rella's style specialized in adapting to an opponent's technique.
An Imperial spy must be ready to adapt to any situation.
In exchange for receiving a plethora of wounds on her body, Rella patiently analyzed her opponent and started to see a pattern in the Shadow's movements. Her opponent's dance was elegant, but there were lulls in the Shadow's strikes at constant intervals.
Rella silently weathered attack after attack, her body starting to become a blood-covered wreck, until her opportunity finally came. The Shadow's next strike would put her in a slightly disadvantageous position, which would cause a lull in her constant attacks. Rella activated her martial skill.
Unrestricted Flow
Any sort of rigidity in Rella's body disappeared as she became as flexible and flowing as water. Her body contorted at impossible angles as she dodged the Shadow's strike, surprising her opponent.
A small opening appeared in the Shadow's defenses for the barest of moments and Rella took advantage of it without hesitation. Her one remaining arm slithered and wrapped around the Shadow's left arm like a snake and restricted it, while her dagger aimed for her opponent's neck.
The Shadow used her other arm to block the dagger and a loud keening sound echoed through the air as the blade impacted a bracer on the Shadow's forearm.
Rella didn't despair despite the failed attack. It was only a distraction after all, and with both of the Shadow's arms occupied, Rella closed her eyes and held her breath as she activated another of her martial skills.
Shrouding Mist
Her mana surged into small vials that were concealed all over Rella's body, which shattered as the liquids inside them rapidly expanded into vapors. A colorful, toxic haze immediately covered the forms of the two combatants. The air sizzled as the various chemicals from the vials mixed into volatile compounds.
Both Rella and the Shadow screamed in pain as their skin blistered from the potent poisons that scattered in the air. As if they agreed upon it beforehand, both quickly disengaged to escape the poisonous mist.
While the Shadow screamed in agony and hurried to empty a flask of water over her body, Rella took advantage of the opportunity to make her escape.
Compared to the Shadow, Rella obtained relatively fewer injuries from her own attack since she prepared for it, but she didn't escape unscathed. Even if she held her breath and closed her eyes to keep the poisons out of her body, she still sustained extreme damage from her attack. Her skin and lips were blistering and swelling, and her beautiful glossy hair was withering and falling in clumps.
The once-beautiful woman was now nothing more than a shadow of her former glory, but Rella didn't regret it. Without her quick thinking, she would have met her end eventually.
Her martial skill, Shrouding Mist, was supposed to be used as a concealing method to mask the user's movements and disorient the enemy. But instead of using normal water, desperation forced Rella to use the various powerful poisons she used for assassination as a last resort to create an opportunity to escape.
The price was disfigurement, but in exchange for survival, it was worth it.
Rella's body felt weak, but she pushed herself towards the Hartman Company where Razar could aid her and keep the Shadow at bay long enough for them to escape.
Rella had no delusions that her poison mist permanently halted the Shadow's pursuit. It would take more than that to stop an Ascendant.
Rella even felt some disbelief at her successful escape from the Shadow, although she knew that the only reason she wasn't thrashed one-sidedly was the fact that the battle occurred on the rooftops where the setting sun banished most of the shadows that could have been used by her opponent. If they continued to fight in the dark alleys, Rella doubted she'd last a few minutes.
Soon, Rella neared the Hartman Headquarters and felt her heart drop at the sight. The building was smoking and in ruins, and the plaza around it was littered with dozens of corpses, most of them she recognized as Razar's undead minions. There was no movement in the area.
Just when Rella thought that the Headquarters was completely wiped out, a thug peeked from the main entrance of the building and waved at her.
With a sigh of relief, Rella approached the Headquarters.
●●●
One minute after Rella left Mr. Marion at Dagula's
It always amazes me how threads could symbolize so many things. We take the little strings of fibers for granted and only look at them for what they are and the purpose they serve. For most, they are simply nothing but materials to be used for creating garments to cover the shameful sight of the human anatomy.
“Aaaahhh, aaaaahhhh.”
It takes a refined and advanced mind to truly begin to understand the revelations hiding beneath the simple threads we spin and weave to clothe our bodies.
“Aaahh, eehh, eehhh.”
For instance, a thread could be seen as a representation of man. The chaotic and randomized jumble of fibers that make up a thread may be compared to a human's DNA. No two threads may have the same arrangement of fibers that make it, just like how each human has its own sequence of DNA that distinguishes them from their fellows. Thus, each thread has its own identity.
“Aaa, eee, iii, ooo, uuu.”
A newly-made thread is just like a babe, and it ages the same way. The passage of time and the harshness of the world causes it to chafe and fray until inevitably, it snaps from damage or unravels from age. This is especially so if the thread stands on its own.
“Laaah, lalalaaaah.”
So just like man, a thread is weak and flimsy if it exists on its own. But what if it exists with other threads? A bundle of threads becomes harder to cut and becomes stronger than the sum of its parts.
“Aaa, aaay, aaayy.”
What more if the threads are weaved together into a garment? Not only do they become vastly stronger, but the threads are also weaved with precise organization and with a set pattern. And when finished, the garment is no longer just a bundle of threads, but a single creation that represents the whole. A society of threads.
“Ayy, emm. Ay, em. Ay em.”
The numerous designs of clothing are comparable to the variety of human societies that exist. Each has its own quirks and styles. Their own strengths. Their own weaknesses.
“Ay. em.”
But no matter their traits, no matter their characteristics, clothes are clothes. They are still made of threads. No matter how much a ball gown may claim itself as the most elegant, how much a thick cotton winter jacket calls itself the warmest, or how much a clown costume calls itself the goofiest, all of them are clothes. All of them are made of threads.
And I control them all.
“Ay. Em. Taloress,” my puppet said beside me. “Ay em, Talores. Ay em Taloress. I. Am. Taloress.”
“Congratulations, Taloress,” I said as I faced her. “You can now speak.”
“Yes. Master. I. Am. Glad,” Taloress said haltingly.
“Shut the fuck up!” one of the guards in the room shouted. “I've had it with your gibberish. What are you, seven? Shut up and wait quietly until we get the signal to leave.”
“Rood,” Taloress said before turning to me. “Kill?”
The guards watching us suddenly turned apprehensive at Taloress' question.
“Be careful with what you say, bitch,” the guard growled.
“I'm afraid you can't, Taloress,” I said. “I still have a use for them.”
The guard turned his glare to me. “What are you— GAAAAAHHHH!”
The guard didn't get to finish as he shouted in agony while trying to pull a serpentine mass of thread digging into his nape. No matter how hard he pulled, the serpent continued going inside his neck in a mess of blood.
The other guards drew swords and truncheons before charging at me, but they were forcefully stopped as more serpents that I sneaked into their clothes earlier slithered up their bodies and started digging into their necks as well.
With my fabric sense, I marveled at my new power.
The serpents, or should I say parasites, didn't keep their snake-like form once they entered the bodies. The moment they dug into the guards' flesh, they unraveled into countless tendrils of thread that spread throughout their bodies, but the way they spread wasn't random. The tendrils of thread started at the guards' brain stem and slowly followed the contours of their nervous system until they encompassed it completely.
By the time the parasite finished taking over the first guard's nervous system, I took control of him.
The first guard slowly stood up, although his movements were inhuman. His limbs would jerk and spasm as I tried to exert control over him, and when I tried making him walk across the room, I heard the sounds of ripping flesh and muscles. It seems it is harder to control a real human body compared to a puppet.
The procedure was extremely painful for the guard, and I knew this because the parasite only managed to take control of his body starting from the neck down. He could not emit a sound, but the guard could still control his facial expressions, and his face was contorted into one of agony while his skin slowly turned purple. Foam was gathering in his mouth.
“Ah, I forgot to make him breathe.”
I manipulated his diaphragm muscles to make him breathe, but despite my attempts, the guard died a few moments later.
“Why did he die?” I wondered.
For the next few minutes, I closely analyzed the other guards as my parasites took over their bodies. Most of them died of asphyxiation as I practiced making them breathe, but towards the end, they still perished even though I got the mechanics on how to make them breathe.
“Oh,” I muttered. “I need to make their hearts beat.”
It was unfortunate, but I had plenty of time to train my new abilities. A small corner of my mind was saying that something was wrong. That I was going on a path of no return.
I ignored it as I marveled at the power rushing through my body. I have urgent things to do.
“Come, Taloress. We have a woman to kill and companions to save.”
“Yes. Master.” Taloress said with a strong feeling of joy at the fact that she could speak now.
I manipulate one of my parasitized guards, which I will now call ‘marionettes,’ to open the door. My control was abysmal and took the marionette half a minute to twist the doorknob, but all in due time.
The door opened and two more guards were slumped on the ground outside, both of which I parasitized earlier as well. I made them stand up and join the rest of the jerking marionettes behind me.
With my new soldiers, I started my trip to the Hartman Headquarters.