Border of the Argus Kingdom, Fort Eldric.

It has been a month since hostilities heated up again with the Valorhelm Dominion and so far, the only action Baron Alden Ironcrest has seen were small squads of enemy scouts probing his fort defenses.

But all the same, defenses and guards have been doubled due to the successful assassination of Alden’s predecessor.

Now, there was not a corner leading to his bed or work chamber that was not watched, no place he did not go without a bodyguard, and no food or drink he ingested without a food taster sampling it first. And Alden was getting tired of it real fast.

But he knew it had to be done, so he sucked it up and carried on with his duty as those around him keeping him safe did.

It was night time and he was reading reports for the day’s activity, “Let's see what we got today… enemy scouts spotted and chased back into the woods. Raid on a caravan delivering us supplies successfully thwarted, caravan guard captain Takos suspects those who raided the caravan were professional soldiers and reported in his own words “Theys were too good at fightin to be bandits.””

When Alden was done with the reports and drafting some orders to be carried out, he leaned over his table and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Dammit, I should never have become a noble if it brought this much paperwork, at least back home I had my scribes to help me with all that. But now with the situation being so tense, I cannot just roughly glance over the reports, I need to double-check everything in case there are enemy troop movements I missed.” Alden vented to himself.

Soon after, he rested his head on the table and continued, “I would prefer if they just attacked already, anything is better than day after day of paperwork… now that I am a commanding officer myself, I forgive my old commanding officers for being cranky at us, I would have throttled the first recruit that stepped out of line myself if I had to do this much paperwork back then… I miss my family…”

As Alden was lamenting the monotony of military bureaucracy, there was a knock on his door. “Come in.”

One of his bodyguards peeked his head in and said, “Sir, a runner from central command for you, says it is for your eyes and ears only.”

Alden nodded and said, “Send him in.”

When the man stepped into his room, there was a nagging suspicion in the back of Alden’s mind. Sure, the man was slightly older than those he usually saw in the Messenger Corps, but it was the eyes of the man that set off alarm bells in his head.

‘Ok, let us not be over paranoid, he may have just had a bad day, and besides, he apparently has something important message from central command Alden thought to himself while adjusting the ceremonial knife at his waist before he stood up to receive the message.

The man handed him a wax-sealed parchment with the royal seal on it. “Sir, for your eyes only, and I await your reply for the message.”

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Alden broke the seal and unfurled it only to reveal a blank parchment, ‘What? Is this some kind of joke?’ He thought to himself.

It was then he noticed from his peripheral vision that the man jerked a bit and before he knew it, a dagger burst through the parchment and came towards his face.

Reacting on instinct, Alden bent his upper body backward while kicking the now assassin back with his left leg. The force of kicking the assassin made him fall backwards and he used the momentum to roll backward while activating his aura and drawing his ceremonial knife.

The moment Alden got back to his feet, the assassin was already rushing towards him with a second dagger drawn.

“ASSASSIN!!” Alden roared out with all his might while parrying a dagger strike and dodging a second strike from the assassin who also activated his own aura.

The moment Alden alerted everyone of the presence of an assassin, a few things happened at once. A few men who were everyone assumed to be menials suddenly started sprinting to different locations. The first man who was near the food storehouse took out a small glass bottle with a piece of cloth sticking out the top and lit the cloth with a nearby torch, then he proceeded to run forward and threw the now flaming bottle at the food storehouse.

When the bottle smashed against the building, the sticky liquid inside rapidly caught fire, and as much as the soldiers guarding the building wanted to chase the saboteur, putting out the fire was given first priority.

Around the fort, other acts of sabotage were also being carried out. There was an attempted poisoning of the water well, an attack on the mages’ quarters, and the gatehouse was also on fire.

As for Alden, the moment he called out the assassin, his 2 guards burst into the room, and the moment the assassin found himself surrounded, he decided the do a suicide attack to take out his target who was armed with only a knife.

As the assassin advanced toward him, Alden decided to do things in a very unknightly way and apply bar brawl tactics, which was to fight with whatever you had at hand. And at the moment, he was right beside his table with a stack of the accursed paperwork.

So as the assassin closed in, Alden grabbed the heavy wood table, his aura-powered fingers digging into the wood, and swung the table that was longer than he was tall at the assassin who was in mid-air while pouncing at him.

The table smashed the surprised assassin who thought he was still out of his opponent’s dagger range, the blow was so hard that the table turned into splinters and the assassin was sent flying into the wall.

The only thing that prevented the assassin from being a smear on the wall was his own aura, but his aura did not prevent the breath and sense from being knocked out of him.

Just as the assassin’s vision cleared up, an armored boot came to his face and snapped his head sideways, rattling his brain.

As he tried to recover, his arms and legs tried and failed to respond to his commands. At that moment, he knew he had failed his mission. The assassin then proceeded to maneuver a glass capsule from under his tongue to his molars and bit down.

By the time Alden’s bodyguards secured the assassin, foam was bubbling out of his mouth and his eyes rolled back. Within seconds, the assassin’s body went from spasming to limp.

“Shit! He killed himself.” Alden cursed and turned his attention to his balcony as he heard a lot of noise coming from outside.

When he reached his balcony, he noticed a few places on fire and people being restrained, the only words he afforded himself were “What the Fuck!?” before getting his shit together and barking out orders from his balcony.

***

Back at the Ironcrest mansion.

Luke and the men clad in black with daggers drawn were staring at each other for a few seconds before the five men burst into action.