Chapter 98: Welcome to Malgrath Vince
The inn Vince picked was a sprawling, rough-hewn stone building near the edge of the market district.
It was one of the few places in Malgrath built to accommodate non-human travelers of unusual sizes. After paying the innkeeper a handful of silver coins, they were led to a massive, reinforced suite on the top floor. A large portion of the timber roof had been entirely cleared away, leaving an open-air balcony under the stars designed specifically for larger beast-kin and dragonkin like Vetra.
Vetra stretched her arms wide, her dark dragon tail swaying happily in the evening breeze as she took in the view of the city skyline. "Now this is luxury," she grunted, tossing her heavy body into the corner. "A bed with an open sky."
Lyrielle set her things against the wall, casting a quick refreshing ward over the room to cleanse the dust of the road. "It’s surprisingly clean for a city of outlaws."
Vince didn’t answer immediately. He sat on the edge of the heavy wooden bed, pulling up his sleek, purple-glowing system interface. His finger hovered over the settings menu, about to switch his active combat skills to passive for the night to let his body rest.
Ping.
Just as his finger was about to press the prompt, his passive perception flared.
The familiar, bitter mana signature from before rippled through the cold air outside—faint, unrefined, and suffocatingly desperate. Vince paused. He closed the system menu with a flick of his wrist, the purple light dissolving into thin air as he stood up.
"I’m stepping out for a bit," Vince said smoothly, pulling his dark cloak back over his shoulders.
Lyrielle frowned slightly, looking up from her spellbook.
"Now? Night is falling, Vince. The city streets are already dangerous."
"Don’t wait up for me," Vince replied, giving her a reassuring nod as he stepped toward the door.
"Get some sleep. Both of you."
Vetra waved a lazy hand from the open roof section. "Don’t go starting a war without me!"
Vince slipped out of the inn’s side entrance into the dim, neon-lit fog of Malgrath’s narrow thoroughfares. The street was relatively quiet, lit only by flickering alchemical streetlamps that cast long, distorted shadows against the iron-plated buildings.
Standing under a broken lamp post a few dozen yards down the street was a figure wrapped tightly in a heavy, dark-hooded cloak.
The moment Vince’s boots hit the cobblestones, the hooded figure flinched. The person turned on their heel and immediately began walking away, heading deeper into the twisting residential alleys.
Vince watched the figure walk with a faint, amused smirk playing on his lips. The movement was so deliberate, so unnaturally obvious, that it practically screamed suspicious. Anyone with a grain of tactical awareness would have smelled a trap from a mile away.
Who travels all the way into Malgrath just to stand outside an Inn door? Vince thought, hands resting casually in his cloak pockets as he fell into step behind the figure.
The cloaked stranger picked up the pace, taking a sharp left into a narrow, dead-end alleyway bounded by towering basalt walls. Vince didn’t even bother slowing down.
The moment the figure stepped into the dead end and turned around, Vince vanished.
A quiet ripple of displaced kinetic force echoed through the alley. In a fraction of a second, Vince materialized directly in front of the hooded figure, blocking the only exit with total, effortless dominance.
"You’re not very subtle," Vince purred smoothly.
Before the figure could react, Vince reached out, grabbing the edge of the hood and yanking it back.
The flickering light revealed a pale, sweat-drenched face with hollow eyes and trembling lips.
Vince raised an eyebrow, a genuinely surprised laugh escaping his throat. "Well, well... Vice Principal Alden. I certainly didn’t expect to find Oakhaven’s finest crawling through the gutters of a lawless city."
Alden’s jaw quivered, his face contorting into a violent, ugly mask of pure hatred. "Vince..." he spat, his voice trembling with a terrifying mixture of rage and humiliation. "You arrogant, magicless bastard!"
"What brings you all the way out here, Alden?" Vince asked, leaning back against the cold stone wall, his tone dripping with quiet mockery. "Did the Dukes strip your title after I broke your precious academy? Or did you just miss the sound of my voice?"
"Shut up!" Alden screamed, his hand flying to his waist. He drew a glowing spell-blade, the steel pulsing with an erratic, desperate surge of flame mana. "You ruined everything! My standing! My legacy! My life!"
Alden lunged forward with a sloppy, uncoordinated thrust.
Vince didn’t even draw a weapon. He simply tilted his head two inches to the left, letting the burning blade slide harmlessly past his ear. With a quick, effortless flick of his wrist, Vince struck Alden’s wrist, sending the spell-blade clattering to the wet cobblestones.
Alden fell to his knees, clutching his bruised arm and gasping for air, staring up at Vince with pure malice.
Vince looked down at the pathetic, broken man, thoroughly enjoying the sheer gratification of watching his former superior squirm in the mud. He soaked in the sight of Alden’s helpless rage, a cold, dark satisfaction washing over him.
He really thought he could hunt me down himself, Vince thought, a cruel smirk spreading across his face.
He was so caught up in the sadistic pleasure of watching the feeble Vice Principal break that he didn’t notice the sudden, unnatural silence that fell over the alley.
The faint ambient noise of the city vanished. The draft carrying the smell of forge-smoke stopped dead.
The spatial air pressure above the alley dropped drastically.
By the time Vince’s perception screamed at him that something was wrong, shadow-mana was already pooling like black ink across the cobblestones at his feet.
CREAK.
High above on the surrounding rooftops, five distinct silhouettes blocked out the moonlight.
"You really are a sadistic one, Vince," a familiar, slick voice purred from the darkness above.
Vince snapped his head up, his purple eyes narrowing as Vesper stepped out onto a high iron rafter, casually flipping his blood-red coin.
Beside Vesper, Brian rested his giant war-cleaver over his bare shoulder. Sara slid her twin rapiers from their scaths with a sharp CLINK. Kira perched on the ledge with a handful of explosive vials, grinning wildly, while Gideon’s massive armored frame loomed like an unstoppable stone wall in the narrow exit behind them.
Vince looked from the surrounding Death Crows down to Alden, who was now grinning through his bloody teeth on the floor.
"You didn’t come here to kill me," Vince murmured softly, realizing the full scope of the play.
Alden cackled pathetically, wiping blood from his mouth. "I was just the meat on the hook!"
Vesper dropped down from the rafter, landing with terrifying grace right between Vince and the alley exit.
"Welcome to Malgrath, Vince," Vesper smiled, his dark bat tattoo pulsing with a lethal crimson glow.