Chapter 29: Twelve Thunder Javelins—and the Channel Goes Silent
[Regional Channel]
Most of the region was still discussing what came after the Hero Power Ranking.
At first, nobody noticed anything unusual.
Then the first system notice appeared.
[Announcement: Lord Darius Kelm was killed by Lord Cassian Vale.]
The channel stopped.
[Anonymous Lord: ?]
[Anonymous Lord: Darius? The one from the mine this morning?]
A second announcement appeared.
Then a third.
A fourth.
A fifth.
The names kept changing.
The killer did not.
Cassian Vale.
One after another, too fast for people to finish reading every name.
[Anonymous Lord: Wait.]
[Anonymous Lord: What’s happening?]
[Anonymous Lord: Weren’t these the people who left the mine together this afternoon?]
The channel went quiet again.
Another announcement.
Then another.
After more than a dozen, nobody even sent a question mark.
The Regional Channel went dead silent.
Elara’s private messages, however, arrived fast.
[Elara Vayne: Cassian?]
No reply.
A few seconds later:
[Elara Vayne: Where are you?]
Still nothing.
The battle in the valley was not over yet.
On the last stretch of high ground, three Lords were trying to break out with the remains of their forces.
Sigrid did not chase too far.
She stood at the top of the slope with her spear pointed forward.
Eira blocked the other side.
The remaining ten Stormlance were clearing out the Heroes and troops in the valley that were still fighting.
Less than a minute later, the final Lord trying to climb over the rock wall was knocked back down by lightning.
The valley finally went quiet.
There was no cheering.
Only the faint crackle of fading lightning and small stones rolling from the bodies of the Stoneburrow Archers in the distance.
Cassian looked around.
Darius’s shield lines were gone.
So were the ranged formations on the slopes.
Of the more than twenty Heroes, only a few could still stand properly.
Every Lord who had actually joined the encirclement and attacked after the exits were sealed had failed to escape.
Only then did Cassian open the private messages.
[Cassian Vale: I’m fine.]
Elara replied almost instantly.
[Elara Vayne: ...]
Two seconds later:
[Elara Vayne: You call this fine?]
Cassian looked across the valley.
"More or less."
He did not send that part.
He closed the call.
Now he could look at the mine.
He had taken only two steps toward the Gold Vein when the hawk overhead suddenly changed direction.
It stopped circling and flew northeast.
Sigrid saw it too.
"It’s leaving."
Cassian stopped.
"Yeah."
"Bring it down now?"
"Still no."
Sigrid looked at him.
Cassian raised one hand.
Cassian sent a new command through Pack Dominion.
The four Blackfang that had remained hidden outside all received it at once.
Follow.
Don’t pounce.
Find where it goes.
Cassian watched the hawk recede.
"Pack Dominion can send commands."
"But it can’t show me what the Blackfang see."
Sigrid understood only part of that.
"The hawk can?"
"It’s been watching us since we entered the valley."
Cassian said.
"If the thing behind it is some kind of shared-vision ability..."
He kept his eyes on the hawk.
"I want it."
"And I want to take it myself."
"Find the source first. If it belongs to the Hero, leave the last hit to me."
Sigrid turned her head.
It was the first time she had heard Cassian talk about an ability like that.
It wasn’t "useful."
It wasn’t "worth considering."
He wanted it.
"So that’s why you never touched the hawk."
"Killing the hawk is pointless."
Cassian looked toward the direction the four Blackfang had disappeared.
"Find the owner."
Three kilometers away, Teren Moss’s eyes snapped open.
The view through Shared Sight was pulling away at high speed.
The hawk had already left the stone valley, but as it passed over a low slope, Teren’s Rare Hero suddenly changed expression.
"Lord."
"What?"
"Below us."
Teren reconnected to the hawk’s vision.
In the darkness, four black shapes were moving across the ground.
They were not jumping for the hawk.
They were not spreading out.
They were simply following its flight path from below, never falling far behind.
A chill ran down Teren’s back.
"Blackfang..."
He had seen Cassian use them for scouting that afternoon.
Now they were following his hawk home.
Teren shot to his feet.
"Cut the vision."
The Rare Hero obeyed immediately.
The image vanished.
Teren did not relax.
He could cut the visual feed.
He could not erase the direction the hawk had already flown.
Only then did he understand.
Cassian had known someone was watching from the beginning.
Back in the stone valley, Cassian did not call the Blackfang back.
"Keep following."
The vein was behind him.
It was not going anywhere.
First, he was going to find the eyes behind that hawk.
------
The hawk flew northeast.
Four Blackfang stayed beneath it.
They did not leap for the bird. They did not make a sound. They simply kept moving through the slopes and broken stone below, following its flight path.
Pack Dominion sent Cassian the same kind of information it always did from a distance.
Direction.
Distance.
Target still moving.
Nothing more.
Cassian stood at the mouth of the stone valley and did not rush them.
Sigrid watched the hawk shrink into the darkness.
"Are we following?"
"Let the Blackfang check first."
"He already knows we’re tracking him."
Cassian pulled his gaze back from the night.
"Which is exactly why I’m not letting him choose the second battlefield for me."
Darius had just demonstrated how much it mattered to know where an enemy would come from.
Cassian had no intention of winning one fight on terrain he had already read, then charging into somebody else’s ground in the dark just because there was an ability he wanted.
He wanted Shared Sight.
That did not mean he had to take it tonight.
Three kilometers away, Teren Moss was already gone from the low forest where he had been hiding.
Falcon Warden followed close behind him, expression tight.
"They’re still under the hawk."
Teren did not slow down.
"Keep it going northeast."
Falcon Warden looked at him.
"And us?"
"West."
"You want to abandon the hawk?"
"It’s not an eye anymore."
Teren glanced back toward the dark ridge.
"It’s a marker."
If the hawk kept flying toward his real position, Cassian’s Blackfang would simply follow it home.
Teren and Falcon Warden cut into another rocky ravine.
The hawk continued northeast.
Fifteen minutes later, it crossed a stretch of bare gray stone and finally landed on a dead tree.
The four Blackfang stopped below it.
No Lord.
No camp.
No Falcon Warden.
Only the hawk.
The impressions reaching Cassian through Pack Dominion became hesitant.
Target here.
Person gone.
No new direction.
Cassian watched the messages for a few seconds and understood.
Sigrid saw it in his expression.
"He got away?"
"Yeah."
"What about the hawk?"
"Leave it."
That surprised her.
"Still?"
"Shared Sight isn’t in the hawk."
Cassian turned back toward the valley.
"And the bird isn’t useful anymore."
He had not gotten Shared Sight.
He had not found Teren either.
At least the man had done one thing right—he knew when to abandon a hawk.
Cassian remembered that.
Next time, following the eye would not be enough.
The Regional Channel still had not recovered from the string of death announcements.
The silence lasted for a while before someone finally spoke again.
[Anonymous Lord: How many of Darius’s group actually died?]
[Anonymous Lord: I only want to know one thing... Is Cassian going to start hunting Lords now?]
The channel went quiet for another beat.
Elara answered first.
[Elara Vayne: Darius was contacting people who lost money in the Hero Power wager this afternoon.]
[Elara Vayne: I warned Cassian before he went. The Gold Vein was real. So was the ambush.]
[Elara Vayne: If Cassian had lost tonight, his name would be the one in those death notices.]
Rowan followed almost immediately.
[Rowan Ashford: There’s an easier question.]
[Rowan Ashford: Why did all those death notices come in around the same time, near the same Gold Vein?]
[Rowan Ashford: Because they went there together. Cassian didn’t visit their Domains one by one and kill them.]
Someone sent an ellipsis.
Seraphine spoke after a short pause.
[Seraphine Valcrest: If someone starts treating other Lords as prey and clearing them one by one, I won’t defend him.]
[Seraphine Valcrest: Turning an ambush back on the people who set it is not the same thing.]
The mood in the channel slowly shifted after that.
Nobody kept asking whether Cassian planned to sweep through nearby Domains.
But nobody was treating an openly F-grade Domain as something they could casually test anymore either.
Cassian read the messages and said nothing.
They had explained enough.
He cared more about something else.
The Gold Vein was still at the bottom of the valley.
The Stoneburrow Archers were gone.
So were Darius’s prepared shield lines. Only broken shields and torn-up stone remained near the two entrances.
Cassian walked to the exposed golden layer and brushed loose grit from a crack in the rock.
Real gold ore.
The last missing material for Eclipse Muster Hall was right in front of him.
He opened a private channel.
[Cassian Vale: Bram.]
The answer came quickly.
[Bram Alder: Lord.]
[Cassian Vale: Bring a work crew at dawn. Have the Gloomhoof escort them.]
[Cassian Vale: Stop outside the valley first. Don’t come straight in.]
[Bram Alder: Understood.]
Cassian closed the channel.
This time, he actually had the mine.
At least until someone could put together a better force than Darius had, nobody nearby was going to rush back here and try again.
That night, six Stormlance guarded the entrances and high ground.
The other six stayed with Cassian.
The four Blackfang that had followed the hawk eventually returned to the valley as well.
No casualties.
Just not the Core Trait Cassian wanted.
Bram arrived after dawn with the workers.
The Gloomhoof escort circled both entrances first. Only after they confirmed that no new force was approaching did the workers enter the mining area.
Extraction was slow.
The first chunks of stone had to be pried loose, then the usable ore separated from the surrounding rock.
Cassian did not hurry them.
He stayed beside the worksite until the first small piece was finally recognized by the system.
[Obtained: Gold Ore ×1]
Another line appeared immediately.
[Eclipse Muster Hall]
[Gold Ore: 1/300]
Cassian looked at the one for two seconds.
Bram asked, "Send the first batch back to the Domain?"
"Yeah."
Cassian closed the panel.
"The first three hundred don’t go on the Regional Exchange."
Bram nodded.
This vein was not for selling.
At least, not the first part of it.
Cassian looked toward Sigrid.
"Take five and stay here."
"Guard the mine?"
"Guard the people."
Cassian glanced toward the slopes on both sides.
"The ore isn’t going anywhere. Lords and monsters might come to us."
Sigrid smiled.
"Understood."
Cassian prepared to return to Forgotten Shrine with Eira and five other Stormlance.
Before leaving, he looked northeast one more time.
Teren had escaped.
Shared Sight still belonged to someone else.
Cassian did not chase him again.
The eyes behind that hawk would remember him.
He would remember them too.
Behind him, the system had already changed Gold Ore from zero to one.
At least one thing was finally becoming his.