Schedule:
• All platforms: 1 chapter every 2 days
• Patreon: 1 chapter per day (15–20 chapters ahead)
If you'd like to read ahead and support the story, feel free to join Patreon. Thank you so much! 🙏
Link
https://patreon.com/Thanarit?utm_medium=unknown&utm_source=join_link&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=copyLink
The rain had not let up.
Ren walked with the two children along the highway shoulder. No vehicles slowed. He was wearing leather armor under the dark hood, the white mask making him the strangest thing on the road, which was saying something given the weather.
Lily was eight and had been carrying her own bag since they left the warehouse without complaint. Martinez was ten and had appointed himself her assistant despite being roughly the same size, which meant he carried half her bag and all of his own and pretended this was not an effort.
"Big brother," Lily said, "where are we going."
"Border," Ren said. "Eventually."
"How far is eventually."
"Far enough that we need somewhere to sleep first."
She considered this. "Is that place we're going to safe?"
"I'll make it safe."
She accepted this without further questions, which was more than most adults managed.
Ahead, the orange glow of a gas station sign appeared through the rain. The station was dark, pumps switched off, closed long enough that the lights inside were someone else's entirely.
Three men were sheltering under the forecourt awning. Business suits, all of them, good quality and completely impractical for the weather and whatever had brought them to a derelict gas station on the border road at night. No car visible. They were not here by choice.
Ren noted this, nodded at the three men when they looked up, and found a dry patch of concrete near the far wall to set his bag down.
The men nodded back. Two of them clocked the white mask and looked elsewhere, a quick decision made without discussion. The third was older, carrying a practiced stillness that people in dangerous occupations develop over years, and he held his gaze for a moment before nodding again.
Ren set the revolver on the ground beside him where they could all see it. Then he opened his bag and produced two packets of dry ration.
"Here," he said to Lily and Martinez.
Martinez opened his immediately. Lily looked at the packaging for a moment before opening hers. They ate.
"Big brother," Martinez said, mouth half full, "why are those men wearing suits in the rain."
"Martinez," Ren said.
"Yeah."
"Don't comment on people sitting right there."
Martinez looked at the three men, who were clearly within earshot. "Oh." He looked back at his ration. "Sorry."
The older man smiled. "Children are refreshingly direct," he said, in accented Azareth Imperial.
"They are," Ren said, and left it there.
A pause. The rain on the awning was loud.
"I am Viktor Cil," the man said. "These are my associates."
The two beside him nodded. Suits like Viktor's, bodyguards from their posture.
"We don't want trouble," Ren said. "With anyone."
Viktor smiled again. "Neither do we." He looked at the mask, curious rather than alarmed, as if he had decided which one to be and committed to it. "You are heading for the border?"
"Eventually."
"As are we."
They left it at that. Viktor and his men settled back against the wall. Ren fed Lily the second half of his ration when she ran out of her own and pretended not to notice her noticing.
"Big brother," Lily said quietly, "I think they're hiding from someone."
"Probably," Ren said.
"Should we be worried."
"Not yet."
She looked at the three men, then back at Ren. "You're very calm about things."
"It's a professional habit."
Martinez looked up from his empty packet. "What's your profession."
"Doctor."
Martinez looked at the mask. "You don't look like a doctor."
"I know."
.
.
.
The hooded figures came in from the road, six of them, hoods pulled against the rain. They filed under the awning and one of them saw Ren and the mask and the revolver on the ground and steered the group to the opposite end of the forecourt without discussion.
Then they saw Viktor Cil.
Viktor's face went still. His two bodyguards stood simultaneously.
Two of the hooded figures produced crossbows. The first bolt was already moving before the bodyguards completed the motion.
The guard on the left stepped forward and activated a barrier skill, a shimmer of mana that stopped both bolts mid-air. His hand went to his holster.
A third hooded figure came in low and fast, a sword already out. The barrier caught the first strike, sparked, and shattered. The sword came through on the second pass and the guard's gun was still clearing leather when his head left his shoulders.
The second guard fired twice. Both shots found targets. Two of the hooded figures dropped. The remaining four converged on him and he went down under them, the gun still in his hand.
Three of those four turned toward Viktor. The fourth pressed a gun to his chest.
Viktor stepped back against the wall, both bodyguards down.
The fourth pressed a gun to Viktor's chest. He did not look away from him while the other three spread out across the forecourt.
"Viktor Qin," he said. "Younger brother of Qin Huanglong, Emperor of Qintara. Sent to gather intelligence inside the Azareth Empire. Your crime is espionage and your sentence is execution."
Viktor's jaw was set. He said nothing.
"You won't"
Two shots.
The two figures flanking Viktor dropped, two clean shots from across the forecourt.
The one holding the gun to Viktor's chest spun toward the sound. The fourth was already moving from the left.
Something small caught the light for half a second.
The scalpel took the nearest one through the heart. A second followed before the last figure completed his turn, entering at the same angle. Both went down within three seconds of each other.
Viktor Qin stood against the wall breathing hard.
He looked at Ren, who was standing three meters away with his arm still extended, one tentacle retracting into his coat.
"Thank you," Viktor said. He said it again. "I don't know who you are, but thank you."
Ren looked at him for a moment. Then he looked at the corner where Lily and Martinez had been sitting.
Empty.
Good.
"Don't thank me yet," Ren said.
Viktor felt the sting at the back of his neck before he identified it as a syringe. His hand came up to pull it out and found nothing to grip because his hand had already stopped working. His legs followed. He went down in controlled stages, seated against the wall, completely aware of every moment of it.
The red mist poured from the figure's coat and spread across the forecourt, curling around the pumps and pooling in the low places, lit from below by nothing visible.
Viktor looked up at the white mask looking down at him.
"Who are you," he said. His voice still worked.
The mask tilted slightly. "A doctor," Ren said. "Your brother knows the name. He'll explain."
The red mist rose to the awning and held there. The rain fell through it without disturbing it. The gas station was very quiet.