In the quiet moments when he slept, when he could be certain that no one was watching, the Hawk of the Shadows removed his Selves and returned to his true form. But he no longer wished to see it.
Strangely, it had been this way from the beginning.
He thought back to his life as a young man and wondered why they had chosen him to become the Hawk. He had not been intelligent, nor particularly hardworking. He possessed none of the qualities that would allow him to stand out. His family held no status, no connections that could elevate him. By all logic, he should never have reached such a position.
But now he understood: to his recruiters, he had simply been a young man who was desperate, someone who would do anything, someone who believed he had nothing left. That was the kind of person they could shape, and that was the kind of person they needed.
Hundreds of years had passed, and no one had ever caught him, because there was no one for them to catch. They could not break him through psychological warfare, because there was nothing left in him to break. They could not trap him through friendship or love, because he could not feel either.
This was the result of cycling through hundreds of Selves, again and again, until no attachment to any single one remained. He no longer looked at his reflection, as he no longer remembered what it looked like, and that frightened him.
By morning, he would rise and continue, without a thought for what had come before.
Already, through one of his assets, he had learned that the investigation conducted by the Faceless Soldiers had been concluded. The body of the Dark Alchemist had been removed under the justification of "public interest."
He understood what that meant. They had erased the evidence. This made it even more critical that he see the body for himself, and yet, it was likely that the body no longer existed.
So the Hawk began his plan.
He returned to the prison under the same Self he had used before, continuing to ask the same hollow, grieving questions. The Soldiers were required to escort him to a certain point, but no further.
"But why can I not see the body of my friend?" he cried.
"It is not permitted," the Soldier replied. "You may remain in the waiting area, but no further information or privileges will be granted."
The Soldier left him.
One possible course of action was to kill the Soldier and assume his form. But the risk was too great. If discovered, and it inevitably would be, it would alert the Faceless Beings that someone was investigating the Dark Alchemist's death. That, in turn, would reach the Lords.
No, if he acted, it had to be without a trace, and he had prepared for this.
The Hawk's ability was not limited to changing his own Higher Self. Under the right conditions, he could implant a Self into another being, and use that being as his agent.
From his pocket, he removed an infant Silver Crawler from the Eastern Forests.
These creatures were weak. Their only hunting method was to create illusions based on the Axiom energy of their prey. But they possessed one crucial trait: potential.
Though insignificant in their current state, their potential extended to the Fourth Tier, far beyond what they could consciously wield. And that was where the Hawk could intervene.
Through the support of his patron Lords, the Hawk carried access to several Fourth Tier abilities, embedded across different Selves. Yet as a Third Tier being, he could not wield them directly.
But through the Crawler… he could.
He placed the creature under his control.
The Hawk knew the structure of the prison. He guided the Crawler through the corridors, shaping it into the form of a Faceless Soldier. It could move and appear correctly, but it could not speak. If it were stopped, the operation would fail.
Already, two Soldiers had glanced at it.
There was still time. He guided it toward the examination room, where the Dark Alchemist's body had allegedly been taken. The distance was short, no more than two minutes.
Another Soldier watched it pass.
This would not be as simple as he had hoped. He would have to accept it, that he could not hide this from the Lords.
The Crawler reached the examination room. It was empty. And now he sensed it, movement behind it. Several Soldiers had already identified the anomaly. It took only the smallest deviation, Something so slight that only they could detect it. And as this happened, the Soldier he had spoken to earlier was returning.
There was no more time.
At the Hawk's command, the Crawler transformed, and it assumed a Fourth Tier Self.
The doors burst open as Soldiers flooded the room.
Now!
"Time will now rewind," the Crawler said.
Reality reversed. Moments folded backward, and then—
There it was. The body of the Dark Alchemist, lying upon the table.
In the next instant, the Crawler's head was severed. But before it was destroyed, one image had already been secured. The Hawk fled the prison before the Soldiers could reach him.
Now, far from the prison, within the sea that surrounded it, the Hawk moved swiftly through the water. He had assumed the Self of an Axiom master who specialized in aquatic movement, allowing him to travel at great speed while breathing beneath the surface.
If they pursued him, he would reshape the water itself to slow them.
But they did not pursue.
At last, he had time, and the Hawk focused on the image he had obtained.
The Dark Alchemist's corpse lay still; there were no visible wounds; there was nothing to suggest anything beyond a natural death. However, when the Hawk sharpened his perception, he saw it, the root energy point had been forcibly shut down, a known method of self-termination among Axiom users.
But something was wrong.
The Hawk examined the colour of the skin, the stiffness of the muscles, the residual heat. It was clear that the man had already been dead before his root point was disabled. That should have been impossible, and yet, it confirmed the truth.
This was an assassination.
The fact that it had been concealed suggested that not all Faceless Soldiers, and perhaps not all Lords, were aware of it.
The Hawk studied the body again.
So it was an Axiom ability. This meant that two possibilities emerged: either the ability was too advanced for the Soldiers to detect, implying the work of an Alchemist or a Faceless Watcher.
Or…
The Soldiers knew, and allowed it to happen.
But there was one more question.
Why had the Dark Alchemist not defended himself? He was a Fourth Tier being after all.
The Hawk searched the body once more. He found no wounds, no signs of flame, blade, or external force. And yet the body had clearly been shut down by an attack.
Only one answer remained.
Poison.
That was why he had not resisted, and why there were no visible marks. And if that was true, then there was only one individual capable of such an act, someone with both the ability and the access to carry it out.
The Hawk understood now that the killer could only be one person.
The killer was the Supreme Leader of the Central Realm.