Chapter 188: You Have Six Hours

The gang members present in the building crowded the doorway, like a pack of wolves unsure whether to pounce.

From their point of view, an unidentified man had entered their main base and was beating everybody up without the use of a single weapon.

With their faces pale, and hands twitching on hilts and knives, every one of them was hesitant.

Even before they stepped in the study, they knew the balance had shifted in the attacker’s favor.

For him to get that far was already a point in his favor.

The furniture, the blood, and the bodies on the floor. All of it paled beside the fact that the masked young man in the chair had just walked through them and sat as if he owned the place.

Footsteps announced the leader before he fully filled the doorway.

He moved with the sort of confidence that came from being feared often enough that fear no longer mattered.

He was broad shouldered, with a scar cutting from temple to jaw.

He took in the scene with lazy interest.

Behind the hard face lay calculating eyes.

Instead of the surprise Noah had been expecting, they glittered with the cold appraisal of someone cataloguing a potential threat.

“Who the hell are you?” the man asked, the question more a courtesy than a demand.

Noah rose. For a moment, the room was nothing but the sound of breath and distant dripping.

He did not reach for a weapon. Instead, he drew deep from his well of mana, pouring it onto his soul.

His shadows peeled away from his soul, emerging into the physical reality from the dark folds of his cloak.

They quickly drew substance around themselves from the surrounding shadows already present in the room, as if someone had poured water into glass.

They became corporal, limbs solidifying, faces taking cruel shapes.

The gang members’ bravado dissolved.

They stumbled back, eyes wide with a new kind of terror. The sort that knows it has underestimated its enemy.

Only the leader did not flinch. He watched the manifestation as if observing a trick, as if nothing could rattle him.

“Clear out,” he said, voice hard.

One by one the men filed past him, leaving doors ajar and the scent of fear in their wake.

The leader walked forward, stepped past Noah as if he didn’t exist, then sat on his chair without ceremony.

For a moment, their eyes met. Predator meeting predator.

Then the leader’s pupils narrowed, a faint glow in their depths.

“You know,” he said, voice casual, “monster guilds keep tabs on every mage.”

“They regulate, tax, and, if you’re a problem, they burn you out. I took pains to avoid that eye.”

“Built my own guild under the guise of a gang. Personal protection, collection, you know how it is.”

He leaned forward, fingers steepled. The smile on his face did not reach his eyes.

“So tell me,” he said softly, the words no less dangerous for it, “why shouldn’t I just kill you?”

Noah tilted his head, staring at the man.

The man smiled casually at Noah, as if he had him in the palm of his hands.

Then the leader’s smile disappeared the moment Noah lunged.

The man’s eyes widened and he activated all the defensive and offensive spills and skills he had, throwing up as many barriers as he could to try and push Noah back.

Noah didn’t even pause.

He cast Pillar of Judgement, slamming the A-rank ever burning fire into the barriers like a battering ram.

The barriers shattered like glass, disappearing into nothingness half a second later.

The leader’s eyes flashed with the surprise of someone who had never seen his defences smashed so casually.

Noah grabbed him by the crown of his head. Fingers like iron closed around hair and bone.

With a savage twist he hauled the man down and smashed his face into the desk.

The wood exploded in a spiderweb of cracks. The leader’s groan was short.

He’d broken a nose, and had blood running in hot lines down his mouth.

He tried to cast a spell, trying to pour his intent into a last-ditch formation, but Noah’s hand tightened over his head.

“If I wanted,” Noah hissed, “I could rip the Ash Serpents out by the roots.”

“I could make the monster guilds notice you. I could make whatever’s left of you crawl and beg for scraps.”

The leader’s eyes were wide and wet with blood and something close to fear, but he did not beg.

He stayed stubborn in a way Noah had learned to recognize.

Noah let him go.

“You’ll live,” he said. “For now.”

The leader crumpled on the floor, gasping for air, spitting blood.

Noah stepped back, putting his hands in his pockets.

He gave the man a description of Snake.

Handsome, red hair like an open flame, and a grin that never left his face. The sort that turned a knife into an invitation.

“Find where Snake was last seen,” Noah said, “and who he was seen with. I’ll be back in six hours.”

Shock and blood mixed in the leader’s face.

“Six hours?!” he croaked. “That’s impossible. You don’t understand how—”

“No,” Noah cut in. “You don’t understand me.”

“You get six hours. If you run, if you hide, I’ll find you. If you double-cross me, the Ash Serpents won’t last the week.”

“If you give me what I want, you live and your gang keeps its bones. If you lie…” he trailed off, letting the man conjure up an image of what the threat entailed in his own head.

The leader finally cracked, promising names, places, and times. He promised to move if Noah needed it.

Noah listened without expression. When he was satisfied the man would try, and that was all Noah needed, he left.

He walked out of the study and through the building into the shaded street beyond.

Minutes later, he turned into an alley.

There, behind a stacked crate, he stripped out of the leather cloak and cloth mask.

They went into his spatial ring with the faint slide of magic locking into place.

He didn’t break stride as he walked.

He closed his hand, centered, and Null Stride took him, his body imploding and disappearing without a sound.

He popped out in another alley three streets over, as if he had blinked.

The city’s noise slid back into place around him. He was much closer to the saner parts of the capital.

He smoothed the front of his shirt and adjusted his collar as if he had simply walked a block.

A few minutes later, he found himself in a narrow, quiet lane.

He stopped halfway down it and tilted his head.

There was someone here.

He finally spoke, raising his voice.

“Come out,” he said. “We’re done with the games.”

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