Chapter 221: Carrying out the Plans!

The Northern Capital did not fall into mass panic when Albedo pulled the first thread. It shifted instead, quietly, imperceptibly at first, like a body adjusting to a wound it had not yet realized was fatal.

Albedo watched it happen from within the flow, moving through streets and corridors of power with the same practiced restraint he had used the night before.

No dramatic gestures occurred and no-one openly confronted him. The various goons he had marked were all scrambling around as Albedo quietly applied pressure precisely where the city was weakest and where Everglade’s web was most tightly knotted.

He had contacted Raven, and she had quickly gotten to work, the first collapse coming from House Valemont, starting off with an audit.

A polite summons from the Northern Medical Oversight Council, citing irregular mana readings detected during routine ward calibration sweeps. It was perfectly reasonable and a rather common audit that the House had used Everglade assistance to pass.

However, they were now caught off guard, and it was impossible for them to refuse without appearing guilty. Raven’s influence ensured the paperwork carried impeccable authority, stamped with seals that meant Valemont’s elders could only comply or invite far worse scrutiny.

Albedo stood across the street from the primary Valemont clinic again as the inspectors arrived, their arrival unremarkable enough to draw no attention from passersby.

He felt the wards tense as they crossed the threshold, the suppression fields struggling to reconcile civilian protocols with what they were actually hiding.

Inside, everything immediately unraveled for the House, as multiple of their storage arrays were flagged for unauthorized capacity. Blood-reserve ledgers that didn’t match intake records.

Healing seals calibrated far beyond what any clinic should require. It wasn’t incriminating enough to justify arrests, not yet, but it was more than enough to shut down operations “pending further review.”

Patients were redirected to locations that weren’t reported, and many of the supplies were also halted or randomly ’disappeared.’

Naturally, all of the staff were gruesomely questioned.

By sunset, three Valemont clinics were dark, their wardlights dimmed to standby while administrators scrambled behind closed doors. Albedo didn’t need Source Code to feel the panic blooming inside the family’s mana network, sharp and acidic.

Storage without distribution was useless. The second collapse followed within hours with House Thorneveil feeling its effects on the streets.

A patrol escorting a minor noble caravan failed to arrive on time due to a “crystal desynchronization.” The caravan was attacked, not lethally, not catastrophically, but violently enough that survivors demanded accountability. The incident triggered guild arbitration automatically.

Then it happened again and again and again.

“Raven’s people really work quick,” Albedo said as he looked at what was going on, noticing various command crystals that previously worked perfectly now failing.

Patrol leaders contradicted one another’s reports. Contracts were voided out of absolutely nowhere as clients pulled out of their jobs. Rumors began circulating in mercenary circles that Thorneveil’s once-sterling reliability was slipping and that they had been hiding failed missions.

Albedo watched one such arbitration from a public gallery, posture relaxed, expression disinterested as Thorneveil representatives argued themselves into knots trying to explain failures.

Fear does strange things to disciplined people. By the time the hearing adjourned, three major contracts had been suspended and one permanently terminated. Thorneveil’s mana signature across the city tightened, defensive wards flaring where confidence once stood.

Movement without protection was dangerous.

Then came Mirell.

The river districts were patient beasts, slow to react, but devastating when disturbed.

Albedo didn’t touch Mirell’s warehouses directly. He nudged the environment around them instead, altering mana flow along the canals by fractions so small they passed beneath standard detection thresholds.

Water-aligned masking fields destabilized just enough to introduce micro-fluctuations inside preservation arrays. This caused many of the blood bags to spoil before their shipments, causing some to fail quality checks.

Another degraded too quickly. A third arrived intact but tested “inconclusive,” forcing it into quarantine. Investors and other people noticed, and Mirell began investigating, but with Albedo’s illusion making, they couldn’t find anything wrong.

All the while this was going on, competing firms quietly positioned themselves to absorb contracts, eager and waiting.

Preservation without trust was worthless.

By the second day, House Kessarine collapsed inward exactly as Albedo predicted.

Credit lines called in and emergency loans were denied using Raven’s influence. Shell guilds dissolved under scrutiny. The youngest heir vanished from public view entirely, rumored ill, disgraced, or worse.

Their estate wards flickered, downgraded from noble-grade to private-tier protection. Servants resigned. Allies distanced themselves.

Laundering without cover was suicide and Albedo was ripping off all of their cover.

Albedo walked the city as all of this unfolded, never staying in one place long enough to be noticed, never leaving a trail that could be followed.

He listened to conversations in tea houses, in guild halls, in academy corridors. He watched noble carriages reroute away from once-trusted districts.

And through it all, Source Code continued to assemble the picture. Everglade’s arteries were constricting. Supply slowed. Transport stalled. Storage failed. Money froze.

Magnus Everglade did not react immediately.

That, more than anything, confirmed Albedo’s assessment.

He was waiting. Assessing. Trying to determine whether this was coincidence, incompetence, or attack. Each hour of delay cost him resources he couldn’t easily replace, but acting too quickly would expose connections he’d spent decades burying.

Albedo exploited that hesitation mercilessly.

A Valemont elder attempted to contact Everglade directly, only to find the channel unresponsive, intercepted, or subtly redirected. A Thorneveil captain sent an encrypted warning that never arrived. A Mirell broker’s emergency meeting was postponed indefinitely due to “scheduling conflicts.”

Isolation set in.

By the end of the second day, the Northern Capital felt different. Like a city holding its breath.

The middle men were falling, and soon, Magnus Everglade would have no choice but to step into the open himself.

***

Magnus Everglade shattered a crystal goblet against the far wall, the sound sharp and final as it exploded into a rain of red-stained shards.

The wine soaked into the velvet carpet like blood into soil.

“Again,” he said quietly.

The chamber fell silent at once. Something was clearly wrong. The timing of everything was off, the way inspections had bloomed across his network in a single morning like a coordinated infection.

Valemont. Thorneveil. Mirell. Kessarine. Each of them were hit cleanly and impossible to publicly contest.

Magnus turned slowly, crimson eyes narrowing as another aide finished their report, voice tight with carefully contained fear.

“Three more oversight teams have been dispatched since dawn,” the aide said. “Medical. Trade. Guild arbitration. All properly sealed. All… legitimate.”

Magnus’s jaw tightened.

Legitimate meant Raven, or someone else from the Capital fucking with him and his family’s business.

There were only two forces in the Northern Capital capable of mobilizing oversight bodies with this level of authority without leaving fingerprints.

“Has BloodHaven made any formal accusations?” Magnus asked.

“No, my lord.”

“Public statements?”

“None.”

“Summons?”

The aide swallowed. “None.”

Magnus exhaled slowly through his nose, anger cooling into something sharper, more dangerous.

That was the problem.

Raven wasn’t striking. She was letting the city devour his infrastructure on its own. Letting rules, ethics, and public trust do the work for her. It was elegant. Infuriating.

And it meant she had proof, or someone who did.

Magnus moved to the desk, fingers brushing the edge of an ancient communication sigil etched directly into the stone. His bloodline responded instantly, veins glowing faintly as the seal awakened.

“Open elder channel,” he commanded.

The air thickened, blood-aspected mana coiling into a circular formation as figures began to resolve within it. Faces old and sharp, preserved by power and lineage. Everglade elders, scattered across estates and sanctums, each one dangerous in their own right.

“You feel it too,” Magnus said flatly before any of them could speak.

A murmur of assent rippled through the circle.

“Inspections,” one elder said. “Audits. Disruptions.”

“Blood supply instability,” another added. “Preservation losses. Transport delays.”

“Someone is tightening the noose,” a third said. “And doing it without touching us directly.”

Magnus’s eyes hardened. “Raven BloodHaven.”

Silence followed that name.

“She wouldn’t move unless she was certain,” an elder said carefully. “Which means someone fed her information.”

Magnus’s thoughts snapped into alignment.

Albedo Neverwinter, the one Lilian was close with. It was the only person Magnus could think of.

Magnus straightened. “Locate him.”

One of the elders gestured, blood-mana flaring as information flowed through the network.

“…He remains in the capital, His class departed on a sanctioned field excursion.”

Magnus’s lips curled slowly.

“So he’s alone.”

“Yes,” the elder continued. “No escorts. No BloodHaven shadow detail. No academy wards beyond standard residential protections.”

A beat.

“And the BloodHaven girl?” Magnus asked.

Another pulse of mana. “Lilian BloodHaven accompanied the class. She is outside the city perimeter.”

Magnus smiled then, sharp and cold.

“Excellent.”

He severed the elder channel with a snap of his fingers and turned to the shadows lining the chamber walls. They stepped forward without being summoned, cloaked figures whose mana signatures barely registered, faces hidden behind suppression veils.

“Deploy a clean team,” Magnus ordered calmly. “No theatrics. No witnesses. I want Albedo Neverwinter erased quietly. Tonight.”

The figures bowed as one.

“And the girl?”

Magnus paused, considering.

“Do not touch her,” he said. “Not yet.”

A few shadows stilled, awaiting clarification.

“Shadow her,” Magnus continued. “We need to start preparing her for the Ritual,”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep