Chapter 464

Nick did not take the captain’s word as absolute truth, despite having an intimate view of his soul. Deception was a tool he often used, and he knew better than to base a campaign on the desperate ramblings of a single terrified man, especially one who might have been fed false information.Leaving the unconscious officer in the dirt, Nick moved through the rest of the ruined camp toward the soldiers still rooted to the ground by Rhea’s alchemical resin. Some wept, while others stared with the hollow, vacant expressions of men completely broken by war.

Nick applied his Charisma and some spiritual manipulation liberally, forcing them to speak. He cross-referenced their accounts, pressing them on supply routes, troop numbers, and the specific banners that had retreated behind Toneburg’s walls. The details varied slightly—the perspective of a spearman differed from that of an archer—but the core intelligence remained consistent.

House Ultimer had long since stopped fighting in the war, leaving only a few soldiers as tokens. They were hoarding their strength, letting the royal army and the other nobles bleed out while they sealed themselves within an impenetrable fortress.

"They are all telling the same story," he said quietly, turning his back on the prisoners and rejoining his team at the edge of the ravine. "Toneburg is locked down. I’m afraid that approaching directly might give our hand away too soon.”

Gaelen grunted with a dark look, but didn’t deny his assessment.

"What do we do with them?" Rhea asked, gesturing toward the captives with a slight tilt of her head.

“My house’s patrols are too far south, and we cannot afford to leave witnesses to our passage," Nick replied, entirely devoid of malice, even as he condemned the men to death.

Gaelen offered a slow nod. He drew two hunting knives from his belt and moved through the line of prisoners. There was no hesitation, no wasted motion. He stepped behind each rooted soldier, clamped a hand over their mouths, and slit their throats.

When the gruesome task was finished, Nick took over. He did not want to leave a scene that could be investigated by a passing patrol or a skilled tracker, so he called upon his Fire Affinity, channeling a focused flame without concussive force. He directed it over the bodies, the armor, and the alchemical resin.

Within minutes, the camp was reduced to a fine gray ash, which the harsh northern wind quickly scattered across the rocks, leaving no trace of their passage or any sign of an ambush. They were simply gone.

"We need more intelligence before we test the north," Nick declared, turning back toward the tree line. "Let's see if we can find another band of deserters. I want to know exactly how far the dark dwarves have advanced.”

For the next two days, they scoured the cold forests of the borderlands. Gaelen tracked every broken branch and disturbed patch of frost, but the trails they found were either days old or led nowhere. The harsh environment and the monsters had already claimed whoever else had fled the front lines.

They did not find any more soldiers, but the wilderness was not entirely empty.

On their second afternoon, a pack of frost-stalkers—predatory beasts resembling oversized, six-legged wolves—ambushed them near a frozen stream. The creatures were agile and vicious, around level forty-five.

It was a violent skirmish, and Nick took the opportunity to continue his experiments. As a stalker lunged at him, its jaws snapping with unnatural cold,

Nick summoned water and fire mana, attempting a different approach to his catalyst theory. Instead of using raw control, he tried to blend the opposing energies within his soul to temper the reaction.

Forcing the elements together was easy, as he could press his willpower to blur the boundary between them. For a fleeting moment, the water began to boil with a luminescent orange light, producing a superheated liquid that refused to evaporate.

But his focus wavered as the stalker's claws raked against his kinetic shield. The spiritual catalyst slipped, and the spell collapsed into a violent burst of scalding steam that erupted from him in a shockwave.

Nick sighed in frustration, flying around another beast and driving the blunt end of his staff into its skull. The impact cracked bone, and a quick pulse of wind magic severed its spine.

SYSTEM NOTIFICATION

You have participated in the defeat of x6

+127,200 Exp

Nick dismissed the notification. The experience from the pack was a welcome addition, filling a small portion of his requirements, but it was nowhere near enough to push him over the threshold to level eighty-nine, let alone to level one hundred. To reach Prestige, he needed to hunt far greater threats, or every adventurer with some measure of talent would have managed to cross it.

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"The trail is cold," Gaelen reported, drawing his dagger from the final beast's neck and wiping the blade on the grass. “If other humans passed through here, it was long enough ago that I cannot tell.”

"Then we are wasting our time out here," Nick decided, looking up at the overcast sky. "We have enough information to understand the threat. We should seek to understand the politics now.”

It was time to make for Alluria.

The journey to the city took several days, with the temperature gradually warming as they left the harsh northern winds behind. When the towering, ancient walls finally crested the horizon, the sight brought a strange, almost unsettling sense of normalcy.

Nick had expected a city on the brink of panic.

The last time he had been here, Alluria had been reeling from the religious strife between the factions and the aftermath of a demonic Incursion. Furthermore, the kingdom was engaged in a brutal war in the North, and it had dragged on long enough that signs of wear should have begun to show even here.

The guards were checking identification papers and searching wagons, but the sheer volume of traffic made the process perfunctory.

When it was his turn, Nick projected a bored aura and slid three silver coins into the man’s pocket.

"Just passing through," he grunted, deepening his voice.

The guard barely looked at his face. He swept the silver deeper into his pouch, stamped a blank piece of parchment, and waved them through the portcullis.

The sensory overload of Alluria immediately washed over them. The scent of roasting meats mingled with the stench of open gutters, while the cacophony of a hundred thousand lives so close in proximity echoed all around them.

Merchants shouted their wares from colorful stalls. Carriages bearing noble crests rolled smoothly along the paved roads. The citizens went about their daily lives with an air of comfortable ignorance.

The war against the dark dwarves was hundreds of miles away, and to the people of Alluria, it was little more than a distant rumor, an abstract concept that barely affected grain prices or the schedule of deliveries. The scars of the demonic attack had been paved over, and the religious tensions seemed to have cooled into a quiet, simmering truce.

"It makes you sick, doesn't it?" Gaelen muttered, watching a group of laughing nobles enter a high-end tailor's shop. "Soldiers are freezing in the mud, and these people are living as if it’s not their problem.”

“Humans always seek to return to normalcy, especially after a string of tragedies,” Nick replied evenly. "But their relaxed posture works to our advantage. Security will be focused on smugglers and thieves, so we should be able to move without trouble if we take some precautions.”

They stopped in a quiet alley a mile from the inner districts.

"We cannot walk in wearing our own faces," Nick said. "The temples have eyes everywhere, and House Ultimer surely has spies in the city. If I am seen walking around while I’m supposed to be in Floria, they will notice.”

It was unfortunate, but his hasty departure had been motivated by good reasons, and given the amount of danger Gaelen had faced during his travels, it’d be better to avoid drawing anyone’s attention to their passage.

Rhea unslung her satchel and pulled out three vials filled with a murky brown liquid.

“It’s a good thing I thought about that in advance," she explained, handing them over. "This will cause a temporary facial change. It tastes like rotting meat and will hurt, but the effects will last exactly twelve hours before your bone structure snaps back to normal. Any magic meant to see through illusions will fail.”

Nick uncorked the vial and downed the potion without hesitation.

Rhea wasn't exaggerating. The liquid burned like fire as it slid down his throat, and a moment later, his face began to itch furiously.

The sensation deepened into a dull, grinding ache as the cartilage in his nose shifted, his cheekbones broadened, and his jawline thickened. He even felt the roots of his hair tingle as the color leached away, turning his dark locks into a mundane, mousy brown.

When it was done, he pulled a small mirror from his ring and inspected the result. The slowly emerging aristocratic features of the Crowley bloodline were entirely gone. Staring back at him was the remarkably plain, forgettable face of a common mercenary, at least a decade older than his body was.

Gaelen underwent a similar transformation, his sharp features broadening into the rugged visage that could have been at home in a tavern brawler. Rhea softened her intense eyes and high cheekbones, rendering herself entirely unremarkable.

“That will do," Nick murmured, tossing the empty vial into an alley barrel. They moved deeper into the city until the Magic Tower, rising high above the sprawling city, became visible in its entirety.

Nick paused in the shadow of an awning, his eyes drawn to the structure, feeling a brief but powerful pull.

He couldn’t help but wonder how much the hierarchy had changed since his departure, and how his old instructors were faring in the aftermath.

The temptation to walk through those grand doors, to visit his Master and seek counsel, was strong.

But he couldn't. His current face wouldn't grant him access, and dropping his disguise inside those highly monitored walls was an unnecessary risk. He was also on a timetable.

Pulling a sheet of parchment from his spatial ring, he folded it into the shape of an origami crane.

He brought the paper bird to his lips and whispered a brief message into its folds, inviting his trusted friends to meet him that evening at a neutral location in the lower districts.

Nick then channeled a small spell, woven from his wind and spiritual magic, into the parchment. The crane twitched, its paper wings unfolding. It lifted from his palm, barely visible in the ambient mana, and shot silently into the sky, heading toward the student lounge.

“All good?" Rhea asked quietly.

"It will find them," Nick confirmed, turning from the Tower toward the sprawling maze of the lower city.

"Where to now?" Gaelen asked, keeping a wary eye on a passing group of city watchmen.

"We need to find my contact," Nick replied, pulling out his most worn cloak and shrugging it on. "And One-Ear doesn't operate in the sunlight.”

Thus, they descended into the underbelly of Alluria. The wide, paved avenues of the noble districts gave way to narrow, winding alleys choked with refuse and shadow. The architecture grew denser, with buildings leaning dangerously over the streets, blocking out the afternoon sun.

They bypassed the reputable taverns along the main boardwalk and ventured into the true slums, eventually stopping before a sagging, unmarked wooden door nestled between a defunct warehouse and a brothel.

“Try not to react to provocations,” he warned. “These people aren’t particularly dangerous, but they’ve never seen a brawl they don’t want to join.”

Once they’d both nodded, he pushed the door open and stepped into the tavern.

Conversations died down as the three newcomers entered, and a dozen hostile eyes turned to assess the threat they posed.

Nick ignored the stares and walked straight to the wooden bar. The barkeep, a massive man with a tattoo running across his bald head, glared at him as he casually wiped down a mug.

Nick leaned over the bar, producing a silver coin and sliding it across. “I’m here to see a friend.”