Chapter 83: Leave No One Alive

Julian Vale worked the dagger through the tent flap and slipped inside in one smooth motion, left hand already rising, the Stillstone ready to crush between his fingers.

He never got the chance.

The tent wasn’t empty, but it wasn’t occupied by the man he’d come for either.

Three armored figures sat waiting in the dark, blades already drawn, expressions carved from pure, unhurried patience the look of people who’d been expecting company for quite some time.

Wrong. The thought hit Julian like cold water. This is wrong. He’s not here.

A single word lit up behind his eyes, bright red and absolute.

Trap.

Every instinct he owned screamed the same conclusion at once this hadn’t been a sneak attack. It had been an invitation.

No time to chase the question of how Kael could possibly have known. He spun on his heel, already shouting through his earpiece.

"Ambush! Fall back, fall back now!"

He bolted for the tent flap. The three Starborn weren’t inclined to let that happen cleanly.

All three roared as one, blades flaring with skill light, and three separate arcs of condensed sword force tore through the cramped space in the same instant.

In open ground, Julian’s reflexes might have carried him clear of all three.

Inside a tent barely wide enough to stand in, there was nowhere left to go. He took the full weight of every strike at once.

Level 42, every one of them, against Julian’s own level 35 already a brutal gap before accounting for the fact that Assassins ran thin on raw durability under the best circumstances.

Even with his gear doing everything it could and every defensive skill triggered in time, the damage nearly finished him outright. He staggered clear of the shredded tent with barely a third of his health left, blood soaking through torn armor.

The three Starborn gave chase immediately, blades still humming with residual light, closing the distance with predatory speed.

Clear of the wreckage, panic gave way to something colder and more practiced. Hurt or not, Julian’s training held.

He flung a handful of shimmering powder and triggered his class’s signature stealth skill without hesitation, his outline dissolving into the dark in a single flash.

It bought him less than two seconds.

A sharp whistle split the night, and a single arrow, trailing pure white light, arced up out of the tree line and burst overhead.

Sunburst Arrow.

No damage in the ability itself just a flood of brilliant, revealing light, engineered specifically to tear through stealth effects and strip concealed targets back into plain sight.

Every assassin’s natural enemy, condensed into a single shot.Julian’s outline snapped back into visibility the instant the light washed over him, face draining pale with the dawning certainty of exactly how thoroughly this had already gone wrong.

All of it the tent, the chase, the flare had unfolded in the span of a few frantic seconds.

Only now did the rest of the team finally catch up to what was happening.

"We’ve been made! It’s an ambush!"

"He knew we were coming this whole thing was set up from the start!"

"What do we do?!"

"What do you think we do? Scatter! Every man who breaks through alone is one who survives!"

Terror swept through the remaining six in an instant, every scrap of coordinated plan dissolving into pure instinct.

They split in six different directions, bolting into the dark without a second thought for the men beside them.

Walking into a trap this deliberate didn’t leave much room for anyone to actually escape it.

They’d barely covered a few strides before crimson light flared from the shadows behind them five Starborn Assassins, who’d been holding position in total silence since before the team ever arrived, driving blades deep into exposed backs in a single coordinated strike.

From the tree line, two Starborn Archers opened up in the same instant, bowstrings singing in rapid, relentless succession, arrows finding their marks with brutal precision.

The three sword-bearing Starborn from the tent closed the gap a heartbeat later, each one locking onto a fleeing target and cutting them down without mercy.

The quiet wilderness erupted into noise screaming, the clash of steel, panicked shouting cut suddenly short.

It didn’t last long.

When the dust settled, all seven of Sterling’s hand-picked operatives lay dead across the hillside, cut down by ten Starborn soldiers who’d executed the ambush with the same clean, merciless efficiency they’d shown storming Ebonreach’s walls days earlier.

Several hundred meters away, on an entirely separate ridge, Kael had no idea any of it had happened.

He was still deep in a grinding session, companions tearing through monster after monster, when a quiet notification finally pulled his attention sideways the Farsight Banner flagging a Starborn Assassin closing in on his actual hiding spot to deliver a report.

He logged off immediately, consciousness surfacing back into the cold, quiet dark of his real hillside camp.

The report came through clean. He listened in silence, expression settling into something flat and cold by the time it finished.

"My identity’s barely been public a few hours, and already somebody’s circling." A thin, humorless smile. "Guess a target this visible draws more teeth than I expected."

"Shame for them none of those teeth actually bite."He made his way to the ambush site under cover of darkness, moving through the bodies with methodical patience until he found the face he was looking for.

Julian Vale. Confirmed.

"Ironclad Esports." The name came out with real contempt. "Persistent to the very end, aren’t you."

A cold light settled behind his eyes, something already taking shape in his thoughts. "Since you went to the trouble of showing up might as well make yourselves useful."

Test subjects. The plan sharpened fast, though it would have to wait. Whatever he had in mind needed Ebonreach sitting at level 5 before it could actually move forward.

For now, priorities came first. He needed somewhere safer to rest, back in the world that actually held his body.

Confirming the identities was all he needed from this stretch of forest. He turned and put miles behind him through the dark, finally settling into a new, sheltered hollow well clear of tonight’s bloodshed.

He planted the Farsight Banner fresh, activated it, and logged back in to keep grinding through what remained of the night.

Close to midnight, the notification he’d been waiting on finally landed.

"Notification: Territory upgrade complete. [Ebonreach] has reached Level 5. New structures unlocked: Starborn Altar, Starborn Totem."