Chapter 223: I Ran Out of Bullets Before They Ran Out of Men

The trap wasn’t behind the door. It was around the warehouse.

Raven understood that the moment Roland stopped studying the hidden mechanism and turned toward the street. Footsteps, wagon wheels, and clipped orders sounded outside, far too coordinated to belong to curious bystanders drawn by the noise.

"We’ve got movement. A lot of it."

Valeria moved toward a side window without exposing herself. "How many?"

"More than were out there a minute ago."

Raven looked at the captured guards. Two had raised their heads, and the Collector was smiling for the first time since they’d taken him down. That was enough.

"Elise, stay with the prisoners. If they break through us, you’re the last barrier."

She looked toward the street. "I could clear the entrance."

"And leave seven subjects who wouldn’t survive a crossfire. Your power matters more where you are."

Elise held his gaze for a moment, then nodded. Valeria had already stretched Blood Threads between two columns. Raven indicated two access points with his fingers.

"Don’t try to stop all of them. Split the entry and force each group into a different corridor."

"You want them coming in where we get to choose how they fight."

"Exactly."

Roland was already heading for an interior staircase before Raven needed to say anything else. Raven scanned the space one final time: four usable entrances, two narrow corridors, a central room too open, documents to the west, prisoners to the east, and the Collector alive. That was the battlefield. Now they only had to make the enemy fight inside it.

---

The first wave entered through the main door. Five men with reinforced shields advanced together while archers behind them used the doorway as cover. Raven fired once. The Mk.I punched through the edge of one shield and forced the formation apart.

Valeria exploited the opening immediately. Blood Threads crossed the floor diagonally, turning one wide entrance into two narrow lanes. The men on the left tried to adjust. Roland fired twice. One arrow entered a shoulder, the other a thigh. He didn’t need to kill them. He only needed to turn them into obstacles for the men behind them.

Raven took the right corridor. Burst Step erased the distance before the first man could reorganize his guard. Raven struck the wrist, redirected the sword, and drove his knife into the upper thigh.

The second man answered with his shield. Stonehide spread over Raven’s shoulder just before impact. The force still traveled through him and numbed his arm, but he kept his footing. Kinetic Acceleration reinforced the short motion of his next strike, and the pommel of his knife crashed into the man’s jaw. He dropped. Raven backed out before the next two could trap him.

"Valeria."

She sealed the corridor with another set of Blood Threads. The reinforcements crashed into their own men. That was enough.

---

The second entrance gave way almost at the same time. A volley of bolts tore toward the room holding the experimental subjects, but Elise raised a barrier and the projectiles shattered against Sacred Light. She didn’t go after the attackers. Good.

Raven could see the whole battlefield from the center. He wasn’t faster than Elise or capable of matching Valeria’s range, but he was watching who moved, why they moved, and what they were trying to protect.

An enemy appeared in a high window behind Valeria. Raven pointed. Roland found him a fraction later and fired, and the figure vanished from the opening.

Another man ran toward the side street. No shield, not trying to enter. A messenger. Roland changed targets without Raven needing to say another word. The arrow struck the man’s leg and sent him rolling across the cobblestones. Raven was already following another problem.

Two men were trying to rebuild the main line. One issued orders while the other repeated them toward the flanks. Command and communication. Raven raised the Mk.I and fired a second time.

He didn’t aim at the officer. The round struck the stone corner beside him, and the burst of fragments forced the man down and toward the corridor Valeria had just narrowed. Raven entered through the opening. Knife, elbow, knee. The officer tried to rise. Raven put him unconscious before he could recover his voice.

---

The third round was his last heavy penetrator. Raven saved it until a mobile barrier appeared, protected by two men who were obviously more dangerous than the ones before them. He didn’t try to take either of them down. He broke the formation.

The shot opened a crack through the center of the barrier. From the prisoner room, Elise released a controlled burst of sacred pressure that drove the two men in opposite directions. Raven saw the opening.

"Now."

Valeria was already moving blood. A crimson wall rose from the floor and isolated one of them. Raven entered against the other before he could recover. He wasn’t stronger. He didn’t need to be. He only needed several seconds before the man’s partner returned.

Burst Step. Stonehide over the forearm. Kinetic Acceleration through the short turn of his hips. The knife found the gap beneath the side plate, and the man fell.

By the time the second fighter broke through Valeria’s blood wall, Elise had already placed another barrier between him and the prisoners. Raven backed away, breathing harder. His legs were beginning to tighten, and his mana reserves were dropping too quickly. He couldn’t keep using Traits as though they were free.

---

More reinforcements arrived before they could reclaim any space. Raven reached for the next round. The ammunition box was empty. Elise saw him let the Mk.I drop against its sling.

"Did it break?"

Raven drew his knife. "No. We’re out of expensive options. Now we use the normal ones."

Valeria gave a short laugh from the other corridor. "That is incredibly reassuring."

Without the rifle, the enemy changed immediately. They advanced with more confidence. That was exactly what Raven wanted. They had built part of their response around a weapon he was no longer using.

Predator’s Instinct began sorting details: who looked at the commander before moving, who hesitated, who waited for a signal, who was too confident. Raven chose the last one.

He entered from the side using an overturned table as cover. Stonehide absorbed the scrape of a blade while Raven picked up a piece of metal with his other hand. An enemy started forming a seal. Raven threw the fragment, Kinetic Acceleration reinforcing the short snap of his arm. The metal struck the hand before the spell completed.

CRACK.

The seal collapsed. Raven raised his other hand. Ember Spark ignited a hanging tarp against the wall. He wasn’t trying to burn anyone. He wanted three men to abandon that section. They moved exactly where Valeria expected, and she closed a wall of blood behind them.

"You’re becoming increasingly irritating."

Raven looked at the three trapped men. "It works."

"That’s also irritating."

He entered before they finished reorganizing.

---

Elise had enough power to wipe out almost any group that crossed a doorway. That was precisely why Raven didn’t use her at the doors. He kept her where her presence changed more things. Every projectile aimed at the prisoners struck a barrier. Every enemy who managed to break through the corridors found Sacred Light waiting. When one of the experimental subjects started deteriorating, Elise could stabilize them without abandoning the defense.

Valeria had more magical power than Raven too, so he didn’t treat her like a blade either. He turned her into architecture. Her threads, barriers, and blood pressure transformed open spaces into choke points where enemy numbers lost their value.

Roland completed the system from range. Archers, messengers, men trying to reorganize formations: anyone attempting to restore coordination took an arrow before they finished.

Raven moved through the cracks the others created. He wasn’t the strongest person in the warehouse. He was the one making all the strength they had point at the same problem.

---

When the final formation tried to enter through the western corridor, Raven felt a painful pull in both legs. Another Burst Step would be stupid. So he didn’t use it. He waited behind a column.

The first man passed. Raven let him keep going. The second did too. The third carried a command insignia. Raven moved when the first man could no longer turn comfortably. One hand to the neck. Knife into the side.

Stonehide covered Raven’s shoulder when the first soldier managed to turn back and strike him. Raven used the wounded officer as an obstacle, pivoted, and shoved both men into the wall. Valeria closed the retreat. Roland dropped the last man who tried to run.

The noise faded gradually. First the shouting, then the collision of metal. Finally, there was enough silence to hear the tarp burning slowly where Ember Spark had ignited it.

Raven looked across the room. Blood covered his clothes. There was a cut across his cheek, and his right arm was partially numb. His mana was too low, and his legs reminded him of every Burst Step he had used. But he was still standing.

Elise emerged from the inner room. "The prisoners are alive. Two need immediate treatment, but none of them deteriorated during the fight."

Valeria rested one hand against the wall. "That was unpleasant."

Roland came down from the staircase. "I’ve had better afternoons."

A voice came from above them. "I haven’t."

Everyone looked up. Nyxara sat on an exterior beam with one leg hanging over the edge, completely untouched and far too pleased with herself. Raven looked down at his own blood-covered clothes, then back at her.

"You could’ve helped sooner."

Nyxara smiled. "You told me I’m not part of the group."

Valeria tried to suppress a laugh. She failed almost immediately. Raven looked at her. "Don’t help."

That only made it worse. Nyxara dropped from the beam and landed inside the warehouse. Raven expected another provocation, but her expression changed when she looked toward the northern street.

"I wasn’t watching you for entertainment."

Roland frowned. "Then what were you doing?"

"Following someone."

Raven stopped thinking about the fight. "Who?"

Nyxara showed her fangs.

"The only man who decided to run before the reinforcements arrived."