Chapter 155: An Attempted Strike

Three days had passed since the imperial capital fell.

Three days had passed since the imperial capital fell.

The Grand Palace of Solaria was quiet now. The broken glass had been swept away, the charred silk curtains were pulled down, and the smell of ozone from the naval strike had faded into the scent of floor wax and fresh paint.

John walked down the wide second-floor gallery. He had his hands in the pockets of his field trousers, his combat boots clicking softly against the polished white marble. He wore just a simple gray tactical shirt and his service holster at his hip.

High glass windows lined the corridor, looking out over the inner courtyards. Down below, American transport trucks rolled past manicured gardens. Soldiers set up communications dishes on stone balconies, and armed squads ran routine security patrols along the outer walls.

Beside him, Richter walked with a rugged tablet in one hand and a black folder tucked under his arm.

"Recon drones finished their sweeps of the eastern province, sir," Richter said, swiping a finger across the screen. "Viona didn’t waste any time. She’s moving."

John glanced at the screen. "Give me the numbers."

"It’s messy," Richter replied. "She sent out royal decrees to every corner of the empire. The dukes in the interior are pulling garrisons from border outposts. We’re tracking movements from the regional paladin orders, academy battle mages, and feudal levies. Drone feed show them converging toward the mountain ridges east of the basin. Estimates put the muster anywhere between one hundred and fifty to two hundred thousand troops."

"A mass mobilization," John murmured. "She’s emptying the pantry."

"A mass mobilization," John murmured. "She’s emptying the pantry."

"Pretty much, sir. If they march through the narrow valleys, they’ll create a massive logistical bottleneck. But if they dig in along the high ridges, pushing armor through the passes is going to be slow work. On top of that, we don’t have a visual on Viona herself. Her spatial signature vanished near the border foothills three days ago."

"She’s hiding until the stage is set," John said calmly. "A fake goddess can’t afford to be seen with a swollen eye and broken ribs. She’ll show up when she thinks she has an army big enough to hide behind."

"Agreed. In the meantime, the Seabees are fortifying the palace gates, and Cassian’s staff is handling the civil registers without any fuss—"

Richter suddenly stopped talking.

The air in the gallery grew cold.

A dead silence dropped over the corridor. Even the distant rumble of trucks in the courtyard seemed to vanish.

From the shadows behind a tall marble pillar twenty feet ahead, the air shimmered like heat rising off asphalt. A dark silhouette stepped out into the open hallway.

The intruder was completely draped in a ragged, pitch-black hooded cloak. Dark cloth covered the lower half of their face, leaving only two sharp, glowing amber eyes visible beneath the hood. The figure made no sound. No footstep, no rustle of fabric. In their right hand, they gripped a curved, jagged dagger that gave off a faint, poisonous green vapor.

Richter’s eyes narrowed, but before he could even raise his tablet, the cloaked figure vanished.

Not a dash. Not a roll.

She simply blinked out of reality.

A split second later, the air behind Richter’s right ear warped violently.

The cloaked assassin materialized directly behind him. Her dagger came whistling down in a tight, lethal arc, aiming straight for the gap between his neck and his collar.

John didn’t hesitate.

His right hand was already moving before the warp even cleared. His fingers wrapped around the textured grip of his sidearm, ripping it from the Kydex holster in one fluid snap.

BANG!

The 9mm round tore through the empty space an inch from Richter’s shoulder. The heavy bullet grazed the assassin’s black sleeve, sending a rip of cloth and a splash of blood onto the wall.

The assassin flinched, hissed through her mask, and vanished again just as the brass casing hit the marble floor with a sharp clink.

Richter didn’t even flinch. He didn’t drop his tablet, and he didn’t stumble. He stood his ground like a stone wall, calmly reaching up with his left hand to tap the earpiece resting against his jaw.

"Control, this is Richter," he said into his mic, his voice dead steady. "Hallway delta, second floor. We’ve got an active blinker. Lock down the corridor."

The air five feet to the left distorted.

John shifted his stance instantly, tracking the disturbance with his muzzle.

BANG! BANG!

Two rounds punched through the air the exact millisecond the assassin reappeared. One slug chipped the marble wall behind her; the second caught the edge of her leather shoulder guard, knocking her balance off.

"Tch!" a muffled, feminine voice gasped behind the mask.

She twisted her body mid-air, using the momentum to kick off a marble column. Her form blurred into a shadow once more, tearing through the space between them in an instant.

The air behind John’s back turned icy cold.

She materialized two inches behind him. Her curved blade was already raised high, cutting downward toward his spine with terrifying speed. There was no time to turn. There was no time to swing a gun around.

The assassin’s eyes narrowed with triumphant cruelty.

Got you.

Her dagger came down—and struck nothing.

SHK!

The blade sliced cleanly through empty air.

John had vanished.

The assassin’s eyes widened in utter shock. Her blade struck the marble floor, throwing up white stone dust.

Before her brain could process what had happened, a cold, heavy shadow twisted into existence directly behind her back.

The air warped. John stepped out of the darkness behind her, his feet planted firmly on the floor.

CLICK.

The cold steel barrel of his sidearm pressed hard against the base of her skull, pushing right into the fabric of her black hood.

The assassin froze. The blade in her hand stopped an inch off the floor.

"You aren’t the only one who knows how to do that. Courtesy to the fallen hero."

The assassin’s breath caught in her throat. She could feel the hard metal of the slide digging into the bone at the back of her head. Her fingers twitched slightly, her muscles tensing to trigger another spatial jump.

"Don’t," John warned, his finger resting lightly on the trigger. "My trigger pull is four pounds. You can’t gather mana faster than my finger can move. Try to blink, and your head comes off before you reach the other side."

For three long seconds, the corridor was dead silent.

Richter stood five paces away, still holding his folder, watching the scene with a bored expression on his face. Down the far end of the hall, the heavy thud of combat boots echoed as a Delta security team sprinted toward them with rifles raised.

The assassin let out a slow, trembling breath.

Her shoulders dropped.

Her fingers loosened around the jagged hilt. The dagger slipped from her grip, clattering loudly against the cracked marble floor.

"Smart," John said.

He didn’t move the barrel an inch from her skull.

"Richter," John called out, his eyes locked on the back of the hooded figure. "Bring the zip-ties. Let’s see who this is."