Chapter 36: The Sacrifice of a Justice

Oesteria's snowstorm tore the facial skin. The night wind roared ferally. The air carried sharp ice particles mixed with the scent of filthy copper from the mountain base. The Dark Sapphire Moon radiated a gloomy blue glow, illuminating the filthy snow expanse into a hard and suffocating ice sea.

Luka walked out of Varan's Castle border area. His high leather boots crushed the petrified mud layer. The creak of ice accompanied every step. He pierced the storm, climbing back up the limestone cliff where his small force stood by. His pitch-black cloak fluttered wildly, enduring the wind. The dark canopy hood was pulled tight, covering the dull bandages and the thick mask locking his face.

Behind the loose leather sleeve, the scaled red flesh on his right arm throbbed constantly, radiating heat and rejecting the freezing temperature. This mutation anomaly demanded blood.

Luka reached the hilltop.

Atop the hard snow pile, the giant bow in his right hand shrank slowly, forcing the calcium forming the weapon to seep back into the skin pores with a sickening wet cracking sound.

The three different-sized eyeballs in his left eye twitched hard. His mutated eyes split, merging back into a normal eye shape as the anomalous blue stone energy subsided to the inner base.

"The fat rat took the bait?" Merrik's voice was hoarse and gritty, cutting the wind's roar.

Vance snorted roughly. The giant man twisted his neck. His spine scraped loudly. "Edward. We chop his neck tonight."

The lily scent instantly banished the sulfur smell in the cliff air.

Rhea stepped forward from behind a boulder's shadow. The woman's charcoal-gray wool dress ironed with precision. Stiff. Not a single speck of ice dust dared cling to the fabric hem. The worn black leather choker on her neck hid her pulse. The pale cold-temperature hand reached into the dress folds. Pulling out a small cylinder tube sealed with thick red wax. Forged documents bearing the Alvin family stamp.

"The plan proceeds according to the scheme we arranged at headquarters, My Lord," Rhea said low. Her tone decreed lethal calculation. "Edward's private residence is not located inside the main palace's steel barricade. The rigid bureaucrat always returns late every night to the noble district on the capital's outskirts. The guard is tight, but still penetrable."

Luka stared at the cylinder tube in his maid's hand.

That document was poison. Paper that would kill a family from the inside. Inserting this forged corruption evidence into Edward's safe would trigger Ulric's wrath. The tyrant in the palace was exhausted managing the border war. Ulric would waste no time for a long trial. The king would immediately drag Alvin to the dungeon, seize his weapon factories, and let Alvin's wife and children rot in dark cells without a trial.

An innocent family would be ruined. Alvin might be a noble squeezing miners' sweat, but his wife and children held no swords.

Luka's chest rumbled. His jawline tensed. His conscience thrashed for a moment, refusing to sacrifice innocent blood.

Yet, the constant throb in his monster arm suppressed that pity outright. His conscience was silenced by force by the ego delusion he built himself. The blood of an innocent family was merely a cheap payment coin to buy the throne.

This is the price of justice. Luka's inner voice resonated. His logic rationalizing the crime coldly. Better one noble family rots in Ulric's prison, than thousands of commoners at the border keep starving to death eating ice mud.

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Luka threw his remaining doubt to the bottom of the abyss. He did not need clean hands. Justice demanded a sharp sword that did not hesitate to cut rotting flesh to save the rest of the body.

"Prepare the horses," Luka commanded. His voice was absolute, cutting through the night. "We depart for the outskirts district."

The small group spurred their horses piercing the Oesterian Forest.

Black warhorses crushed the filthy snow. Iron horseshoes scraped rough against the sea of petrified pine needles. The sound of breaking needles creaked sharp deafening the ears.

The pine trees around them grew elongated defective. Due to etiolation lacking The Red Ring Sun's light. Their trunks blackened gaunt and dry, turning into stone pillars. Long leafless branches curved wild. Exactly resembling millions of desperate human skeleton fingers reaching for the dark blue sky, begging for help from a deaf cosmic. The wind blew striking those dead branches. The clatter of broken bones echoed at every forest turn.

Luka led in front. He stared straight.

This journey cleaved death. They passed settlement ruins. Ghost villages refusing to collapse. Bald thatched-roof houses stood slanted enduring rot. Wooden fences protecting fields lay broken scattered. Villagers with sunken eyes stared at their group from behind double-iron-nailed window gaps. No human dared step outside. The plummeting temperature ruined bones.

Luka ground his teeth. Blood seeped from his gums.

This was the kingdom his uncle created. Endless oppression. Ulric squeezed the commoners' bone marrow. If Edward had to die and Alvin had to be imprisoned to end this suffering, Luka would do it a thousand times lacking regret.

The closer they approached the Eisenhart Kingdom capital outskirts, the muddy dirt roads began to change. The arrangement of cobblestone streets began forming neat beneath the horseshoes. Oil lamp light from iron poles replaced the pure darkness of the Oesterian Forest. A caste contrast highly sickening to anyone who had just escaped the jaws of starvation.

The snow fell heavier. White particles bombarded the outskirts bureaucracy territory.

At the end of the quiet cobblestone street, a residential fortress stood dominating the view.

Grand and rigid Gothic architecture. Thick gray stone walls coated in sturdy ornaments. Its watchtowers pointed, supported by cross-bracing pillars locking the foundation from storm assaults. Tall stained glass in the windows let the yellow fireplace light from inside breach out, challenging the dark blue color of the night sky.

Edward's private residence. Far from the palace, yet radiating the exact same thick bureaucracy arrogance.

The black horses halted deep inside the shadow of a narrow alley. Covered by darkness and piles of abandoned wooden pushcarts.

Luka dismounted from the saddle. His black cloak swept the filthy snow. He stood silent observing the stone fortress. He did not join the infiltration. Leaders did not dirty their hands for silent infiltration tasks.

Before the residence's outer wall wet with melted snow, three figures stood merging with the shadows.

Rhea, Lysandra, and Vance.

Three shadow executioners. They pressed against the freezing stone arrangement. Devoid of chatter. Lacking residual movement. The pure discipline of high-level mercenary assassins. Their gazes locked onto the movements behind the main iron gate.

In the inner garden courtyard, two steel-plated armored soldiers paced back and forth. Their spears held upright. Their armor creaked faint enduring the frost. White vapor billowed constant from behind their iron helms. Routine night patrols. Guards designed to hold off street thieves, not hold off Shadow Knights.

Vance gripped his meat cleaver hilt. The wire muscles in his arms swelled dense threatening to tear the skin. The man's three rows of shark teeth scraped loud, responding to the garden guards' sweat scent with predator saliva dripping onto the snow.

Lysandra lowered her posture. The flexible woman drew her twin daggers lacking the sound of clinking metal. Her eyes, which often radiated an identity crisis, now sharpened lethal. Her blood-mutating ability prepared to copy her prey's face. Her task was to enter, transform into a residence maid, and open the path straight to the bureaucrat's throat.

Rhea stood in the middle. Her black leather choker withstood the freezing air. The former palace maid's pale gray eyes calculated the patrol soldiers' shift change rhythm precise. Her memory recorded the layout of every corner of the noble house. She was the poison that would rot this fortress from the inside. The architect of Edward's and the Alvin family's ruin.

The night of assassination had just begun. Death prepared to knock on the palace dog's door.