Novel Full Chapter 833: Sudden Start to the Mission
Chapter 833: Chapter 833: Sudden Start to the Mission
Darius motioned for Ronan and the two masked recruits to huddle. In the dim side-room the light was low, the air smelling faintly of oil and old paper. Darius watched them with an intensity that put all three on edge; his eyes, though hidden, seemed to catalog everything about them.
He produced three small rings—space rings, made of a dull metal. They looked mundane enough, but when Darius tapped it, the band expanded and slid over a finger before snapping shut.
“You also should all be able to contact one another,” Darius said, voice blunt. “Connect your tokens now as I tell you.”
Ronan hesitated only a moment, then touched his token to the others’ as instructed. The connection was a whisper—a small warmth licking his skin—and then a soft pulse tapped through his head, like a distant bell. The two others did the same. A thread seemed to tie them together: a faint sense of presence, an easy channel for words and images to pass without speech. Before, the only one Ronan had been able to contact using the token was Darius, but now he felt as though there were 3 options to send a message to in total.
Darius continued in a businesslike tone. “You’ll stay anonymous even to each other. Do not exchange identities. During missions you’ll be masked and unrecognizable to one another. That’s protocol. If you’re compromised and we have to destroy a token, it severs the link and you disappear from the roster.”
Ronan blinked. The anonymity felt strange but necessary; it made the whole thing more real, and more terrifying.
“Also,” Darius added, “the rings on each of you are space rings. Small. Just enough to hold the mask and some supplies. Don’t show them off. Treat them like jewelry.”
Ronan’s eyes widened. He’d heard of space rings once, a luxury item for even beast tamers. He had never expected to own one. His two partners’ reactions were mirrored; they grinned behind their masks, fingers trembling as they examined the rings.
For a few absurd seconds the side-room filled with the childish awe of people given a miracle. They were ecstatic—this was their first space ring, their first slice of something that whispered of a life beyond gutters and struggle. The larger recruit chuckled under his breath and tapped the ring against his knuckle, impressed by the small gadget’s quiet click.
Darius watched them with a faint, unreadable twitch to his lips. He remembered the day Kain handed him one the first time he’d joined—Kain had been casual, like passing someone a penny. Darius had nearly choked on the shock of it. Later he’d learned that the low-quality rings with a ’small’ space that Kain casually gifted were cheap to someone with his financial capabilities.
He kept that thought to himself. Let them be happy.
They left the building separately, five minutes apart as instructed. The stagger made sense—no chance of crossing paths, no chance of their identitied being revealed to one another. Ronan’s heartbeat stuttered with each step he took away from the ruinous factory and toward the road that would take him back to Dark Moon City.
Once he felt a comfortable distance, Ronan slipped his mask into the ring. Having the mask tucked away and secured inside felt oddly intimate, like tucking a secret to sleep.
He felt for the token in his pocket. The mission details were accessible anytime through the token; he could pull them up with a thought if he needed, contact his new ’team mates’, or contact the mysterious masked man that recruited him to exchange for materials to help with the mission.
Ronan decided to perform the hour long walk back to Dark Moon City instead of taking a bus. It’d help save on money, and also give him time to compose his thoughts. Although halfway there, when his joints began to creak with pain, he began to regret this choice.
Eventually, he arrived back at the city which was bustling with market traffic, and for a while he let himself watch people pass by. The weight of what he’d agreed to pressed on him like a constant weight.
Thoughts swarmed. Ronan clenched his jaw and told himself he was going to be a coward. He would take this mission as lightly as possible, keep his head down, and pray never to run into the target. Let others chase glory—he just wanted to survive. If that meant doing nothing, then nothing it would be.
His stomach growled then, a reminder he was still a living human and not yet a dead martyr. He turned into a narrow lane and ducked into a small soup shop that smelled of simmering bone broth and fried scallions. The place was humble but welcoming; a few tables, a counter, and a chalk menu scrawled in looping handwriting. He queued, mentally debating which broth to take.
The person ahead of him finished ordering and turned. Ronan straightened, intending to meet the man’s gaze with polite neutrality.
And froze.
The man’s presence struck him like a physical blow. He was tall, broad-shouldered, and carried himself with a slow, dangerous assurance. His hair was cropped close, his jaw sharp, and he had piercing yet familiar grey eyes. In a dawning, cold clarity Ronan realized why those eyes felt so familiar.
The ’Knight.’
His stomach dropped.
The man took a step, and Ronan’s world narrowed to the click of his boots on the wooden floor. The man’s eyes flicked briefly over the room, lingering on Ronan for a fraction of a breath. Ronan felt the gaze like a weight. Panic rose as a hot, immediate fear: that is asix-star tamer!
He lowered his head quickly, hoping that the tension in his body wasn’t visible. He tried to keep his expression blank, to breathe like a man who had nothing to hide and was not aware of the other man’s strength. He felt sweat bead at his thinning hairline, he put his trembling hands in his pockets to hide them as they became damp with sweat.
Ronan felt his legs tremble. For a breathless second he almost bolted from the shop, fleeing into the busy street. But he feared how strange that would look; sudden flight could attract the ’Knight’s’ attention. He forced himself to step forward and place his order instead, trying to appear as ordinary as possible.
Every fiber of him wanted to run. The man’s presence was a constant weight at his back. Ronan sat down with his soup, hands wrapped around the bowl as if to anchor himself. He ate quickly and didn’t even remember what he ordered, nor could he describe the soup he bought.
The man left the shop before Ronan finished. Ronan’s breath came out in a shuddering exhale. He washed his hands in the tiny stall washroom in the corner and stepped back into the street and walking with measured, careful steps.
He did not touch the ring. He did not touch the token to call for his team mates. He kept his hands in his pockets like a frightened boy and walked home the long way, glancing into alleys and over shoulders. Every shadow wore the outline of the man. Every passerby’s stride felt like a potential threat.
At his rooftop room he barred the door, pulled a thin blanket over his shoulders, and sat by the small window watching the city’s lights. He could not shake the feeling of being watched. Every creak in the house and footstep outside felt amplified. It took him ages to change out of his clothes.
He showered mechanically, but the flood of water did not wash away the tremor beneath his skin. He brushed his teeth like a man going through motions, then crawled into bed. The whole time, he still couldn’t shake the lingering feeling of being watched.
Tears pricked at the rim of his eyes—part fear, part the slow, bitter recognition that he’d walked into something far larger than his life had prepared him for.
“What did I get myself into?” he whispered to the dark with a sob, and then, somehow, sleep took him in fits and starts, each one haunted by flashes of the man’s grey eyes.