Chapter 7: Nowhere to Run or Hide
Personal System Calendar: Year 0009, Days 2-5, Month III: The Imperium
Imperial Calendar: Year 6854, 3rd month, 2nd-5th Day
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The Hunter Becomes the Hunted
August moved through Gremory's nighttime streets with predatory purpose, the information from the Shadow Broker burning in his mind like a brand. He had locations now, general areas where the Imperial agents operated, patterns of behavior that could be exploited. But information alone was not enough. He needed to understand the full scope of the threat, to determine whether this investigation represented routine Imperial bureaucracy or something that could escalate into existential danger for Maya Village.
The question that drove him was fundamental: Was the Empire targeting the village specifically, or had they simply noticed unusual trade patterns and decided to investigate? The difference mattered enormously. Routine investigation could be managed, misdirected, possibly even satisfied with partial truths that protected Maya's core secrets. But if the Empire had marked them as a priority threat, if someone in the Imperial hierarchy had decided Maya Village needed to be eliminated, then half-measures would be useless.
And if that was the case, if the Empire truly intended to destroy what he had helped to rebuild, then August would meet that threat with everything he possessed. Even if it meant standing alone against the full might of the most powerful nation on the continent.
He knew the odds. The Empire commanded resources that dwarfed anything Maya could muster. They had mages who matched or exceeded Master Ben's capabilities, warriors whose combat prowess was legendary, and an institutional machinery of violence that had crushed countless threats over centuries of expansion. And at the apex of that power structure sat the Emperor himself, a figure shrouded in mystery and rumor.
The Emperor was said to be immortal, a being who had ruled for millennia rather than mere generations. August had heard the stories during his years of travel and study. Tales that stretched back through recorded history, always describing the same figure on the throne, unchanging and eternal. Some dismissed it as propaganda, the Empire creating a mythic figurehead to inspire loyalty and fear. But August had learned to be cautious about dismissing persistent legends.
Stories that endured for thousands of years, unchallenged and consistently reported, usually contained at least a kernel of truth. And if the Emperor truly was immortal, then he represented power on a scale that August could barely contemplate.
But even that consideration could not deter him now. Because buried deep within August's carefully controlled psyche was a wound that had never fully healed, a grief and rage that he had channeled into productive action but never truly resolved. The destruction of the original Maya Village. The deaths of his parents, his sibling, everyone he had known in his childhood. The night of fire and blood that had left him alone in a world that suddenly felt hostile and unforgiving.
But in the years since, August had pieced together fragments of information and that pointed in troubling directions. The raiders that night had been too well-equipped for simple raiding and banditry. They were too organized and purposeful for random violence.
But the only conclusion he could come up that time with. Is that a bunch of scouts found a settlement deep in the forest and had used the Imperial Decree: "no kingdom or settlement should be allowed to exist or occupy any part of the great forests." as their basis for its destruction. But if that was the case then why did those men rape their women, butcher the children and men with their faces full of joy and elation.
He had never confirmed who was truly responsible for that raid, but since then he had pieced the information he had that night and recalled which banners they flew. The Imperial Flag was the most prominent and then some others. But he remembered that they also carried insignias and banners that belonged to other kingdoms, at least that is what he learned with self reflection, study and questions he had for Master Ben. The attackers had left no survivors to question, with only that banner of the Empire as his identifying mark, and the only one he could blame, a misplaced anger but it also had merits to it.
Or it could be but a new found angle since this current situation unfolded. That kind of operation required resources and authority. It required the backing of an organization with reach and ruthlessness. And while August could not prove Imperial involvement, the possibility haunted him. If the Empire had destroyed his home once, either through direct action or by backing those who did, and now they were investigating the rebuilt settlement, that was not coincidence. That was a pattern.
And August would burn the world to ashes before he allowed that pattern to repeat.
His emerald eyes glowed green beneath the Blurred Devil's mask, the light reflecting his Personal System's activation but also something deeper and more primal. Malice. Controlled for now, directed with precision, but unmistakably present. He had been a helpless boy that terrible night, capable only of hiding while everything he loved was destroyed around him.
He was no longer that helpless child.
"I will protect the village," he whispered to the night, a vow spoken to himself and to the memory of those who had died. "Whatever it takes."
Then he began to move in earnest, his body flowing across Gremory's rooftops with the silent grace of an apex predator. Years of hunting in the Lonelywoods Forest had refined his movement to perfection. Each landing was soundless, each jump calculated to minimize effort and maximize distance. He erased his presence from the world, becoming a ghost that occupied space without disturbing it.
This was how he had stalked Category I to V beasts through dense forest where a single misstep meant death. This was how he had learned to exist in the same space as creatures whose senses far exceeded human norms, moving through their awareness without triggering their predatory instincts.
The Imperial agents were skilled. They were trained and experienced and dangerous.
But they were not beasts who had hunted and been hunted in one of the harshest environments on the continent. They had not spent years learning to survive against opponents who could kill them with casual ease. They had trained in academies and gained experience through missions, but always with the backing of Imperial resources and authority.
August had learned survival in a place where the Empire's authority meant nothing, where only personal capability determined whether you lived or died.
The hunt had begun, and the hunter was far more dangerous than the prey realized.
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The First Target
Baron Kirka's compound was August's first objective. According to the Shadow Broker's information, one of the agents had positioned himself as an assistant in the Baron's operations, perfectly placed to observe all trading transactions involving Maya's Traveling Mercantile. The agent would have access to records, manifests, financial documentation, everything that might reveal patterns or inconsistencies that pointed toward Maya's true nature.
August approached from the rooftops, his enhanced perception mapping the compound's layout as he moved. Guards at the gates and walls, their patrol routes predictable and professional. Servant quarters in the eastern wing, where people moved about evening routines. The main house where the Baron had resided, already settling in for the night.
And somewhere in that complex, an Imperial agent pretending to be a simple merchant's assistant.
August could have spent hours observing, tracking movement patterns, identifying his target through patient surveillance. But time was a resource he could not afford to waste. Every hour the agents remained operational gave them the opportunity to gather more intelligence, to send more reports back to their handlers, to potentially discover something that would prompt immediate action against Maya.
So August decided to take a more direct approach.
He released a carefully measured pulse of killing intent, his Fear the Beast skill manifesting as an invisible wave of primal menace that radiated through the compound. It was not enough to cause panic or draw attention from ordinary staff. Most people would feel only a vague unease, a sense that something was wrong without being able to identify what.
But anyone with combat training, anyone whose survival instincts had been honed through exposure to genuine danger, would feel it like ice water in their veins. The unmistakable sensation of being hunted by something that could kill them.
August's logic was elegant in its simplicity. If he could not immediately identify the agent through observation, he would force the agent to identify himself through reaction. An ordinary merchant's assistant would feel the unease but continue with their duties, perhaps looking around in mild confusion before dismissing the sensation. But a trained Imperial agent would recognize killing intent when they encountered it, would understand that they were being targeted, and would react according to their training.
Fight or flight. And an agent operating under deep cover, surprised by an unexpected threat, would almost certainly choose flight.
The reaction came within seconds.
In a second-floor dining room where Baron Kirka was entertaining several business associates over an evening meal, the assistant merchant suddenly stood with enough force to make his chair scrape against the floor. The man, middle-aged and unremarkable in appearance, had gone pale despite his obvious efforts at maintaining composure.
"Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen," the merchant said, his voice admirably steady given the circumstances. "I have something urgent that I have forgotten to attend to."
He was moving toward the door even as he spoke, not quite running but walking with purpose that was just barely within the bounds of acceptable behavior. The Baron and his guests exchanged confused glances, murmuring about the rudeness of the interruption, but they were already moving on to other topics of conversation by the time the assistant cleared the doorway.
August watched from his rooftop vantage point, a predator's smile hidden behind his mask. "Even a well-trained Imperial agent can still fall for obviously petty tricks," he murmured to himself. "The rat has revealed itself."
The agent was good, August had to admit. Despite the fear that Fear the Beast had induced, the man was still thinking tactically, taking a route through the compound that would seem natural while actually leading toward an exit point that would allow for quick escape. He was not quite running, not drawing overt attention from the guards, but moving with clear purpose.
But all the training in the world could not overcome the fundamental biological response to genuine predatory threat. The agent's body language screamed flight, his movements just slightly too quick, his posture just slightly too tense. To ordinary observers, he looked like someone who had remembered something urgent. To August's trained eye, he looked like prey that had just realized it was being hunted.
"Time to see how good you really are," August whispered, then dropped from the rooftop to follow.
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The Chase
Agent Kim moved through Gremory's evening streets with the practiced ease of someone who had conducted field operations in dozens of cities across multiple kingdoms. A century of experience informed his choices, his half-elven heritage giving him both the longevity to accumulate that experience and the enhanced agility that made him particularly effective at infiltration and escape.
He had hidden his elven blood well during this assignment. His ears were naturally shorter than a pure-blooded elf's, making them easier to disguise with carefully styled hair and minor illusion magic. His frame was human-proportioned, lacking the willowy build that often marked elven heritage. To casual observation, he appeared to be exactly what his cover identity claimed: a competent but unremarkable merchant's assistant who had worked his way up through Baron Kirka's organization.
But now that cover was compromised, and Agent Kim found himself in the unfamiliar position of being prey rather than hunter.
The killing intent that had washed over him in Baron Kirka's dining room had been unmistakable. He had felt it before, during operations against dangerous targets, the sensation of a predator's focus settling on you like a physical weight. But this had been different, more primal and less refined than the intentional intimidation that combat mages sometimes projected. This had felt like a beast's attention, raw and hungry and patient.
It terrified him in ways that professional threats did not.
Sweat soaked his clothing as he navigated through the city, his mind racing through options and contingencies. Protocol dictated that he should make for one of the safe houses that Imperial Intelligence maintained in Gremory, secure locations where he could go to ground and await extraction. But safe houses were only useful if you could reach them without being followed, and Agent Kim was increasingly certain that whoever was hunting him had not lost his trail.
He could feel it, a pressure at his back that suggested proximity without revealing exact location. The sensation moved, sometimes seeming to come from behind, sometimes from the side, occasionally from ahead as if the hunter had circled around to cut off escape routes. It was disorienting and deeply unsettling, a psychological tactic that Agent Kim recognized intellectually even as it undermined his composure.
"So this is how my targets feel," he muttered in elvish, the language of his mother's people coming naturally in moments of stress.
He tried every evasion technique his century of experience had taught him. Cutting through crowds where a follower would have to close distance to maintain visual contact. Taking sharp turns into narrow alleys where pursuit would be briefly visible. Doubling back on his own path to spot anyone matching his movement pattern. Using reflective surfaces to observe approaches without obvious checking.
Nothing worked. Or more accurately, nothing gave him any actionable information. He could not spot his pursuer, could not confirm whether he was dealing with a single hunter or a coordinated team, could not even determine if he was actually being followed or if his paranoia was creating phantom threats from innocent coincidence.
But the pressure never stopped. That sense of predatory attention that raised every survival instinct his elven blood provided.
Agent Kim had participated in Operation Hidden Dragon because he was good at his job. A century of field work had made him skilled at infiltration, patient enough for long-term deep cover assignments, and capable enough to extract himself from situations that might trap less experienced operatives. Director Thrace had selected him personally for this mission, recognizing that investigating a hidden settlement in the Lonelywoods Great Forest required someone with the right combination of skills and temperament.
But now, fleeing through Gremory's streets with the sensation of inevitable capture growing stronger with each passing minute, Agent Kim wondered if he had finally encountered a situation that exceeded his considerable capabilities.
He made for the warehouse district, an area of the city where foot traffic thinned after dark and where the maze of storage buildings and loading docks provided multiple routes and hiding places. If he could not shake his pursuer through urban evasion, perhaps he could lose them in an environment that favored ambush and concealment.
It was a calculated risk. The warehouse district's isolation meant that any confrontation would be far from help, but it also meant he could use lethal force without worrying about civilian witnesses or collateral damage. And if worst came to worst, he was authorized to eliminate threats to operational security with extreme prejudice.
Agent Kim's hand moved to the concealed weapon at his belt, a mage-crafted blade that could channel his magical affinity for wind and cutting. He was classified as Category IV Master level in Imperial combat assessments, capable enough to handle most threats he might reasonably encounter in a border city like Gremory.
He hoped that would be sufficient.
---
Nowhere to Run
August tracked Agent Kim through the city with effortless precision, his years of hunting far more dangerous prey making this chase almost trivial by comparison. The agent was good, certainly better than most people August had tracked, but there was a fundamental difference between human evasion tactics and the unpredictable lethality of a Category IV beast trying to shake a persistent hunter.
Humans followed patterns even when trying to be unpredictable. They used their environment in ways that made sense to human logic and human perception. They relied on tactics that had worked in the past, drawing from training and experience that assumed their pursuer operated under similar constraints.
But August had learned to track creatures that could move through three-dimensional space with equal facility, that could mask their scent and sound, that could sense his presence through means that had nothing to do with vision or hearing. He had learned to predict behavior based on minute environmental cues, to read intention from body language so subtle that most people would not consciously register it.
Agent Kim never had a chance of losing him.
August let the agent feel pressure from different directions, a deliberate psychological tactic that he had learned from observing how pack predators hunted. The goal was not to immediately close distance but to induce error, to make the prey so focused on the immediate threat that they forgot to think tactically about where they were going.
It worked exactly as August intended. The agent made for the warehouse district, probably thinking the environment would give advantage for ambush or escape. But August recognized it for what it was: isolation. Away from witnesses, away from potential help, in an area where the agent would be alone with whatever hunted him.
Perfect.
August closed the distance as they moved deeper into the warehouse district, no longer maintaining the psychological pressure now that the agent had committed to terrain that favored the conclusion August wanted. The agent was moving through shadows between buildings, his enhanced agility allowing him to scale walls and cross gaps between structures with impressive ease.
But August was faster. His Personal System enhanced physical capabilities combined with years of forest hunting made him capable of movement that defied ordinary human limits. He could jump gaps that should require running starts from a standing position. He could land from heights that should cause injury without even slowing his momentum. He could move across unstable surfaces like rooftop tiles without making a sound.
Agent Kim never saw him coming.
The agent had just dropped into an alley between two large warehouses, probably intending to use the narrow space to force any pursuer into close quarters where his blade work would have advantage. It was tactically sound thinking based on conventional combat assumptions.
August simply appeared behind him, moving from rooftop to ground level so quickly that the transition seemed instantaneous. One moment the agent was alone in the alley, hand on his weapon and eyes scanning for threats. The next moment, August's hand was on the back of his neck, fingers pressing against nerve clusters with precision born of anatomical knowledge and extensive practice.
Agent Kim's consciousness fled in an instant, his body going limp as the nerve strike induced immediate unconsciousness. August caught him before he could fall, lowering the agent's body to the ground with care that seemed almost gentle.
"Nowhere to run," August said quietly to the unconscious agent. "Nowhere to hide. Now let's have a conversation about exactly why the Empire is interested in my village."
He produced rope from his dimensional storage, bound the agent's wrists and ankles with efficient knots that would hold even if the agent possessed strength enhancement magic, then added a gag that would prevent any attempt at verbal spellcasting upon waking. Finally, he placed a magical suppression collar around the agent's neck, a device he had acquired years ago from a bandit camp the had eradicated specifically for situations where he needed to question someone with magical capabilities.
The collar would block access to mana circulation, rendering the agent temporarily mundane and unable to use any magical techniques that might facilitate escape or suicide.
Preparations complete, August lifted the agent in a fireman's carry and began moving toward a location he had scouted earlier, an abandoned warehouse on the district's edge that would serve perfectly as an impromptu interrogation site.
The Blurred Devil was about to conduct an interview. And Agent Kim was going to provide answers, whether he wanted to or not.
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A Rude Awakening
Agent Kim regained consciousness slowly, his mind sluggish and confused as awareness returned. The last thing he remembered was moving through the warehouse district, feeling the pressure of pursuit, preparing to make a stand in terrain that favored close combat.
Now he was somewhere else, and everything was wrong.
He tried to move and discovered his limbs would not respond. Bound. Professionally done, the knots positioned to prevent leverage and tighten under strain. He tried to speak and found his mouth gagged, only muffled sounds escaping. He reached for his mana, preparing to circulate energy through combat patterns that would enhance his strength enough to break inferior rope, and found nothing.
The suppression collar. He could feel it around his neck, cold metal that severed his connection to the magical energies he had trained for decades to master. Without access to mana, he was reduced to merely mundane capabilities, strong for a human but nowhere near sufficient to break proper restraints.
Panic threatened to overwhelm his training. Agent Kim forced it down through sheer discipline, focusing on his surroundings and situation rather than the fear that wanted to consume him.
He was in a warehouse, abandoned from the look of it. Moonlight filtered through gaps in the roof, providing enough illumination to see dust motes floating in still air. The space smelled of old wood and rust, with underlying notes of decay that suggested no one had used this building in years.
And standing a few meters away, watching him with the patient stillness of a predator that had already won, was a figure in dark clothing and a mask.
It was a figure he has not seen before but has heard of its tales along the way of their current investigation, The Blurred Devil. It had to be. The legendary vigilante who had terrorized Gremory's underworld years ago, the boogeyman that criminals whispered about in tones of genuine fear. Agent Kim had reviewed the intelligence reports about the Blurred Devil during his mission preparation, filing it away as interesting historical context but not immediately relevant to his current operation.
That assessment had been catastrophically wrong.
"You're awake," the Blurred Devil said, his voice modulated to disguise its natural characteristics but still carrying clearly through the empty warehouse. "Good. We have much to discuss, you and I."
August approached the bound agent, moving with casual confidence that spoke to absolute control of the situation. He had questions that needed answers, and this agent was going to provide them.
The interrogation was about to begin, and the balance of power between the Empire's investigation and Maya Village's secrets was about to shift in ways that neither Director Thrace nor his agents could have anticipated.
The hunt had concluded. Now came the harvest of information that would determine everything that followed.