The grandfather clock in the hallway ticked with a heavy, deliberate rhythm, marking the passage of the next forty-five minutes.
It was a calculated delay, a precise block of time designed to give Mark Kruch, Will Amkrik lek, and Eldrin Ashworth enough leeway to nurse their bruises, hurl their final curses, and retreat into the relative safety of their respective estates.
Behind the dark wood and bamboo mask, Alaric remained perfectly still. He sat on the edge of the mahogany desk, a fresh glass of Teal Charm wine held loosely in his right hand.
He didn't rush. A hasty transaction always left a messy ledger, and tonight's audit required absolute, flawless precision.
He lifted the glass to his hidden lips, taking a slow, deep sip. The crisp, sweet vintage rolled down his throat, grounding his senses as he stared out the frosted window at the silent, snow-covered Western Sector.
His mind was no longer racing. The chaotic gibberish that had cluttered his parchments over the last forty-eight hours had solidified into an unyielding, rigid architecture of intent.
He thought back to the sacrifice he had to make to use the conduit properly. Alaric looked down at his unscarred left hand, then at his chest where the weightless, purplish essence of Singularity rested.
A cold, ruthless clarity settled over him. No. He would not play by the player's rules. He would not mutilate his own flesh. He would only use the Lumen Siphon, and only sacrifice to use the conduit properly, in a life-and-death situation.
If the supernatural hierarchy was an economy, then he would execute a hostile takeover of the currency itself.
Alaric drained the last of the wine, the empty crystal glass clicking sharply as he set it down on the desk. He stood up, adjusting the cuffs of his immaculate charcoal suit.
The subterranean thrum behind his ribs pulsed with a sudden, aggressive heat, matching the iron resolve locking into his jaw. The marks had reached their homes. The targets were isolated.
Leaving the empty glass behind, the faceless Arcanist stepped out of the room and into the freezing winter night, ready to balance the ledger.
Alaric rushed as fast as he could from his estate. He couldn't be here for too long in any possible way; even after wearing a mask, he could still be shortlisted as an attacker.
The houses were definitely not near, but they were not too far either. Alaric could run that distance. If he could survive those three damn tasks, if he could survive without food and water for almost eighteen days, then he could run.
Inside Alaric's head, everything was a mess. Everything that he had gone through over the past twenty to twenty-one days was reoccurring in his mind in fragments, all together.
Surprisingly, Alaric wasn't feeling cold at all. His only focus was to run until he reached the destination.
First inhale. Alaric continued to run. If he were his old self, he would have given up by now, but his current self couldn't.
First exhale. Because after everything that happened in the Void, he was subtly biologically mutilated.
Second inhale. He could run faster and he had more stamina, but he was nowhere near superhuman.
Second exhale. Alaric finally came to a halt and inhaled sharply, then immediately continued to run as he stretched out his hand.
Third exhale. The moment the air left his nostrils, the purplish particles started to materialize into a weightless, perfect blade.
Singularity.
The blade was almost shining in the dark night. Alaric looked at it and smiled as he drew very close to Eldrin's estate.
But there was another minor problem at least. He had never used a Lumen Siphon on any object or person before. He had practiced it and swung it with Tylor, but he had never swung it at an actual target.
"Sometimes...it is always fast time." Alaric mumbled under his breath, breathing heavily.
The other major problem was, what if there were other people? Alaric already knew that Mark and Eldrin lived with their distant relatives for unknown reasons.
The only option was to never leave a single piece of evidence behind in any way.
Alaric finally stopped. In front of him was the large mansion of Eldrin Ashworth, covered in snow, which would soon be covered in fire and blood.
Alaric tightly held his Lumen Siphon as he walked toward one of the walls and stabbed the weapon into the structure.
Nothing happened. But the very next moment, the area where the blade had stabbed started to disappear, as if it were being sucked up by something.
A small smile came to Alaric's face as he stabbed the Lumen Siphon again. The weapon slipped through the dense fortification as if it were nothing more than soft curd.
Another massive chunk of the wall disintegrated into a swirling vortex of purple embers, silently pulled into the vacuum of the blade.
He repeated the motion twice more with practiced, rhythmic efficiency, slicing away the structural integrity of the barrier until a dark, narrow breach was formed.
The edges of the newly created opening were impossibly smooth, completely devoid of chisel marks or fractures that a forensic auditor could trace back to a conventional weapon.
Alaric paused, listening to the quiet rustle of the wind over the snow-covered grounds of the Ashworth estate. There were no alarms, no panicked shouts from the distant relatives' quarters, and no barking hounds. The silence of the night remained entirely unblemished.
Tucking his elbows in, the faceless Arcanist stepped smoothly through the breach. His boots sank into the untouched drifts of fresh snow inside the courtyard, his charcoal-black suit instantly blending into the deep shadows of the perimeter hedges.
He kept his grip tight on the shining, purplish steel of his Lumen Siphon, his eyes locking onto the dark, multi-storied silhouette of the mansion ahead. He had bypassed the physical ledger of the estate without leaving a single grain of evidence behind. Now, it was time to clear the internal accounts.
This time Alaric didn't walk calmly. He rushed toward the entrance door of the house, stabbing it with the Lumen Siphon. It was just a matter of time before the door was gone, completely sucked into the void.
Inside the house, Alaric could clearly see five people blankly staring at the place where the door used to be.
Alaric didn't wait. Before anyone could react, Alaric stabbed a man with a small beard who was hiding his kid behind him.
The man couldn't make any sound. His whole mouth filled with blood like an erupting volcano. Some of the blood spilled onto Alaric's hand, the one holding Singularity. The blood was cold.
The man's veins, which were clearly visible in his hand, started to burst. It only took a moment before the man's head burst. A piece of his brain landed on the head of the kid he was hiding.
Alaric's eyes widened, and he glared at his Lumen Siphon, his eyes shaking from what he had just seen. But he couldn't back away now.
From a distance, it felt inhuman—slaughtering someone's whole family and a person just because he took a four percent profit. But the situation was far larger than this, and all of it led to one thing.
Alaric's main goal, his reason for murder, was Volt. He wasn't justifying his actions, but it was what it was. The very existence of humans is built on contradiction.
Alaric didn't wait. He sliced the kid's chest and moved forward. The rest of the work would be done by Singularity.
Before anyone could register what had just happened, all of them were stabbed or sliced by him. One by one, their heads started to burst.
Alaric couldn't stay there a second longer. He walked inside the room where he expected Eldrin to be present.
And he did find Eldrin. But not in the way he expected.
Eldrin had already been stabbed more than thrice, lying on his deathbed, unable to do anything. Eldrin looked at him, trying to form a sentence. "Who..are..."
Before he could finish himself, Alaric raised his Lumen Siphon. Without a second thought, he stabbed him in the chest, driving the final nail into the coffin.
Before he left, and before anything else could happen to Eldrin's body, he answered his question. "Mr.Seller."