Night deepened, and even Lungmen seemed to have fallen asleep.
"Hah... huff..."
Andrei moved through the maze-like sewer system. For the sake of speed, he hadn't brought much with him. His savings from the past year, along with everything else he owned, were now going up in flames together with that little clinic.
He didn't regret it.
He knew he had to shake off the pursuers here. The Lungmen Guard Department had been watching him for a long time already, but if they thought they could reel in the big fish by trailing him, they were dreaming.
He didn't need a guide.
Over the last month, he had memorized every route through the drainage system. He knew the Lungmen side wouldn't interfere too aggressively. They would follow him until they found his contact.
But Andrei was fully confident he could shake them.
Left turn, right turn, straight through three pipe junctions, then another right.
The stench of the sewers made him feel sick, but every time he thought of finally ending this damned spying mission and going home to marry the girl he loved, his steps grew faster.
He passed through the drainage system and reached the industrial lower level. Then, using a grappling hook, he dropped to the ground below. Smiling, he turned back toward the drainage tunnel and made a universally understood rude gesture. After that, he pulled a ring from his sleeve—
and instantly melted into the earth.
"So he knows an Originium Art like that. No wonder they sent him as a spy."
Roya smiled faintly, then looked back at the Black Cloaks and Lin Yuhsia behind him.
"Spread out and search. He's no master caster. That kind of Arts will only worsen his Oripathy. He can't have gone far."
Lin Yuhsia and the Black Cloaks understood immediately. They jumped down and dispersed in pursuit. Roya borrowed Andrei's grappling line, then glanced at his communicator before heading off in a specific direction.
Not long after Roya left, Ch'en Hui-chieh arrived at the industrial platform as well. She also checked her communicator, then chased after the same direction Roya had taken.
Just as Roya had said, Andrei was no prodigy or master when it came to Originium Arts. He had only been recruited into the spy corps because of the unusual nature of this particular Art. Traveling two kilometers underground had already pushed him to his absolute limit—and that was only possible because he had injected himself with two stimulant shots. Without them, he would have collapsed after only a few hundred meters.
"Hah..."
The agony from Oripathy nearly made him stumble to the ground, but his training took over. He forced himself upright, breathing hard as he looked ahead.
His contact should have been standing there.
Instead, there was only a dark figure he could not make out.
"Hss... huff... Soldier. State your name."
The figure wore a heavy mask of some sort. Its voice was low and hoarse, weighted with a deep, chilling severity that stirred instinctive fear in Andrei's chest.
"Andrei Kovanov. Third Army Group, Second Division, Ursus."
"It's you. No mistake."
A wind brushed past the clouds. A shaft of bright moonlight fell over the black figure, as though even the moon itself were being swallowed by that darkness.
And under that moonlight, Andrei finally saw the equipment and the specially designed breathing apparatus.
At once, he remembered the shadows of Ursus his superiors had once mentioned.
His body took an involuntary step backward.
"Why...?"
An Emperor's Blade of Ursus.
Their appearance meant the arrival of the Empire's will—and of death.
No one escaped an Emperor's Blade.
Certainly not Andrei, who had already exhausted his strength.
From the moment fear took root in his heart, his death had become inevitable.
"You failed."
The Emperor's Blade's voice was deep and heavy. Andrei was just about to say something when a violent pain exploded through his abdomen.
A black spear punched through his chest.
No—
it was growing out of his body.
"As for you, you have to die as well."
"Is it a crime just to be passing by?"
The cold edge of the Emperor's Blade's weapon gleamed beneath the moon. The dying Andrei heard a familiar voice behind him—and in the next moment, a second familiar figure stepped into view.
"I never expected that casting a long line for a big fish would end up hooking a man-eating shark."
Under the bright moonlight, Roya walked forward at an unhurried pace, drawing his standard-issue Guard Department sword. His expression carried a trace of helplessness as he looked at the two before him.
His gaze flicked briefly to the elegant little box that had fallen beside Andrei's corpse.
He knew the necklace he had given the man was inside.
If not for that necklace, there was no way Roya could have tracked him down so quickly.
But he had not told Lin Yuhsia or the others that Andrei was carrying a tracker. In his original plan, he had expected to deal with both Andrei and the contact himself.
This, however, was a little beyond his expectations.
"An Emperor's Blade of Ursus. I'd heard of you for a long time. Seeing you in person really is something else."
He stepped up beside Andrei and ended the man's suffering with a single thrust. Then he raised his eyes and met the Emperor's Blade's gaze without flinching.
The Emperor's Blade was faintly surprised to find that there was no fear at all inside Roya.
To an Emperor's Blade, fear itself was a weapon.
Anyone who feared them was already half-defeated, because fear threw prey into confusion and paralysis. Fear was also fertile soil for the seeds they carried to grow.
The mere fact that Roya felt none was enough to make him worthy of notice.
"Roya. Deputy Chief of the Lungmen Guard Department. Twenty-three years old. Unknown origin. Entered Wei Yenwu's service one year ago. Has uprooted many of Lungmen's hidden agents. You stand against Ursus."
"That can't be helped. I do the job that comes with the position. Aren't you doing the same?"
"No. We are."
As those words fell, the air around them turned even colder.
Roya exhaled a plume of white and sensed a third consciousness nearby. Another Emperor's Blade emerged from the darkness.
Roya settled into a fighting stance and drew a long breath, tensing every muscle in his body.
He confirmed two things instantly.
First: he could not beat them. Not even at full strength.
Second: he could not escape.
Which meant there was no need to think any further about what came next.
Roya kicked off the ground.
His bright military blade collided with the black, vicious edge of the Emperor's Blade's weapon, throwing off a burst of sparks.