Luke kept putting distance between himself and the fortress. No Warden came after him, but he still pushed as far away as he could. The alarms rang across the city, echoing off the stone, but he ignored them. Instead, he climbed to the top of a nearby building.

He had spent a while sitting by the fortress gates, waiting for some Warden to step out, but none ever did. Eventually, he decided to leave. Lingering there was still dangerous. Bastion assassins could show up at any moment. The kukris were badly damaged. The fortress would have to wait. He would attack it again once he had a plan.

He took an arrow in hand.

[Common Arrow (Common)]: An arrow generated by an enchanted quiver.

It was a limitation of the gear. Luke might have grown strong, but even the best weapons had their breaking point.

He sighed. If only it were rare-tier. I wouldn't mind losing it to a mana explosion.

In fact, that was exactly the approach he would have taken. Against a monster like that, he was running out of options.

That damned armor is the problem.

There were only two ways to bring down a Warden: outpower them or drain their mana dry.

Luke could outmatch the Midnight Wardens in raw strength, and Charlie was a little stronger than they were. Against one or two, she had the upper hand, though she struggled against groups. Sure, she had her berserker mode, but that gave her maybe three to five minutes of heightened power. Then she would be completely spent.

Even so, the two of them were strong enough that they never needed to drag a fight out, forcing a Midnight Warden to waste mana repairing its armor just to finally land the killing blow. Luke could take one down with a stamina-charged arrow, or conserve resources and use his rare-tier kukris. But now, the enemy was a Midnight Warden Captain, level seventy.

My poor kukris won't survive channeling that much mana in such a long fight.

On the rooftop, he lay back and stared at the sky.

"Right when I was starting to feel strong," he muttered.

"Hey, don't get all gloomy on me. When you're upset, my food tastes bad," Artemis said.

"You're eating right now?" Luke asked.

"What else am I supposed to do? I eat when I'm nervous," she replied.

Luke let it drop, staying silent.

Wasn't the story that the first fortress only had one Midnight Warden? This one has an entire army.

The image of the Warden Captain burned in his mind, and with it came a memory of Angelica. Maybe it wasn't a Midnight Warden that hunted her and her friends back then. Maybe it was that monster.

"All that work I put into getting stronger… and it's worthless," he said.

"Hahahahahaha!" The Beast Lord's laughter rang out.

"Stop laughing, you idiot!" Artemis snapped at him. "I nearly had a heart attack, and I don't even have a heart!"

Luke ignored the two loudmouthed souls. He thought back to what he had seen. There are too many, and they're coordinated.

A duel with the Captain would be bad enough, but the real danger was how the other Wardens backed it up. Their individual levels were low, but the way they worked together made them deadly.

"It was a trap. From the very start…"

The creature had let him and Charlie push deep into the fortress on purpose. If Allison and I had tried storming that place back then, we'd be dead.

The thought dug in like a splinter. It felt like every step he took out of the tutorial came with two steps back. More obstacles. More reasons to believe all the effort had been for nothing.

"You're seriously insane," a woman's voice said. It wasn't Artemis.

Luke glanced to the side and froze. A jolt shot through him, and he rolled backward, coming up to his feet. Sitting cross-legged on the rooftop was a woman dressed head-to-toe like a ninja.

"Who are you?" Luke asked, kukris in hand.

She locked eyes with him, then melted into the floor, dissolving into shadow.

"Oh, no…" he muttered, recognizing her for what she was. A Bastion assassin.

The shadow slid away from him. She reappeared with a knife in hand, lunging. Luke met the strike with a kukri, the blades locking.

"Hi. Pleasure to meet you," she said, smiling as they pushed against each other.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

Luke twisted, slashing, but she dodged with effortless grace.

"So you came. Bartholomew actually sent you," Luke said.

"Oh, wait, you've got me mixed up. I don't run with those guys. I'm kind of an enemy to everybody. I work for myself. And, for the record, I'm not an assassin. I'm a thief," she said, holding something up.

Luke's eyes darted to his neck, and the cold hit him. "My necklace!"

She had stolen his storage item. And now she was running. Luke tore after her. She blinked in and out of existence, shadow-dashing ahead of him.

"Hey, Luke! Don't let her rob me!" Artemis shouted.

"Hahahahahaha!" The Beast Lord trapped in the necklace roared with laughter.

Luke hurled both kukris at her, but she dove, rolled, and kept going, vaulting across rooftops, leaping from wall to wall.

[Predator's Mark activated]

Her silhouette flared in red, then vanished completely.

"Damn it!"

Luke vaulted high, using the Aracna Leap. She darted through a narrow opening into a house. He dove in after her, shifting into mist. Inside, there was nothing. She was gone. And worse, she had taken his storage item with her.

***

Artemis was clutched in the ninja woman's hand as she sprinted across the rooftops, vaulting through windows and cutting through the cramped interiors of the city's houses.

"POLICE! POLICE!" Artemis screamed.

"Shut up!" the ninja snapped.

"PICKPOCKET! PICKPOCKET!" Artemis bellowed even louder.

The woman clicked her tongue in annoyance, but Artemis kept shrieking. Then, out of nowhere, a boot slammed into the thief's side, knocking her flat. She hit the ground hard, and before she could react, Artemis was yanked from her grasp, Luke's hand closing around her. A blade pressed against the thief's throat. She looked up and found a pair of cold, unblinking eyes staring down at her.

"Where are your partners?" Luke demanded. "Bartholomew wouldn't send one of you alone."

The ninja kept her silence.

"Make one wrong move, and I'll cut your throat." His voice held no doubt. He would kill her without hesitation.

"I... I told you, I was just robbing you. I'm not with anyone," she stammered.

The blade shifted, its tip hovering dangerously close to her eye.

"If anyone shows up here, you lose the eye before I open your throat."

She swallowed hard.

"While she was with you, did you see anyone nearby?" Luke asked.

"Nope, not a soul," Artemis replied.

"I did! There was a whole army!" shouted the voice of Mr. Shitpants from inside the pocket dimension.

"Mr. Shitpants is lying," Artemis shot back without missing a beat.

Luke's gaze stayed fixed on the thief. She was probably weighing every possible way out.

"I don't know what crazy situation you think you're in," the ninja said, "but I'm a famous thief from the Wild Zone."

"Why steal my storage item? You can't use it unless you're the owner."

She smirked. "That's my specialty. I take storage items, then track down the owner and... charge a 'ransom' for their safe return."

Luke studied her, his eyes the kind that looked like they were making an actual life-or-death decision.

"What were you doing in a place like that? How much do you know about the fortress?"

Her easy smile faded. The lightness in her eyes vanished, replaced by something cold. "Looks like I don't have a choice."

Luke pressed the blade harder against her skin. "Don't even try it."

For a moment she didn't move. Then, the faintest twitch of her right shoulder. His instincts screamed, and he adjusted his grip, ready to slash. But instead, she brought two fingers to her lips. He moved, but not fast enough. A blast of thick, black smoke burst from her mouth, rolling out in a choking wave. Sight vanished. Sound warped and dulled. When it cleared, the rooftop was empty. No tracks. No sound. No presence at all.

***

Luke scanned the area, searching for any sign of the ninja woman. Nothing. Even the faintest traces, footprints in the dirt, flickers of mana, were gone.

"That bitch…" he muttered under his breath.

He started running, putting distance between himself and the scene. It could still be a trap set by Bartholomew's soldiers.

"Hey, Luke! Don't you think you've already hit your daily quota of almost dying?" Artemis called out. "I say you just get the hell out of here."

"Keep going. You got this. Head back into the fortress," Franky said, chuckling.

For safety's sake, Luke shoved Franky back into the inventory. He couldn't risk the guy making noise on purpose. When the necklace had been stolen, he had chased the ninja using Assassin's Tracking, following footprints and faint mana trails. His first thought had been that she was working for Bartholomew, baiting him into an ambush or trying to rob him of something valuable. The danger of carrying a storage item was simple: as long as there was anything inside, it could not be sent to the inventory. That meant it could be stolen. And once it left his perception range, there was no way to recall it, even if it was empty.

My marking skill didn't work on her again.

He had a few guesses why, but he didn't dwell on them. Right now, he needed to get out of this area. Even so, his mind kept drifting to the bigger problem. He pulled up his notification history and read the update for the second fortress.

[Special Event: Midnight Siege]

Description:

The Midnight Wardens have sensed your presence. Your intrusion has not gone unnoticed. They remained hidden, lurking within the fortress walls, waiting for you to wander deeper into their domain. Now they march, intent on hunting down and eradicating anyone who dares defile their stronghold. Their forces, led by their commander, have begun their assault to reclaim this territory.

Objective: Eliminate the invasion leader and secure control of the fortress.

Status: Event in progress.

(Warning: Access to the mechanism will remain locked until the territory is fully secured. The door will only open upon completion of the event.)

To reach the second mechanism's chamber, he would have to take down the Midnight Warden Captain, the strongest creature in this place. And the real problem wasn't just the Captain's raw power, but the fact that it would have the support of other Wardens, plus that invisibility skill that even bypassed his marking ability.

In the end, if Angelica and her brother had made it to the mechanism room during their attempt in the past, they would have found that door locked. And maybe they all would have died to the Warden Captain. Including her.

But as he thought it over, some things began to click. Maybe Marshall had never even tried to activate the second mechanism for this exact reason.

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