Adam landed silently on the roof of a low storage shed, the familiar weight of Lilith still secure in his arms. The warm glow of The Traveler's Rest was just a few buildings away, a beacon of temporary safety. But the image of those three hooded figures slinking away from the inn's front door was etched into his mind.

'Should we chase them?' he thought, hesitation warring with caution. 'Following unknowns into the night is how you walk into an ambush. But ignoring a potential threat right at our doorstep is worse.'

Lilith shifted slightly, her breath a warm whisper against his neck. "You are considering pursuit," she stated, having sensed his tension. "A logical course of action. It would be prudent to identify the threat before it identifies the best moment to strike us. And my methods of... information retrieval are most effective in the quiet of the night."

Adam looked down at her. Even veiled in camouflage, he could picture the chillingly polite smile on her face. "We'll follow. But we are not 'retrieving information' by pulling out their spines, Lilith. We need them functional enough to talk."

"A shame," she murmured, a thread of genuine disappointment in her voice. "But as you wish. Interrogation through more conventional psychic means will have to suffice."

Adam adjusted his grip and pushed off again, leaping towards the eastern edge of town where the figures had disappeared. He landed in a narrow alley, setting Lilith down. They remained hand-in-hand, the camouflage making them ghosts against the dark wood and stone. Adam immediately closed his eyes, pushing his Hunter's Tri-Sense to its limit.

He searched for heartbeats, for the scent of recent passage, for the subtle vibrations of footsteps. The alley was empty. The connecting street was quiet. He expanded his range, focusing on the direction they'd gone.

Nothing.

His eyes snapped open, a frown creasing his brow. "That's not right. I can't sense them at all. No heat, no scent trail, no psychic residue. It's like they vanished."

Lilith's expression, usually one of serene amusement, grew sharp and focused. "Professional assassins, then. Or scouts trained in full-spectrum suppression. They are masking their life signs completely. We must proceed with extreme caution."

They moved forward, a silent pair of shadows flowing through the deserted backstreets of Oakrest. Adam relied on his mundane sight and hearing now, every sense strained. They found nothing for several tense minutes until, at the mouth of a particularly dark alley choked with refuse, Adam's sharp eyes caught a faint glint—the barest reflection of starlight off a boot buckle.

A single figure stood there, hooded and utterly still, their back to the main street as if keeping watch down the alley. It was one of the three.

'Where are the other two?' Lilith's voice brushed his mind, echoing his own concern.

Before Adam could formulate a plan, answer, or even take a step back, his instincts screamed.

Danger. Not from the figure in the alley. From behind.

He didn't think. He shoved Lilith sideways into the deeper shadow of a doorway and threw himself into a forward roll just as something sliced through the air where his neck had been a millisecond before. He came up in a crouch, spinning to face the new threat.

The second hooded figure stood in the middle of the street behind them, having appeared from literally nowhere. No door had opened, no sound had been made. A short, wickedly curved blade was held in a reverse grip. The third figure melted out of the shadows to their left, completing a loose triangle around them.

They had never been the hunters. They had been the bait, leading them into a perfect kill zone. The first figure in the alley now turned around slowly, confirming the trap was sprung.

"Told you they'd come sniffing," a low, raspy voice came from the figure behind Adam. "The princess keeps strange pets."

Lilith straightened up from the doorway, brushing imaginary dust from her sleeve. Her crimson eyes glowed with a cold, predatory light in the darkness. "Pets? How droll." She tilted her head towards Adam, her mental voice crisp. 'My earlier proposal is looking more efficient by the second.'

Adam rose to his full height, his own crimson eyes narrowing as he assessed the three assassins. The Deep Camouflage still clung to him and Lilith, making their forms waver unsettlingly in the gloom. "You were watching the inn," Adam stated, his voice flat. "Who sent you?"

The lead assassin—the one who had spoken—let out a dry chuckle. "The Duke doesn't like unknowns in his territory. Especially unknowns traveling with a trouble-magnet princess. We're here to get answers. You can give them willingly... or we can collect them from your corpses."

'So, Duke Arkwright's men. Faster than anticipated. This changed things.'

They couldn't just kill the Duke's agents without inviting a full-scale manhunt. But they also couldn't let themselves be captured or questioned.

Adam cracked his neck, a slow, deliberate smile spreading across his face—a smile that didn't reach his cold eyes. "You want answers?" he said, his voice dropping to a dangerous purr. "You should have just knocked on the door and asked politely."

The three assassins moved as one, a blur of coordinated, lethal motion. The trap was sprung, and the only way out was through.

At The Traveler's Rest, Ignis's Room

Ignis sprawled across her bed with a dramatic, restless energy. She had long since given up on trying to sleep properly. With a grumpy sigh, she rolled over—once, twice—kicking at the blankets in a futile attempt to get comfortable.

'They're taking forever…' she thought, her brow furrowed. 'Waiting is so boring.'

A wide, jaw-cracking yawn escaped her. Her eyelids grew heavy, fluttering shut. For a moment, the warmth of the bed and her own inner fire threatened to pull her under.

'No… no, I can't,' she jerked herself awake, sitting bolt upright. 'I have to stay up. I have to wait for Adam and Lilith. We'll sleep together…'

But just as she was wrestling with her own drowsiness, a sharp, instinctual alarm shot through her—a primal warning honed in the depths of the dungeon. It wasn't a sound or a smell, but a sudden, oppressive intent. A presence, moving with lethal purpose, was closing in… and its target was Elise's room next door.

All fatigue vanished, burned away in an instant.

Ignis exploded from the bed in a blur of motion. She didn't head for the door; she went straight through it. With a thunderous CRASH, the wooden door splintered into kindling as her shoulder smashed it from its hinges. Somewhere downstairs, she faintly registered the innkeeper's likely heartbroken wail at the destruction of his property.

What she saw in the hallway froze her for only a second, before her body reacted. Five dark-clad assassins were already inside Elise's room, their movements silent and efficient. Two were locked in a rapid exchange of blows with Seraphina, whose sword was a gleaming arc of defiance as she stood protectively in front of Elise. The other three were maneuvering to flank them.

"I'm here!" Ignis yelled, launching herself into the room. Her fists were already wreathed in searing orange flame.

"Try not to destroy the entire inn!" Seraphina shouted through gritted teeth, parrying a dagger thrust aimed at her throat and riposting with a slash that forced an assassin back.

"Stay behind me, Your Highness!" Seraphina commanded, not taking her eyes off her opponents.

"I can fight too, Sera!" Elise protested, her hands glowing with the beginnings of a defensive enchantment.

"Not like this!" Seraphina barked, her voice leaving no room for argument.

Ignis didn't wait for formalities. With a shout of pure, fiery enthusiasm, she dove into the fray. A Solar Flare burst from her palm, not aimed with precision but with area denial in mind. It washed over two assassins, forcing them to dodge back, their cloaks smoldering. Furniture scorched, a tapestry ignited, and the room filled with smoke and chaotic light.

The assassins, initially focused and silent, now moved with urgent coordination. The lead one, seeing the fight escalating noisily and destructively, made a swift hand signal. This wasn't going according to a quiet extraction. This was becoming a beacon.

"This is too troublesome," one of them hissed, his voice muffled. With a swift motion, he ripped a tightly coiled scroll from his belt and activated it.

Seraphina's eyes went wide. "A translocation scroll! Your Highness, to me—!"

But it was too late. The magic erupted from the parchment not as an attack, but as a whirlwind of spatial distortion. It filled the room in an instant—a violent, sucking vortex of light and force that ignored walls and resistance.

Ignis roared, reaching a fiery hand toward Elise. Seraphina lunged, trying to shield the princess with her own body.

The world twisted, compressed, and tore.

With a sound like a thunderclap contained in a box, the room in The Traveler's Rest was left empty—scorched, damaged, and eerily quiet. Ignis, Seraphina, Elise, and the five assassins were gone, teleported to an unknown location far from the safety of the inn.

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