Vinny charged in and out of the bandit mob like he was walking through empty air, slaughtering them until not a single piece of armor was left intact. The ambush alone killed five bandits who didn’t even have time to draw their weapons. The rest did react—realizing an enemy had infiltrated, they panicked—but all they managed was the thought of resisting.

Not a single bandit could stop that ice spear swinging with reckless freedom. The blade flashing with deathly frost was like a scythe cutting wheat—fast, precise, ruthless.

They couldn’t even see Vinny’s strikes clearly. They couldn’t take a single move before their lives were harvested, collapsing onto the ground like broken trash.

In just a few breaths, Vinny ended the fight—like he’d turned on some unstoppable mode.

But it wasn’t that Vinny was bullying them. Aside from using [Congealed-Ice Shackles] as a grappling effect to close distance, he hadn’t used a scrap of magic. That was already generous. They just hadn’t been able to seize the chance.

Now the ruined ancient fort was even quieter than before, as if even the wind had stopped.

Vinny glanced back at the bandits he’d left piled and scattered everywhere. Nothing about it surprised him. If there was anything he hadn’t expected, it was only how easy it had been.

An extraordinary being in the Magus realm against bandits who mostly didn’t even have a realm...

It was a dimensionality drop.

These bandits who terrorized the countryside every day didn’t even get a sound out before they all fell.

Vinny looked up at the shredded cloth fluttering overhead. He had silently emptied this nest.

He went into the battlements to search further. There wasn’t anything worth noting—just a few money pouches with some silver coins and a lot of copper, plus daily necessities and stored food like cabbages and tomatoes.

All of it was loot.

It belonged to the victims.

Vinny didn’t touch any of it. He locked the storeroom and took the key.

The fort held by the “Final Burials” had fallen. No one had managed to send word that an intruder had slipped in. Their gate was wide open now.

That made everything afterward much easier. With a hole torn open like this, Vinny could smoothly push into the interior of Gaflei Fort.

He only had one night.

So he had to move—now.

Passing through the northern gate, Vinny infiltrated the fortress complex and headed toward the central fort.

What he didn’t notice was what happened after he left.

The corpses sprawled all over the ground—blood seeped, little by little, into the surface. The fort’s floor was like a living thing. It made a wet, lip-smacking sound, as if it had tasted the blood and wasn’t satisfied. Even the bodies themselves sank into the ground and vanished.

Very quickly, there was nothing left.

As if no one had ever come here at all.

Vinny was already close to the central fort. Compared to the outer forts at the edge of the complex, this one was clearly the ancient empire’s main command center—massive, imposing, unmistakably the heart of the ruins.

There should have been bandits stationed in other forts too, but since he already knew where the enemy’s heart was, Vinny decided to go straight for it—rip out the leader and interrogate him directly.

If before he’d only been catching a glimpse of the outline...

Now Vinny was basically certain this practical assessment wasn’t ordinary. If nothing else, something was about to go wrong.

He’d drawn the jackpot again.

Who was that suspicious black-robed, red-eyed priest? Why was he here at this time? What was he doing?

And the skinny bandit’s words had left plenty of details unclear—like the reason they’d believed the priest. The skinny man had said he didn’t know why; he’d just felt the black-robed man’s words made sense.

Logically, getting a pack of cunning bandits—people who were anything but saints—to obey someone was not easy.

Yet that priest had used a few sentences to make them believe him, use them for the moment, and have them collect human organs for him.

It was absurd.

Vinny had a feeling that the reason these bandits had converged here without coordination also had to do with that black-robed, red-eyeball priest the skinny man had mentioned.

If that was true...

Then the problem might be big.

Bandits were one thing—a pile of small fry. But that black-robed man with the red eye symbol, his face unseen—his strength was still unknown.

Vinny’s strength as an Intermediate Magus was enough to handle most “accidents,” but he’d wandered into too many high-tier lobbies. That had made him cautious.

Once he realized the situation was tricky, he could turn back right now and report it to the academy.

But then the practical assessment mission wouldn’t be truly complete.

And if he waited for a Carillian Academy carriage to come pick him up, it would be weeks at the very least. In those weeks, he couldn’t guarantee how many people that pack of scum would kill—nor whether the black-robed red-eyed man would achieve his goal.

Vinny smelled danger. He had a feeling this could become extremely troublesome.

The bandit threat at Gaflei Fort had already lasted for some time. He couldn’t tell how far that black-robed man’s plan had progressed—or what would erupt once it was fully completed.

If his leaving meant no one stopped this calamity in advance, and it triggered an uncontrollable disaster...

Vinny knew he would regret it.

And he had nowhere to go to call for reinforcements. His connections... well, anyone who knows, knows. Even in Camella Royal Capital, outside of Mirexia, he barely had any. Forget the Tyrel Empire—foreign territory.

If Isatia were beside him, he could tell Isatia and have her request Tyrel Empire support.

But Isatia was out on her own practical assessment mission right now. Who knew where she was.

And Vinny couldn’t return to Carillian Academy yet. Going down the mountain to some imperial city-state to ask for help was a dead end too. Even if he reached a lord’s manor and introduced himself, the guards would probably scratch their ears lazily and say, “Vin-what? Never heard of it. Did our lord invite you??”

Even if they had heard of him, they’d only know his bad reputation. The more aggressive ones might just drive him off on the spot.

This hadn’t even drawn the local imperial lord’s attention. Leaving aside whether Vinny could even meet that lord, even if he did, everything he said would be taken as dreaming—nonsense, babbling, delirium.

In the end, what he said carried no authority. If it were Isatia speaking, the effect would be completely different.

There were watchtowers around the main fort too, but maybe because that fort Vinny had breached earlier had been guarded, there weren’t many watchtowers in that direction. Vinny infiltrated all the way here; relying on an extraordinary being’s five senses, breaking through was easy.

He wasn’t good at stealth.

But hiding his tracks from ordinary people—or low-level Sorcerers—was far too easy. To these bandits, it was like he’d slipped into the wind itself: silent, soundless.

Very soon, Vinny reached the base of a section of battlements. After confirming there was no torchlight above, he extended [Congealed-Ice Shackles], latched it onto a stone pillar on the wall above, and pulled himself up—one flip, and he was on the battlements.

“Huh? What was that sound?” The scraping pull still caught the attention of a few bandits on the wall. They started to walk over to see what was going on.

Curiosity killed the cat.

Halfway there, each of them was bound by an ice chain. Extreme cold fused their flesh to it.

Their eyes widened. These were men who only knew how to bully the weak. When had they ever seen something like this?!

They were just about to scream—

The spear blade flashing with frost tore them apart.

Vinny moved clean and decisive, leaving no extra noise. After finishing them, he looked down from above, taking in the main fort’s layout.

Gaflei Fort’s main fort was even larger than he’d expected, and the interior was complicated—walls upon walls blocking sightlines. He could vaguely see torchlight moving everywhere.

Looks like that red-eyed black-robed guy wasn’t some omniscient god. He hadn’t organized these rats to flee in advance, and he hadn’t predicted their time of death either.

Vinny used [Congealed-Ice Shackles] to lower himself off the wall and dropped into a quiet spot.

This was probably an abandoned stable inside the fort.

Vinny felt that he was, in some ways, a stealth master. The essence of stealth was not letting anyone discover your infiltration—

So if you killed everyone who saw you, wasn’t that perfect stealth?

“Mm?!” “Who’s there?!” At a corner, Vinny saw bandits wearing deer-antler ornaments on their heads, dressed like savages, with strange tattoos across their arms.

These had to be the “Interpreters.”

The moment they saw the blue-haired young man who clearly wasn’t one of them, the five Interpreters froze for a beat, then snapped into action. Three raised sword-and-shield and crouched, while the other two lifted longbows, quickly drawing arrows from their quivers and nocking them.

To be fair, the Interpreters’ combat discipline was at least a star and a half above the Fur Foxes and the Final Burials. They didn’t panic. Their physiques were strong—just look at the muscle on those thick arms. And they even coordinated tactically.

But in front of a true strong one, a higher level of discipline didn’t matter.

They still got killed all the same.

In their eyes, Vinny’s speed was fast enough to leave afterimages. The three Interpreters hurriedly raised their shields—

Shield shattered. Men died.

Their thick wooden shields were as fragile as paper in front of a top-grade [Magic Tool] weapon. Frostfang cut through shield and body in one—three slashes in a single stroke, cleaving all three into halves.

The two bowmen didn’t even see how Vinny reached them.

And they didn’t have time to loose, because Vinny had only needed one spear sweep to kill their three front-liners—

So killing the two of them also only required one sweep.

Cold light flashed. One Interpreter died on the spot.

The other, in that instant between life and death, erupted with terrifying potential and barely escaped—but paid for it with an arm severed off.

“Mm?” Vinny looked at the frozen blood on his blade, thinking the Interpreters really did [N O V E L I G H T] have something to them. There was actually someone here who made him use a second move.

The one-armed Interpreter didn’t even dare worry about the blood pouring from the stump. Like he’d seen a ghost, he bolted.

But he hadn’t run more than a few steps when an arrow dropped from above and pierced his throat with perfect accuracy.

Vinny didn’t have time to care how the one-armed Interpreter died.

Because he also sensed an arrow flying toward him.

A double-shot.

The archer had nocked two arrows at once—firing simultaneously at Vinny and at the fleeing Interpreter.

The Interpreter hadn’t reacted at all. The arrow punched through his throat, and he fell to the ground, dying in agony—without even knowing who had killed him.

On the other side, Vinny’s spear snapped out, knocking the arrow aimed at him in half.

This arrowhead...

It had force behind it.

There was an expert here?

Vinny’s brows tightened. He’d fought his way through this entire ruin and no one had been able to take a single move from him.

Now it seemed there really was a skilled opponent inside this fort.

He lifted his gaze toward the darkness overhead.

And at that moment—

A shadow dropped from the sky.

A ruthless blade-light shot straight for his throat.

Vinny turned his spear sideways and blocked the cold edge. Feeling the force transmitted through the shaft, his expression turned grave.

He had to get serious.

In the darkness, Vinny couldn’t see the attacker’s face. The attacker couldn’t see his, either.

And after blocking that first blade, Vinny immediately realized something:

It wasn’t one knife.

It was dual-wielding. Because on the other side, another razor-wind of steel ripped in.

Strong, too.

Trying to use the night—trying to make Vinny misjudge the silhouette and think there was only one weapon?

He was underestimating him.

CLANG! CLANG!

The second blade chopped into Vinny’s body—

And bounced off without suspense.

In an instant, Vinny’s entire body armored up in thick, gleaming silver plating, imposing and majestic.

[Armor Fortress]

The attacker’s other hand went numb from the recoil, and he understood he’d struck iron.

And Vinny didn’t waste that stiffness.

He kicked the attacker hard in the belly, sending him stumbling, then leapt up like a titan.

[Annihilating Heavy Stomp]

BOOM BOOM BOOM!!

Vinny slammed down like a bomb right in front of him. Earth and stone exploded upward, blasting the attacker away.

Against a strong opponent, Vinny never dared to probe slowly. When he caught an opening, he went straight for a killing move.

If nothing went wrong, the other side should’ve been blown into pieces by that earth magic.

But strangely—

At the moment the blast hit, a dull, earth-gold glow rose around the attacker like a barrier descending onto him.

He was thrown back, but he didn’t die.

“Oh?” Vinny stared at the figure slowly climbing up from the ground, his eyes turning odd. “You’ve got something. A kick plus a titan drop and I didn’t one-shot you—and you’ve even got a magic shield? That’s lavish. But that thing can’t protect you forever.”

“Die.” Vinny drove his spear toward him.

But when the attacker heard him speak, he froze for some reason, then hurriedly shouted—

“Y-You—wait! Stop fighting, it’s me!” A tender female voice rang out.

“Mm?” Vinny’s spear stopped mid-thrust and retracted at once, reflexively.

That voice...

It was way too familiar.

How are you here?? x2.

The two of them stared at each other in silence. A moment later, they spoke in unison.

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