Kalindor flew with difficulty, frequently swaying as if he were about to fall from the sky at any moment. From time to time, he looked back fearfully, making sure no one was following him…
When his flight spell finally ended, he descended awkwardly from the sky and landed near the entrance of a strange tavern in Asshai whose name seemed quite familiar to him: Sleeping Dragon.
Looking around to make sure no one was watching, he took a potion and used Alteration to temporarily change his appearance.
After becoming a middle-aged man with partially gray hair, Kalindor donned a mask over his eyes and finally entered the strangely busy tavern.
He chose a table in a darker corner with few people and sat down. Most of the tavern's clients gave him sinister looks, but Kalindor ignored them.
Then, a woman without a mask approached him with a gentle smile. She was a mutant with white skin and black fur, resembling a cat*[1], and handed him a menu: "Welcome, sir, what will your order be?"
"Come back in 10 minutes, I'll choose calmly—"
"Cough cough cough."
Kalindor couldn't finish his sentence and began coughing uncontrollably.
The waitress slightly twitched her feline ears and sniffed twice, detecting a deathly smell coming from the customer. Her yellow feline eyes changed shape, and she understood that he was gravely injured and cursed. She smiled politely and said, "As you wish, sir, I'll be back in 10 minutes."
As soon as she left, Kalindor's cough finally stopped. He looked at his hands, blood-covered, and felt some loose items in his mouth. When he spat them into an empty glass on the table, he realized they were his teeth.
Besides his teeth, Kalindor also noticed that some of his fingers were rapidly rotting…
He quickly pulled several potions from his Magic Bag and began drinking them all, fearing he wouldn't be able to control the side effects of the curses.
Kalindor was terrified; he never imagined that the man called Jack could be so frightening…
Not only did he possess the terrible Dark Affinity, but he also perfectly mastered the Shadow Affinity. Moving undetectably in the ever-dark and gloomy Asshai.
Still afraid, Kalindor remembered a terrible enemy the Valyrian Bloodmages had once faced: The Black King.
Possessing the same Dark Affinity, the Black King Malgor had caused considerable damage to Valyria. It all happened because of a certain invasion of new territory, where they killed someone connected to the terrible, unknown Bloodmage…
At that time, the Bloodmages of Valyria were still unaware of all the details of the Dark Affinity; therefore, they didn't know of its terrible ability to summon "illusory" monsters through a portal…
The tragedy was so great that at the time, 17 Bloodmages died, and 57 Dragonlords lost their lives during the attack on the Freehold City. And the number of civilian casualties was in the dozens of thousands.
Although the strength of the man called Jack didn't even come close to a third of what the Black King Malgor could do, it was still too much for him to handle alone…
Suddenly, the tavern door opened again, drawing Kalindor's attention. He looked around fearfully, but relaxed as he saw the new clients entering. There was a young and beautiful lone apprentice, a couple holding hands, and not far behind them, an old hunchback with a cane.
Breathing a sigh of relief, Kalindor finally placed his order with the waitress, believing he had finally escaped his pursuer.
But Kalindor still hadn't realized that his own shadow seemed to be alive, watching him with sinister eyes while smiling distortedly at his misery…
***
Ten minutes earlier…
Jack watched Kalindor fly and flee through the dark skies of Asshai after a brief battle against him.
On the battlefield, a green dragon chimera made of vines, roots, and moss lay shattered and dead alongside various creatures of varying sizes and horrendous, distorted forms.
The hundreds of corpses of the creatures that had brought down this powerful dragon chimera and terrorized Kalindor were now slowly disappearing from the battlefield as if they were illusions that never existed.
Contrary to what Kalindor thought, the Dark Affinity wasn't as powerful as he had imagined…
The advanced spell "Dark Portal" was nothing more than an accumulation spell. In its basic stage, a contract was made with a certain entity, and sacrifices needed to be made daily to accumulate monsters within a pocket dimension and ensure future summons. Every day, one sacrifice was made to the Portal, and only after this "offering" would subsequent sacrifices be counted as contributions and accumulation for the Mage himself.
Thus, using a basic spell, any living offering was counted, from a simple rat or bird to magic animals, mutants, and even human sacrifices. After the sacrifice, all creatures assumed a new form distorted by the evil power of Dark Affinity, causing changes in their appearances and increasing their power.
In Jack's view, the portal wasn't that powerful; it could remain open for about five to fifteen minutes, and every second it could summon one to ten monsters. The percentage of summoning high numbers was low, as was the chance of it remaining open for more than five minutes.
But specifically today, the portal released the highest number of monsters per second and remained open for almost ten minutes, surprising even Jack himself. Even a Bloodmage as powerful as Kalindor didn't have enough AOE advancing spells to deal with that absurd number of monsters…
To make matters worse for Kalindor, while the portal was open, Jack, still fighting as an assassin, hid in the shadows and cast many powerful Dark Affinity curses on the Order's target.
Curses of this type of affinity were the most difficult to deal with without adequate resistance. With no other choice and suffering heavy losses after the death of his chimera, Kalindor finally fled, abandoning his mission to block Jack for the hour.
Jack didn't pursue him immediately; for him, it was better that the target thought he had given up the chase. That way, it would be easier to do what he was really good at: Ambush and Assassination.
In his right hand, five cards made of pure darkness appeared.
This was his Supreme Skill as a Master Shadowmancer, named by Rafael as: "Jack of all trades".
Each card created a shadow identical to Jack, each with different effects. He could only use two of these five cards at a time.
During the battle, Jack only used one of these cards; it would merge with his own shadow and amplify the effects and durations of all curse-type spells cast by the caster.
Now that the battle was over and he no longer needed this effect, he immediately canceled it, activating the next two cards that would be useful in the ambush to come.
The first created a shadow that ran to the outskirts of the Yin Yang Tower. With it, Jack could quickly return from anywhere he was if the Tower faced an attack. And the second card he activated allowed another shadow to attach itself to Kalindor's shadow as he fled.
The effect of this shadow was to always allow Jack to know the target's location, and also to keep the person under a constant state of "fear". Jack summoned the first shadow, Shadow Return, and the second, Shadow Crewman.
After waiting a few minutes, Jack closed his eyes and sensed Kalindor's current location. He became invisible by blending into the shadows and began to pursue Kalindor…
After a few minutes of running and flying at high speed, Jack realized that the target had hidden inside the Sleeping Dragon tavern, trying to blend in with the people who frequented the place.
He then used a certain magical method to summon some of the new Faceless Men he had trained and who were nearby to his current location. After that, he completely changed his appearance using blood magic and waited for their arrival to blend in and not attract Kalindor's attention…
***
Kalindor saw the couple approach the bar counter while talking to the bartender, and saw the lonely young girl sit at a table with other people she knew.
The last man, an old hunchback, used his cane to help him walk with difficulty and chose to sit closer to the door.
After drinking the water he had asked for and making sure he hadn't been followed, the excessive fear and paranoia that Kalimdor felt finally disappeared. He finally lowered his guard, breathed a sigh of relief, left some silver coins on the tavern table, and began to head towards the exit.
At that moment, as Kalimdor passed very close to the old hunchback, he felt a slight distortion in the surrounding atmosphere. This kind of distortion happened when someone was about to cast spells.
Kalindor's eyes widened, realizing he was being attacked. Without knowing where the attack was coming from, he began to cast a powerful spell that would have destroyed the entire tavern, but at that moment, his mind went blank.
The spell he was about to cast failed, and taking advantage of his weakness, the old hunchback drew a Valyrian Steel dagger and stabbed him several times.
"Puff"
"Puff"
"Puff"
"ARGH"
When Kalimdor's mind cleared from the pain, he had already suffered three consecutive stab wounds, the first two in the chest and the last in the throat. Attempting a last-ditch effort, Kalimdor failed when he felt a terribly strong poison coursing through his veins, leaving his body numb.
At that moment, the old man's dagger delivered a fourth stab, striking his right eye and killing him instantly.
The sudden murder of a customer caused some passersby in the tavern to rise from their seats in concern. But as soon as the old man stood up and placed the dead man's body in his Shadow Bag, he revealed a symbol of the group that protected this tavern.
Recognizing the symbol of the Order of Sages, the people sat down again and resumed eating and drinking as if nothing had happened; after all, in Asshai, they were cold and insensitive to the death of a stranger.
The young mutant waitress waved slightly to the old man before he smiled at her and calmly left the tavern.
Unbeknownst to anyone, the last Bloodmage of the mighty Valyrian Empire had breathed his last in this world…
****
Special thanks to the Patreons:
Sage's Supporter: Jan, Vinnie, frimorigo, Parsa, Scott Robertson, Pato Senalima, and Lily Monarch!
Magic Apprentice: Axel Bour, Gabriele Sulpizio, Takatchi, mandeep singh, Austin, Kobe Robertson, Paul Gaslac, Niteo akuma, 704Corleon, Rodrigo, WhoisMitch, Leery Falcon, Grave Walker, adam, Evil King, and Emotional!
Senior Magic Apprentice: Cole Bromley, Avacus, and TabbyRabbit!
[1] For those who don't remember, the original owner of the Sleeping Dragon was a mutant...