Chapter 14: The Butcher of Goldstone Lane
The corrupt clerk's name was Fynn. To Leo's Energy Perception, he was a frantic, skittering beacon of tainted light moving through the twilight bustle of Aethelburg's merchant district. His normal 11% corruption had spiked to a feverish 34%. Fear did that. Or anticipation.
Leo followed, a shadow given form. His [Echo-Location] painted the world in a ghostly, precise landscape. He didn't see the garish signs of alchemy shops or the bright silks of street vendors; he saw structural supports, crowd density, and escape routes. He moved through the thronging streets without touching a soul, his steps silent on the cobblestones. The cacophony of hawkers, arguing patrons, and clattering carts was not noise to him, but a blanket of sound he used to muffle his own presence.
Fynn darted into a narrow alley between a gemcutter's and a restaurant that reeked of pungent spices. The alley was a dead end. Leo paused at the entrance, his senses extending down the narrow corridor.
There were two others waiting. Their energy signatures were not human. They were voids, pockets of nullity that greedily consumed the ambient Qi around them. Full demons. But not the bestial Brutes or Stalkers of the Abyss. These were infiltrators. Their forms were humanoid, glamoured to pass casual inspection, but to Leo's Energy Perception, they were walking wounds in the world.
One was lean and sharp, its energy like a serrated knife. The other was heavier, its presence a dull, oppressive weight. Fynn was babbling, his voice a high-pitched whine echoing in the confined space.
"...don't know how he knew! He just did! He's not human, I tell you! The General's pet monster, the blind one! He looked right at me, I swear it, even though he has no eyes!"
The lean demon backhanded Fynn. The sound of the impact was a wet crack against the alley walls. "You were seen. You are compromised. The contract is void."
"The payment!" Fynn pleaded. "I delivered the shipment manifests! I need the elixir! The pain... the whispers without it..."
"The only payment for failure is oblivion," the heavier demon rumbled, its voice like grinding stones. It raised a hand, dark energy coalescing around its claws.
Leo had heard enough. This was not just an execution; it was an intelligence-gathering opportunity. And the EXP was a given.
He stepped into the alley.
All three figures froze. The demons' heads snapped toward him, their glamours flickering for a fraction of a second, revealing glimpses of grey, slick skin and too-many eyes. Fynn whimpered, scrambling backward against the wall.
The lean demon recovered first, a cruel smile twisting its human face. "The blind mouse has come to play. The master will be pleased to dissect you."
It moved, a blur of motion that would have been invisible to any cultivator below the Core Formation stage. To Leo, it was a clear, predictable vector. He didn't block or dodge. He simply stepped inside the lunge, his left hand snapping up to catch the demon's wrist. There was no flare of Qi, no mystical technique. Just 400 points of perfectly applied Strength.
The demon's arm shattered from the wrist to the elbow with a sound like a bag of gravel being dropped.
The demon had a microsecond to register shock before Leo's right hand, holding the Staff of the Unseen Path, thrust forward. The indestructible point took it directly in the throat, crushing its vocal cords and spine. He didn't watch it dissolve. He was already turning.
The heavier demon roared, abandoning its human form entirely. It swelled, bursting out of its clothes, becoming a hulking mass of muscle and rage, its skin hardening into rocky plates. It was a variant Brute, smarter and more powerful, designed for urban terror.
It charged, intending to smash Leo against the alley wall.
Leo dropped into a low stance. As the demon closed, he erupted upward, driving the butt of his staff into the underside of its jaw. The force of the blow, amplified by his perfect kinetic chain and monstrous Strength, snapped its head back. Its charge continued blindly, and it smashed face-first into the wall with enough force to crack the stone.
Dazed, it stumbled back. Leo didn't give it a moment. He spun the staff in a tight, vicious arc, bringing it down on the demon's knee. The joint exploded in a shower of black ichor and chitin. As the demon collapsed, Leo ended it with a final, precise strike to the base of its skull.
The entire engagement had taken less than five seconds.
Silence returned to the alley, broken only by Fynn's ragged, terrified breathing and the soft hiss of dissolving demonic matter.
Leo turned his head toward the clerk. Fynn was pressed against the wall, a dark stain spreading across his trousers. His corruption levels were plummeting, replaced by pure, undiluted terror.
"Please... please don't... they made me do it..." he sobbed.
"Names," Leo said, his voice flat, devoid of anger or threat. It was worse than any shout. It was the tone of a machine requesting data. "Locations. The elixir."
The words spilled out of Fynn in a frantic torrent. He named a disgraced alchemist in the slums who brewed the corrupting "elixir." He described a network of minor officials and merchants on the take. He gave up a drop-point in the warehouse district where stolen imperial supplies were exchanged for demonic favors. It was a small but vital artery in the demonic infestation of Aethelburg.
Leo absorbed it all. The System logged every name, every location, cross-referencing them with his mental map of the city.
When Fynn had nothing left to give, he slumped, weeping. "What... what will you do with me?"
Leo looked at him, a man who had sold his soul to stop the whispers in his head, only to find a much louder terror waiting for him. He was a resource, now depleted.
"Your usefulness has ended," Leo stated.
He didn't strike him. He simply turned and walked away. The terror, the shock, the sudden severing of the corrupting influence—it was too much for Fynn's heart. Leo's Energy Perception registered the man's Qi snuff out like a candle behind him before he even reached the alley's mouth.
[Demonic Infiltrators eliminated. EXP + 2,500.] [Corrupted Asset neutralized. EXP + 500.] [Intel Gathered: 'Goldstone Lane Conspiracy'. New quests available.]
He emerged from the alley as the first city watch patrol rounded the corner, drawn by the sound of the crashing demon. They found two dissolving demonic corpses and a dead clerk, his face frozen in a mask of ultimate fear.
The news spread through Aethelburg by morning, a wild, half-whispered tale. They called it the Butchery of Goldstone Lane. The official story was a demonic ambush and a brave clerk's tragic death. But the unofficial story, the one passed in hushed tones in taverns and guard posts, was different. They spoke of a blind man seen near the alley. They said the demons hadn't just been killed; they had been dismantled.
General Kaelen received the report in his war room, his face grim. He looked out his window towards Leo's secluded villa. He had wanted a weapon. He had gotten a force of nature that operated on its own inscrutable logic. He felt a chill that had nothing to do with the morning cold.
In his villa, Leo stood on his balcony, the jade token from the Verdant Sword Sect now in his hand. He had picked it up after Li Tao left. A tool, after all, was a tool.
He could feel the city beneath him, a living, breathing organism. He could feel its sickness. And he had just administered the first, precise cut.
The hunt within the walls had begun in earnest. And the Unseen Guest was no longer a guest. He was the surgeon. And Aethelburg was his operating table.