The rain had been falling since dawn. The city below was wrapped in fog, its alleys dripping with filth and silence. Somewhere beyond the smoke and stone lay the heart of the Wind Empire, and tonight, it was about to bleed.
On a rooftop overlooking the Azure Palace, a man crouched under the shadow of a broken statue. His cloak was soaked, his mask clinging to his skin. His name was Kael, though few ever used it. To most, he was just another blade one of the countless assassins owned by the empire's Second Prince, a man whose greed had carved a kingdom out of fear.
Kael didn't care for politics. He cared for the mission. One last kill, and he'd be free. That was the promise.
The rain masked his movements as he slipped across the roof tiles. Below, guards moved in practiced rotations, their armor catching the faint torchlight. Kael counted every step, every heartbeat, every pause between their breaths.
Inside the palace, music played soft strings, a low drumbeat. The Prince of the Sky Empire had arrived to discuss marriage with Princess Aria, the Wind Empire's seventh daughter. A political union meant to unite two empires that had spent generations trying to erase each other from maps.
Kael's orders were simple: end it before it begins.
He reached the skylight and crouched low, eyes narrowing at the warm light inside. Through the glass, he saw the Sky Prince a young man with silver hair, barely twenty, smiling with the kind of innocence Kael had long forgotten. The princess sat opposite him, her hands folded in her lap, eyes steady but cold.
They looked like children trying to act like rulers.
He almost pitied them. Almost.
Kael drew a small dagger from his belt a thin, curved blade forged from soulsteel, able to cut through Qi threads and spiritual barriers. It was his favorite weapon. Quiet. Efficient. Final.
The signal came: a brief flash of light from a tower far across the city.
He breathed once. Moved.
The skylight opened without a sound. Kael dropped through, landing behind a pillar. The guards didn't notice. The prince laughed softly at something the princess said. Kael's footsteps were silent as breath.
When he stepped out of the shadows, the blade was already in motion.
It entered through the back of the neck, clean and deep. The prince's laughter cut short. His eyes went wide, confusion replacing hope, then went still. Kael caught him before he could fall, easing him to the floor.
No scream. No sound.
Just a life leaving quietly.
The princess stared, frozen. Her lips parted, but no words came out. Kael met her gaze and for a brief, fragile second, saw the reflection of himself in her eyes. A ghost.
Then he was gone.
Outside, the rain grew heavier. Kael vanished into the rooftops, blood on his gloves, breath steady. He didn't look back.
The mission was clean. Perfect.
And it was over.
He reached the meeting point by the river a narrow bridge where the city lights dissolved into mist. His handler waited there, a man in a hooded cloak. Kael recognized him by the ring on his hand: the crest of the Second Prince.
"Is it done?" the man asked.
Kael nodded. "The Sky Prince is dead."
The man smiled. "Good. Then your debt to the empire is repaid."
Kael waited. Rain dripped from his chin. The man's tone was wrong too calm, too polite. Kael's hand twitched toward his dagger.
He never made it.
The handler moved first a flash of steel, fast and precise. Pain burst through Kael's chest as the blade slid between his ribs. He staggered back, gasping.
"Why…?"
"No witnesses," the man said simply, pushing the blade deeper. "The Second Prince sends his gratitude."
Kael's legs gave out. He hit the bridge hard, rain mixing with blood. The man knelt beside him, voice cold.
"You served well, Kael. But loyalty is a luxury this empire can't afford."
The last thing Kael saw was the man's boot pressing against his chest then the shove.
He fell backward into the river.
The current pulled him under immediately. The water was freezing, thick with mud and ash. He tried to swim, but his arms didn't respond. His vision blurred; blood poured from the hole in his chest, dissolving into the dark.
So this is it.
He thought about the wars. About the family he couldn't save. About the empire that had turned him into a weapon.
He'd killed for them. Lied for them. Lived for them.
And now, he would die for them.
The irony almost made him laugh.
Bubbles escaped his mouth instead.
The world dimmed. The sound of the river became distant, like whispers through stone.
But as he sank deeper, something changed.
At the edge of his fading sight, a faint light appeared black, but glowing. It pulsed, slow and steady, like a heartbeat buried in the riverbed. It was small at first, then larger, rising toward him.
Kael couldn't move. Couldn't breathe.
The light touched his forehead and for an instant, pain unlike anything he'd ever felt tore through his skull. He tried to scream, but the sound drowned in the water.
The light pushed deeper.
Something ancient and cold slipped into his mind.
Memories shattered. Nerves burned. His body began to break apart not from heat, but from something inside him unraveling.
His skin peeled away into dust. His bones cracked and dissolved. His heart stopped.
The river swallowed what remained.
When the light faded, there was nothing left. Not a body. Not a soul. Only the ripples spreading slowly across the surface, as if the world itself was pretending nothing had happened.
By morning, the rain had stopped.
The river flowed calmly again, carrying the ashes of a man who never existed.
And in the palace, news spread like wildfire:
The Sky Prince was dead.
The alliance had collapsed.
And somewhere deep beneath the river, a faint black glow still pulsed once every few seconds — unseen, waiting.