The exhilaration of the fight faded the moment Vane crossed the threshold of the mansion's east wing.
The air here did not smell of mud or ozone. It smelled of lavender, boiled cabbage, and the sickly sweet cloying scent of a body that was slowly giving up on the concept of living.
Vane stopped at a heavy oak door. He took a breath, adjusted his leather jacket to hide the blood spatters from the morning's work, and pushed it open.
The room was dim. Heavy velvet curtains blocked out the grey morning light. In the center of the room, seated in a wheelchair that faced the window, was a woman who looked less like a human and more like a collection of sharp angles wrapped in parchment.
"You are late," a voice rasped. It sounded like dry leaves skittering over stone.
"I had business, Mother," Vane said softly. He walked to the bedside table where a collection of expensive glass vials caught the candlelight. "Rent collection."
"Thuggery," Helena corrected. She did not turn around. She kept watching the street below. "You were out playing King of the Rats again. I heard the screaming."
Vane did not argue. He picked up a spoon and a bowl of broth he had left earlier. He tapped the bowl with a finger.
[Skill Activated: Thermal Equilibrium (Grade F)]
He poured a tiny amount of mana into the soup, warming it to the exact temperature of a human mouth. It was a domestic use for a skill he had copied from a baker's daughter, but Vane did not care about the mana cost.
"Eat," he said, holding the spoon near her shoulder.
Helena turned her head. She was beautiful once, in the way a ruin is beautiful. You could see the structure of what had been there before the world had taken a hammer to it. Her eyes were the same shade of grey as Vane's, but where his were predatory, hers were tired. Infinitely, exhaustingly tired.
"I do not want your stolen soup, Vane."
"It is chicken," Vane said patiently. "Geryon made it. No fingernails this time."
"You are wasting your life," she wheezed, a cough rattling her thin frame. She looked at his nose where a faint trace of dried blood remained from the morning's copy. "You did it again. You are eating other people's memories, Vane. Eventually you will forget who you are."
Vane lowered the spoon. The irritation flared, hot and familiar.
"This skill keeps the soup warm," he said. "The gold I stole buys the medicine that keeps your lungs working. It is an economic nuance."
"It is a cage," she hissed. "Eighteen years old. You possess a mind sharp enough to cut glass, and you use it to extort penny-ante merchants in a mud puddle."
"I am the King of this puddle," Vane countered, his voice hardening. "I am Rank 3. Do you know what that means out here? It means I am a god. No one in the borderlands can touch me."
"And that," she whispered, "is the saddest thing I have ever heard."
Vane froze. The spoon trembled slightly in his hand.
"You think you are a giant," Helena said, her voice gaining a sudden, sharp strength. "But you are just a frog in a well, Vane. You look up at the circle of sky above your head and you think it is the whole universe."
"I am safe here," Vane snapped. He set the bowl down with a clatter. "We are safe. I built this walls. I bought the guards. I control the trade."
"You control nothing!" she coughed violently, spots of red appearing on her lips. "You are just waiting for a boot to come down. You think because you are the strongest rat in the sewer that the hawk won't eat you."
"There are no hawks here," Vane said. "Only crows. And I clip their wings."
Helena looked at him. Her expression was not angry anymore. It was grieving.
"You have the golden letter," she said. It was not a question. "You have a ticket to the ocean. To the place where power actually matters. But you hide it in a drawer because you are afraid that if you leave this puddle, you will just be a minnow again."
Vane stood up, turning his back to her. He walked to the window and looked out at the grey sky.
'She does not understand,' he thought. 'She sees a cage. I see a fortress. I am Rank 3. I have forty-three skills. I am not a minnow.'
He opened his mouth to tell her that he was not leaving, that Oakhaven was enough. That he was the big fish and he would never be anything else.
And then, the air changed.
It was not a gradual shift. It was instantaneous. The sounds of Oakhaven, the shouting merchants, the barking dogs, the squelching boots, were severed. A silence fell over the mansion so heavy it felt like physical pressure.
Vane froze. The hairs on his arms stood on end. His mana sensed it before his eyes did.
A density.
A presence massive enough to distort the atmosphere.
"Vane?" Helena called out from the bed, her voice trembling. "What is it? What is that feeling?"
Vane did not answer. He stared down into the courtyard.
The iron gates were gone. They had not been blown open. They had been melted. Puddles of glowing slag hissed in the mud.
Walking through the breach was a single figure.
He wore full plate armor of white steel, polished to a moral high ground that seemed to repel the filth of the town. A white cloak drifted behind him, unstained. He did not walk with the swagger of a bandit or the caution of a soldier. He walked with the terrifying indifference of a glacier.
Vane's heart hammered a frantic rhythm against his ribs. He tapped his temple.
[Target Analysis]
Name: Gareth
Rank: 4 (Sentinel)
Danger: Fatal
Authority: None
Rank 4.
Vane stopped breathing.
The gap between Rank 2 and Rank 3 was a wall. The gap between Rank 3 and Rank 4 was a canyon. A Sentinel had condensed their mana into a liquid state within their core. They did not just cast spells; they exuded power.
The Knight stopped in the center of the courtyard. He looked up at the window. The T-visor of his helmet revealed nothing, but Vane felt the gaze like a physical touch.
'The boot,' Vane thought, a cold knot forming in his stomach. 'The hawk.'
Vane gripped his daggers. His knuckles turned white.
"Stay here, Mother," Vane said softly.
He vaulted over the windowsill, activating [Featherfall (Grade F)]. He landed softly in the mud, ten meters from the Knight.
He was the King of Oakhaven. He was Rank 3. He had forty-three skills.
He prayed it was enough.