Windcloud City had become a graveyard.
Bodies littered the streets. Buildings lay split open like broken ribs. Jasper and his two companions sprinted through the ruin with a pack of skeletons on their heels.
The noble houses had gotten word early and fled. Only the soldiers still fighting on the front lines remained inside. Most civilians had no idea what was happening—they thought it was just another routine monster raid.
Then the skeletons poured in and turned "routine" into slaughter.
They burst into a large courtyard estate and slammed the gate behind them. For a few breaths, the door held.
Then cracks spidered across the wood.
Jasper yanked Sable Kestrel's quiver off her back and carved Blast Runes onto every arrow in a blur of willpower. He shoved it back into her hands and barked, "You and Skyhawk leave first. I'll hold them for a minute."
Sable stared at him.
Jasper kept going, fast and low. "Get out of Windcloud City. Cross the woods—there's a village. The village chief and the blacksmith saved my life once. Tell them my name and they'll help you. And listen—there's a creepy bastard there, Tomas Trell. Watch him. He's trouble."
He tossed a final glance at the cracking gate. "When I reach the village, I'll signal you."
Then he pressed a bundle of Mysterium Iron Needles into Sable's hands—everything he had left—and drew the Lazuli Blade as he stepped toward the entrance.
Skyhawk snapped his own iron sword free. "Boss, I'm staying."
Sable gripped the needles—an entire stack, and every one of them thrummed with upper-grade rune pressure. "Jasper… I said I'm following you. I'm not leaving you behind."
Her voice wasn't loud.
It didn't need to be.
Jasper trusted her with the needles for one simple reason: when people face death together, distance between them collapses. In peacetime, he and Sable would've stayed acquaintances at best.
War had burned that away.
And he'd given the needles to Sable instead of Skyhawk because Sable was steady. You could see it from the siege—she didn't panic. She moved with a soldier's judgment, not a brawler's impulse.
Skyhawk was brave, but he was reckless. The kind of man who could talk your ear off while the world was ending.
Jasper himself? He had confidence he could make it out of Windcloud City. Losing the city didn't cost him what it cost everyone else.
Sable had also mentioned she'd traveled alone from Bluehaze City to Windcloud—no escort, no backing. A Bronze Tier, Rank 5 making that trip solo didn't happen without real experience.
Jasper snapped, "Are you two brain-dead? You think I'm going to stand here and die? I can handle a few skeletons. I've got cards you haven't seen."
He shoved them back with his shoulder. "Move. If you wait, you won't be able to."
Sable's eyes flicked to the arrows Jasper had just runed. Then to the needles in her palm. The runes on them weren't weak.
Upper-grade willpower. Upper-grade craftsmanship.
Jasper wasn't normal.
And if Jasper wasn't normal, then these skeletons were in trouble.
Sable grabbed Skyhawk and started dragging him toward the far side of the courtyard.
Skyhawk tried to wrestle free. He couldn't—Sable's strength and control were simply better. "Hey—what are you doing?! Why are you pulling me? Stop—stop—!"
He kept protesting until Sable hooked him up onto her shoulder like a sack.
Skyhawk's voice went sharp. "Put me down! I'm staying!"
Sable didn't even look back. "With your rank? You'd just slow him down."
She clicked her tongue, disgusted. "We go to the village like he said and wait. Unless you don't believe Jasper can handle a pack of bones?"
Then she vaulted onto the roof and vanished into the night, Skyhawk still complaining the whole way.
Jasper tightened his grip on the Lazuli Blade.
If there weren't too many elite skeletons, he had a nine-in-ten chance of slipping out.
The gate exploded inward.
Skeletons flooded through the opening.
Jasper threw a fine-steel needle.
The lead skeleton disintegrated in a blast of light and bone powder. The shockwave knocked the front line down in a chain reaction.
Jasper moved.
He pulled a handful of small knives from his system inventory and drove them clean through skulls as skeletons tried to regain their footing.
More skeletons surged in—drawn by the explosion.
Jasper's eyes narrowed.
So noise pulls them.
Good.
If he made enough noise, Sable and Skyhawk would have a cleaner path out.
He vaulted up onto the roof and pulled out a device that didn't belong in this world of swords and talismans.
A detonator.
The same remote Jasper had stolen from the city gate's TNT setup. He'd quietly removed the Tripwire Hook trigger and replaced it with this instead. Even if the TNT had gone off earlier, the end result would've been the same—Windcloud's wall would've fallen. The only difference was how fast.
Jasper pressed the trigger.
A thunderclap tore through the night from the direction of the wall.
Fire blossomed into the sky—bright enough to paint the rooftops gold.
The gate area erupted in chained blasts as stored explosives caught. Skeletons and siege machines vanished in a storm of flame. Some cannon shells flew inward and detonated near the wall, turning entire blocks into a sea of burning debris.
In the middle of a ruined street, a skeletal hand pushed up through rubble.
A skeleton crawled free—no flesh, no scraps, only bone.
It raised its head.
Red light burned in its eye sockets.
The same red-eyed skeleton that had shot at Jasper earlier.
It stared toward the rooftops—toward Jasper.
Then it calmly retrieved a bone sword and a quiver from the wreckage.
If you looked closely, every arrow inside gleamed with enchantment.
Jasper flung several blast needles made from ordinary iron at the elite skeletons chasing him. The explosions tore a few apart.
But every blast drew more.
He exhaled through his teeth.
At this rate, I'll get ground down.
A sudden violet streak cut the air.
An arrow—glowing purple—came straight for Jasper.
He snapped the Lazuli Blade up and knocked it aside.
The moment steel touched shaft, the arrow detonated.
The blast hurled Jasper off his feet. He hit the ground hard, ribs ringing.
Before he could fully rise, another arrow came.
Mid-flight, it split—one shaft becoming ten.
Jasper rolled up and forced himself moving. One arrow skimmed his cheek, close enough to tear skin. Blood slid warm down his face.
Around him, something shifted.
The skeletons that had been swarming suddenly peeled away, almost in sync, abandoning Jasper to chase other soldiers.
A path opened.
And from that path, a figure walked forward.
A skeleton.
Its eyes glowed red.
It wore a purple combat outfit—eerily similar in cut and silhouette to Jasper's Assassin Combat Outfit.
Its presence pressed down like cold metal.
Bronze Tier, Rank 5… peak.
Same level as Jasper.
The skeleton's voice scraped out, unnaturally clear.
"Scott."
Jasper lifted his chin. "Jasper Cole."
Scott raised an enchanted bow.
Another enchanted arrow slid into place. Blue light gathered along the shaft.
The arrow launched—
—and turned into a massive ice dragon mid-flight, roaring silently as it tore through the air.
Jasper threw his first fine-steel needle.
Compared to the dragon, it looked like a speck.
But that speck hit like a falling star.
Needle and dragon collided and exploded together. Ice shards filled the air, choking vision and turning the street into a blizzard.
Jasper's pupils tightened.
Eagle Eye.
He scanned through the ice haze.
Scott already had a fourth arrow nocked.
This one felt different.
The moment Jasper sensed it, his instincts screamed.
That will kill me.
Scott released.
The air rippled.
A flash of violet—
—and the arrow skipped space, appearing in front of Jasper like it had torn through the world itself.
Jasper barely moved the Lazuli Blade to deflect.
It wasn't enough.
The arrow punched into his shoulder.
Pain flared white-hot.
Only then did Jasper realize the terrifying part—despite the "teleport," the arrow's raw impact wasn't much stronger than a normal shot.
If it had carried the same power as the ice dragon… he'd already be dead.
Scott calmly drew the bone sword from his back.
Then he drove the blade into the enchanted bow.
Enchantment light surged.
In front of Jasper's eyes, sword and bow fused—bone knitting into bone, runes crawling like living veins—until Scott held a single weapon: a bone bow with jagged, bladed edges along its limbs.
A bow you could shoot with.
A bow you could hack with.
Its pressure jumped a full tier.
Jasper forced his breathing steady.
Right hand: Lazuli Blade.
Left arm: Wrist Blade snapped out with a metallic click.
He removed the right-hand wrist blade—then loaded every fine-steel needle he had into it.
Scott's archery wasn't just strong.
It was wrong.
Jasper had never seen enchantments like this—arrows that exploded on contact, arrows that multiplied, arrows that ripped through distance itself.
If Scott loosed a few more of those space-breaking shots…
Jasper wouldn't have time to make a mistake.
He set his stance.
All-out.
Or die.