After finishing his prayer with pious devotion, Revan raised his right hand, his grip tightening on the hilt of his blade.
In the blink of an eye, Revan evaporated from his spot. The ten assassins who had lunged at him from the ceiling struck nothing but empty air.
"What—?!"
"Look! Up there!"
Revan hung gracefully in the air, as if gravity itself dared not touch him.
The full moon, peeking through the shattered roof of the carriage, illuminated his silhouette, casting a dominant shadow over the room.
Under that silvery glow, he looked like a Reaper descending from the heavens.
In this world, Mana was not merely a measure of power; it was the essence of life.
It was impossible to be born without it, for without Mana, the heart would not beat, and the lungs could not draw breath.
It was the root of human existence.
Yet, fate was sealed from the moment a child drew its first breath. Destiny decided whether one was born a Mage or a Warrior.
Simply put, it was a matter of conductivity.
A Mage was a natural conductor, born with internal "Magic Circuits" that allowed them to channel raw Mana and manifest it into miracles.
For a Warrior, however, the body was an insulator. Lacking those circuits, channeling raw Mana directly was a death sentence—their bodies would literally shatter into pieces.
To survive, they had to perform one extra step: Extraction.
Revan focused his consciousness, observing the Mana circulating through his body like interconnected rivers of blood.
With surgical precision, he did not draw upon his entire life force. Instead, he created a "diversion," rerouting a portion of the flow toward a single point in his arm to be refined into a purer, more stable form: Aura.
He channeled that current into his palm. Without magic circuits, the sword in his hand was his only exhaust—the only way to prevent the energy from backing up and shredding his nerves.
The hilt was forged from Obsidian Orichalcum, a rare metal that acted as a natural primer.
The moment Revan's Aura touched the blade, the surface was swallowed by a dense, vibrating black light. It did not shine; it looked like a void consuming the surrounding light.
With a lightning-fast motion, Revan swung his sword from the air. A massive, pitch-black crescent of energy hurtled down, threatening to cleave the carriage in two.
But his enemies were prepared. They had anticipated this move the moment he leapt.
Simultaneously, the three men in the front rank drew breath and swung in perfect synchronization. Three jagged streaks of crimson energy rose to meet him, overlapping to form a barrier.
BOOM!
The collision detonated in mid-air. Black and red Auras clashed violently, creating a deafening explosion.
A shockwave of heat and dust billowed out, masking the battlefield in a thick, grey veil.
Yet, behind that curtain of smoke, a shadow lunged faster than sound.
Without warning, Revan was on the floor, appearing in their blind spot as if he had materialized out of thin air.
He swept his sword in a wide, lethal arc, intending to harvest everyone in front of him in a single stroke.
Clang!
A shrill, high-pitched ring of clashing metal shrieked through the carriage.
One assassin, his instincts honed by a thousand battles, sensed the killing intent at the very last microsecond.
With a near-impossible reflex, he raised his sword just as the blade, coated in a thick layer of black aura, slammed into him.
"Everyone, focus!"
the assassin screamed. Even though his face was hidden behind a mask, the veins in his neck bulged violently as he struggled to hold back the crushing weight.
"Do not let your guard down! The one we are fighting is no ordinary man..."
He swallowed hard, staring into Revan's calm.
"He is The Silent Sin... the foulest shadow in Sylvia's service!"
At the mention of that name, the atmosphere turned frigid.
The Silent Sin. A name whispered in the darkest corners of the underworld—an executioner who reaped souls so quietly that his victims never had the chance to scream. A walking sin in total silence.
"Ck."
Revan clicked his tongue. Suddenly, a thick trail of blood dripped from his nostril.
'Only a few seconds and already like this,' he thought grimly.
Forcing his Mana to create a new path just to trigger an Aura of this magnitude was already tearing his internal tissues apart.
He shouldn't have experimented so early, especially with two "Boss" level enemies waiting ahead.
Whush!
Revan flickered out of sight again.
"Hah...?" The assassin who had been holding him back gasped as the weight vanished, causing him to stumble forward.
"Over here!"
Srak!
Revan emerged beside another assassin, severing his neck before the man could blink. Blood sprayed against the walls, but before the others could react, Revan had already dissolved back into the shadows.
Whush! Srak! Whush!
He moved like a glitch in reality, appearing and disappearing like a shadow under a dying lamp. One man fell, then he reappeared on the opposite side.
"Damn it! Where is he?!" one assassin shrieked, spinning around and swinging blindly.
"Die—!"
"AAKKHHH!"
He hadn't struck Revan. He had buried his blade into the chest of his own comrade. The assassin's eyes went wide with horror, his hands shaking as he watched his friend collapse. The mental trauma hit him harder than any physical wound.
"No... no, I didn't mean to—"
"Idiot! Behind you!"
Too late.
Revan was already standing behind the trembling man. Without a shred of emotion, he grabbed the man's jaw with his left hand, and with a swift, aura-coated jerk of his sword, he tore through the man's throat until it was nearly severed.
The madness continued. Revan moved beyond logic, a ghost dancing over a lake of blood. Every time he flickered, a life was snuffed out.
"Die, you bastard!"
An assassin who had completely snapped screamed hysterically. Driven by pure terror and a shattered mind, he no longer cared for the lives of his comrades standing nearby. He unleashed a frantic, wide-reaching wave of crimson Aura—a desperate explosion of energy meant for the dark blur he thought was Revan.
BOOM!
"ARGH!" "STOP! WHAT ARE YOU—?!"
instead of hitting Revan, the reckless blast tore through the backs of several comrades, blowing them into bloody fragments and scattering scorched remains across the floor
Revan himself had already re-emerged above, perched on the edge of the jagged roof, looking down with bloodshot eyes.
The blood spraying in every direction now stained the vision of the survivors.
The full moon, which had previously shone with a holy silver light, seemed to change color. The light reflected through the mist of blood, turning the moon above a crimson red.
The carriage had become a slaughterhouse.
Revan dropped into the center of the remaining foes. Blood continued to stream from his nose, and his breath felt like fire. Yet, the black-aura-clad sword in his hand only grew hungrier.
"As I said before... may the Goddess have mercy on you," Revan whispered.
Slaasssh—!
In one singular, blinding stroke of black light, the world seemed to scream. The remaining assassins didn't even have time to gasp.
The strike was so powerful that it didn't just reap their lives—it tore through the very foundation of the carriage, splitting it into two perfect halves.
The heavy steel floor groaned and shrieked as it parted, sending sparks and debris flying into the night.
A sudden, terrifying silence fell. Nineteen lives had been extinguished in an instant. The Aura that once pulsed within them evaporated, returning to the universe through the tip of the Silent Sin's blade.
Revan stood amidst the mountain of corpses, the sole survivor in a landscape of carnage. Beneath the harrowing radiance of the blood-red moon, he remained a solitary silhouette—the only soul still tethered to the living
***
"Cough!"
A violent spasm seized his throat. Revan buckled, vomiting a glob of dark, fresh blood that splattered across the heap of dead men at his feet.
As if a dam had burst within him, fresh, warm blood began to surge from his body—leaking from his nose, his mouth, and even the very pores of his strained skin.
The crimson stream flowed downward, pooling rapidly around his boots before merging seamlessly with the gore already flooding the steel floor.
It was a gruesome union of his own life force and the remains of those he had just slaughtered. He was literally breaking from the inside out.
'Four minutes and twenty seconds left.'
From the next carriage, a cold, suffocating pressure began to bleed through the door. Two monsters were waiting for him.
"Fuck me," Revan hissed, spitting out the metallic bile.
He gripped the hilt of his sword, his knuckles turning white. A bitter, dark thought flashed through his fading consciousness:
'Am I going to die at the hands of those two... or will Sylvia be the one to finish me for being late?'
Knowing he couldn't afford another second of hesitation, Revan forced his trembling legs to move. He stepped over the mountain of flesh, his boots squelching in the thickening river of blood, heading toward the final threshold.