Chapter 33: Assassin's Creed
No. This is impossible.
Poison Fang's voice came out shrill and cracked, all the bravado from a moment ago gone without a trace. He jabbed a shaking finger at the old man across the table, his hand trembling so badly it looked like it might fly apart.
"You old bastard! You set me up! That crystal is fake! It has to be fake!"
Hodell sat where he was, expression unreadable. If the timing had been less tense, he might have laughed.
If the authorities truly wanted a gang erased, they would not need to borrow anyone else's hand. They only bothered with maneuvering because maneuvering reduced risk, kept the city stable, and spared them unnecessary losses. Otherwise, the Security Squad alone would have been enough to grind the Snake Fang Gang flat.
Maybe that was the real joke of Oluson.
People like Poison Fang rose fast because they believed nerve was everything. They gambled with their lives until they mistook luck for strength. Eventually, they forgot the most important part of the game.
Gamblers never own the table.
The house was never them.
The silence in Peace Tavern turned heavy enough to choke on.
Every second dragged across Poison Fang's nerves like a dull blade. His men had all gone pale. A few shifted in place, but none dared make a move under the weight of the emblems in the room.
Then Kyle's badge rang again.
The sharp sound cut through the tavern like a knife.
Everyone's gaze snapped toward him.
Kyle accepted the communication at once and listened without interrupting. As the report came in, the hard lines in his face shifted once, then settled into something colder and far more decisive.
A second later, he looked up and spoke in a voice that carried to every corner of the tavern.
"Authorization confirmed. Extermination order approved."
The room froze.
Hodell's panel lit up at the same time.
[You have triggered E rank mission: Snake Fang Shadows]
[Mission Brief: The Snake Fang Gang, a festering tumor in Oluson's Old Urban Area, has spiraled fully out of control. With armed backing and growing ambition, they have repeatedly violated the balance that kept the district stable. The authorities have reached the limit of their tolerance.]
[Mission Reward: 15,000 EXP]
[Special Reward: Skill Upgrade Card x1]
Hodell accepted the mission without hesitation.
From a pure difficulty standpoint, the Snake Fang Gang should have rated higher than E rank. But Star Ocean's mission system had always been meticulous. The same mission changed according to the participant's level, role, and actual responsibility. A fighter at the front earned more. A healer or support gained less. A logistics player tagging along for rewards got the smallest share.
This one was practically being handed to him on a silver plate.
Poison Fang, meanwhile, had finally understood what the word extermination meant.
"Wait! Wait!" he shouted, panic shattering the last scraps of his composure. "Captain Kyle, we can still talk! We can negotiate! We don't want the warehouse district anymore! We'll withdraw! Compensation, we'll pay compensation! Double no, triple!"
Kyle did not even look at him.
"Baron. Loyi. Assist the Security Squad. All Snake Fang members are to be detained immediately and placed under strict confinement."
Baron grinned, and it was not a pleasant sight.
"I've been waiting to hear that."
He rose in one smooth motion. Loyi followed with his usual calm face, though the light in his eyes had sharpened. At the same moment, the door to Peace Tavern was shoved open and fully armed Security Squad officers flooded in, moving with frightening discipline.
The tavern's balance broke instantly.
Snake Fang's men barely had time to curse before they were slammed against walls, disarmed, and fitted with restraints that snapped shut with flashing runes. Some struggled. Most didn't. Under the eyes of the Security Squad, resistance was less rebellion and more self harm.
"It was the boss!" Poison Fang wailed as two officers pinned him by the arms. "The leader ordered it! I was just following orders!"
No one cared.
The whole process took less than ten minutes.
By the time it ended, the tavern floor was littered with overturned chairs, spilled drinks, and the last scraps of Snake Fang dignity.
...
The wind chasing skiff cut through the canyons of Oluson with a low, controlled hum.
Outside the portholes, neon lines and abyssal shadows alternated in streaks. The city at night looked like a wound stitched together with light.
Inside the cabin, no one spoke much.
The Security Squad had already begun a citywide lockdown. Once their net closed, the strike team would move on Snake Fang's core stronghold.
Baron rolled his shoulders and flexed his fingers against the grip of his shield. Eileen checked her equipment twice. Sasha sat in silence, sharpening a blade she did not actually need to sharpen. Loyi reviewed tactical notes on a crystal screen. Kyle stood at the front, one hand braced against the bulkhead, his gaze fixed on the darkness ahead.
Hodell leaned back and closed his eyes for a moment, not to rest, but to think.
Snake Fang had expanded too quickly.
Too much equipment. Too much confidence. Too much backing.
Tonight's operation was not just about crushing a gang.
It was about cutting open the shell and seeing what was writhing underneath.
...
The Scrap Processing Station loomed in the night like a rusted corpse.
It had once been an industrial plant. Now it was a sprawling ruin of bent metal, patched walls, scavenged machinery, and elevated catwalks, all lashed together into a fortress made from decay. The perimeter wall had been reinforced with rusted plates, broken pipes, and whatever else could be welded into place.
A few figures stood watch on the high points.
The wind wailed through the canyon and over the station's outer structures, masking the squad's approach.
No moon hung over Liuli Star. The darkness here was deep, heavy, and useful.
Kyle crouched behind a ridge of broken concrete and surveyed the stronghold.
"Stay quiet. No one fires until necessary."
He looked at the squad one by one.
Then his gaze settled for half a second on Hodell.
That was enough.
The sentries on the high tower never saw what killed them.
Hodell raised a hand. Two ice spikes formed so fast they barely seemed to exist before they flew. There were two dull impacts, two bodies sagged, and then the high platform went still.
[You killed a Snake Fang Gang sentry, gained 1,000 EXP] x2
Sasha glanced at Hodell from the side, saying nothing. But the look lingered a fraction longer than usual.
At Kyle's signal, Baron rose from cover like a siege engine.
He charged straight into the perimeter wall.
The crash was explosive.
Metal plates buckled inward, bolts snapped free, and a gaping hole opened in the outer shell of the station. Instantly, alarms screamed to life across the compound.
"Enemy attack!"
"Get your weapons!"
"Move!"
The whole nest erupted.
In the confusion, Hodell did not follow the others through the breach.
He vanished sideways instead.
Using the broken wall, discarded scrap heaps, and elevated steel supports as cover, he slipped into the compound from the flank. His movements were clean and economical, a shadow among larger shadows.
A gunman crouched on a high platform with a long magic guided rifle braced against a support beam, firing toward Baron's advance team with obvious delight.
Hodell appeared behind him without a sound.
The blade flashed once.
The man died before he could even tense.
[You killed a Snake Fang Gang member, gained 800 EXP]
Hodell caught the falling body, lowered it silently, and took the rifle.
[Dark Feather Standard Magic Guided Pulse Rifle]
[Quality: White]
[Attack: 92 to 98]
[Fire Rate: 1.1 rounds/s]
[Range: 200m]
[Energy Magazine: 30 rounds]
He ran Scrap Utilization through it.
The weapon's structure shifted under his perception.
[Dark Feather Standard Magic Guided Pulse Rifle]
[Quality: Green]
[Attack: 152 to 161]
[Range: 250m]
Not bad.
He aimed, fired once
and hit absolutely nothing.
A beam of amplified energy tore across the battlefield and scorched empty air.
Below, someone from Snake Fang yelled, "Which idiot fired that?!"
Hodell stared at the rifle for half a second, then dropped it without regret.
"Right. Not my field."
He moved again.
From then on, he became a blade hidden inside the chaos.
Two gunners were crouched behind a stack of metal crates, laying down suppressive fire toward Baron's position. Hodell came in from the side, using a half collapsed support frame as cover. The first man died with his throat opened before he realized anyone was near. The second had time to turn only because a burst of freezing air hit him first, locking his jaw and part of his face in jagged frost.
He toppled backward without a sound.
[You killed a Snake Fang Gang member, gained 800 EXP] x2
Hodell vaulted onto an overhead walkway, ran across it, then dropped onto a mage who was kneeling behind a shattered machine casing and trying to build a spell model.
The kill was quick.
[You killed a Snake Fang Gang member, gained 1,000 EXP]
Below, the main force was driving into the compound from the front. Baron was at the center of it like a human battering ram, shield up, roaring as he smashed anyone unlucky enough to stand in his path. Eileen's healing magic flared behind him in pale bursts. Kyle's spells cut through key defenses with measured brutality. Loyi locked down pockets of resistance. Sasha moved along the edges, silent and lethal.
Snake Fang's outer defenders were collapsing fast.
But the deeper Hodell went, the more organized the resistance became.
A five man patrol moved through the interior lanes in proper formation, armed with matching weapons and communicating by hand signals. They were not ordinary gang trash. Whoever had trained them knew what they were doing.
Hodell waited under a catwalk beam until the last one passed overhead, then rose behind him and drove a blade through the base of his skull.
Before the body hit the ground, he flicked out four needle thin ice spikes.
Each found a neck or temple.
All five were dead before the first man finished falling.
[You killed a Snake Fang Gang member, gained 900 EXP] x5
He crouched beside one of the corpses and looked over the armor, the weapon fittings, the quality of the equipment.
Snake Fang definitely wasn't financing this alone.
Someone had armed them.
Someone had expected them to matter.
He rose and advanced toward the inner compound.
At the center stood a cylindrical metal fortress wrapped in thick coolant pipes and reinforced plating. Four auxiliary towers surrounded it, linked by a deep blue energy shield like a bowl turned upside down over the structure.
Hodell stopped and studied it.
Too much firepower at the front. Too many sightlines. Too many overlapping kill zones.
A direct push would cost the squad blood.
He scanned the structure again and focused on the towers, then on the massive energy transfer pipes linking them to the core.
There.
The pipes passed through the shield's field boundary. At those junctions, the energy pattern thinned and fluctuated slightly.
A flaw.
Not a big one.
Just enough.
"Kyle," Hodell whispered into the encrypted channel. "I need a distraction. Hit these coordinates hard. Make them think we're trying to break the shield from the outside."
A pause.
Then Kyle answered, "Understood. Baron, Loyi. Make some noise."
A second later, an explosion tore across the opposite side of the compound.
Flames rose.
Shouts followed.
Everyone on the inner defenses shifted attention toward the false breach.
Hodell moved.
He crossed the last stretch of open ground low and fast, reached the base of the nearest auxiliary tower, and began climbing. The metal was cold, slick, and rust flaked under his gloves, but with his boosted Agility and refined energy control, he went up quickly.
Soon he reached the level of the transfer pipe and leaped onto it.
The pipe was scorching hot.
He nearly sprang back off it on instinct.
"Hell."
Heat bled through his boots immediately. The surface was smooth, rounded, and dangerous. A normal mage could have layered air or frost along the contact point. Hodell had something cruder.
He simulated the insulating properties of Heart Core Grass and spread a rough cushion of energy beneath his feet.
Ugly, inelegant, effective.
"That'll do."
Then he ran.
Bent low against the heat and the exposed angle, he sprinted along the broad pipe toward the shield boundary. Static crackled in the air. The shield shimmered a short distance ahead like a solid curtain of blue light.
Hodell narrowed his eyes and focused all his perception on the point where pipe and barrier overlapped.
The fluctuation came again.
A tiny instability.
A gap.
He smiled.
"As expected," he murmured. "There's a way in."
.....
[If you don't want to wait for the next update, read 10–50 chapters ahead on P@treon.]
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