Clank—clank—armored footfalls rolled like iron rain, as Bloodhand Gang soldiers, screened by the Elvenfolk, used them like cover to wipe out the Kuso Guild. They planted their greatswords in the soil like grave markers, gripped the hilts with both hands, and lined both sides like a corridor of steel.

The cleared path became a carpet of black-and-red cloth and cooling bodies, Kuso Guild men fallen like burnt autumn leaves.

Dozens of male elves in cleverly faked Dusk Legion garb stared at the man with a crimson pheasant plume, hope fluttering like moths around a lantern. “Are we free now?”

“Of course, you’re free—free of pain forever,” the man said, his voice a cold snake sliding through grass.

The elves froze, then the meaning stabbed in; wails rose like winter wind through bare branches. “No... no! You lied! Your word is nothing!”

His hand twitched on the reins, and the warhorse sidestepped; iron hooves thud-thudded on hard earth like a dull drum.

“We didn’t lie,” he said, spreading honey like poison. “Our lord promised you freedom from suffering, and we delivered, didn’t we?” His fingers flicked, and the hidden archers loosed a black rain of arrows.

Keen ears and sharp eyes flared like foxfire, and they had already mapped the bowmen; green-sheened blades swept, and together they swatted shafts from the sky like reeds in a flood. Even so, nearly ten dropped like cut wheat.

The man shrugged, and the heavy-sword squad moved like a wall. Armor bristled like thorns, yet they left their greatswords sheathed. Instead, they snatched the short swords and daggers off dead guildmen, and, with Knir and the two crimson-plume men, they carved through elves in a quicksilver slaughter.

The poor Elvenfolk were weary in body and spirit like spent bows, and before this elite storm they shattered in moments.

“You damned humans!” they cried, curses boiling like pitch. “May you die badly! You are demons! I curse you to the nineteenth hell!”

“Ancestor Master above!” another voice cracked like a breaking branch. “Why did you save devils like you back then?”

The cries guttered out, and silence lay like ash; two kinds of bodies sprawled crosswise, and blood soaked the earth, painting the ravaged field in a wicked red bloom.

“Mmph...” Herbert felt his organs slide like loose stones, and he spat a mouthful of blood that tasted of rust and torn meat.

Numbness crawled over him like frost, and he knew his tree was dying; with his last splinter of strength, he slumped against the rock Medith had carved, like a pilgrim at a shrine.

“Any last words? Say them, and I still won’t help,” Knir said, his smile a blade in the dark.

“Heh... heh... pft...” Herbert’s laugh was a torn bellows, and he coughed out clots with gristle, while his blood-slicked hand traced something in secret behind his back like a furtive ant.

“You... you...” His breath fluttered like a candle in a draft, and Knir leaned close, ear tilted to catch the dying wick’s whisper.

“You... will... die... all... of... you...” Herbert’s smile was pale as moonlight, and then his head sagged, falling into endless night like a stone in a well.

Knir booted the corpse, and it skidded toward the cliff’s lip like a kicked puppet, almost dropping into the fathomless gorge.

The crimson-plume man had his men check for survivors, and when none breathed, he ordered them to dress the scene like a play.

They spilled packs and scattered food like feed for crows, kicked over every gift, and took nothing, crafting the look of a battle that burned hot.

All twenty Kuso Guild dead had been killed by true Wind Sprites, and the fake Dusk garb clung to them like borrowed skin; worse, they had found Medith’s private coin.

They pried open Herbert’s hand like a clam and folded it shut again, clamping the coin tight, then tossed him face-up onto an elf corpse like a grotesque tableau.

Medith’s guild-style personal “admission token” had been meant as proof, yet now it became iron-mountain evidence for a frame-up.

“All right, O’Neil, get back,” the crimson-plume man said, his tone flat as ice. “Don’t try tricks. Six days at most before the poison blooms. The side trail’s cut. The main road to your place takes three days. A round trip fits like a noose.”

“You’d better run full tilt,” he added, blue eyes glinting from his helm like winter lakes. “If the poison bites you dead on the road, it’s not my problem.”

“I will, I will.” O’Neil grabbed food and water like a starving wolf, and he bolted from the place in a streak of dust.

Before long, a dozen-plus disguised caravaners drifted in like reeds on a current.

“Carry some bodies over there; I don’t need to teach you,” the captain-looking man said, his words falling like stones. “Once it’s done, someone will find you with a heavy reward.”

They nodded hard, and their hands moved with practiced ease, lifting elf corpses onto wagons like lumber.

Watching them trail after O’Neil, the Bloodhand Gang traded thin smiles, and, with the task done, they left as lightly as migrating birds.

Herbert lay unblinking, and his lifeless eyes pinned that stone like nails.

Knir and the others never knew that, within arm’s reach, the vine-wrapped boulder hid the key to the truth like a heart under moss.

...

On 2/25, after Medith and the others had played their fill, they sorted their notes and found small details like grains of sand they’d missed.

The so-called first and second tiers of Magic Breaker each split further into low, mid, and high, which explained why same-level foes hit like different storms.

“Then how did the people of the Western Kingdom learn this grading?” Medith frowned, the question knotted like a thorn.

The Western Expanse loomed like a god, gripping the continent’s order in a closed fist.

But with this matter shelved and their foothold secured like stakes in the ground, and even the so-called legend guild’s nod in hand, it was time to head back to the city.

As they settled everyone and made ready to leave like birds packing a nest, a sudden clamor rose outside like a hive.

“What happened?” Medith asked, her voice taut as a bowstring.

A member from another guild said, “O’Neil from the Kuso Guild just came back covered in blood, and no one’s with him; it’s probably something big,” his words dropping like hail.

“What?!” The women jolted, a bad feeling sliding in like cold water.

The sky darkened, and snakes of lightning flickered from cloud to cloud like silver scars.