Chronicles Of The Crafting Hero

Jason arrived in his quarters and retrieved his golden short staff from the wall, dislodging it from one of the hangers that held the fiery torches. He then thought to himself, *That bastard… what kind of skill was that? He was outside. I saw him...*

Jason's thoughts were cut short as his eyes widened. He saw Tyler suddenly teleport, materialize out of nowhere in the room that Melissa and Mani were in. Jason saw that Tyler was holding Melissa hostage. "Shit!" he exclaimed, as he suddenly ran out of his room and yelled, "He's inside!" He turned into the passageway, his footsteps echoing, heading towards the room that Mani was in.

Silvia was still in the library with the captain, then slowly muttered, her eyes widening in surprise, "He's already inside?"

The captain, his face contorted with a mixture of frustration and determination, swore, "Damn it!" He then took off from the room, running towards where he had heard Jason's voice.

Silvia, a wave of realization washing over her, thought to herself, "*Shit, I know where he is going. If he's inside, he's looking for that girl.*" She then ran, sprinting towards the cellar. Exiting the library, she thought urgently, "*He's looking for that girl. I have to get there before he finds her.*"

The hunters outside, hearing Jason's loud voice, reacted immediately. Teno exclaimed, "What? But how? I thought he said he was right here!" They all turned, their faces grim, and ran back into the mansion.

Right beneath the guild's mansion, in the oppressive darkness of the cellar, Rebecca heard the distant echoes of chaos – frantic running and panicked shouts, barely penetrating the thick, cold stone walls. The sounds were like a distant storm, a barely audible tremor that stirred the stagnant air. *What's going on?* she thought, her mind struggling to comprehend. Fear, cold and sharp, clawed at her throat.

As she struggled to breathe, each rasping inhale a painful reminder of her injuries, a desperate hope flickered within her. *Is it Tyler? Has he come to save me?* But even the thought was tinged with a profound dread.

Suddenly, she felt a subtle shift in the air, a faint whoosh. Not a powerful gust, but a delicate displacement, like a sigh. It was just a few feet in front of her. Then, a gasp, a sharp intake of breath that cut through the oppressive silence.

Rebecca strained to lift her head, to glimpse the source of the sound, but her body was a useless prison. She had no eyes. The darkness was absolute, a suffocating void.

It was Tyler. He was standing right in front of her, his presence a tangible weight in the air.

He saw her. He saw the unspeakable horror that had been inflicted upon her. She was bound, held captive by the cruel embrace of spiky razor wire, each jagged barb sunk deep into her flesh. Her face… where her eyes had been, there were only empty sockets, a testament to the unimaginable cruelty. Fingers and toenails were missing, leaving only raw, exposed flesh. Her skin was a tapestry of purple and black bruises, a brutal canvas of agony.

The silver hair that had once framed her face, that Tyler had found so unique, the only silver hair he had ever seen, was now matted and stained crimson, clinging to her skull. From her nose to her mouth, across her chin and down her neck, there was the sickening crust of dried blood, her blood. Bruises blossomed across her body, from the crown of her head to the exposed flesh of her abdomen and legs. Tyler even heard the faint, desperate squeak as she struggled to draw each agonizing breath, a sound that tore at his soul.

His crimson eyes, usually alight with a fierce intensity, were now wide with shock, the pupils dilated. A barely controlled fury, a simmering rage, burned within them. His mouth, usually a hard line of determination, was slightly agape, as if he couldn't quite believe what he was seeing. He muttered, his voice raw with a mix of horror and grief, "Rebecca… what did they do to you?"

Rebecca was startled by the sound of Tyler's voice, a wave of surprise jolting through her ravaged body. Her limbs twitched slightly, the remnants of her energy barely enough to stir. Her lips, raw and bruised, throbbed with pain, but with a desperate effort, she managed to whisper Tyler's name, the sound a mere breath that barely escaped her damaged mouth.

Meanwhile, in Mani's room, Jason stood frozen in the doorway, his eyes wide with disbelief. He looked at the carnage before him. Melissa's body lay sprawled on the floor, a crimson dagger plunged deep into her heart, staining the cold stone floor with her blood. His gaze then shifted to Mani, who was still on the bed, shaking so violently that her entire body seemed to tremble.

Jason rushed to Melissa's side, his heart pounding in his chest. He saw that her eyes were closed, lifeless. She was already gone. He gently placed two fingers on her neck, feeling for a pulse, but there was nothing. He turned his gaze back to Mani.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Mani, her voice barely a whisper, choked out the words, "He… he just suddenly appeared… and he killed her… he looked at me and killed her… I could… I saw everything… I saw everything clearly now… and I felt it… He drove the dagger right through her heart…" As she spoke, her voice cracked, and she collapsed, her hands flying to her head. "I felt that… too," she sobbed, her body wracked with tremors.

Jason's breath hitched as he *suddenly saw Tyler*. In the cellar, he thought, *How is he doing that? How is he suddenly teleporting all over the place? It's supposed to consume a lot of mana, plus he's an assassin type. Assassins shouldn't be able to teleport.*

Jason yelled, "Hey! Don't just sit there! Become useful for once!" But Mani didn't respond. Her hands remained clasped tightly over her head, covering her ears. She was staring blankly at the bed, her body still racked with tremors. Jason muttered under his breath, "You're so fucking useless."

Then, the dagger that had been driven through Melissa's heart shimmered with a faint blue light and vanished from her corpse. The sudden disappearance shocked Jason, but what truly stunned him was that he *saw* the dagger suddenly appear in Tyler's hands. "What the hell?" he thought, his eyes widening. He immediately turned and ran out of the room, bursting into the hallway. He collided with his father, the vice-captain, nearly knocking him over.

"Jason! Where the hell is he?" the father demanded, his face a mask of urgency.

"He's in the cellar!" Jason replied, his voice tight with fear and anger.

The vice-captain's eyes widened. He then yelled as he and Jason ran, "He's in the cellar!"

The shout echoed through the mansion, alerting everyone to the danger. But Silvia was already close.

Tyler heard the cellar door open, his crimson eyes scanning for the approaching footsteps. As someone began to descend the stairs, Tyler moved with terrifying speed. He used the Crimson Dagger to slice through all the wires restraining Rebecca. His hand moved with a practiced grace, slashing through the wire like it was butter, severing the bonds on her arms, her legs, even the ones that held her elbows. The entire operation took *a mere second*.

Silvia had descended the stairs, her grip tightening on her sword, her heart pounding with a single, all-consuming purpose: to kill. But the sight that greeted her at the foot of the stairs shattered her resolve, momentarily freezing her in place. Tyler was crouched on the cold, damp stone floor, cradling the battered form of Rebecca in his arms. His crimson eyes locked onto hers, and, for a heart-stopping moment, the world seemed to shrink, the focus narrowing to that intense, unsettling gaze. The raw, unfiltered intensity of his eyes was almost unbearable, a potent cocktail of emotions: rage, burning and visceral; anguish, a deep and echoing sorrow; and, above all, a chilling sense of resentment, a bitterness that seemed to pierce through her, leaving her stripped bare.

Then, white smoke billowed out, a spectral shroud that enveloped Tyler's black armor, obscuring him from view, as if he were being consumed. The smoke swirled and writhed, a ghostly dance in the dim light, and when it finally dissipated, his armor was no longer the menacing black that she knew so well. Now, it was a pristine white, reflecting the faint light like a mirror, a beacon in the oppressive darkness. And, with a shock that stole her breath, she saw that Tyler's eyes had also changed, mirroring his transformed armor. They were no longer the fiery crimson that she had come to expect. Now, they were a chilling, unsettling white.

Silvia, still clutching her sword, her knuckles white, unleashed her skill: Sword Strike. The energy of her rage, the fury of her resolve, channeled into the movement of her body. With a speed that defied the very laws of physics, she launched herself towards Tyler, a blur of motion. It wasn't a run, nor a sprint. It was as if she had *slid* across the stone floor, her feet barely touching the ground, a weapon of destruction unleashed. Her sword, a gleaming extension of her will, arced through the air, a silver streak aimed to sever Tyler's throat, to end the threat once and for all. But, as her blade neared its target, as the death blow seemed inevitable, Tyler was gone.

All that remained was the lingering white smoke, a ghostly whisper in the air, slowly dissipating, leaving behind only the faintest scent of ozone.

Silvia looked around, her gaze darting, frantically searching for any sign of him, her heart hammering against her ribs. The silence of the cellar, once oppressive, was now a deafening void. "He's gone," she muttered, her voice tight, strained, the words barely escaping her throat. "Both of them are gone. He teleported… with her." The weight of failure, the bitter taste of defeat, settled heavily in her stomach.

Suddenly, Alec and Benny burst down the stairs, their faces etched with a mixture of concern and anticipation. "What happened? Where is he?" Alec demanded, his voice echoing in the confined space.

Silvia looked up at them, as they were on the stairs, her expression grim. "He's gone… and he took her."

Benny frowned, the pieces of the puzzle struggling to come together. "He took her? Wait, so we're going up against a mage hunter?"

"A mage hunter? But I thought he was an assassin."Alec said. The words seemed to hang in the air, a testament to the ever-shifting reality they were facing.

Silvia, her face hardening, began to climb the stairs, leaving the unsettling silence of the cellar behind, the weight of her failure pressing down on her.

Silvia said, her voice laced with certainty, "He is most definitely an assassin." A shiver ran down her spine, a lingering echo of the intensity, the burning gaze that Tyler had given her just moments before. It had been a look that had instilled a fear she'd never known, a primal terror that had momentarily paralyzed her. And, for some inexplicable reason, she found a strange thrill in the memory of it. A strange, unsettling excitement that she didn't fully understand. "But," she added, a flicker of resolve hardening her features, "He's not an ordinary assassin. I think he's… A-rank+."

Suddenly, almost all the guild members were converging on Silvia's position, their faces a mixture of concern and determination. Jason, his face pale with grief and anger, interrupted the flow of their approach, shouting, "Stop! He's gone again!"

A collective sigh of frustration rippled through the assembled guild members. Sabrina, her voice sharp with exasperation, said, "Seriously? Again? Is he mocking us?"

Silvia, ignoring Sabrina's comment, said, her voice flat, "He's gone. He took her." She began walking towards the group, her gait deliberate.

The vice captain of their guild, cut through the rising tide of questions and murmurs. "Let's all head outside. Jason,the Hunter isn't in the house anymore, right?" he asked, his gaze fixed across on his son.

Jason, still reeling from the events, looked at his father and nodded, his expression bleak.

His father affirmed, "Right. We have to go outside right now."

All of the guild members began to move towards the exits, a unified force, their expressions set with grim determination. Silvia followed them, a small, almost imperceptible smile playing on her lips.

Benny and Alec exchanged terrified glances, the weight of their situation settling heavily upon them. The only person now left in the mansion was Mani, still locked away in the room where it all began.

As the guild members poured out of the mansion, they found the captain waiting in the backyard. He was fully armored, even his black metal helmet gleaming. He held his long, two-meter-long, one-foot wide silver sword at the ready. The vice-captain stood beside him, his own sword drawn.

"Captain," the vice-captain began, but the captain cut him off, his voice urgent. "We need to surround the mansion. We don't know where he could come from. I have a feeling… he's not gone." The captain's gaze, steely and unwavering, scanned the perimeter, his senses on high alert, prepared for a fight.