NOVEL NEXT Chapter 168: Mission Im-poster-ble
"Something go down at the main gate? Why's there a ruckus all of a sudden?"
"Wraith trouble, apparently. I'd bet the gate squad's already on it."
"I thought Wraiths were practically allergic to this place? Like they could smell the boxed-in space past the gate and knew walking in meant signing their own exit papers?"
"You're fresh out of the academy, so let me clue you in. That's true, well, mostly. But it's not the first time someone's tried to puppet a remote Wraith to sneak it in. Probably another one of those cases."
I stifled a yawn as I stood directly behind the two enforcers, listening in. Not from exhaustion — boredom, really. Hanging out in the open while remaining unnoticed had its perks, sure, but it didn't exactly scratch that sneaky dragon itch. Felt less like infiltration and more like everyone else needed enchanted specs and a hefty prescription for observational competence just to register my existence.
Leaping behind crates, slipping through cracks, eavesdropping through closed doors — now that had flair. This method was indeed way more efficient. But for style points, it was barely passing. The job felt frictionless, devoid of that satisfying grip.
Maybe I was getting decadent. Lately, my antics craved a certain… zizz. A dash of spectacle, a pinch of peril. Could be the dragon part of my brain muscling out the rational bits. It wouldn't be the first time someone called me "Chaos-touched," and honestly, they might've had a point.
Still, no matter how loud my inner lizard whined, I wasn't ditching flawless invisibility just to feel sneaky. Maybe someday I'd hunt that thrill again. Today wasn't payday.
I shadowed the two enforcers as they wandered through the complex, their conversation humming along. It was nothing special — which made it all the more fascinating, given the surrounding chaos. From the sound of it, one of them was a senior, the other fresh out of the academy. Like Sergiy.
Apparently, that was the standard setup — each batch of rookies got assigned a senior enforcer to babysit them through their early missions. The academy itself was kept sealed off from the outside world, a hidden little bubble where talent was grown in quiet isolation. Most graduates knew their Techniques and the Paths they walked but not much about the world they'd be using them in.
I'd picked up a fair bit just by eavesdropping — though that wasn't the only reason I'd chosen to tail this group.
"What kind of mission are we getting this time?" the junior asked.
"You're still garbage at stealth, so we're tagging an adjacent quest," the senior replied. "The Monster Wave's mostly cleared, but a few stragglers are still skulking around. A caravan, day before yesterday's chaos, spotted a Shadeling colony near the main road. That's our target."
"Wait, aren't Shadelings dangerous?"
"Only if they see you coming," the senior chuckled.
It became clear that Enforcers weren't just the peacekeepers of Varkaigrad — they also filled the role that adventurers played elsewhere. No wonder I hadn't seen a single person walking around claiming to be an "adventurer" during my entire stay here.
Reasons were plain. Firstly, monsters rarely get aggressively twitchy around Beast-kin. Logical – the System only seems to issue kill-notices for monsters triggered by humans, elves, or dwarves. Beast-kin just… didn't ping that proximity alarm.
The system's... let's call it "hospitality" toward Beast-kin had clearly shaped local society. Back in Aurelia, a monster wave meant city-wide panic, high alert, all hands on deck. Here I hadn't even realized the wave was still technically happening until these two mentioned it. It just hadn't been... well, news. Hardly worth a raised eyebrow from the start. Good to know it was wrapping up, though. Meant I could finally slip outside the walls and mutate freely!
Well, mostly freely. A few straggling monsters still needed dealing with before they caused real trouble. Hence these bite-sized cleanup missions – the kind pact-bound teams could snap up. Completing those earned them ranking points, which explained why the enforcers I'd been tailing had such a spring in their step.
Soon enough, we arrived at the building they'd been heading toward. I'd seen it before from above during one of my flights — one of those strange, blocky facilities scattered across the city. From the outside, it looked industrial. Inside, it had clearly been retooled to serve as a full-fledged mission hub.
It screamed 'Adventurers' Guild' – if said guild was designed by paranoid efficiency experts on performance enhancers. The scale was… oppressive.
Forget a single desk manned by a weary clerk. Instead, ranks of receptionists sat in a vast, concentric ring. Dozens of angled signs proclaimed district jurisdictions. It felt like walking into a military command center wearing customer service camouflage.
A tall, central tower dominated the middle of the space, with uniformed enforcers constantly coming and going. The sheer volume of it all was staggering – the data streams, the orchestrated chaos, the raw manpower needed to keep this leviathan city ticking. It hammered home the machine behind the peace.
Especially the enforcer density. Most swarmed lower-district sections, presumably where the civic polish wore thin. Their promotion system practically bled hustle. From the chatter, they'd gamified advancement: more missions = more points = more shiny rank insignia = more clout. Unknown perks awaited the high-ranked, but judging by the feeding frenzy below, the carrot worked.
Exceptionally well.
I'd never seen Aurelian adventurers this rabid, not even during a gear shortage. These enforcers were practically climbing over each other, fighting for the last scraps of missions like a pack of starved hounds.
And yet… amidst this seething ambition, one desk stood stark. Not by popularity, but by its chilling radius of avoidance. People skirted it wide, eyes averted, as if proximity invited contagion.
That desk held my answer.
I scanned the sign above. No district listed. The desk wasn't tethered to any ward – first red flag. Behind the receptionist, a board bristled with wanted posters, each a campfire nightmare fuel made manifest.
A bear-kin with a grin promising messy dentistry. A shadowed figure perched like a gargoyle on a spire. A Drakkari shackled in iron, eyes screaming with the kind of madness that etches itself onto bone.
Dominating the top, bold script declared:
ONLY OPERATIVES RATED 8 STARS+ MAY ACCEPT THESE CONTRACTS.
These weren't the average troublemakers. These were threats too dangerous for even seasoned veterans.
But one poster stood out.
Tacked near the board's edge, almost an afterthought: a drakkari girl. Silver hair like frozen starlight. Crimson eyes holding the warmth of banked coals. A slight frame radiating utter boredom with the entire 'being hunted' concept. Pure, distilled disdain. Detached as a surgeon observing a cadaver.
It was me.
Or rather, pre-evolution me. They'd taken... artistic liberties. I wasn't that unsettling… surely? Or was the artist just refreshingly honest?
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
My earlier enforcers were instantly forgotten. I arrowed through the churning crowd, unseen as smoke. The receptionist nearby – mid-yawn, mentally clocked out – didn't even register my presence as I stopped before the board.
The poster read:
[TO BE APPREHENDED: ALIVE OR DEAD, EVEN CONFIRMED TRACE REMAINS WARRANT REPORTING.
THREAT LEVEL: CODE RED. DO NOT ENGAGE WITHOUT RED CORE CLEARANCE, EVEN UPON POSITIVE VISUAL ID.
REPORTING VERIFIED INTEL GRANTS CONTRIBUTION POINTS.
PURSUIT WITHOUT MANDATED CLEARANCE IS GROUNDS FOR TERMINATION.
CLEARANCE REQUIRED: 6 STARS+. TEAM OF 10 MINIMUM.
UPDATE: SUBJECT CONFIRMED ALIVE (REF: INCIDENT ALPHA-THETA). THREAT STATUS RE-EVALUATED.
STATUS REMAINS: CODE RED. CLEARANCE LEVEL ADJUSTED.
UPDATED CLEARANCE: 8 STARS+. TEAM OF 2 MINIMUM.]
Every other person on that board had a full dossier: elemental affinity, combat style, what exactly made them dangerous. All those neat little labels.
But not me.
Nothing.
Just my threat level and the reminder not to poke the dragon unless you had the firepower to back it up. No description of my abilities, no hint of what I'd done or how I fought. Guess that meant anyone who did know was either conveniently dead or solidly on my side.
Still, that update made my eyebrow twitch.
So… someone knew. Someone out there had figured out I wiped out those elves. Which all but confirmed what I'd been suspecting: they weren't just cult-adjacent — they were in deep with the Iron Pact. Supplying them information, possibly even coordinating.
I stepped back, processing. That might've been it. I still didn't know how they figured out I killed their precious kin, but there were options. Maybe Doltharion had been in contact with his higher-ups, and when I turned his whole party into fertilizer, someone on the other end noticed the silence and made a reasonable — and correct — assumption.
Or maybe that weird mutation he'd triggered wasn't just a freak accident. Maybe it acted like a beacon, a leash, something that sent out feedback when its host bit the dust. Magic made all kinds of far-fetched nonsense possible. I couldn't be sure. All I could do was work with the most paranoid version of the situation and assume everything had gone sideways.
That brought up another troubling possibility. What if someone had been watching through Doltharion — or through the others? If they'd managed to spy through his eyes or senses before the end, then they might've seen me. Seen what I was. My true form. My draconic nature.
But the poster had nothing. Not a word about what I looked like, how I fought, or even what species I'd been classified as. That ruled out direct observation. If they'd seen what I'd become, I would've been listed with every warning under the sun.
Which meant — probably — they had no visuals. Just silence. Maybe auditory spying at best. Going over the scene in my head, I hadn't said or done anything too outlandish. Just violence. Neat, efficient violence.
That was enough reassurance, for now.
And the elves? They'd just vaulted several rungs up my priority extermination ladder.
I turned and slipped away from the board, then launched into the air. I had a mission of my own to complete — namely, figuring out where exactly they kept their prisoners in this sprawling, overbuilt fortress of a city.
Time to find the cage.
Predictably, prisoners proved a perennial commodity. The trail blazed itself.
Below, a clutch of Enforcers herded half a dozen Drakkari. Most bore the map of recent conflict: limps, blossoming bruises, leaking wounds. One Enforcer – ego visibly hemorrhaging alongside his ear – drove his boot into a wounded Drakkari's thigh, precisely where crimson wept through fabric. Then, for punctuation, cracked him across the skull hard enough to fold him like discarded laundry.
"Problem walking, filth?" he spat.
A fellow Enforcer growled a low warning. Another snorted, "Ease up. He's just salty his ear got ventilated earlier. Hard to look commanding when your pride's dribbling down your collar."
Indeed, the aggressor's ear hung ragged, still weeping. He shot them a venomous glare before hauling the crumpled Drakkari up by his collar and shoving him onward with a guttural snarl.
Yeah. These were definitely the merchandise.
I glided in quietly behind the group, wings folding as my claws hit the ground. I walked at a casual pace — right behind them. No one noticed. No one ever did.
A few minutes later, we reached the facility. Another of those blocky, utilitarian structures I'd seen from above — this one reworked into a prison.
I held back and watched.
If they had holding cells inside, they probably had detection systems too. Couldn't assume I'd waltz in just because I was good at walking quietly. I took a look at the entry — a massive iron gate guarded by two imposing figures in full armor. Mean posture. Bad tempers. The works.
Each Enforcer paused at the threshold before stepping through, like they were waiting for something. And sure enough, there was some kind of detection device beside the gate — not magic reacting to biology, like I'd feared, but something pinging off the badges they all wore.
Another thing stood out — whenever they brought in a prisoner, they held their wrist or forearm in a very deliberate grip. Physical contact required to bypass the entry protocol? Possible.
Well, I wasn't about to phase inside blind. I didn't know what was on the other side, or what other fail-safes they might've rigged up. So, phasing would stay in my back pocket for now.
I was still piecing together my options when the violent Enforcer — the ear-bleeder — suddenly dragged his prisoner aside by the collar. His squadmates laughed behind him.
"Delicate ego, that snake," someone muttered.
"Try not to actually kill him this time!" another shouted after him.
"Try not to pick a spot too secluded to do the deed," I added under my breath with a grin, tailing him quietly.
Mortal ears didn't pick up on my little commentary. So he kept going, dragging the bound Drakkari into a shadowed side alley. Then, with no hesitation, he started stomping the poor guy like he was trying to crack open a safe.
He was a Saryn — one of the serpent-kin — and, by Thalador's stinky boot, he was angry. Drakkaris are tough, but the sickening cracks suggested ribs were splintering under his boots, punctuated by streams of spit-flecked hatred.
No questions. No interrogation. Just senseless violence.
His worldview was clear: violence was the hierarchy here.
His rant revealed nothing useful – just the ugly dynamic he relished. After a minute of this unhealthy hobby, I decided he'd had enough fun.
Surely this gentleman would appreciate a taste of his own dynamic. Was there a certain... satisfaction in breaking bones and beating the helpless?
I was certain he'd volunteer to find out. My grin widened as I dropped Phantom Dragon Dance right behind his swinging boot. The battered Drakkari gasped, eyes bulging in horror at the sudden apparition behind his tormentor. I raised a finger to my lips.
Shhh.