Chapter 456: Chapter 453 – Midnight Attack

The night crept deeper over the sky of the Imperial capital. The life of the magic-powered metropolis, once noisy and filled with the bustling activities of nobles and high-ranking adventurers, slowly began to sink into a dense silence. The mana streetlights installed along the natural stone sidewalks began to dim automatically one by one, leaving only a faint glow from the nocturnal oil lanterns hanging on wrought-iron poles with antique motifs.

The night sky was clear, devoid of storm clouds; a full moon acting as the astral pivot hung immensely high up there, casting a cold, silvery luminescence that seeped through the crevices of the architectural structures to illuminate the grand and authoritative rows of the city’s slate-tiled roofs.

Inside the luxurious interior of the second-floor suite at the Silver Eagle Inn, one of the most reputable premium lodging facilities in the commercial district, the atmosphere remained deeply quiet, peaceful, and isolated from the outside world. The room was equipped with mid-tier magical soundproofing amenities, ensuring the privacy and comfort of well-funded guests.

Sylvia appeared to be lying in a relaxed posture upon the exceptionally wide master bed, a sheet of high-quality black silk blanket covering her entire body up to her chest. The long strands of her black hair, usually neatly tied, now flowed freely across the surface of the goose-down pillow, while her breathing rhythm proceeded in a slow, constant, and highly regular manner.

Right beside the main bed area, Alicia was also enjoying her sleep phase in a highly graceful posture upon the surface of the secondary mattress; her gleaming silver hair faintly caught the remaining reflections of the moonlight piercing through the frame of the large glass window. Meanwhile, Stacia chose to curl up comfortably like a kitten on the surface of the long leather sofa located in the corner of the room; a thick wool blanket covered her entire body, leaving only the randomly disheveled tips of her gray hair poking out.

Upon the surface of Sylvia’s chest, which rose and fell with a constant rhythm, a small creature with thick golden fur, none other than the reincarnated form of the sacred dragon named Sol lay curled up in deep warmth. Its stable internal energy provided an extra sense of comfort for its master.

However, the phase of pure peace enveloping the interior of the luxury suite suddenly came to an instant halt as the night’s biological clock shifted past the midnight mark.

Without any sudden physical movement or dramatic change in facial expression, Sylvia’s deep crimson eyes suddenly snapped wide open in the dimly lit darkness of the room. Her fleshly perception and undead instincts, which resided at the highest level of existence, instantly detected anomalous fluctuations of pure mana and the presence of numerous dangerous, foreign auras moving in a tactical pattern around the outer corridor and the exterior of their second-floor suite’s balcony.

The approaching auras were detected carrying a cold, directed, and sharp payload of killing intent; though by the standards of Sylvia’s combat power, the quality of that murderous energy still felt highly raw, amateurish, and weak.

At almost the exact same second, right beside the main bed, Alicia also slowly opened her silver eyes. Her silver pupils gleamed with a calm, cold luminescence amidst the darkness of the room, showing absolutely no indicator of panic, shock, or biological anxiety whatsoever. Even Sol, nestled against Sylvia’s chest, began to lift his small head; his triangular ears stood erect against the wind, while his golden-amber eyes narrowed with the high alertness of an apex predator.

Only Stacia was observed to still be in her deep sleep phase, occasionally letting out a faint, constant snoring sound, completely undisturbed by the arrival of the deadly projectiles of threat behind their room walls.

"There are eleven human entities outside," Sylvia’s voice transmission echoed instantly through a specialized telepathic link connected directly to Alicia’s center of consciousness, her tone sounding exceptionally cold, flat, and laden with military calculation. "They have split their movement formation to surround the perimeter of this room from two different coordinates: the front corridor and the outer balcony. Based on the mana energy fingerprints clinging to their weapons, it seems they are an assassin unit sent by the fat Baron we encountered in the market area yesterday."

Alicia gave a single, very subtle short nod of her head without needing to alter her body’s lying position from atop the mattress. "They acted recklessly because they completely lack an accurate intelligence database regarding the estimation of your actual combat strength, Sylvia. Baron Veldor undoubtedly only gave a crude elimination command to this low-class mercenary unit without including a detailed analysis. He most likely only told them to ’eliminate the arrogant group of merchants who dared to disrupt the stability of his spice market monopoly’."

Sylvia let out a short sigh laden with deep annoyance; the lines of her facial expression turned heavily irritated. Under normal operational conditions, she was considered to have a fairly high level of strategic patience to ignore minor disturbances, but tonight’s ambush had truly crossed the boundaries of her personal comfort. Her deep, restful sleep after a full day of draining energy at the northern market had to be interrupted by a bunch of trash who possessed zero tactical value.

"Tsk. Truly a bunch of fools who don’t know their place and ruin the quality of someone else’s rest," Sylvia’s mind snorted coldly.

Outside the thick mahogany wooden door leaf that served as the primary boundary of the suite, a very faint mechanical friction sound could faintly be heard click... click.... The sound originated from a backup lock mechanism or a lock-picking tool being turned with high precision by one of the ambushers. The massive wooden door then opened slowly inward without emitting even the slightest squeak of a hinge, an indication that the assassins had applied a specialized military-specification lubricant to dampen mechanical noise.

Eleven well-proportioned human figures wearing pitch-black night-stealth armor suits were seen slipping inside sequentially through the dim interior of the suite’s living room. They moved with a movement formation that was considered highly trained and professional; their footsteps generated absolutely no vertical pressure on the wooden floorboards, their breathing rhythms were held to a bare minimum, while their hands tightly gripped poisoned short daggers and assassin knives coated with a sheen-dampening liquid.

Five personnel entered through the front corridor door access, while the other six personnel appeared to have just successfully scaled the outer balcony structure after crossing the windows with the aid of wire ropes and load-bearing iron grappling hooks.

The silvery light of the full moon piercing through the glass window curtains occasionally illuminated brief visual details of the ambushers’ faces hard, cold faces, filled with scars from street battles, and the dead eyes of professional assassins. A massively muscular man acting as the commander of the assassin group was seen raising his right arm high, giving a specialized hand-signal code to order a swift and silent simultaneous execution toward the two bedding points. They were clearly an elimination unit tested in various dark assassination missions within the capital’s slums.

However, before any of the eleven pairs of assassin feet could take a single centimeter further step or release their poisoned knife throws toward the targets...

The automated defense system of Sylvia’s shadow had already operated at absolute speed.

From behind the darkness of the shadows created beneath the gaps of the suite’s dim wooden floor, dozens of strands of pitch-black steel chains emitting a dense, cold aura suddenly manifested instantly. SCHLAAAKKK !!

The sound of mystical metal massively piercing flesh, shattering human skeletal structures, and splitting hard wooden boards clanged simultaneously in a single, terrifying tick of a second. The rows of Sylvia’s Chain of Abyss shot vertically from bottom to top with a speed resembling the acceleration of dark light, executing a pure penetration without giving the targets even the slightest room to react.

The chest areas, abdominal cavities, throats, thigh joints, down to the skulls of the eleven assassins were instantly pierced clean through by the sharp tips of the shadow chains until they poked out on the other horizontal side.

THUD! THUD! THUD! THUD!

The eleven human bodies dressed in black instantly collapsed simultaneously onto the surface of the suite’s wooden floor, losing all their biological functions in the blink of an eye. A torrent of thick, deep red fresh blood was seen flowing heavily from the precise vertical puncture wounds, flooding the floor surface and spreading a sharp, pungent metallic scent of iron throughout the room.

There were absolutely no long screams of pain or hysterical shriek escaping their mouths; all that was heard were short, severed gasps and the remnants of panting breaths that ceased entirely within seconds alongside the death of the body’s vital signs. A few personnel in the rear positions briefly tried to move their fingers to reach for backup weapon handles, but their nervous systems had been completely paralyzed.

Sylvia’s Abyss Chains did not merely function as physical flesh-splitting projectiles; at the same time, the chain structure also actively engaged an energy absorption function to drain the remnants of vital strength and original mana from the victims, ensuring death arrived with absolute yet soul-tormenting speed.

Throughout the duration of that terrifying instant slaughter, Sylvia was observed maintaining her lazy sitting position on the main bed, her back resting casually against the wooden headboard structure of the suite. The slightly disheveled strands of her black hair fell to partially cover her heavily cold, flat, and flatly apathetic facial expression; she did not even lower her dignity to simply stand up from the bed to face the attack.

Alicia merely tilted her head slightly to the side, gazing at the pile of blood-mired corpses on the floor with silver eyes filled with deep boredom. In another corner of the room, Stacia appeared to only mumble softly in her sleep phase, turning her body posture toward the wall, then pulling the edge of her wool blanket higher until it covered her ears as if all the clanging sounds of chains and death around her were merely the manifestation of a minor nightmare of no significance whatsoever to ruin her sleeping time.

"Tsk... truly a bunch of useless trash," Sylvia muttered with a tone filled with deep irritation while taking a long breath.

With a single, highly light and casual wave of her right hand forward, a speck of pitch-black flame known as the Death Flame instantly shot out from behind her palm. The death flame from the lower dimension, which possessed cold characteristics, hungered for soul essences, and emitted absolutely no normal light spectrum, directly fell to evenly coat the eleven piles of corpses along with the puddles of fresh blood on the floor.

FWOOSH....

A highly bizarre burning sound resembling the supernatural whispering voices of millions of souls forcibly vanished from the dimensional line hissed softly inside the suite room. Within a very brief matter of seconds, the black blaze devoured every single piece of organic and inorganic matter upon the floor without leaving any residue behind. There were no remaining ashes of combustion, no smell of burnt flesh, no metallic aroma of blood, and no fluid stains left behind. The surface of the luxury suite’s wooden floor instantly returned to a highly clean, polished, and hygienic condition, as if the mass slaughter moments ago was nothing more than an optical illusion.

Sol, nestled upon the lap of Sylvia’s thighs, appeared to let out a soft purr of satisfaction once more, closing his pair of amber eyes as if treating the bloody ambush incident just now as a minor fly disturbance that had been resolved with the proper procedure.

Alicia curved a very charming slight smile amidst the dimness of the room. "The characteristics of your strategic patience seem to be thinning day by day lately, Sylvia."

Sylvia laid her entire body proportion back down onto the surface of the plush mattress, pulling the sheet of her black silk blanket up to her chest with a lazy movement. "They made a single, unforgivable fatal mistake disrupting the stability of my precious sleeping time. By my standards, that is already a more than sufficient tactical reason to revoke their right to live from this world."

The atmosphere inside the luxury suite of the Silver Eagle Inn instantly sank back into a deeply profound and comforting phase of night silence. There was only the sound of the night wind blowing gently against the outer window glass, accompanied by the rhythm of soft snoring from Stacia who was still sleeping very peacefully on the long sofa.

Outside the inn area, the center of the Arvandor Imperial capital continued to sleep deeply under the shroud of moonlight, completely lacking any collective awareness that a mid-class elite assassin unit had just been erased from the world’s line of existence without leaving the slightest physical or magical trace in a corner of their city’s finest inn.

The next morning, the exceptionally warm and bright rays of the dawn sun appeared to seep back in through the gaps of the partially opened suite glass window curtains. Sylvia woke from her sleep in a highly fresh and optimal state of physical fitness, as if the bloody attack incident in the middle of the night had never occurred inside her room.

She stood up and stretched her entire body with highly graceful movements, causing her spine to release a series of rhythmic, low mechanical popping sounds. In the corner of the room, Stacia was observed still in her deep sleep phase on the sofa while hugging a bolster pillow, while Alicia had apparently woken up much earlier as usual; she was currently sitting in a highly neat posture in front of the vanity mirror while combing her long silver hair strand by strand with highly methodical movements.

"Good morning, Sylvia," Alicia greeted with an exceptionally soft tone of voice, glancing toward the reflection of her sister’s shadow in the mirror. "Was the quality of your sleep quite restful after the... tactical cleanup you executed last midnight?"

Sylvia gave a single, casual short nod of her head while her fingers moved smoothly to stroke the head of Sol, who was still reluctant to stir from the warmth of the bed blanket. "My sleep was considered quite restful and of high quality after that. At least the remnants of that trash didn’t have the courage to provide any subsequent disturbances in the second half of the night."

A few moments later, after ensuring all members of the group had tidied up their appearances, the three sisters immediately stepped down toward the inn’s main dining room area to consume breakfast. Stacia, who had just gathered her full consciousness, walked while letting out wide yawns several times; she quickly took a sitting position at the dining table chair, then with full enthusiasm reached for a piece of freshly baked warm wheat bread and smeared it with a thick layer of berry jam.

"It’s so strange, I feel like I experienced a highly wild and unusual dream phenomenon in the middle of the night yesterday..." Stacia said while chewing her piece of bread with a facial expression that seemed to be thinking hard. "In my memory, it felt like there was a group of strangers dressed entirely in black with sharp daggers trying to infiltrate into our suite room in large numbers. However, I thought that it might just be a nightmare manifestation due to the accumulation of my physical fatigue after a full day of managing logistics transactions in the market yesterday."

Sylvia and Alicia exchanged a brief glance with one another for a hundredth of a second, before finally both corners of their lips curved into a highly subtle thin smile without any intention whatsoever to provide verbal clarification or recount the mass slaughter that had actually taken place.

After the breakfast activity was concluded, their group immediately stepped back toward the northern market complex area to open their spice merchant stall like the previous day. The process of their logistics sales transactions was observed to continue running highly smoothly, and the intensity of the buying crowd even appeared many times busier and denser compared to the first day yesterday.

This occurred because the news regarding the existence of a new group of traveling merchants offering premium quality magical spices at rational prices had spread rapidly among noble housewives and high-ranking adventurers.

A highly potent and distinct aroma of spices wafted thickly, flooding the market corridors, acting as a natural magnet that drew the interest of hundreds of new customers to come line up. Sylvia served every transaction process with a highly calm, cold, and professional attitude; Stacia moved actively with a high level of enthusiasm offering various packages of merchandise commodities, while Alicia utilized the momentum of social interaction to continuously gather micro-scale intelligence information through the casual chats of the customers.

In the evening, right at the time they began to clear away all the remaining stall equipment and close the tent, a figure of a man in shabby clothes acting as a paid informant whom they had recruited with silver coin payments the previous day appeared to step closer with a highly stealthy movement pattern behind the shadow of the cloth tent. The man continuously turned his head to the right and left with a facial expression filled with high-level anxiety before finally daring to whisper in a very low voice.

"Miss... there is a highly earth-shattering information development currently boiling heavily among the capital city’s underground network," the informant man whispered, his breath sounding slightly rushed. "Based on internal mansion data leaks, Baron Veldor secretly mobilized his entire mid-class elite assassin unit toward the Silver Eagle Inn location last night. A total of eleven of the best professional assassins under his ownership were sent to execute you. However... Strangely, today every single one of those assassin personnel has been declared vanished from the network radar without leaving any physical trace, coordinate signal, or death manifest whatsoever!

Baron Veldor’s side is currently in a state of extraordinary panic and immense rage inside his study room. My informant inside his residence even saw with his own eyes how the Baron struck the surface of his marble desk until it sustained a thousand cracks out of frustration facing the mystery of his assassin unit’s disappearance."

Sylvia merely curved a highly thin, cold smile hearing the report, her dark crimson eyes narrowing to create an aura of pressure that instinctively made the informant bow his head deeply out of fear.

"Just let that fat pig sink in the vortex of his own panic," Sylvia replied with a tone of voice that was highly flat yet laden with absolute threat. "If he indeed still possesses the remaining guts and foolishness to keep playing around or try sending a subsequent disturbance unit in the following nights, we will make sure to deliver a far more serious and destructive strategic retaliation package directly into the heart of his residence. Maintain your position in the underground network, and immediately give an instant report to me if you detect even the slightest military movement or mobilization from the direction of his mansion."

The second night of their retention period inside the Imperial capital was observed to pass in a highly calm, silent, and disturbance-free condition from any form of physical threat. There was absolutely no indication of subsequent attacks or dark surveillance detected around their inn. It seemed that Baron Veldor’s side had finally been forced to understand a basic tactical premise that the traveling merchant group acting as his operational target this time was by no means an ordinary merchant entity that could be financially intimidated or physically eliminated as easily as flipping over one’s palm.

Inside the interior area of their luxury suite, after finishing a dinner activity with a premium menu, Sylvia appeared to be sitting relaxedly in the outer balcony terrace area that directly faced the beautiful landscape of the capital metropolis city. A cool night wind blew softly against the surface of her face and her loose black hair strands.

Sol was seen curled up very calmly upon the lap of her thighs, releasing a soft purr of satisfaction beneath the stroking of his master’s fingers. Stacia and Alicia appeared to step out from inside the room compartment to join her in the terrace area, bringing along a silver tray containing a warm herbal tea pot emitting fragrant steam and a few small plates containing pastry snacks.

"Our movement mobilization and trade operations in this place have slowly begun to leave energy fluctuation traces that are too conspicuous for the Empire’s intelligence radar," Sylvia said with a quiet tone of voice yet laden with tactical seriousness, her eyes staring straight toward the sea of city mana lamp glows below. "Therefore, starting tomorrow morning, we must immediately execute an acceleration toward all lines of our strategic plans. I want us to quickly wrap up this market business and directly schedule an investigative visit toward the coordinates of the ancient dimensional rift located in the northern region as soon as possible. The existence of this spice merchant stall is already more than enough to establish our initial disguise identity as civilians."

Stacia gave a nod of her head with a facial expression that instantly turned highly enthusiastic, her gray eyes shining brightly filled with the surge of battle adrenaline that had been suppressed for a long time. "Finally...! A highly precise decision, Sylvia! I have truly begun to feel at a point of saturation and boredom if I have to continuously serve these monotonous spice trade transactions every day in the market. This is the highly precise momentum of time for us to return to hunting high-tier territorial monsters inside the dimensional rift, splitting the pure battlefield, and gathering various high-quality magical loot items to strengthen our system!"

Alicia curved a highly graceful soft smile while extending her left hand to sip a bit of the warm herbal tea liquid from her porcelain cup. "I will immediately launch magical calculations tonight to prepare the entire array of tactical support magic (Buffing Magic) as well as pure protective mantra structures (Absolute Barrier) with the best quality specifications we possess. We must remain consistent to maintain a low profile in front of the Imperial public, yet at the same time always remain in the highest level of combat readiness state if at any time there is a danger anomaly or unexpected disturbance trying to obstruct our target achievement path."