The teleportation device took them right below the citadel as always. The familiar citadel noise faded as they began to follow Eve’s lead, who kept giving side glances at Nyla with a slight hint of irritation on her face.

It was an irritation of someone whose plan was disturbed by someone who wasn’t supposed to be there. And what made it worse was that the person responsible for that, Nyla, wasn’t really bothered about it.

"How did you know I was leaving?" Damon asked Nyla, who walked so close beside him she may as well have been holding his hand.

"Ivy told me. I stumbled upon her just outside the grand hall." She shot him a sideways glance. "I can’t believe you wanted to leave without me again."

Damon shrugged. "There was no time."

Nyla wanted to argue his answer at first, but then chose not to as a different, more interesting question came to her mind.

"So how was the third citadel?"

"It’s made of only women..."

The words made even Eve glance back for a moment, clearly interested in the idea.

"Their leader seemed... capable," he added after a small pause.

"So, they’re on our side?"

"For now, yes," Damon replied.

He wasn’t the type to put endless trust into people. Although they seemed to be allies now, who knows what might happen in the future... or what the third quest might be. It was best not to get attached to temporary alliances.

The western district was quite different from the central area of the city.

Where the central area was dense and filled with tall buildings, this side of the city was a lot lower, with buildings stretching rather than rising vertically. Large flat-roofed commercial buildings and warehouses sat behind cracked parking lots, connected by wide roads that felt exposed after the narrow city streets they were used to.

It was the kind of area that offered very little cover, leaving everything out in the open, meaning that approaching any base without being spotted was near impossible, but so was defending large infrastructure without significant numbers. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎

"There," Eve said quietly.

She stopped behind the corner of a large retail building and gestured ahead. Two hundred meters west sat a large structure that had once been a logistics warehouse. Long, low and wide beyond reason, with reinforced walls and covered windows. It was a perfect spot for a settlement, if one had the numbers to keep it safe.

Two guards moved along the southern entrance, walking in a slow, meaningless circle, while another pair stood idly at the main entrance, their faces lost in thought, clearly not paying any attention.

"The rooftop guard is the problem," Eve said. "Everyone else down here stopped paying attention weeks ago. But him, he varies his timing on purpose. Never quite the same interval twice." She paused for a moment, her lips curving up slightly. "Except every third rotation, he slips. That’s our window."

"How long do we have?" Damon asked, eyeing the man on the rooftop who, unlike everyone else there, was actually looking like he wanted to protect that place.

"Ninety seconds," Eve replied.

"And the way in?"

She pointed to the eastern side of the building, where a section of the original wall had been patched with newer material that didn’t quite match. "That repair job is newer than everything around it. Whatever was there before got damaged, and they covered it. It’s the weakest point in the exterior."

Damon nodded, taking a moment to think.

The way in was fairly simple. Well, even if it wasn’t, he could just storm his way in and kill everyone before him without any issues, but there was one question left remaining. What was their goal?

Taking the citadel’s second base of operation would most certainly weaken them, but that still didn’t offer an easy victory over them.

Damon debated taking prisoners and trying to use them to gain an advantage, maybe pry some information, but why would people of a citadel help them if the death of their leader would ensure their own deaths?

Then, he caught it, a solution to that very question.

’Is that...?’

Damon blinked in disbelief as he saw a familiar figure come out of the main entrance and speak to one of the guards.

He had the same unkept, messy hair, the same black hood and the exact same bow resting on his back.

There was no mistaking it. The person before him was Jax.

The man who was responsible for the central station’s scouting groups, and the man who left after Damon’s return, during which he blamed him for the death of his people.

As much as there was bad blood between them, he was someone they already knew, and they could use that.

"When’s the next window?" he suddenly asked.

"Hmm," Eve looked down at the small mechanical watch on her wrist. "In about two minutes."

"Good, keep the guy in the black hood alive."

The two girls raised their brows at the sudden request but didn’t question it and simply nodded along.

The two minutes passed quickly.

The moment Eve’s watch hand hit the mark, the trio moved.

They covered the distance low and fast, sticking to the building’s shadow until they reached the patched section of wall. A single, deafening swing of Nyla’s hammer brought the weakened section of the wall down.

Immediately, four people who were inside turned toward the sound.

One died to a mana bullet from Eve’s revolver before he could even turn fully toward the sound. The second was crushed under the terrifying weight of Nyla’s hammer before his sword could rise to guard against it.

The last, or rather first, two were dead before even the first of Eve’s bullets hit, as the instant the wall came down, Damon stepped between the shadows, cutting the two men down before reappearing beside the only person he intended to keep alive.

"Hello, Jax," he said with a faint smile. "It’s been a while."