The man before them was young, around the same age as Damon, with dark brown hair and brown eyes. He wasn’t wearing any armour, except for the set of gauntlets on his fists that shone with bright light that made it clear it was a relic.

As the realisation hit him, the man was quick to act.

He managed to dodge Eve’s two bullets but stepped under Nyla’s hammer in the process. But instead of getting squashed like everyone else before, he raised his arm and blocked the strike with a deafening clash of metal.

CLANG!

A flicker of surprise flashed across Nyla’s face, but before she could fully react, the man swung his free hand and struck her in the oblique, sending her hurtling through the air.

Before Nyla could even land, Damon already stepped between the shadows.

He appeared on the man’s flank, but to his surprise, the man managed to react.

CLANG!

The impact sent a vibration up Damon’s arm that he felt in his shoulder, not exactly pain, more like a particular resistance of something that wasn’t going to give regardless of how hard he pushed.

The gauntlets held, and so did the man behind them. His feet slid back an inch across the warehouse floor, but he managed to absorb the impact nonetheless.

He was good.

Better than most but not quite good enough.

Damon pivoted fast, his blade countering too quickly for anyone present to react.

The man’s torso was cut open with a large burst of blood spraying from the massive wound.

The man leapt backwards, trying to create space.

For a split second, the warehouse was quiet, except for the sound of the man’s boots hitting the floor and his breathing.

Then the cold came, the particular drop in temperature that shadow manipulation left behind, and he had just enough time to understand what that meant before the pain hit.

Damon was already behind him, his blade piercing straight through the man’s back, coming out of his chest.

[You have slain a Level 56 Human: Oliver]

[New Monster Index bonus: +17 Strength, +15 Dexterity]

[You have received a Relic: Bloodthorn Necklace]

Damon looked at the notification for a moment. A relic drop from a human was rare enough to be worth noting, but he’d examine it properly later.

Nyla had pulled herself off the wall, one hand pressed to her side where the impact had landed. It wasn’t a serious injury, she’d taken worse, but the surprise that it had happened at all was written clearly on her face.

Her gaze turned to the lifeless corpse of the man Damon had just killed.

"He was fast," she said.

"He was," Damon agreed.

Eve watched from where she stood, revolver still loose in her hand, with the particular expression she used when something had exceeded her expectations and she was quite happy about that.

From the floor, Jax watched the whole thing with the pale, focused look of someone rapidly updating their understanding of who they were dealing with. He knew Damon was strong, but this was beyond his knowledge of Damon’s abilities.

"I’m sorry," Damon murmured. "Was he a friend of yours?" he asked, turning toward Jax.

Jax stayed silent for a moment before replying. "He was one of the lieutenants."

Damon raised a brow. "Lieutenants?"

"A selected group of the best fighters in the citadel. They are responsible for the most important matters."

"How many are there?"

"15... 14 now."

That was surprising. The man was able to deal with Nyla and Eve on his own. If Damon wasn’t there, he wasn’t certain the two girls could have won. 14 people at around that level would be enough to cause problems for their citadels, no matter how many weaker fighters they had.

’We’ve spent too much time planning and surviving instead of getting stronger,’ he noted to himself, though that was more true of everyone else than him.

Getting stronger had always been his priority. The difference was that now it was everyone’s problem, whether they’d made it theirs or not.

"Let’s get going," Damon said. "I’m sure our guest is dying to get the tour of our citadel."

***

They left the warehouse the way they’d entered and moved back through the western district at a pace that suggested business concluded rather than escape.

Jax walked between Damon and Nyla with the Dark Knight’s presence a constant reminder behind him. He didn’t try anything. The dynamics of the situation hadn’t changed since the warehouse, and he wasn’t the type to forget the dynamics.

Eve moved slightly ahead, revolver holstered, eyes scanning the street level out of habit rather than necessity. The western district was as empty as it had been on the way in.

Nobody spoke much on the way back. Mostly because there wasn’t much to say, but also because with a prisoner with them, they couldn’t really speak about anything he might use against them later.

The citadel appeared ahead as they re-entered the central district, its familiar shape rising above the surrounding ruins, the courtyard noise reaching them the second they stepped away from the teleportation device.

Ivy was not in the courtyard this time.

One of her attendants met them at the entrance to the grand hall. She took a single look at the group, the three of them surrounding a newcomer who looked visibly uneasy and made quick sense of the situation, choosing not to ask questions.

Damon dismissed the Dark Knight the moment they were through the gate.

Jax exhaled slightly at its disappearance, which told Damon the presence had been working on him the entire walk back, just as intended.

"Welcome to the citadel," Damon said.

Jax looked around at the settlement, the people moving with purpose, the crops along the outer grounds, the structures still going up along the eastern wall.

Whatever he’d expected, this clearly wasn’t it. The citadel was larger and far more organised than anything he’d seen at the second citadel’s outpost.