At midnight on the second day, a fine drizzle began to fall from the sky, scattering over the earth like threads of silver.
Out on the streets, people carrying leather umbrellas or wrapped in hooded cloaks hurried along, all seemingly eager to get home.
The patrols moved slowly through the streets, their horses' hooves kept light so as not to disturb the residents during their rare hours of rest.
Inside the castle, the Numen maidens were preparing to change shifts and go enjoy a proper sleep, so they could greet the new day refreshed.
But then they suddenly stopped.
The howling wind grew stronger and lifted the curtains. Raindrops struck the windows and walls with crisp taps, but that was not all they heard.
Hidden among those faint, elusive sounds was another movement, even fainter, even more concealed, and far more unusual.
In an instant, the Numen maidens tensed. They reacted swiftly, drawing the daggers strapped to their thighs.
The silver blades stood out sharply beneath the mingled dimness of night and the bright lamplight.
They turned their heads and looked in every direction. The dense lighting should have been enough to reveal any figure hidden in the dark, yet they saw nothing.
That invisible force seemed to be approaching quietly out of nothingness. There were no forms, no footsteps to hear.
Yet the air carried a faint sense of distortion, and the slightest sound of something cutting through the air reached their ears clearly.
The same technique.
The Numen maidens' hearts tightened.
"Black Knife Assassins! It's the Black Knife Assassins!"
The Numen maidens in the castle were not frightened. They made the judgment at once.
They keenly sensed that these assassins had some connection to them.
That connection was not only one of race and bloodline, but also lay in their killing techniques and methods.
The assassins' killing arts were exactly like those taught to them by their teacher, Melina.
And Melina's killing arts had come from these very assassins.
A chill rose in the Numen maidens' hearts. They realized they might now be facing an extremely dangerous enemy.
Those assassins, standing before them without form or sound, looked strangely at the Numen maidens. They also held daggers, but their blades were black, winding, and twisted.
Just as the two sides were about to clash at close range, the assassins suddenly stopped the daggers they had been swinging.
The faint sound of blades slicing through the air also ceased in that instant, and the entire corridor fell unnaturally silent.
The Numen maidens were astonished by the enemy's strange behavior.
They had already prepared themselves to meet the attack, yet they had never expected the enemy to stop at the critical moment instead of charging straight in.
From the nearby passages and ceiling, the clamor of wind and rain abruptly disappeared.
It felt as if time had been turned back to the moment before the storm began. An eerie stillness enveloped the entire space, like the calm before a tempest.
Thick black fog surged in from the windows and stairwell like ink, dyeing everything in the corridor pitch-black. The tense Numen maidens stepped back.
Another group of enemies.
They stood back-to-back, raised their blades, and swept their gazes left and right, watching the depths of the black fog with vigilance.
Within the black fog, figures in black cloaks appeared and vanished indistinctly. Unlike the invisible killers from before, they did not feel quite as dangerous, but they seemed far more brazen.
A man slowly stopped in the black fog. The light around him seemed to twist.
Immediately after, a tall woman in black soft armor appeared beside him out of thin air like a ghost, gripping a short blade tightly in her hand.
The woman raised a hand, signaling for the man not to speak. Seeing this, the man's brow immediately furrowed.
He could clearly feel someone standing behind him. That killing intent was completely undisguised, like a cold wind sweeping down his spine and making every hair on his body stand on end.
Just as the man grew wary, the killing intent behind him suddenly vanished.
In its place, more women appeared before his eyes like phantoms.
They wore the same black soft armor as the tall woman and held the same short blades. The only difference was that their builds were somewhat slimmer.
The black-armored women stood directly opposite the man, blades in hand, a band of utterly cold-blooded killers.
And within that thick black fog, more cloaked figures stepped out behind the man as well.
The two sides stopped barely three meters apart, silently staring at each other through the rain-battered windows.
The man looked at the tall woman without expression. "Alecto, what are you doing?"
Alecto's gaze, however, did not fall on the man. Instead, she stared at the center of the black fog, as if some secret hidden there had caught her fascination.
Only after a long while did she slowly turn her head and meet the man's eyes.
"Lord Crepus," Alecto said, her voice just as cold. "I do not want to kill them."
Crepus narrowed his eyes slightly, gripping the black crossbow and dagger in his hands even tighter.
"This joke isn't funny. Those women discovered us!"
Before he could finish, Crepus suddenly froze.
These women were Black Knife Assassins under Marika.
They had always killed without blinking. Since when had they ever gone soft?
Never. They had even dared to kill Marika's own son.
But now, their leader was telling him they could not kill?
"Why?" Crepus's voice grew colder. "The slightest mistake could cause our mission to fail. I need a reasonable explanation."
"They are my kin!" Alecto said. "And they are not our mission targets. We do not have to kill them!"
"Impossible! The Numen were buried long ago in that lost land!" Crepus's brow tightened, and the Black Key in his hand trembled slightly.
Alecto was not shaken by Crepus's words.
The woman stood before Crepus, clearly covered head to toe in black armor, yet for some reason, a sharp killing intent clung to her beyond all restraint, like a white rose shrouded beneath the night.
Crepus suddenly remembered the first time he had seen this woman. The Black Knife Assassins had surrounded her just like this, like thorns protecting a flower.
"No wonder the Black Knife only listens to you." A cold smile touched Crepus's lips.
Alecto understood the meaning behind Crepus's words, but her tone remained calm. "The Black Knife does not belong to any one of us. We are all loyal only to the Eternal Queen."
"It had better be that way!" Crepus snorted coldly, shifting his gaze to the Numen surrounded at the center of the black fog.
"Then let them lose the ability to fight and call for help. That should be acceptable, shouldn't it?"
Alecto did not answer. She only nodded indifferently.
She very much wanted to take those beautiful assassin maids somewhere private and speak with them properly, but unfortunately, the timing was wrong. They had come here on a mission.
In truth, they had first gone to the castle lord's private quarters, then to the monarch's office, only to somehow fail to find Lord Nolan, who was famed for diligence in governance and love for his people.
With no other choice, they had started searching the castle and run into this group of maids.
They were all top-tier assassins. If they failed to find their mission target and started fighting among themselves first, they would become a laughingstock. But the worst outcome would still be the failure of the mission.
That was the real reason Crepus compromised. He could tolerate other matters, but the task entrusted by his lord had to be completed.