Asher had been lucky that Leonard's attack only ripped out what felt like a quarter pound of flesh from his leg. Unlike ruptured organs, torn flesh and broken bones healed relatively quickly. If the assassin had actually removed part of his bone, however, he would have been hobbling around for hours waiting for Eternal Regeneration to get him back on his feet. As it was, by the time Asher managed to limp his way over to Draken's manor, too exhausted to even rely on Distortion, his leg at the very least was back in one piece.

Eternal Regeneration - lvl 24

Always a nice notification to get, he thought, dismissing it as he approached the gang leader's manor. Seeing as it was still the dead of night, and Asher was somewhat covered in his own blood, he wasn't at all surprised when he was stopped a good few dozen feet from the manor.

"Freeze!" a familiar woman called out, hefting a large mace that began to crackle with what looked like electricity of all things. "What business do you have with Draken?"

Enforcer - 3/3 Elements

"I have some urgent news for him," Asher said, eyeing up the crackling mace warily. The occasional glowing arc of electricity between the points of the weapon was wreaking havoc with his night vision. "It's me, I came to see Draken just a few days back. You led me to his study?"

The woman shifted her stance slightly, doing her best to examine him through the darkness. "The impatient guy that couldn't sit for a few minutes?"

"Yeah… That's me," Asher sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. "Sorry about that. I already apologized to Draken!"

"Seeing as you're still breathing, he must not have been that upset," she chuckled, finally lowering her mace and ending whatever skill had turned it into the world's deadliest stun baton. "What's so important that it couldn't wait until morning? I know a lot of people like to joke that Draken's a walking corpse, but he does actually need to sleep for the record."

Asher went to mention the hit on Crush before hesitating. He didn't know if telling others that the Assassin's Guild had painted a target on Crush's back would start a panic or instill a fervor that Draken wanted to avoid. In the end, he decided to go with a less detailed version of the truth.

"I found evidence that Crush's life is in danger," he said, watching the woman's eyebrows shoot up. "I figured Draken would want to know as soon as possible."

"That he would," she muttered, seeming to think for a moment. "And this evidence is sound? Not just some hunch or rumor you heard going around?"

"Oh, yeah. Trust me, it's about as ironclad as evidence can get."

"Alright, follow me," she nodded, motioning for him to fall in line behind her as she brought him into the manor. "I'm Rachel, by the way. Or Thunder, if you prefer going by our elite names. Figured if you were going to make a habit of dropping by unannounced we might as well be on a first name basis."

"Asher," he said, nodding at the two basic thugs standing guard on either side of Draken's front door as they headed inside. He briefly considered referring to himself as 'The Reaper' as well, before deciding he still wasn't quite at that stage just yet. Using it to terrify someone was one thing, but calmly introducing himself as such in polite conversation just felt embarrassing. "I actually remember you from the coalition to take down Loratta. Do you handle Draken's security or something?"

"Basically. I'm the one in charge of making sure the other gangs or opportunistic individuals don't sneak into the manor," she explained. "And trust me, I remember you from the coalition as well. I didn't actually see you in action, but from what I heard you fought like a living specter. Already making quite a name for yourself, Mr. Reaper."

"Can't say it was my intention," he admitted, following Thunder back to where she'd first instructed him to wait the last time. "And don't worry, I'm not planning on freaking Draken out again like last time."

"Good. As entertaining as it was to see him with his feathers ruffled for once, I'd have to hit you with my mace if you did," she grinned, patting the handle of her mace before heading deeper into the manor.

Thunder must have informed Draken of what he'd told her, because only a few minutes later the gang leader quickly came strolling down the hallway, his usual fancy suit wrinkled and slightly askew as if he'd thrown it on in a hurry.

"Asher, what's this I hear about Crush's life being in danger?" Draken demanded, his face deathly serious for once. "This better not be another joke in order to get my attention."

"It's not," Asher hurried to reassure him as he sensed what felt like a soft, chilling blanket slowly enveloping him. He'd never experienced Draken's horrifying death aura first-hand, but he assumed this was the last sensation most of his victims felt before they simply dropped dead. "But we should head into your study. I'm not sure if you want people overhearing this."

Draken frowned, but motioned for Asher to follow him into the elaborate study. As soon as he'd closed the door, Asher activated Spatial Lock, making the area large enough to encompass almost the entire room and with the focus on preventing sound from leaving the barrier. He could still only conjure the skill in the shape of a sphere, so the corners of the room were outside the barrier, but it was fine for his current purposes.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

"I paid the Guild a visit earlier this evening," he explained, quickly giving Draken the short version of how he'd found one of the Guild's safehouses and scared Jennifer into fleeing back to her cell. He decided to leave out mention of his Eternal Mark skill, pretending like he'd simply tailed her back to the cell from afar. After explaining how he'd dealt with Leonard and searched through the man's office, he pulled out the dossier on Crush he'd found on the man's desk and handed it over to Draken. "Based on this, I'm pretty sure Eight put out a hit on Crush's head. I didn't know if Leonard was the only person he'd ordered to go after him or if there were others, so I wanted to let you know as fast as I could."

Draken had been silent during Asher's entire retelling, listening carefully and seeming lost in thought. It wasn't until Asher handed him the dossier with Crush's picture and rundown on his abilities that the man showed any emotion at all.

Sheer fury flashed across his face as his fingers crushed the bottom of the dossier, and Asher nearly slipped into the astral by reflex as he felt the temperature of the room drop by nearly twenty degrees. Draken usually held himself with his head high, rarely showing any emotion whatsoever. He'd never expected to see such fury written plainly across the man's face.

"This... This changes things," Draken finally said, his hand all but trembling as he stared at the dossier. Taking a long, deep breath, Draken slowly let it out, relaxing his body and calming himself down as he let the fury bleed from his face a bit. The temperature of the room seemed to gradually return to normal, and while the gang leader still looked frustrated, no longer did he look like he was planning to go on a one-man killing spree across town in search of Eight.

"How so?" Asher asked, still a tad nervous to be sitting in front of the angry man. Deep down, he knew Complete Resilience should offer him some protection from Draken's Death element, but he could still vividly recall the coalition meeting where Draken had killed a man without even looking at him.

That kind of power left an impression on people.

"The Guild and I have had something of an unspoken truce these past few years," Draken explained, finally releasing his grip on the dossier and carefully placing Crush's crumpled picture on his desk. "During my early days after receiving my element, I waged something of a one-man war on the underside of Whikoga with the intention of doing something good with my forbidden element. I crushed nearly all of the long-standing gangs, and the Assassin's Guild was no exception. I hadn't gone out with the intention of becoming a gang leader, but one somehow seemed to form around me despite my original intentions. It was only after I'd taken control of nearly three-fourths of Whikoga's seedier parts that Eight decided to send me a message."

Draken paused, and Asher caught a brief look of pain and loss dash across the man's face, vanishing just as quickly as it had appeared. "Eight and his senior assassins acted with clinical precision, taking out my elites like they were little more than toddlers. They learned quickly that attempting to end my own life was a fool's errand after I personally killed four of Eight's cell leaders myself, along with what had to be at least a few dozen lesser assassins. He lost a significant portion of his manpower, and I lost a lot of good friends that had joined my cause in trying to make the city a better place."

"So what happened? The two of you called a truce?"

"Not exactly," Draken admitted. "After waging our silent war for a few weeks, word finally got to the truthseekers about my Death element. It was at that point that one of them arrived from the capital and became my 'handler.' Because my forbidden element was my origin element, I was allowed to live, but I was confined to house arrest. Rather than remain in the fourth ring with the rest of the nobles and waste my life simply waiting to die, I chose instead to stay in the heart of the second ring where I could continue to make a difference. While I am allowed to leave, I need to gain permission from my handler in order to do so, and unfortunately, they aren't the most responsive."

"You tried to get permission to attack Loratta during the coalition's assault, and they said no," Asher surmised, finally understanding why Draken hadn't made his appearance like he'd planned.

"Precisely. I'm not sure what the reason was, but it sounds like something went down in the capital a few weeks back that required the intervention of just about all the truthseekers. It must have been something big, because from what I understand, calling in every active truthseeker is something that is almost never done."

What could possibly require every active truthseeker to be called back to the capital? Asher wondered. Something big alright, that's for sure.

"Anyway, when I was confined to house arrest, my attempted takeover of the criminal underside of Whikoga came to a grinding halt. I could no longer move freely, which meant I became heavily reliant on my elites, and while many are quite powerful, they aren't me. Eight seemed content to let me rule my own small slice of the city now that my expansion had been stopped in its tracks, and we came to an unspoken agreement. I didn't send my elites out hunting down the other gangs and assassins, and he didn't send his Guild members into my territory. But this…"

Draken snarled, slamming a fist down on the dossier about Crush and causing Asher to jump. "Eight must have seen my leading of the coalition and attack on Loratta as a return to my old ways, despite the fact that I barely claimed a sliver of her territory for myself and didn't even show my face. I have no doubt this was some twisted attempt at sending me a warning, intended to remind me of our agreement."

Draken began to pace around his study, his eyes focused elsewhere as he lost himself in thought. "The man you killed tonight was Leonard, known to most as The Night Terror. He possessed the Hunger, Wolf, and Steel elements, and he was one of the most feared assassins in the entire city. Rather than leaving his victims with a slit throat or a stab through the heart, normally people would only find pieces of his targets left behind, surrounded by bloody, malformed handprints. You did the city a great service by taking him down, but he is only one of Eight's senior assassins."

"So you think Eight is going to send others after Crush," Asher ventured, wondering what kind of skills someone would even get with a Hunger element. I guess that explains how he ate my dagger at the very least. And probably the whole 'drinking blood' thing.

"Not just Crush," Draken said, finally turning and fixing Asher with a concerned look. "Eight is not only intelligent, but prideful as well. If he hadn't already suspected your survival, there's no way he won't put two and two together at this point. Especially after you left that first assassin alive. Regardless of his original reasons, Eight is going to realize his fabled magadrine powder failed to kill you, and when he does, he'll do just about anything in his power to wipe you from the face of this realm in order to hide his failure." Draken paused, making sure he understood the weight of his next words.

"You and anyone else that might know about the failed hit."

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