Chapter 61: Test Of Skill

Chapter 61: Chapter 61: Test Of Skill

"In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer."

— Albert Camus

The air in the lower Undervault tasted of copper, rancid lamp oil, and rotting masonry.

Riven dropped from the ceiling service grate.

His boots touched the wet stone floor without making a sound.

He immediately lowered his stance, allowing his weight to settle through his legs instead of striking the ground all at once. Years of practice had taught him how to move without announcing himself. Even his breathing was controlled.

His Acoustic Dampening skill was responsible for most of it.

It was not magic that made him invisible.

Instead, Riven had trained his body to eliminate unnecessary movement. He controlled how his feet landed, how his muscles shifted, and even how his clothing moved against his body. The result was simple.

He could move almost completely silently.

Riven slipped into the pitch black alcove beside the corridor and looked ahead.

The passage was narrow and low ceilinged. Twenty paces ahead, two heavily armed enforcers stood guard outside an iron reinforced wooden door.

Riven’s eyed narrowed.

He could sense two human heat signatures.

Both large.

Both armed.

Behind the door, the readings became harder to distinguish, but Riven could sense a much stronger concentration of mana.

That had to be the target.

The rogue spellcaster.

Riven slowly reached for the hilt of his sword.

The sword rested comfortably in his hand.

Its blade remained almost completely invisible in the darkness.

That was one of the reasons Garreth had helped him acquire it.

The rune absorbed ambient light around the blade, preventing it from reflecting torchlight or moonlight.

Riven took one slow breath.

Then another.

His heart rate remained controlled.

He needed to cross the corridor, eliminate both guards, and reach the spellcaster before anyone had time to raise an alarm.

He moved.

Darkness swallowed his body.

Riven activated Shadow Leap.

Shadow mana gathered around his core before flowing through his body.

To an observer, it looked almost like teleportation.

It was not.

He vanished from the alcove.

The first enforcer suddenly felt the air shift.

His head snapped around.

Too late.

Riven emerged from the darkness only a few steps away.

The guard swung his heavy iron truncheon toward him.

Riven activated Vantablack Shroud.

Dark mana flooded across his skin.

Unlike Shadow Veil, which simply coated his sword in shadow mana, Vantablack Shroud attached that mana directly to his body. The darkness swallowed surrounding light, making his outline difficult to follow while also creating a thin layer capable of dispersing some incoming physical force.

The guard’s weapon struck.

But it did not hit Riven.

Riven activated Phantom Step.

His body shifted sideways at the exact moment the truncheon came down.

A dense shadow copy remained where he had been standing.

The afterimage was not an illusion made purely for appearance.

It contained enough concentrated shadow mana to briefly possess physical resistance.

The truncheon smashed into it.

The shadow figure distorted from the impact, absorbing the momentum before collapsing into black mist.

The enforcer’s eyes widened.

He had struck something.

But not the child.

Riven was already behind him.

His body emerged from the man’s blind spot.

He did not waste a movement.

His sword struck once.

The strike was precise, controlled, and fast.

Riven’s Swordplay had been developed through years of repetition under Garreth. He did not swing wildly or rely on brute force.

Every movement had a purpose.

The enforcer dropped before he could turn around.

The second guard stared at his fallen companion.

Then panic took over.

"Intruder!"

His hands began glowing.

Mana gathered between his palms.

Riven recognized the beginning of a spell.

An alarm.

He could not allow it to finish.

Riven stepped forward.

The guard thrust both hands toward him.

A compressed ball of unstable mana formed between his palms.

Riven raised his left hand.

His eyes narrowed.

Disturb Magic.

The technique was one of the strangest abilities Garreth had taught him.

It was not an attack designed to damage the body.

It attacked the spell itself.

Every spell required mana to follow a specific pattern. That pattern needed a stable point to keep the spell together.

Disturb Magic allowed Riven to interfere with that structure.

This was a skill only known by the shadow knights of a fallen kingdom.

He focused his shadow mana and spatial awareness on the spell’s anchor.

Then he struck it.

A violent invisible shockwave passed through the air.

The spell shattered.

The glowing mana ball broke apart before it could be launched.

The mans eyes widened in horror.

He was struck between the eyes by an Umbral needle.

He collapsed.

The corridor became silent again.

Riven stood still for several seconds.

His breathing remained controlled.

A shadowed aura continued to cling to his body, swallowing the torchlight spilling beneath the door.

Then he released it.

The darkness covering his skin disappeared.

Riven stepped over the fallen guards.

He reached the door.

There was no reason to wait.

He kicked it open.

The heavy timber slammed against the stone wall with a hollow crack.

Inside the damp chamber, a man spun around.

The room looked less like a workshop and more like the remains of a nightmare.

Tables were covered with glowing reagents, cracked magical containers, blood stained instruments, and stacks of illegal grimoires.

Several strange creatures were sealed inside glass containers.

Others were lying motionless beneath sheets.

The rogue spellcaster stared at Riven.

Then he looked down at the nine year old standing in the doorway.

The obsidian half mask reflected the flickering orange torchlight.

"An adventurer?"

The spellcaster laughed.

"They sent a child?"

His hands immediately began moving.

Mana gathered around him.

A ring of jagged ice shards appeared in the air.

The spellcaster grinned.

"You’re dead."

Riven watched the spell form.

He saw the mana pattern.

He saw the anchor.

Then he moved.

Darkness gathered beneath his feet.

Shadow Leap.

Riven disappeared from the doorway and emerged directly inside the ring of ice.

The spellcaster’s expression changed instantly.

"What?"

He thrust both hands forward.

The ice shards launched toward Riven from point blank range.

Riven did not retreat.

He raised his hand.

Disturb Magic.

His focus locked onto the spell’s structural anchor.

He could not destroy every spell simply by looking at it.

Disturb Magic required precise timing, concentrated mana, and an understanding of where the spell was being stabilized.

But the rogue had made one mistake.

He had formed the spell hastily.

Its structure was exposed.

Riven struck the anchor.

The spell collapsed.

The ice shards shattered into harmless fragments of freezing mist.

The mage looked biwildered.

Riven advanced.

The rogue desperately reached for an iron tipped staff resting beside his table.

He grabbed it with both hands and slammed the bottom against the floor.

Magic spread across the flagstones.

A wave of frost erupted outward.

Riven reacted instantly.

Vantablack Shroud.

Shadow mana spread across his skin again.

The technique absorbed the surrounding light, making his body difficult to track through the frost. More importantly, the dense layer of shadow mana helped disperse part of the incoming force and heat.

A blizzard surrounded him.

Riven stepped through it.

The rogue swung his staff.

Riven ducked.

The heavy weapon passed over his head.

The rogue twisted and swung again.

Riven activated Phantom Step.

His body shifted away.

A dense shadow afterimage remained in his place.

The staff smashed into the afterimage.

The concentrated shadow absorbed the blow for a brief moment before collapsing.

The rogue’s weapon passed through black mist.

His eyes widened.

Riven was already gone.

He had moved around him.

The spellcaster turned.

Too slow.

Riven emerged from the man’s blind spot.

His breathing remained almost completely silent because of Acoustic Dampening.

The rogue could not hear his approach.

He could not see his movement through the darkness.

And before he could form another spell, Riven’s sword was already moving.

His sword passed through the air in a clean arc.

There was no wasted motion.

No unnecessary flourish.

Just a precise strike delivered at exactly the right moment.

Shadow engulfing the sword lie a flame.

The rogue spellcaster dropped to his knees.

His staff slipped from his fingers.

A moment later, his body collapsed onto the stone floor.

Silence returned to the chamber.

Riven stood over him.

His mana core pulsed steadily within his chest.

He took one slow breath.

Then another.

His mana was still under control.

Riven looked around the laboratory.

The shelves were filled with grimoires.

The tables contained strange reagents and equipment.

Whatever the syndicate had been doing here, it had clearly gone far beyond ordinary spell research.

Riven reached into his pouch and pulled out the contract.

He marked the target as confirmed.

Another mission completed.

He returned his sword to its sheath.

Then he turned toward the doorway.

Garreth would be waiting outside.

Riven stepped over the fallen spellcaster and disappeared into the darkness of the corridor.

This time, there was no sound at all.