Chapter 507: The Collector

Blood was dripping down her back, pooling in her boots, and her ribs felt like they were on fire.

But as she turned her head toward the dark corners of the chamber, Thalia’s golden eyes were burning with a predatory glint.

There was only one assassin on the ground in sight. And he clearly looked hesitant to approach her, even in her battered state.

In the end, however, the boy mustered some courage and blitzed in, too fast for any normal B-ranker to comfortably track.

So Thalia didn’t.

She predicted where the attack would come from instead, and used the short sword she had pulled from her own back to parry his thrust.

—CLACK!

Sparks showered between them, illuminating the boy’s featureless red mask for a split second. But because he was so unreasonably quick, his stance was very overcommitted.

No doubt it would’ve served him well against any other opponent, but not against Thalia.

As someone who had been fighting against people stronger and faster than her since she was old enough to hold a sword, Thalia knew very well how to turn someone’s overcommitment against them.

So she put some back into the parry and shoved his blade aside.

The boy stumbled a step sideways, his balance now compromised.

Without giving him a chance to recover, Thalia moved to bring her own blade up toward his throat when—

FTZZZ—!!

"Arghh...!?"

A searing plasma beam came zipping in, punching through the young assassin’s back, bursting out of his chest, and tearing a thin hole through the side of Thalia’s own torso.

For a confused second, Thalia’s mind couldn’t process what the hell just happened.

She had intentionally angled the boy’s body in front of her, keeping him directly in the crosshairs of the ranged caster lurking in the dark.

She hadn’t expected the caster to shoot anyway, not caring about their own ally.

The assassin in front of her coughed weakly behind his plain red mask, swaying on his feet before slumping over.

Thalia herself tumbled backward, hitting the cold stone floor on one knee, gasping in agony.

Pain was all she felt along where her lung was supposed to be. It was so intense that her vision flickered black for a second.

She couldn’t even suppress the agony with Essence, as most of it was being used to keep the poison in her body at bay.

Fine, then.

She’d just grit through the pain the old-fashioned way. By enduring it.

Lifting her bloodshot eyes, she saw a bright red dot flaring up and growing brighter somewhere ahead in the shadows.

The caster wasn’t wasting a single moment.

With their ally out of their line of sight, they were going to fire yet another beam, this one probably aimed at her head to finish her off.

Unfortunately for the caster, they were too slow.

Thalia used her remaining Essence pool to activate three Enhancement Cards at once, then used her innate ability to boost those very Enhancement Cards severalfold.

Strength flooded into her muscle fibers.

She cocked her arm back and threw the short sword forward with every ounce of power she could muster.

The blade vanished into a sonic blur, cutting through the dark cavern.

A wet crunch later, the glowing flare of the charging plasma beam was snuffed out, leaving only the sound of a dead body falling off a high stone ledge and hitting the ground.

Five down.

Fwooosh—

A sudden rustle of air was her only warning for what happened next.

The boy from earlier — the assassin who had just been shot through the chest — was somehow still breathing.

Tapping into some final rush of adrenaline, he blurred forward, driving his dagger toward her chest.

Just like before, he was absurdly fast. If she wasn’t sure before that he was a speedster, she definitely was now.

Thalia didn’t have the time or the Essence left to try and dodge. So she didn’t.

Instead, she brought her gauntleted fist up and bashed it against the flat of the incoming blade.

She managed to alter its trajectory by a hair’s breadth — just enough to save her heart — as the sharp steel bit deep into her shoulder. "Ghk—!"

She fought back the scream and reached out with her free hand, tightly fisting the back of her assailant’s neck.

Then, using his own overcommitment, she pulled him in close and slammed her forehead into his face.

—CRACK!

The featureless red mask shattered under the impact of the headbutt. The boy reeled backward, groaning through a broken nose.

Uncaring, Thalia gripped the blade still buried in her own shoulder by its sharp edge and ripped it free in one smooth motion.

Following up with a backhanded sweep, she slashed the bloody blade across the boy’s exposed neck, slitting his throat with his own weapon.

A red fountain sprayed into the cold air, raining down over her face as the boy fell back, his limbs twitching violently once before going still.

Thalia panted, blood of her enemies dripping from her hands, her back, and her torn side.

Silence fell over the cavern once more.

...There was only one person left now. She could feel it. Only one set of eyes watching her.

It was probably the same guy who had managed to land a hit to her ribs without her noticing earlier.

Why wasn’t he attacking?

If he had joined the fray, Thalia would’ve fared a lot worse than she was now.

"Come on," she breathed, her gaze sweeping the darkness around her as she came to stand under the dim light in the middle of the spacious room. "Come on out. I know you’re there."

Her cruciform sword, which she had dismissed earlier and recalled recently, finally materialized back into her blood-slicked grip.

​She used the blade like a crutch, leaning heavily on it as her knees wobbled.

Every ragged breath she took felt like swallowing a mouthful of sharp glass shards, her perforated lung whistling faintly in the quiet room.

’Where are the Grandmasters?’

Indeed.

Where were the Grandmasters?

They had to have known what was going on here, right?

Unless...

Unless this was one of those Spatial Rooms.

Thalia always thought Spatial Rooms were one of the Academy’s many unproven legends, but what if they were real?

An isolated pocket of folded space, completely cut off from the outside world.

Forget Grandmasters; not even the Central Monarch would be able to sense this place since it existed outside of space itself.

Thalia’s stomach plummeted even lower than her blood pressure.

’Fuck.’

How did these people find one of these Rooms?

She didn’t get to dwell on such thoughts for long, however.

The darkness at the far end of the stone cavern seemed to bleed outward.

A tall, lean figure stepped out from the deep shadows, his footsteps making almost no sound against the stone floor.

Unlike the others, this young man didn’t wear a grey robe or a featureless red mask.

He wore a black trench coat over a midnight-blue tunic, his face partially obscured by a high collar.

He had narrow eyes like those of a sly fox, devoid of any panic. They were the eyes of an executioner who had watched his subordinates get slaughtered without losing a beat.

The weirdest thing about him, however, was... the chains.

Thick steel chains were wrapped around both his arms, trailing down to the floor where the heavy links clanked against the flagstones.

"Remarkable," said the young man, voice smooth and unnervingly chill. "Even while poisoned, even with a punctured lung, you managed to fight off my strike team in under two minutes. As expected of the former Ace of Apex. You’re not as strong as your twin brother, but you’re brilliant nonetheless."

Thalia wiped a smudge of blood and grime from her chin with her gauntlet, smearing it further. She spat a glob of dark blood onto the stone floor.

"Flattery would’ve gotten you everywhere with me, but I’m taken," the Theosbane heiress grunted, red lips curling up dangerously. "You’re the one who threw me into the pillar earlier, right? What are you, a spatial-type or a high-rank speedster?"

"None, truth be told. I’m but a humble Supporter who can cast small buffs. Just like you," the man replied casually, taking a slow step forward. "My name is of no importance to a corpse, but you may call me the Collector."

"A Supporter, huh?" Thalia coughed a sound that could’ve been a laugh. "Right. And I’m the Goddess of Mercy."

She tightened her grip on her sword. Her innate ability was working overtime now.

[Blessing Bestowal] allowed her to buff the existing physical properties of any object. She could make a sword sharper, make a shield sturdier, or make a fire burn hotter.

That was at C-rank.

At B-rank, she went one step further. She could now buff the abstract concepts tied to those objects.

A sword was used to cut. So now she could reinforce the action of cutting itself, making her blade far more difficult to stop once she swung it.

Boots were worn so one could move better. So now she could buff her boots to make her move faster.

A shield was meant to protect. So now, when being used to protect someone or herself, her shield was nearly unbreachable.

But there was more.

She could even buff the Cards themselves now, enhancing their effects beyond what was normal. And if she used that power on her Origin Card itself, it would create a positive feedback loop.

She could strengthen [Blessing Bestowal].

Which would make [Blessing Bestowal] better at strengthening things. Which would allow her to strengthen [Blessing Bestowal] even further.

In theory, there was no hard limit.

That was why she was such a force to be reckoned with in direct combat.

Of course, in practice, there were very obvious limitations. The more she enhanced her Origin Card, for example, the more Essence it consumed.

And right now, she had very little of it to spare.

But she was still confident in taking this man down.

"The only corpses I can see here belong to your friends," she snickered. "Why didn’t you help them, Collector?"

"Meh," the Collector shrugged, his fox-like eyes opening a little to reveal pale, colorless irises. "They did their job. My handler told me you’ll at least take half of us down with you. So I wanted them to wear you down."

"Ah, got it. So you’re a coward."

The young man gave a dry laugh. "I’m pragmatic. Besides, they were new recruits with barely three years of experience under their belts. They needed to learn what it feels like to die so they can be ready for what’s to come."

"Right." Thalia lifted her sword and started walking around the young man. The Collector matched her movements, his chains clattering against the stone behind him as they began to circle each other. "But now they’re dead. How will they be ready for whatever it is that’s about to come?"

"Oh, don’t you worry about it, Theosbane."

This guy...

He didn’t seem like anyone Thalia remembered from her batch. So he wasn’t a first-year Cadet. Most of the second-years were away from the Academy, and she knew all those who were staying behind.

He couldn’t be a third-year either because, well, she’d be dead if he was.

Hmmm.

Okay, that could mean only one thing.

He was indeed a first-year Cadet, using a Transformation Card to disguise his real appearance.

"I know this should’ve been the first thing I asked," Thalia halted her steps. The young man opposite her stopped as well. "But who are you? And why am I being targeted?"

The Collector smiled a small smile, polite, but there was something deeply wrong with it. "Oh, it’s not you. It’s totally our fault. You saw something you weren’t meant to. One of our members slipped up. Because of their mistake, you’ll have to die now. Under normal circumstances, we’d have recruited someone strong and ambitious like you. But your psyche profile tells us you’d be very, very difficult to control. A classic Theosbane."

He raised his head.

The very next moment, the thick steel chains wrapped around his arms burst into incandescent blue flames.

"As for who we are..."

The chains rattled violently as blue light raced along every individual link, bathing the cavern in an eerie glow.

"You may call us the Crimson Guild."

The Collector took a single step forward... and disappeared.