"Arrogant!"
Jackson hefted his long spear and snarled, the metal shaft glinting with cold light in
Frostveil City’s frosty air.
"You’re just some snot-nosed brat. You actually think you can take me down? Do you have any clue how many years I’ve stood guard over this city? How many battles I’ve fought, how many kills I’ve racked up defending these walls?"
"And?" Jack didn’t flinch. His voice cut through the tension as sharp as a honed blade. "Does all that past merit give you a free pass to break Frostveil’s laws whenever you feel like it?"
"That’s…"
Jackson froze mid-rant, the words dying in his throat. A faint prickle of unease skittered down his spine.
Ten seconds ago, Jack was the one everyone was accusing of breaking the rules. How the hell had the tables turned on him this fast?
"Mr. Craig!"
Jackson snapped his head toward the city wall where the commander stood, eyes wide with silent pleading. He’d been Craig’s subordinate for a decade—surely the man would step in to defuse this, to give him an out.
But Craig only gave him a cool, unimpressed glance, his tone flat and unyielding:
"Jack’s right. Merit is merit, fault is fault. Every single service you’ve done for this city has already been rewarded in full—promotions, gold, land, all of it. You don’t get to wave them around like a get-out-of-jail-free card when you mess up."
Seeing even Craig throw him under the bus, panic finally clawed its way up Jackson’s chest, icy and coiling. His hands started shaking so bad the spear rattling in his grip. He scanned the crowd frantically, searching for any of his old lackeys who might step up to back him.
There was no one. Every subordinate who’d once bowed and scraped to him was scrambling backward, shoving through the crowd to put as much distance between themselves and him as possible, terrified of getting caught up in his downfall.
"You ungrateful bastards…"
Jackson opened his mouth to lash out, but Craig, still perched on the city wall, had already run out of patience. His voice cut through the noise like shards of ice:
"Jackson, you’ve walked through fire and blood more times than half the men in this garrison combined. Don’t make a fool of yourself clinging to life like a coward now. You earned this punishment. Take it with some dignity."
Jackson knew then there was no way out of this the easy way. He had one last card left to play, and it was a dirty one.
Without a split second of hesitation, he hurled his spear to the cobblestones, ripped the short dagger from his belt, and lunged straight for Jack’s mother, Alice. The cold steel pressed hard against her throat before anyone could react.
"Nobody move
! Take one more step and I slit her throat right here!"
"You’re fucking dead!"
Jack’s eyes flared bright crimson. He drew the Cursed Blade from its sheath again, and the thick, churning killing aura that exploded off him was so sharp it made every onlooker’s blood run cold in their veins.
"Let me walk out of this city, and she lives!" Jackson sucked in a ragged, desperate breath, yelling at both Jack and Craig.
"Jackson, do you have any idea what the hell you’re doing?" Craig leaped down from the city wall in one smooth motion, his voice so hard and full of rage it was almost a snarl.
"I want to live!" Jackson roared back, spittle flying from his lips.
Craig cursed under his breath. He couldn’t make a move. The second he so much as twitched, Jackson’s blade would slice through Alice’s throat before anyone could blink.
Jack’s face was carved from stone. He didn’t dare move either. Yeah, his stats were multiplied sixfold with the Cursed Blade in his hand—he could probably gut Jackson before the man even finished blinking, but he couldn’t take that gamble. Not when the person on the wrong end of the knife was his mom. There was no way he’d ever risk her life over a split second of speed.
While everyone stood frozen, helpless and frustrated, no one noticed a faint, almost imperceptible shadow drifting silently toward Jackson, melting into the gaps between the crowd’s feet.
"Now. Let me go." Jackson bellowed at Craig, pressing the blade a little harder against Alice’s skin, drawing a thin trickle of blood.
"Jackson. If you wanted to leave, you should have asked for my permission first."
The second Jackson’s shout died down, a low, mocking voice whispered directly in his ear.
Jackson flinched so hard he nearly dropped the dagger. He spun around wildly, eyes darting every which way. "Who’s there? Show yourself!"
Before he could finish the sentence, a gleaming short dagger sliced clean across his throat. Arterial blood sprayed into the frosty air in a thick red arc.
The hand holding the dagger belonged to a figure made entirely of shadow. It was a shadow, twisted into a human shape, standing silent as a grave behind Jackson, having landed the killing blow without making a single sound.
"Who the hell is that?" The crowd stared at the scene, stunned, the same question bouncing around every mind.
Jack thought for half a second, then it clicked. He bowed slightly, his voice full of deep, unfeigned reverence as he addressed the shadow:
"Junior Jack pays his respects to Lord Lawrence!"
Confusion rippled through the crowd at the words. *This shadow? That’s Lord
Lawrence?*
Craig froze for a beat, then his face split into a wide, shocked grin, and he boomed out a laugh. "My lord! It’s been years since you last used that Ghost Shadow skill of yours. You caught me completely off guard."
Now the crowd got it. Lord Lawrence’s class was A-rank
Ghostblade Swordsman. This shadowy form was exactly the signature trait of the class, and killing a seasoned veteran like Jackson without a single sound? There wasn’t another person in all of
Frostveil City who could pull that off.
A wave of regret swept through the onlookers. If only they’d been the first to recognize him and call his name, they might have earned a little favor from the city lord. What a wasted opportunity.
"You actually recognized me." The shadow, seeing no point in hiding anymore, dropped the illusion and shifted into its true form. Standing there was a tall, golden-haired middle-aged man dressed in a flowing black robe, the edges of the fabric seeming to melt into the shadows around his feet.
"Lord Lawrence’s reputation precedes him. Of course I’d recognize the signature skill of the
Ghostblade Swordsman." Jack spoke with steady respect, no trace of the anger he’d felt a minute earlier.
Lawrence laughed, a low, warm sound. "Jack. That’s a name I’ve heard more than a few times these past two days. The kid who cleared the F-rank rift solo in less than an hour, right?"
Strange, sour expressions flickered across the crowd’s faces at that. X and Viktor, in particular, stood off to the side, grinding their teeth so hard their jaws ached, watching Jack chat with Lawrence like they were old acquaintances. Pure, seething hatred burned in their guts, but with Lawrence standing right there, neither of them dared make a single wrong move.
"My lord!" Craig hurried over, ready to explain the whole mess from start to finish.
Lawrence just glanced at him, his tone flat and unamused: "If Saria hadn’t sent me to check on the commotion, we would have lost a promising young genius today."
Young genius?!
The crowd’s heads snapped toward Jack, their eyes burning with unconcealed jealousy. Lawrence had governed
Frostveil City for fifteen years, and only a handful of people had ever earned that label from him. Now Jack, some random no-name from the slums, was one of them?
Craig lowered his head in shame under Lawrence’s cold gaze, unable to come up with a single excuse for his lapse in command.
"Enough. A month’s pay docked for your lax oversight." Lawrence waved a hand, dismissing the matter with casual finality.
Then he turned to Jack, his expression softening into a smile. "I’m hosting a banquet for the city’s elite Beast Masters tonight, and I’d like to invite you as my guest. Would you do me the honor?"
Jack blinked, caught completely off guard. Before he could even answer, Lawrence shifted his gaze to Jack’s parents, smiling again. "Would the two of you care to join as well?"
Alice’s face lit up with pure, radiant joy. She was about to say yes immediately when Rick stepped forward, shaking his head politely. "Forgive us, Lord Lawrence. We’re just ordinary folk. We’ve done nothing to earn such an honor, and we’d only be out of place among your guests. We can’t attend."
Lawrence gave a small, unreadable nod. Inwardly, his opinion of Jack climbed another notch. With parents this grounded and principled, the kid would definitely go far.
"Thank you for the invitation, Lord Lawrence. I’d be happy to attend." Faced with an opportunity to build a connection with the city lord himself, Jack didn’t hesitate for a second. No way in hell was he passing up a shot like this.
"Good." Lawrence clapped his hands in satisfaction. A gilded black carriage pulled by two Phantom Frost Horses materialized at the city gate a moment later, the hooves of the beasts kicking up small puffs of frost as they stopped.
Lawrence pulled open the carriage door with a small smile, gesturing for Jack to enter first.
"Jack. After you."