Luke did not hear the footsteps. He did not hear the breathing.
But suddenly, every nerve in his body screamed.
His 92 Soul Power flared. The second awakening he had experienced last night had drastically refined his raw senses. If he still had the original Luke's soul power, he would have been dead before he even realized he was under attack.
Acting on pure instinct, Luke twisted his body violently to the side.
The black claw sliced through the air, stopping barely one inch from his face. The dark energy radiating from the artifact stung his cheek.
Before the assassin could adjust his aim for a second strike, Luke locked his eyes onto the black-robed figure.
"Freeze."
The soul power inside Luke's chest drained instantly.
A silver ripple of Time energy flashed through the alley.
The assassin stopped.
He didn't stumble. He didn't skid. He froze completely in mid-air, caught between one violent motion and the next.
The falling snow around the assassin also froze, suspended like tiny white stars in the dark alley.
Luke did not hesitate. He had to end this immediately.
He stepped back, reaching into his jacket. His hand gripped the heavy corporate handgun. He pulled it out, aimed directly at the assassin's chest, and pulled the trigger.
Bang!
The gunshot echoed loudly in the narrow space.
It had taken Luke less than two seconds to draw and fire. But the moment the bullet slammed into the assassin's black robe, something went wrong.
The silver ripple of time shattered like glass.
The Freeze effect was instantly canceled.
The assassin violently crashed into the snowy ground, stumbling backward.
Luke's eyes widened slightly.
The freeze cancels if the target takes damage.
The Will of the World had never mentioned this limitation when he awakened the power. It only told him the soul power cost. Luke quickly realized why. The Will of the World did not give out perfect tutorials. It granted the power, but the user had to discover the advantages and disadvantages through real combat.
Luke lowered his stance, keeping the gun aimed.
He had learned a crucial lesson, but the danger was not over.
Because the assassin was slowly standing back up.
The assassin's mind was in total chaos.
One moment, his claw was an inch away from the target's face. He was already anticipating the feeling of tearing through bone.
Then, reality skipped.
There was no transition. No blur of movement. Suddenly, a massive force slammed into his chest, the sound of a gunshot deafened his ears, and the target was standing five feet away with a smoking gun.
What just happened? the assassin panicked. Did he teleport? How did he draw a gun that fast?
Because Freeze stopped time entirely, it also stopped the enemy's thoughts. From the assassin's perspective, Luke had essentially vanished and countered instantly.
The assassin looked down at his chest. The bullet was flattened against the fabric of his black robe, dropping harmlessly into the snow.
Thank god for the defense artifact, the assassin thought, his heart pounding. He locked his eyes onto Luke. The element of surprise was gone, but the target's weapon was useless.
The assassin tightened his grip on his claws.
Luke stared at the flattened bullet in the snow.
A defense artifact.
He quickly scanned the enemy. The black robe blocked bullets. The claw on his hand glowed with lethal energy. Even the black mask covering the assassin's face looked like reinforced material.
The enemy was covered in artifacts.
Luke immediately dropped the handgun. It was useless here, and holding it would only slow down his hand movements.
The assassin saw the gun drop and charged.
He was incredibly fast, a blur of black cloth rushing over the snow. But Luke was no longer surprised, and he was no longer relying on a gun.
Ice was his domain.
Luke slammed his foot onto the ground. His soul power rushed downward.
Instantly, the snow in the alley flash-froze. A thick, smooth sheet of solid ice coated the ground across the entire alleyway.
The assassin, running at top speed, suddenly lost all traction.
His boots slipped violently on the frictionless surface, breaking his momentum and forcing him to wildly wave his arms to keep his balance.
Speed users needed friction. Without it, their power became a liability.
While the assassin was off-balance, Luke raised his hand.
A sharp, three-foot-long spear of dense ice formed in the air above his palm. He launched it toward the enemy's chest.
The assassin recovered his balance just in time, swinging his artifact claw.
The dark energy shattered the ice spear into pieces. He immediately lunged at Luke again, preparing to slice his throat.
"Freeze," Luke whispered.
The silver ripple washed over the assassin. He froze mid-swing.
Luke knew it would cancel on impact. He also knew he couldn't maintain the skill for long—his soul power was dropping dangerously low.
He didn't attack the assassin directly. Instead, Luke manipulated the ice on the ground, creating a thick, heavy clamp of solid frost that locked around both of the assassin's boots, freezing his feet securely to the floor.
Luke released the Freeze skill after exactly one second.
The assassin's thoughts resumed. He swung his claw violently, expecting to hit Luke.
But Luke had already taken a step back.
Realizing he had missed, the assassin tried to step forward, only to find his legs completely immobilized by the thick ice clamps.
"What?!" the assassin gasped, struggling to break free.
Luke didn't give him the chance. He raised both hands.
His soul power was almost completely drained. He only had a fraction left.
He channeled all of it into a final, deadly strike.
Three small, incredibly sharp ice blades formed in the air.
Luke didn't aim for the chest or the head. He had noticed a tiny gap in the enemy's armor—the space right between the collar of the artifact robe and the bottom edge of the mask. The unprotected neck.
With a flick of his wrists, the ice blades shot forward like bullets.
The assassin desperately tried to raise his claw to block, but his feet were stuck, throwing his entire balance off.
Thwack. Thwack.
Two of the blades deflected off the black mask.
The third blade found the gap. It pierced directly through the assassin's throat, severing the artery and exiting through the back of his neck in a spray of dark red blood.
The assassin's eyes widened in shock. The glowing energy in his claw flickered and died.
He choked, dropping to his knees as the ice around his boots finally cracked.
A second later, he fell face-first into the snow, dead.
The alley fell quiet again.
Only the snow remained.
His groceries were scattered.
One wall was lined with shallow bullet scars. Frost covered most of the ground in uneven white sheets and broken ridges. A section of brick had split where one of his ice spikes struck too hard. The weak overhead light flickered once, then steadied. Blood stained the snow in dark patches that were already beginning to freeze.
Luke approached the body carefully.
The robe was indeed an artifact.
Up close, he could see the damaged weave more clearly. Black outer cloth. Thin inner metallic threading. A defensive layer built to absorb impact and distribute force. The claw weapon was attached to a reinforced glove beneath the sleeve, its curved black talons sharper than ordinary steel and faintly cold to the touch from residual energy.
Mask too.
Just as he suspected.
A full set.
Professionally equipped.
This was no random street attack.
Luke crouched and searched the body quickly.
No wallet.
No badge.
No obvious token.
No identifying marks.
Only the kind of clean emptiness left by people who expected either success or death.
That, by itself, was an answer.
Someone had sent a real killer.
Not a thug.
Not an amateur.
Someone who knew where he would be, or at least knew enough to watch and wait.
Luke straightened slowly.
Snow gathered over the corpse.
Over the blood.
Over the broken groceries.
His mind returned to the same point again.
The novel had never mentioned this.
Not once.
There had been no alley attack.
No black-robed assassin.
No near-instant death hidden in some side street after a market trip.
But if this had happened before—
if it truly belonged to the original timeline—
then the implications were ugly.
Without the second awakening, without sharpened senses, without Freeze, the original Luke should have died the instant that claw came down.
So why hadn't he?
Luke's gaze lowered to the dead assassin again.
One possibility was simple.
This attack had never happened in the novel because something had already changed.
Another possibility.
It had happened—
And someone had saved the original Luke before he ever understood how close he came to dying.
Luke stood there in the falling snow, silent and still.
Then his eyes hardened.
Either way, the same truth remained.
The story he knew was incomplete.
And someone, somewhere, had already started making moves around him.