"Hahaha, you are an intelligent young man!" the man exclaimed, bursting into laughter.
He leaned back in his chair, one hand pressed to his stomach, the other raised to his eye as he wiped away the faint tears that had formed there.
Amon chuckled softly in return.
He crossed one leg over the other and rested his hands lightly upon his thigh, his posture relaxed yet deliberate. There was a mature firmness in the way he sat, a calm that suggested neither impatience nor uncertainty. He looked less like a youth amusing himself in an inn and more like someone accustomed to being listened to.
"Now that we have shared our fair portion of laughter," Amon said, a faint smirk touching his lips, "why do we not move on to the main course?"
"And what would that be?" the man asked.
The humour vanished from his face with practiced ease. His expression grew attentive, stern, and far more careful than before.
"Nuez," Amon said, his voice lowering. "Man of Information, one of the disciples of the King of Information, and an employee of the Erith Order. Let us stop joking around."
The smirk disappeared from Amon's face as well.
What remained was indifference.
The sudden weight in his tone startled the man before him, though only for an instant. Nuez quickly recovered, but not before that brief fracture in composure had revealed more than he would have liked.
This boy is dangerous, Nuez thought. Dangerous enough to know my name, my role, and my ties to the Erith Order without ever asking.
"Very well," Nuez said at last, stroking his smooth, beardless chin. "But I do have a question. Who are you, and how do you know me?"
"I am Amon," he replied calmly. "The Gunman of the Erith Order. A friend of Val Erith, the Head of Awakeners. The Master of Seven Mirrors."
He let the words settle before continuing.
"My task is connected to you. And I am sure you know of that organisation."
The effect was immediate.
Nuez rose from his chair so abruptly that it scraped against the floor, then dropped to his knees and bowed low before Amon, his forehead nearly touching the ground.
"Please forgive my impudence," he said, his voice wavering between fear and reverence.
The reaction did not stop with him.
Several others seated throughout the inn lowered themselves at once, bowing in the same posture as though some unseen thread had pulled them down together.
"We have seen you," Nuez said quickly. "We were told someone of great importance would arrive. We simply did not know it would be you."
Amon watched him for a moment, then allowed a faint smirk to return.
"It is fine," he said casually. "You have done nothing wrong. Raise your head."
At once, the bowed figures obeyed.
They lifted their heads, straightened, and returned to their seats with such practiced smoothness that within seconds the inn had resumed its old disguise. Laughter returned. Glasses lifted. Conversations revived. The curtain of celebration fell back into place as though it had never been disturbed.
At the neighbouring table, Leon and the others watched in astonishment.
"This," Leon murmured, glancing at the four beside him, "is why he is the captain, and why he stands as a friend of Val Erith. Do you see now why the Head chose him?"
He slid his book back into his Inventory, then lifted his beer and took a slow sip.
The others did not answer.
They only lowered their heads slightly, their silence more revealing than speech.
At the far-right table, Amon and Nuez resumed their conversation.
"Please," Nuez said quietly, leaning forward, "ask whatever you wish regarding that organisation, and I will answer. I swear it on my life, on my bloodline, and on the life of my soul."
Amon gave a quiet chuckle.
A faint smile appeared on his face.
You had better.
"First question," he said. "Where is this organisation?"
Nuez answered at once.
"It is not bound to a single surface location. Its presence is spread through the corners of the Valereith Citadel, along the eastern shores, and beneath the sands near the Red Waters. You should remember what those waters are. It is the river Moses cursed, the river he turned to blood during the age of Israelite colonial struggle and Egyptian dominance, long before the Great Convergence, when the war between Moses and Pharaoh shook the old world. Remnants of Egypt still exist, scattered across the Southern World and across other worlds as well, though it is rare to find them in any complete form."
Amon listened in stillness, his mind absorbing each word with frightening speed.
He silently thanked Ecliptience.
Without it, he would already have fallen behind and perhaps died long before making it this far.
"Second question," he said. "How do we infiltrate the organisation?"
A thin, dangerous smile touched Nuez's mouth.
"The simplest method is to walk through the front door and kill everyone inside," he said. "But if you prefer subtlety, then listen carefully."
His voice lowered.
"The grounds surrounding the organisation are crowded at nearly all hours. Awakeners. Foreign citizens. Travellers from other citadels, states, and countries. Some are there as guards. Some come for pleasure. Some for ritual. Some for reasons they do not even understand themselves. That crowd is your cover."
He folded his hands before him.
"First, you and your companions must blend in. Dress in ritualist clothing, black or red, and wear a small white cross around your neck. Then use the customisation effect in your status window to alter your identities. The higher your level, the longer the effect will hold."
Amon's eyes narrowed slightly.
"Once the customisation effect takes hold, it will assign you the role of ritualist. That is the mask you must wear. But blending in is not enough. You will be questioned."
"What kind of questions?"
Nuez did not hesitate.
"They will ask, 'What is your truth?'"
"And the answer?"
"You must answer, 'Anti.' Then you must say, 'The truth is the gateway to freedom and life.' Those words will allow you to pass into the opening phase of infiltration."
"Will we need a sigil or tattoo?"
"No."
"Continue."
Nuez inclined his head.
"They will ask for your story. When they do, do not give them anything clean. Give them misery. Give them loss. Give them a life soaked in grievance. A tale worthy of a villain. Of a terrorist. Of a man already promised to hell."
For a brief moment, silence settled between them.
Then Nuez leaned in slightly.
"Lastly," he said, and this time his voice nearly vanished into the noise of the inn, "you must believe."
The word lingered.
Not in the air alone, but in the mind.
Amon's expression did not change, though inwardly the word stirred questions.
Believe?
He did not press that point.
Not yet.
Instead, his gaze sharpened, and his voice fell into something colder.
"One last question."
The atmosphere between them tightened.
The false warmth of the inn seemed to thin, as though the room itself had drawn back to listen.
"Are you part of this organisation?"
For the first time since the questioning began, Nuez smiled without restraint.
There was something wrong in it.
Something too pleased.
Something slightly mad.
"Yes."
Amon looked at him without surprise.
"Not even trying to hide it now?"
I knew it the moment I saw you, he thought. The aura, the posture, the quiet rot beneath the performance. Truly, the System has blessed me.
Nuez's smile narrowed.
"Of course not. Why would I bother hiding it, when you are about to die?"
He raised one gloved hand with calm precision.
It was a small gesture.
Yet the entire inn moved.
Chairs scraped.
Boots struck the floor.
Figures rose from all directions at once.
Knives flashed in the amber light. Clubs were raised. Swords caught dull gleams beneath the chandeliers. At the edges of the room, casters began to chant, their voices overlapping in feverish harmony until the air itself started to tremble with gathering force.
Murder poured from them like heat from an opened furnace.
And still, Amon remained seated.
Then metal cut through flesh.
The sound was clean.
Sharp.
Followed at once by a series of cold, heavy thuds against the stone floor.
Leon moved first.
His body twisted sharply at the waist, spine coiling with controlled violence as he drew power into the swing. Then the blade came across in a clean horizontal arc, swift, level, and merciless. Three men rushing him were cut through in the same motion, their bodies splitting apart before the shock had even reached their eyes. Blood burst into the air in a fine red veil and rained across the floorboards and stone.
The others followed at once.
There was no hesitation, no scrambling, no confusion.
Steel struck bone. Flesh tore. Bodies dropped. The awakeners who had begun their chants were silenced mid-syllable, their throats split open before the words could take shape. Mercy never entered the room. Neither did restraint. Head for head. Eye for eye.
The inn, which only moments earlier had been full of counterfeit laughter and warm deception, became a slaughterhouse of brief and efficient judgment.
Then, just as suddenly as the violence had erupted, it ended.
Silence returned.
Not true silence, for the room still carried the soft drip of blood, the fading tremor of upturned chairs, and the last shallow rattles of dying throats, but silence enough.
Nuez trembled.
His lips quivered uselessly. Sweat rolled down the side of his temple. He raised both hands in surrender and stumbled backward, only to abandon even that pretence a moment later and turn to flee.
Amon did not hurry.
He rose from his seat with the same calm he had shown before the ambush, reached into his Inventory, and drew out his gun. The metal settled into his hand with familiar certainty, cold and steady, as though the weapon itself had been waiting for this exact moment.
BANG!
The shot cracked through the inn like judgment.
The bullet tore through Nuez's leg. He collapsed instantly, a raw scream ripping from his throat as he hit the floor. At once he began to crawl, dragging himself over corpses and spilled drink and blood-slick wood, his hands slipping in the remains of those who had died for him only seconds ago.
"Why are you running?" Amon asked.
His voice held no anger.
No cruelty.
No visible emotion at all.
BANG!
The next shot punched through Nuez's other leg.
He screamed again, louder this time, his body collapsing fully into the spreading blood beneath him.
Amon walked forward.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
"Tell me," he said, and his tone remained soft in a way that made it worse, "why are you running?"
He fired again, not at the man, but into the stone just beside Nuez's trembling hand.
The shot shattered fragments upward.
Nuez cried out and recoiled, sobbing openly now, his face twisted by pain and terror.
"I, I am sorry, please, forgive me, I was wrong, I was wrong!"
BANG!
This time the bullet entered the lower part of his back at a cruel angle, deep enough to break him further, careful enough not to grant him the mercy of death.
Nuez convulsed and collapsed flat; his voice reduced to broken gasps and wet, desperate sounds.
Amon stepped close enough to cast a shadow over him, then raised the gun and aimed it at the back of his head.
"Wait," Leon said sharply. "What if there is something he still has not told us?"
"Yes, yes, please," Nuez choked out, blood and tears mixing on his face. "I can still be useful. I can still give you valuable information."
"I already have what I need," Amon replied.
His voice was absolute.
BANG!
The final shot rang out clean and hard.
Nuez's body went still at once.
His head struck the floor with a dull, sickening weight, and the inn fell quiet again.
Amon lowered the gun.
There was not even the smallest trace of hesitation in his eyes.