Part One – The Phantom Blade
The cloak twitched before he touched it.
Mimic stirred on its stand, the black fabric rippling like a predator's skin, sensing blood in the air. When Elijah reached out, the material surged upward—liquid shadow slithering up his arm, across his ribs, coiling around his throat and face like it had always belonged.
It didn't cover him.
It became him.
A pulse slid down his spine—an unspoken welcome.
He felt her hunger.
She felt his calm.
"Good," he murmured. "You're awake too."
The room dimmed, shadows pulling inward like breath before a scream. Where Elijah stood, warmth receded. Even the lantern light above flickered as though second-guessing its job.
He stepped outside.
The forest was silent.
Not peaceful. Not calm.
Dead.
No wind. No animals. No echo. The air hung thick with a tension that hadn't broken yet, like the world itself held breath.
Elijah didn't follow trails.
He followed absence—places where mana didn't flow right, where the shadows were too long and the trees leaned wrong. He moved through the undergrowth like mist, never touching a leaf, never bending a blade of grass.
Assassin. Ninja. Rogue. Ghost.
He was a phantom whose footfalls left no sound and whose form left no trace.
The hill above Carne Village gave him his first view.
The sky was red with fire.
Smoke curled from collapsed rooftops.
Screams echoed between crumbling homes.
But Elijah wasn't watching the fire. He was reading movement.
Knights in Re-Estize colors moved through the carnage—not defending, but executing. Coordinated. Precise. Too precise.
One knight dragged a sobbing woman from a burning hut and ran her through without flinching.
Another skewered a man shielding a child.
No hesitation. No confusion. No morality.
Elijah didn't frown.
He didn't breathe.
He watched.
And then he saw the scout.
The one he'd spared—young, panicked—rushing into the square, shouting for help.
He didn't make it halfway.
A rusted greatsword bisected him mid-sentence.
The swing was clean. Casual.
The Death Knight stepped over the body, its glowing eyes sweeping the crowd.
Elijah blinked once.
Then stepped into the square.
They never saw him.
The flames rippled. The smoke shifted. But there was no sound, no sign.
One heartbeat the Death Knight stood alone.
The next—
It jerked violently as blood burst from its right knee, the joint caved in from a weapon no one saw.
It tried to turn—
Elijah was already behind it.
Mimic morphed into twin daggers shaped like talons—curved and serrated. Not drawn. Not carried. Summoned from herself.
She pulsed as he moved, anticipating his angles, reshaping mid-strike.
Fighter-level reflexes guided his movement.
Assassin precision dictated his target.
Another cut. Fast. Deep. Under the arm.
The Death Knight twisted to retaliate.
Too late.
Elijah vanished in a flicker of shadow—Ninja step, blending into smoke mid-motion—then reappeared inside the Death Knight's guard, phasing halfway through its armor before becoming solid again.
He whispered against its helm.
"You're not mindless."
Then drove his blade under the helmet, twisting sharply.
The Death Knight roared, swinging wildly.
Elijah ducked low, sliding back across the stones with impossible grace. Dexterity maxed. Ghost-body flickering. Every movement was fluid precision.
It charged.
He stood still.
The moment it stepped onto a cracked stone tile, Elijah snapped his fingers.
A Rogue's hidden trap triggered beneath the creature's foot—bursting into cursed frost, locking its movement for half a second.
It was enough.
Mimic reshaped in his hand—now a crescent scythe made of onyx and bone. It hissed with decay magic, and the ground around him began to blacken. Grass withered. Dust swirled.
His Necromancer aura had activated—15 feet of invisible life drain, peeling vitality from everything nearby. The Death Knight stumbled, its movements slowing.
Its spells failed first. Then its muscles began to seize.
Master of Death class came alive in his posture, in his understanding.
He didn't fight the undead.
He commanded them.
He closed in—quick as breath—his form flickering as Fighter technique merged with Rogue misdirection. A feint. A shoulder roll. A backstep. A vault into the air.
He came down in a single slash—clean through the creature's chest.
The blade sank deeper than it should have, carried by force, hatred, and something ancient.
The Death Knight didn't scream.
It simply stopped.
Cracks bloomed along its armor. Its magic flickered. Its essence fled.
Elijah stood behind it before it hit the ground, already resheathing Mimic as she melted back into cloak form.
The silence broke.
The Death Knight's body crumpled. Black smoke hissed from its chest, dispersing as if trying to flee him.
The villagers watched in stillness. Some trembled. Some dropped to their knees.
A few tried to pray. They didn't know who to pray to.
Elijah turned toward the young knight—the only one who hadn't run.
He said nothing.
Mimic moved first—coiling behind him like a wolf raising its hackles.
Then Elijah spoke, voice cold and steady:
"What is happening here?"