Dave’s scream tore out of him, raw and ragged as the Yellow Weaver pulled his arm, the joint popping with a wet, sickening sound.

  Dave swung his other fist, a wasted, wobbling arc. The Weaver didn’t even dodge, the blow glanced off his tuxedo sleeve with no more effect than a moth striking stone.

  “Tsk. Still trying?” The Weaver’s voice was a gleeful warble behind the yellow mask.

  A sidekick caught Dave in the ribs. Bone cracked. The Weaver grabbed both of Dave’s wrists now, yanking them forward with a terrible, plucking motion that tore muscle and tendon. Dave collapsed on the ground.

  The Weaver stomped—once, then twice. Each blow crashed into Dave’s legs with brutal force, every crunch sounding disgustingly wet.

  Then he crouched low, gripped Dave's wrists, and clamped palms against his hands. Heat surged through the air at once. "A little spark for the finale."

  The blast erupted, contained and exact. Flames flared out, charring both hands. Dave groaned through the agony, body slumping unconscious as the burn sealed in.

  The Weaver stood, humming. He drew his leg back and slammed a skull-crushing kick into Dave’s forehead. “Haha! You were fun, old man. I’ll cherish this moment very much.”

  For the finishing blow, his fingers—encased in that intricate gauntlet—twitched toward Dave’s abdomen, poised to carve him open.

  Four figures materialized from the pooled shadows of a nearby collapsed wall. They were humanoid, featureless save for blank white buttons where eyes should be.

  Two seized the Weaver’s arms, two his legs, their grip cold and impossibly solid. They wrenched him backward with a single, coordinated heave, throwing him twenty paces down the alley.

  A fifth figure, identical to the others, flowed from the same shadow and gathered Dave’s broken form with unsettling gentleness. It blurred, depositing him at Nosfraet’s feet in the span of a heartbeat.

  Nosfraet knelt. His earlier joy of finding enemy, replaced by a predatory stillness. He looked at Dave—His heavily burned arms, the crushed legs, the burned chest.

  His face, usually a mask of arrogant command, showed none of it now. Only a cold, focused rage. A muscle in his jaw twitched. The sorrow was there, a sharp, private thing, but it was fuel, not a weakness.

  His head lifted. His gaze found the Yellow Weaver, who was already rising, brushing dust from his tuxedo.

  The Weaver noticed the stare. “Hmm. Shadow puppets. I’ve never seen this trick before.” He raised a hand, moved it like a claw quickly. A slash of concentrated flame lashed out, slicing through two of the button-eyed figures. They didn’t bleed, they dissolved into black smoke and drifting ash.

  The remaining two puppets disintegrated voluntarily before the fire could reach them, the smoke streaming back to coalesce beside Nosfraet, forming two fresh, silent sentinels.

  Nosfraet rose to his full height. His voice, when it came, was flat, devoid of its usual booming authority. It was the quiet of a blade being drawn from a scabbard.

  “Say your final words, bird face. I will be putting an end to you today.”

  The Yellow Weaver’s laughter echoed off the alley walls, high and unhinged.

  “Ya sure? That guy,” he jerked his chin toward the broken form of Dave, “said the same thing.”

  ****

  The Scholar's rapid steps came to a halt. He sensed his invisible threads yanking Colin and Carlos snap free, severed clean.

  He pivoted backward on instinct, but felt a cold, dangerous presence materialized in the alley behind him, matching the other one which has also suddenly appeared, that now blocked the path ahead.

  He looked around sharply, realizing he was trapped and that a confrontation was inevitable. His hand tightened around his staff as he waited in the darkness of the alley, ready for his enemies to make the first move.

  With a sudden flick of his wrist, he shot upward—appearing to flee, but in truth only trying to provoke a response from the unseen watchers. The moment he rose into the air, a volley of powerful air slashes from the darkness, powerful and precise.

  The Scholar reacted instantly, his barrier barely absorbed the incoming blows, while his threads wrapped around him held his posture steady, keeping him from being knocked off balance.

  The strikes carved into the rooftop, chunks of stone crumbling away. He landed and sprinted across the damaged surface.

  K2 materialized in a blur, her sword unleashing a barrage of air slashes. Each one carried lethal force.

  The Scholar dodged, using his invisible thread as countermeasure to meet them head on. But she closed the gap fast, and struck with a fist enhanced with mana as she murmured, "Hornet Sting."

  The Scholar caught it with reinforced multiple threads, thick and strong enough to counter or block her strength. It strained, and held—but the force was immense, driving him back a step. At that moment of concentrated defense.

  Her sword cleaved through them regardless. The scholar seized the opening, channeling mana into his staff. "Third Circle Spell: Vortex Slashes."

  K2 did not flinch. She planted her feet, and her mana flared, condensing around her armor and face into a shimmering, translucent barrier. The vortex of slashes crashed against it, shrieking and sparking, but did not break through.

  The Scholar turned to flee. It was a logical, tactical retreat. But It was also a mistake in this scenario.

  "Whirligig Dance," K2 announced. She spun at blinding speed, sword engulfed in brownish energy.

  It expanded into a hurricane of force, engulfing him. Vision blurred in the vortex. He immediately set up threads defensively around himself, bracing for the upcoming assault.

  The attack That actually struck was from below. Sharp cuts tore through his clothes and skin, bypassing his mana guard.

  A grunt was forced from his lips. He gripped his staff, pouring more power into his threads, forcing them to thicken and entangle, finally pulling him free of the devastating dance.

  K2 followed without pause, delivering another "Hornet Sting" to his abdomen.

  Energy waves shattered inward, piercing deep. No external wound formed, but the impact rattled his organs. If he hadn't shielded at the last instant, it would have hollowed him out. The force hurled him southward across the roof.

  A cold, sharp line pressed against his throat. He looked up into the impassive visor of K2. Her gaze, what little he could see of it, was colder than the steel at his neck.

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  "So you're the infamous copycat, huh?" she remarked with a smile.

  From behind, K5 emerged, dragging the unconscious Colin and Carlos. Both looked battered, far from intact.

  “Your threads are versatile, I’ll give you that,” she said, her voice flat. “But you don’t have the creativity to use them properly. You rely on setup. On pre-planned traps. Against multiple opponents—or even one strong one—they become brittle. Weak mana, weaker mind. A waste. An insult to the great Frode the Green Weaver.”

  She leaned closer, her cold eyes narrowing. “Why would a weakling like you dare to copy him? And where did you learn the Strings of Oblivion?”

  Scholar’s expression remained still, even as the cut stung. “It’s not the same technique. Mine is simple thread manipulation, conjured from mana. Limited range. But… thanks for the advice. I’ll keep it in mind.”

  K2’s lip curled in disgust. "Not even the real one. A true copycat. Why do it? What were your intentions?"

  She glanced toward K5, who stood holding the two unconscious gang bosses. “You have a vendetta against these men?”

  “That’s none of your business.”

  “It is now.” Her smile was sweet, but her eyes were not.

  K5 spoke for the first time, his voice a low rumble. "He's using a facade. To hide his true body and appearance."

  K2 chuckled, her voice light. "It is now. Time to show your real face."

  Scholar’s mouth twitched. “You sensed that, too. You’re more skilled than I expected. Answer me one thing—”

  K2 deepened the cut, silencing him. “We’re the ones asking questions. You’re lucky I can’t kill you right now. Our group will take our time with you. I hope you enjoy it.”

  A faint smile touched Scholar’s lips. “Good. That answers my query. You really aren’t knights.” He paused, his voice dropping. “That makes it easier.”

  K2 sensed the shift—a ripple in his mana, a sudden tension in the threads still coiled around his sleeves. She moved without hesitation, her sword flashing in a clean, severing arc.

  Scholar’s head flew from his shoulders.

  But no blood sprayed. Instead, from the severed neck, metallic threads erupted—dozens, then hundreds—glowing with violent energy. They shot outward, not from the falling body, but from the decapitated head itself, wrapping around K2 and K5 in a split second.

  More threads burst from the headless torso, weaving into a dense, cocoon-like mesh that encased them completely.

  Inside, the threads pulsed with devouring energy. They siphoned mana, injected neurotoxins, and began to dissolve whatever they touched. Agonized sounds, muffled by the cocoon, echoed briefly before being swallowed by the hum of draining power.

  The two cocoons hovered in the air, suspended by a single, shimmering thread.

  Nearby, the fallen staff dissolved into smoke, reforming into the figure of a man in his thirties. One eye was missing, the other shadowed by dark circles. His clothes were rough but neat, a stark contrast to Scholar’s pristine clothes. He sighed, rubbing his temples.

  I really didn’t want to use my trump card like this. Damn it.

  My staff was a C-rank artifact, and getting my hands on it was a massive struggle.

  Technically, it was a cursed staff—one that strengthened my magic, created illusions or hallucinations, and could swap positions with its owner in return for some blood.

  It even worked for someone like me, whose mana reserves were already weak. I had relied on it for a long time.

  When I was trapped inside that hurricane-like attack, I wrapped myself in threads, then swapped places with the staff, making it look like me. Meanwhile, I was the “staff,” controlling all the movements.

  Once she sliced off its “head,” the staff broke. The curse inside it went berserk.

  That was when my threads formed a cocoon around them, absorbing energy and keeping it inside. A dangerous, almost fatal process.

  And in the end, I lost one of my most important artifacts.

  It also hid my true form, giving me the Scholar persona.

  Now… I’ll have to rely on my fa?ade spell instead, though it’s much weaker.

  He raised a hand. “ Facade.”

  Light smog enveloped him. When it cleared, he stood once more as The Scholar—pristine robes, composed expression, no trace of injury or exhaustion. He glanced at the two floating cocoons, then turned away.

  “Time to move,” he murmured, stepping over the rubble of the roof. “They won’t be trapped in there forever.”

  The narrow alley was a funnel of smoke and distant clamor, a shortcut through the chaos. The Scholar moved through it with purpose, his facade spell holding steady despite the recent drain.

  He dragged Colin and Carlos with him, his threads pulling their limp forms over the rough ground, but the movement was slower, less fluid, than before.

  He sensed her presence a heartbeat too late. A subtle sign that his concentration was fraying.

  Monica Feasta entered the alley from the opposite end. The clamor of the town seemed to part around her.

  His gaze lifted, taking her in with a single, practiced sweep: the crisp uniform, the competent stance, the sharp eyes that were already dissecting him.

  She hadn’t noticed the unconscious bosses behind her, nor the threads binding them—but she would soon. An equation of trouble.

  He had no intention of speaking. Engaging with local authority was a complication he could not afford. The first and only calculation in his mind was extraction without confrontation.

  But she moved first.

  A single finger, lifted and pressed to her own lips. A stark, silent command that brooked no argument.

  Then she whispered in a low voice, devoid of fear, and carried the finality of a verdict. "Who are you?"

  The Scholar harbored no intent to introduce himself. Escape dominated his thoughts. He already readied threads to vanish in an instant.

  He almost missed it. A sharp whistle pierced the distant chaos of Pipra, swelling louder by the second.

  Monica’s eyes, still locked on his, flickered for a microsecond—a trained fighter’s instinct recognizing an incoming trajectory.

  A blur of green and yellow crashed into the mouth of the alley from the perpendicular street. It smashed through a wooden stall, exploding it into a cloud of splinters and dust, before skidding to a halt on the cobblestones.

  The sequence unfolded in three to five seconds. Monica registered the crash first.

  The Scholar’s concentration shattered as he scanned the area.

  The Yellow Weaver rose from the rubble, mask tilted. A gurgling laugh bubbled out.“Now that was a push! Keep showing me all those expressions!”

  Before the Scholar could process the new variable, Monica moved. She didn’t look at the Weaver. Her boot heel snapped into the Scholar’s side with punishing force, driving the air from his lungs.

  In the same motion, she grabbed his wrist, yanked him forward, and shoved him backward, positioning his body squarely between herself and the new arrival, blocking the alley’s deepest exit.

  A fresh presence filled the alley’s opposite entrance.

  Nosfraet arrived. He did not run, he simply stepped into the narrow space, and the ambient noise seemed to dampen around him.

  His uniform was pristine, his face a mask of contained, glacial fury. Four shadowy forms with blank white buttons for eyes peeled from the surrounding walls, moving with a liquid, unsettling grace.

  “Officer Nosfraet,” Monica stated, her voice flat. The situation crystallized in her mind. The bird-mask was the killer.

  The man in front of her was something else—a factor her guts had correctly warned her not to ignore. Two bodies lay unconscious in the alley, their presence hardening her suspicion into certainty. Accomplices? Hostages?

  Nosfraet's scan locked the scene. His puppets fanned out, reinforcing blocks at both ends.

  One of the shadow puppets detached from the wall behind the Scholar, its button-eyed face expressionless as its cold, solid hands clamped onto his shoulders from behind, freezing him in place.

  The Weaver adjusted his mask, eyes on the Scholar. He laughed. "Hey, partner. How's it going?" A deliberate lie to further complicate matters. Then he noted the bosses and deputy chief. "A gathering! Joyous indeed. I'd advise releasing my associate."

  "That bastard," the Scholar muttered.

  All his calculations dissolved. The board was upended. His planned diversions were ash. He was now in a confined space with a volatile serial killer, a furious officer commanding shadow puppet, and a determined deputy.

  A cold clarity settled over him. Very well. If a fight is what you want, a fight is what you will get.

  Monica’s eyes narrowed, taking her stance subtly, ready to strike.

  Nosfraet’s voice was a low rumble that vibrated in the narrow space. “Your running ends here.”

  The Weaver tilted his head, flames beginning to lick playfully around his gauntleted fingers. “Running? I was just getting better ambience.”