Iron Hand stared fiercely into those abyss-calm eyes. His lips twitched a few times like he was trying to form one last word, but the final light in his gaze winked out. The confusion solidified into a permanent, resentful blankness as his head lolled forward.

  Dead, but not seeing.

  The wound through his chest was a ghastly, pale mess, but bled surprisingly little. His once-burly corpse was already visibly withering, paling. The hard bone scales covering his body seemed to lose their support, their luster fading, turning brittle.

  All the blood in his body was being pulled by an unseen force, streaming toward the crimson greatsword speared through his heart. The blade’s thick, sluggish dark-red sheen deepened, looking a little more… alive.

  Pandora watched quietly.

  This was another reason she wasn’t in a hurry to pull the sword free.

  After all,

  Elsa

  hadn’t tasted heart-blood this scalding and potent from a proper enemy…

  in a long, long time.

  ………………

  Several dozen meters away, behind a collapsed low wall, the blond broker was curled in a corner. His body ached faintly from tension and his earlier tumble.

  He held his breath, peeking out with one eye at the distant street.

  The gunfire had stopped completely. The quiet was terrifying. Only the wind made a mournful whistle through broken glass and hanging metal signs.

  Iron Hand and the Baroness were both gone. He knew they had to be inside that pitch-black shop, locked in their final fight.

  He didn’t dare move. His palms were slick with cold sweat. He clutched his Palmfiend tight; the little creature was still, sensing its master’s fear.

  Then he felt the Palmfiend tremble slightly in his hand.

  He looked down.

  On the smooth “palm” skin, the name in his contacts—the codename for the sniper “Index Finger”—its normally glowing white characters…

  flickered, turned gray,

  then faded to solid black.

  His heart skipped, then hammered against his ribs.

  He knew instantly.

  His teammate, the one who should have been guaranteeing a kill from hundreds of meters away… wasn’t just waiting for a better shot.

  He was in trouble. The kind of trouble where you don’t even get to send a warning before you’re erased.

  But… why?!

  Cold sweat dripped from his forehead. His mind raced, but all he found was chaos and a deep, chilling dread.

  The Baroness was right here, tangled with Iron Hand! All their intel said she worked alone—no guards, no fixed companions. Her skill today at the quarry pointed to a powerful, precise lone wolf.

  Yet Index Finger was dead. Silently, inexplicably dead.

  His thoughts were a tangled mess now—fear, a last spark of madness, and panic all churning inside him.

  Should he… move now?

  He was the last one left of the three-man kill squad.

  Codename: Poxman.

  He’d been the last to join, but in a way, he was the real reason for this whole ambush. The original grudge-holder.

  The reason was simple.

  He held a hate for the Baroness. Or more precisely, for the Potioneer known as “The Empty Vial” from Ascension Road.

  He’d been a Potioneer there once, too, scraping by. His skills weren’t top-tier, but he’d made it work with a few reliable formulas and a silver tongue that could sell junk as treasure. It was enough for a comfortable life.

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  Then the name “The Empty Vial” started circulating.

  That girl rose like a meteor. Her potions were always a notch better than average, priced fairly, and worst of all—her supply was rock solid. No bad batches, no delays.

  How did she do it? Didn’t she ever have an off day?

  Soon, customers drifted away. Business flowed to her. Potioneers like him—the middling ones relying on regulars and smooth talk—were the first to feel the squeeze.

  He tried cutting prices. He tried spreading rumors. He even teamed up with others to push her out. Nothing worked. The Empty Vial never argued, never engaged. She just quietly, steadily, released bottle after perfect bottle of her cursed brew.

  His end came fast and humiliating. During a dispute over quality, long-simmering customer anger boiled over. He was called out as a hack, his potions labeled trash next to the Empty Vial’s “scrap.”

  The Ascension Road managers had no choice. They banned him for good, citing damage to the district’s reputation.

  Taking a man’s livelihood is like killing his parents. The grudge took root that day, born from the deep shame of being thrown out like a stray dog under everyone’s mocking stares.

  He wasn’t completely helpless, of course. He had real second-rank strength. He was no match for Iron Hand in a straight fight, and couldn’t touch Index Finger’s precision. But when it came to shadowy traps, dirty tricks, or brewing substances that made you beg for death…

  …he had no problems at all.

  With his comfortable potion-making income gone, driven by pure spite, Poxman dove headfirst into the darker, bloodier side of the Garden. He got into less respectable work—the kind where you took money to solve problems, or grabbed treasure when a chance appeared.

  That’s how he crossed paths with a third-ranker from Ascension Road. A real talent, well-connected, and more importantly, backed by a fifth-rank mentor. This person wasn’t just on the district’s hidden ruling committee; they were a hair’s breadth from breaking through to third rank and becoming a full Demon Hunter. Their future was set.

  Maybe it was because they heard he’d once worked in Ascension Road, or maybe they just saw a use for his particular skills in the shadows, but they gave him an opportunity—a spot on a three-man team they quietly backed, a team for handling inconvenient matters.

  Over several months, they pulled off ambushes, assassinations, and robberies. They built a modest but fierce reputation in that murky business. Money and resources piled up with each job.

  When he felt the time was right, and that he’d earned enough “value” to ask a favor, he didn’t hesitate. He convinced the team to target his old enemy—the one who’d wrecked his livelihood and his pride—The Empty Vial, now known mostly as the Baroness.

  He thought the plan was solid. Their intel said the Baroness probably wasn’t third rank yet, just a seasoned second-ranker. Her freakish potion skill meant she had to be weak somewhere else. A person only has so much talent to spread around.

  From his own experience, he figured her combat ability would be like his—too focused on brewing. All that knowledge and practice left little room for fighting skill. Wasn’t her obsessive target practice at the quarry proof she was compensating?

  A lopsided second-ranker, relying on gear and technique.

  Against a target like that, their team—three distinct veteran second-rankers, plus elite first-rank shooters in a trap—should have been a sure thing.

  Yet…

  Thud!

  A deep, violent tremor cut through his thoughts. It rose from the earth itself. Even at this distance, the faint aftershock that reached him hinted at unimaginable force at its source.

  Poxman’s heart clenched.

  He peeked from behind the collapsed wall, looking at the derelict shop now sitting in terrifying silence. But they’d prepared the ambush site too well; from his angle, he couldn’t see through the thick darkness.

  Only a cold, creeping dread crawled up his spine.

  How did it come to this?

  The second-floor men were picked off one by one, like a slaughterhouse line.

  Iron Hand, famous for his defense and strength, the one who’d once intimidated him deeply, had been pushed to a disadvantage. Forced to hide.

  And now Index Finger, the long-range support, the safest one… was probably dead. Silently killed by some unknown helper.

  What in the Abyss was this Baroness?!

  Poxman felt like he was losing his mind. All his logic, all his deduction, was shredded by the ruthless reality in front of him.

  And reality gave him no more time to think.

  He had to decide. Now.

  If he didn’t act, not only would his revenge fail completely, but Iron Hand would probably…

  Just as fear and madness warred inside him, a calm, almost routine-sounding female voice cut through the dead silence.

  “Where are you?”

  Pandora’s voice. From the doorway of the dark shop.

  Which meant Iron Hand was most likely already dead.

  How she’d killed the turtle-shell didn’t matter anymore.

  What mattered was how he was going to survive.

  Poxman’s heart sank. His face went grim. He didn’t waste a second mourning Iron Hand. A colder, more practical focus had already replaced the shock. His whole mind shifted to one goal: surviving this derailed hunt.

  In this line of work, where you lived by the blade and died for profit, real “friendship” among colleagues was rare.

  At the same time, Pandora stepped out from the shop entrance. The crimson greatsword in her hand was gone. Only the ordinary-looking black sword remained, held loosely at her side. Its tip pointed at the ground. A few drops of dark red liquid slid slowly down the blade, dripping onto the dust to bloom into small, irregular flowers.

  She stood in the dim light, squinting slightly as she scanned the vast, silent, unsettling flower market.

  No wind. The air was thick as grease.

  Broken glass, toppled shelves, stubborn plants, and the faint scent of blood drifting from the second-floor windows.

  She looked for a while.

  No sign of the blond broker.

  So she called out calmly into the empty market. “Where are you?”

  Her voice wasn’t loud, but it was clear—carrying far in the dead quiet, even raising a faint echo.

  Just as she moved to step in a certain direction, the blond broker cautiously peeked out from behind a half-collapsed concrete pillar a few dozen meters away, then emerged fully.

  His face held a complex mix: the ashen relief of a survivor, and a trace of poorly concealed shock.

  He looked like a man who’d already accepted death, but couldn’t believe they’d both walked out of that carefully laid ambush alive.