The heavy rain had begun to thin into a mist by the time Tormund reached the outskirts of Chronowell's spire. The guards at the gate stiffened at the sight of him, but their hands didn't hesitate to draw their weapons. The first soldier fell wrong; people didn't die like that. Usually, there wasn't as much resistance. The second was killed before the first hit the ground.

  Tormund took time to watch them die, even if their lives had nothing to do with why he was here. He at least owed it to them to witness them in their last moments.

  Before he walked into the entrance, he was met with a system notification. It was odd, however, usually the legion script looked more like calligraphy. This font was all wrong and he felt the stink of something else on it.

  Warning: Entering Chronowell. Recommended level: 340

  A slow smile crept onto his face. And he entered.

  The city stretched ahead, alive and loud, as cities usually do. Lanterns hummed along walkways. Students argued as they crossed from the academy to the Market district. A merchant shouted about fresh bread. None of them looked at him. Chronowell was the kind of place that believed danger lived outside its walls.

  He passed through the plaza. A tavern door swung open behind him, letting out the warm smell of broth and ale. Tormund stepped inside without meaning to. Old habits. A place like this was more important than the city hall. At the same time, the bureaucrats drafted legislation and advanced their vision of the future. This was where the everyday man came to tell anyone that would listen how life really was.

  Murphy looked up from his wooden mug. He had the look of someone who crafted for a living; the power radiating off of him only suggested that he was a late D grade; however, something in the back of Tormund's mind told him to introduce himself.

  "Are you a smith?" Tormund asked.

  "If you want to talk work, come by one of my shops. I am off the clock, and I don't have it in me to speak to any more legionaries about their shitty armor."

  The comment sent a jolt of electricity up his spine. The legion had the best smiths. This fool spoke heresy.

  Murphy huffed a laugh. "Yeah. Don't get your panties in a twist. Your set is miles above what I have seen most of your recruits come in here with. Fit for a general..." A knowing look washed over Murphy, unnoticed by the rest of the bar. A look that said I know who you are, and I'm not afraid of you.

  Tormund visibly relaxed; he hadn't realized, but he was gripping his sword, and it was drawn a few inches out of its scabbard.

  He eased his hand off the hilt, letting the tension bleed out of the muscles in his forearm. Across from him, Murphy didn't move. Just held his mug and watched Tormund with the idle curiosity of a man who'd seen far worse than a stranger in armor.

  "You came in here looking for something," Murphy said. He wasn't accusing.

  Tormund didn't sit but moved closer to the man. "Not something... someone," he said.

  Murphy took a slow drink, eyes not leaving Tormund over the rim. "There are easier ways to ask around than drawing half a blade in a room full of tired people."

  "It was not intentional."

  "Bullshit. You walk with a confidence that comes from training with that sword. We are not gonna sit here and pretend that when that blade comes out, you don't intend to use it."

  That earned a flicker of acknowledgment. Tormund wouldn't call it respect, but he didn't hate the man.

  The tavern bustled around them; people were laughing, arguing, and eating. None of them noticed the conversation at the corner table. Wolves tended to go unnoticed when the herd felt safe.

  Murphy set his mug down. Not loudly. Just deliberate enough to make the table feel like neutral ground.

  "You're not here for work," he said. "Not buying armor and not selling. Not lost. Men like you don't get lost."

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  Tormund watched him. Murphy didn't flinch.

  "There is only one person worth knowing about from here." Murphy continued. "But you're not saying it out loud."

  Tormund let the silence settle for a moment.

  "I'm gathering information," he said.

  Murphy snorted. "Everyone who walks into a tavern is gathering something. News. Courage. An excuse." He leaned back in his chair. "You don't strike me as a man who needs any of that."

  Tormund's fingers hovered near the table. Moving evenly across the course wood.

  "There is a man connected to this city," Tormund said. "I want to know what shaped him."

  Murphy raised an eyebrow. It was a small reaction, yet sharper than most.

  "You're digging," Murphy said quietly. "Not just asking."

  Tormund didn't deny it.

  Murphy took a breath through his nose, slow and controlled. When he spoke again, his voice was low and focused.

  "You won't get anything meaningful from strangers. Not the kind of truth you're looking for."

  Tormund studied him. "How about you? Are you a stranger?"

  Murphy's jaw tightened. He looked at Tormund the way a man looked at a beast that couldn't be outrun.

  "Listen carefully," Murphy said. "And I mean this without a drop of malice."

  Tormund leaned in slightly.

  Murphy set his mug down, hands folding in front of him.

  "Everyone in this city," he began, voice steady, "every last one of us owes our lives to him."

  Tormund's face didn't move from its unreadable expression.

  Murphy continued. "He gave us a second chance. Half of this bar used to be mining slaves. But now you see scholars, merchants, and craftsmen.”

  He shook his head once. "We all knew that we were living on borrowed time the moment we followed him."

  Tormund didn't blink.

  Murphy's stare didn't waver. "If the man you're hunting is the same one I think… You don't want to provoke him."

  He paused almost as if he wasn't sure he wanted to continue to speak.

  "Because if you do?" Murphy said, pushing the words out despite Tormund's raised bloodlust. "He is the kind of man who doesn't blink if a god is his enemy. Do you think he won't find a way to kill an A rank within the month?”

  There was no threat in the tone. No raised voice. Just a man stating a fact the world should already know.

  Tormund rose slowly.

  "Thank you," he said quietly.

  Murphy lifted his mug, half toast and half acknowledgement. "Don't say I didn't warn you."

  Tormund stepped back into the bone-dry town despite the storm he felt near.

  I understand.

  He walked toward the center of town, where the plaza opened into a vast circular expanse. Lanterns burned along the perimeter. Market stalls stood half-packed as the day wound down. A handful of scholars hurried across the stones, clutching books against the wind that never quite fell.

  It was everyday life and He found it insulting.

  People noticed him now. The armor. The sword. The blood he hadn't bothered to wipe from his gauntlet. Conversations died. Footsteps slowed. Heads turned.

  A few guards at the far end began approaching, confusion quickly giving way to fear.

  Tormund ignored them.

  He stopped in the exact center of the plaza. The storm overhead growled against the sky, lightning flickering deep inside the clouds like something trapped.

  He rested a hand on the hilt of his blade.

  One slow breath.

  "This will be enough," he murmured.

  A ripple of power radiated from him, invisible but unmistakable. Those with any mana sensing abilities felt their lungs tighten, their instincts screaming at them to run. It didn't matter.

  Running wouldn't save them.

  Tormund lifted his sword, the steel angled casually over his shoulder, as if he were preparing to carve a line through nothing more than an empty hillside.

  He whispered the name of the technique like reciting an old memory:

  "Giant's Fury… Mountain Slash."

  The world split.

  The stone ruptured outward in a perfect expanding line. Air compressed into a seismic shock that rolled through buildings like a tidal wave hitting dried clay. The plaza cracked down its center, splitting into cascading fragments as the slash tore outward in every direction.

  Walls folded. Homes crumpled. Bodies vanished into the force without so much as a scream.

  The shockwave hit the dungeon itself, shaking it from foundation to peak. Windows exploded outward. The top floors buckled. Dust and debris flooded the air, turning the once-lively plaza into a wasteland of shattered stone and settling silence.

  When the echo finally faded, the storm overhead still hadn't dropped a single drop of rain.

  Tormund lowered his blade.

  What remained of Chronowell was little more than fractured stone and drifting smoke. The surviving structures leaned at impossible angles, wallpapered with dust and silence. A few faint groans sounded from under collapsed beams, stubborn threads of life refusing to cut cleanly.

  He looked around the ruin without satisfaction or disappointment. This was simply a necessary cut—a pruning of something that had grown in the wrong direction.

  He turned toward the next floor, his footsteps steady.

  "It won't take long," he said quietly, almost politely, "to clean up the survivors."

  And he walked into the dust.

  The storm finally broke, but the rain never reached the ground.

  Tormund surveyed the ruin without emotion. Dust drifted across the broken plaza like a thin funeral shroud. What remained of Chronowell no longer resembled a city; it was just the shadow of one.

  Here and there, the rubble shifted. A faint groan. A hand twitching under collapsed stone.

  Tormund rolled his shoulders, settling his sword back into place.

  Murphy's warning echoed faintly in the back of his mind.

  A month to kill an A-rank…

  Tormund let the thought sit. His blade hummed lightly at his side, tasting the mana still hanging in the air like static.

  He looked out over the ruins.

  "I'm sorry," he murmured, voice barely above a whisper, "but he doesn't have a month."

  Then he walked forward, dust parting around him.