The first arrow took the driver through the throat.

  No warning. No shouted command. Just the wet thunk of iron punching through flesh. The man’s hands went slack on the reins, fingers twitching once before his body pitched forward, dead weight collapsing against the carriage rail.

  The second arrow found Sir Henry.

  He had barely gotten his sword halfway from its scabbard when the shaft sprouted from his chest—right of center, punching clean through ribs and uniform alike. He looked down at the fletching blooming red against polished cloth, his expression cycling through surprise, confusion, something almost like offense.

  Then his legs folded.

  He collapsed onto the floorboards like a marionette with its strings cut.

  Children screamed.

  The horses screamed louder.

  They reared in their traces, iron shoes shrieking against stone as the carriage lurched violently to one side. Wood groaned. Harnesses snapped taut. Someone hit the wall hard enough to knock the breath from their lungs.

  The door exploded inward in a shower of splinters.

  A mountain of a man filled the frame—seven feet of scarred muscle wrapped in mismatched iron plates, trophies of different kills bolted together without care. Dual axes were already whistling downward toward the nearest child. His face was a roadmap of violence: broken nose, split lip, old burns and newer scars twisted into something that might have been a grin.

  Notch rose.

  Sly burned hot against his collarbone, scales radiating heat that felt like warning and plea combined.

  Don’t. You’ll hurt yourself. Don’t.

  He lifted one finger anyway.

  A needle-thin lance of white-red flame left his hand.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  It crossed the distance in less than a heartbeat.

  The giant’s right arm vanished from the elbow down, flash-cooked to drifting ash. The axe head melted mid-swing, molten iron spattering across the carriage roof in hissing droplets. The man staggered backward through the ruined doorway, mouth open on a sound that never came—shock too profound for screaming.

  Pain detonated inside Notch’s chest.

  White-hot. Ripping. Wrong.

  It felt like a hammer striking his sternum from the inside, cracking ribs made of glass. He dropped to his knees as his vision tunneled and his ears rang. Something wet splattered across his palm—blood, flecked with glittering motes of raw mana leaking from somewhere it should never be able to leak from.

  Core damage.

  I fractured my own core.

  Through the red haze swimming across his sight, he saw the rest of the road.

  Nine bodies. Maybe ten.

  Bandits sprawled across dirt and stone in positions that defied anatomy—throats opened, chests caved in, limbs bent at angles no living thing should possess.

  But not from the operators.

  The operators from the second carriage lay slumped against the wheels, their own throats slit ear to ear. Clean cuts. Professional. They’d never even drawn steel.

  The three medium-grade trainees were scattered nearby. One clutched a bleeding shoulder, teeth clenched in silent agony. Another lay unconscious with a head wound already swelling dark and ugly. The third sat in shock, staring at a broken arm bent the wrong way, lips moving soundlessly.

  They had tried.

  It hadn’t been enough.

  Only one figure still stood among the carnage.

  The high-grade girl.

  Auburn hair wild and unbound, traveling clothes torn at the shoulder, both hands still crackling with residual silver energy. At her feet, a skinny bandit boy—no older than fifteen—knelt trembling in the dirt, alive only because she had chosen not to kill him.

  Her eyes met Notch’s across the bodies.

  Cold. Calculating. The kind of gaze that measured damage and remembered debts.

  For a heartbeat, the world held its breath.

  Then came hoofbeats.

  A black destrier thundered from the treeline, hooves striking sparks from stone. Its rider wore polished steel chased with gold filigree—the kind of armor nobles commissioned for tournaments, beautiful and deadly in equal measure.

  One lazy, perfect cut.

  The giant’s head left his shoulders and rolled to a stop against Notch’s boot, eyes still wide with shock.

  Lord Roger reined in smoothly, blade already sheathed, not a single drop of blood staining him. Mid-thirties, sharp-featured, wearing the effortless confidence of a man who had never doubted he was the most dangerous person present.

  “Apologies for the delay,” he said pleasantly. “Traffic on the north road. Bandits, ironically enough.”

  Crystal’s small, shaking hand found Notch’s sleeve, fingers digging into the fabric as if anchoring herself to something solid.

  Sly slithered down his arm and coiled tight across his chest, scales glowing faint gold as she tried—through instinct and will—to hold the fractured pieces of his mana core together.

  Notch laughed once.

  Wet. Broken. Tasting copper and ozone and failure.

  He had crippled himself to stay hidden.

  And twelve people had died anyway.

  He pressed a blood-speckled palm to the carriage floor and forced himself upright despite Crystal’s protest. The world spun. His legs buckled, then held. Staying down meant admitting a weakness he couldn’t afford.

  Across the wreckage, the auburn-haired girl still watched him, silver light fading from her fingers. Assessing. Filing observations away.

  Lord Roger dismounted, boots crunching over dirt, bone, and cooling iron.

  “Well then.” He smiled like a cat that had found cream. His gaze lingered on the cauterized stump, then Notch’s bloodstained mouth, then the girl’s hands. “Looks like we have some talented little monsters this year.”

  Notch met his eyes and said nothing.

  Deep in his chest, beneath the cracked core and leaking mana, something vast stirred. Patient. Hungry. Curious why its vessel was bleeding—and whether the restraints placed upon it were truly necessary.

  The Infinite Abyss had given him power.

  It just hadn’t mentioned the cost would be paid in increments.

  Lord Roger’s smile widened, as if he could read every thought written across Notch’s face.

  “Come along then, monsters,” he said lightly. “The capital awaits. And we have so many interesting tests prepared for you.”