The Assassination House had never known fear.
We were the ones who brought fear.
The ones who whispered death into the ears of kings, the ones who turned shadows into blades and erased names from history with a single stroke.
As I stood in the grand hall, surrounded by the best killers in the Kingdom of Blackblade, I felt it.
The dim green flames lining the walls flickered, casting eerie shadows across the hall.
The air was thick, tense, suffocating. Hundreds of assassins walked about, studying the mission board, discussing contracts, sharpening their weapons.
The heavy doors to the guild hall burst open.
A lone assassin stumbled inside, his breathing ragged, his body covered in blood—not the blood of enemies, but his own.
His face was twisted in horror, his eyes wild and unfocused.
He collapsed onto his knees, fingers scratching against the ground as if he were trying to hold on to his sanity.
"They’re dead," he choked out, his voice hoarse and trembling. "They’re all dead…!"
I narrowed my eyes. "Mikhail?"
"Dead." His fingers curled into fists. "So are Vin and Alden."
The room fell into a stunned silence. Every eye turned toward him, every conversation died mid-sentence.
The flames on the walls flickered weaker, as if the very room was reacting to his words.
I rose from my seat, my fingers curling against the cold surface of the armrest.
My expression remained calm, composed—but inside, a storm brewed.
This was Mikhail’s best unit.
I stepped forward, my boots clicking against the floor, slow and deliberate.
The assassin flinched at my approach, his body trembling violently.
"Explain," I ordered, my voice like a blade against his fragile composure.
His breath hitched, and for a moment, I thought he would break entirely. But then, in a voice barely above a whisper, he spoke.
"It’s him," he rasped. "Noah."
A sharp aura of tension spread through the room. The name alone sent shivers down everyone’s spines.
I narrowed my eyes. "Mikhail and the others were trained to deal with monsters," I said coldly. "Are you telling me a single boy wiped them all out?"
The assassin let out a choked sob, shaking his head rapidly. "He’s not just a boy…! I saw it—I saw what he did! You don’t understand…!" His voice cracked, panic bleeding into his every word. "He—he just touched them, and they died!"
Murmurs erupted around the hall, assassins exchanging wary, fearful glances.
"What do you mean?" I demanded, my patience thinning.
The assassin lifted his head slightly, his eyes wide—empty. "He touched them."
A silence so thick it was suffocating followed.
I felt a slow, creeping chill coil around my spine. "Explain."
The assassin swallowed hard, his throat bobbing as if the words themselves were choking him.
"He—he didn’t use a weapon. He didn’t even try to fight." His voice wavered, raw with disbelief. "Mikhail was the first to reach him. He moved fast—struck first. But Noah—he just—*"
His fingers twitched violently.
"He just reached out and grabbed Mikhail’s wrist."
The assassin let out a short, strangled laugh. "And that was it."
More whispers. More tension.
I clenched my jaw. "What do you mean ’that was it’?"
The assassin’s body gave a violent shudder. "Mikhail didn’t bleed. He didn’t scream. His body didn’t even fall apart."
"He just—stopped. His eyes turned dull, his body slumped forward, and just like that, he was gone."
A cold, unsettling stillness spread through the room.
No wounds. No sign of struggle.
Not even a trace of what had happened.
"Vin panicked," the assassin continued, his voice a hollow echo of itself.
"He went in next, tried to cut him down—but Noah just touched him." His breathing quickened.
"The exact same thing happened. He just—stopped living."
My grip on the armrest tightened. "And Alden?"
The assassin let out a slow, shaky exhale. "He was further back. He saw what happened, and—he panicked. He threw a fireball at Noah, trying to burn him before he could get close."
He turned his gaze to me, and for the first time, I saw something beyond fear in his eyes.
Something close to madness.
"Noah lifted his hand," the assassin whispered. "And the fire—it just… vanished."
A sharp crack echoed through the hall.
He devoured it! Like it was nothing!" His voice cracked into something shrill, something broken. "And then he turned to us."
A cold, eerie silence settled over the room.
The assassin grabbed his head, his fingers digging into his scalp.
"H-His eyes… they glowed. It was like looking into the abyss. Like he wasn’t human. And then—then he spoke."
A sharp chill ran down my spine.
"What did he say?" I asked.
The assassin slowly turned his head toward me, and for the first time since he entered, he looked at me.
His pupils were shrunken, his expression so rigid, like someone who had already died once before.
"He said… ’I’m coming.’"
A thick, suffocating silence followed.
No one moved. No one spoke.
One of the assassins in the hall shot up from his seat, knocking over a chair as he stumbled back. "H-He’s coming here?"
Panic spread through the room like wildfire.
"The reports said he was just an exile!"
"That kid killed Mikhail?! Then what the hell are we even supposed to do?!"
The once-mighty Assassination House—an empire built on fear—was now drowning in it.
The green flames flickered wildly, as if sensing the chaos.
I remained still, watching, calculating.
I had never met him, never seen him with my own eyes. But if this assassin’s account was true—if Mikhail really died that easily…
Then I had underestimated him.
Grimly, I turned to my right-hand man, my voice a sharp contrast to the chaos around me.
"Seal the gates," I ordered. "Double the guards. If he is coming, we will be ready."
My subordinate nodded and vanished down the hall.
But deep down, I knew—
It wouldn’t be enough.
Noah wasn’t just a target anymore.
He was a nightmare, a walking death sentence.
And for the first time in my life…
I wasn’t sure if our house could kill someone.
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