novelraw Chapter 171: 12steps of wind devil valley
Chapter 171: 12steps of wind devil valley
Burning Silver was a group of slayers that had joined Kong Shi a few years ago, arriving from the Blacksteel Shelter with a reputation that walked in ahead of them.
Each of them were geniuses.
Not the kind that talent scouters called geniuses to fill quotas. The real kind. The kind that had walked into the old battleground of Ravenskeep and come back out again. The kind that had set foot in Nightmare Desert and survived long enough to leave a mark on it.
Nightmare Desert.
A place that threatened the whole Stone Titan Alliance just by existing on the map.
When they first arrived in Kong Shi a myriad of forces moved quickly to recruit them. Some members were picked up. Individual talents absorbed into existing powers who made the right offer at the right time.
But the core force was different.
They turned down every power that came to them. Every banner. Every handshake. Every promise of resources and rank and protection.
They turned them all down, looked at each other, and built something of their own instead.
Burning Silver.
Cohort of the Silver Flame.
Years passed. They were never the largest force. They never had the loudest name. But when the rankings settled they were sitting in the top 20 forces in Kong Shi without a single S rank in their roster.
That said something.
,,,,,,,,,,,,,
The outpost desk was the organized kind of busy. Forms moving. Voices overlapping at a measured level. Personnel coming and going through the main entrance with the particular efficiency of people who had done this exact thing a hundred times before.
"Go through the West wing."
The woman at the desk spoke with a calm that suggested she had given this exact briefing more than once today already.
"Be careful of the central region. Word is some old monster has been rampaging around there after being raided by slayers."
She looked at Lady Victoria as she said it.
Not with worry exactly. More the way someone passes along information to a person they know will use it correctly.
Victoria listened without much visible reaction. She was the kind of woman who had become a model not just for the women in the administration but across circles that didn't sort people by gender in the first place. That was the rarer thing. Anyone could become an idol within their own lane. Victoria had earned respect in lanes that didn't typically offer it.
It was a breath of fresh air in a world that didn't offer many.
"Thank you miss."
Victoria's voice was even. She turned her head slightly.
"Jemie, tell the rest to go through the West wing."
A small pause.
"I'll settle the paperwork."
She said it casually. Like an afterthought. Then she walked forward into the room at the back without waiting for a response.
,,,,,,,,,,,,,
The moment she stepped inside her gaze moved.
It landed on a young man across the room.
She recognized him immediately.
"Lady Victoria."
Windle smiled when he saw her. He raised a hand and beckoned her forward, offering to let her cut the line without making a show of it.
—click
Her silver armour made a small sound with each step as she walked forward. Clean and deliberate. She passed through a cluster of team leaders without slowing. Some of them glanced. She didn't.
Everyone here was either competition or simply people she couldn't afford to spend attention on. She wasn't being cold about it. It was just the math of where she wanted to go.
Becoming powerful required a specific kind of focus.
She had it.
"Windle."
She stopped beside him.
"Long time no see. How's your little sister Suzan?"
Her tone was warm enough but her eyes stayed calm. Comfortable without being invested.
"She's fine," Windle said. "Just outside preparing."
He shifted slightly, the way people do when they're about to offer something they've already decided they want to offer.
"Would you like to team up this time? We're going to target a group in the 7th step."
Victoria didn't answer right away.
Wind Devil Valley was separated into 12 steps, each covering a stretch of 20 kilometers in length. The 1st step started with rudimentary beasts, capped at blue rank, manageable for any serious slayer with the right preparation. The further one went the stronger the opposition became. The creatures didn't just scale in rank, they scaled in behavior. In coordination. In the specific kind of malice that came from beasts that had survived long enough to learn.
At the 12th step were great abominations and their generals.
This was just one of the areas that Kong Shi had to constantly fight against. One of the reasons their slayers were built differently from most forces. You couldn't operate in a place like this for years and stay soft.
The 7th step was serious territory.
"Sorry."
Victoria's voice stayed polite.
"I'll be going alone this time. After our previous failure at the steps we need a well-earned morale boost."
She said it simply. No edge in it.
Windle was the young leader of the Silver Wing Mercenary Company, a force ranked 14th on the top groups list in Kong Shi. Teaming up with him before that ranking gap closed was the kind of move that attracted exactly the type of attention she didn't need right now.
Rumors traveled fast here.
She didn't need that weight attached to her name before she had something concrete to show for it.
Windle held her gaze for a moment.
Then the smile returned, quieter this time.
He nodded and didn't push.
...…
Outside the outpost, several forces moved in and out through the main passage. Some heading into the forest in formation. Others returning, equipment worn, postures carrying the particular weight of people who had already earned their day's difficulty.
The treeline beyond the outpost wall sat thick and dark even in daylight.
Meanwhile, in the concealed areas of the surrounding forest, five shadows moved.
Swift. Low. Deliberate.
They were approaching the Great Wall of the outpost from a direction the guards weren't watching.
"Soul king."
The voice came from behind the cover of a cluster of bushes. Soft. Commanding. The kind of voice that expected to be obeyed without having to raise itself.
"Now."
A beat of silence.
Then the ground moved.
A swarm of rats poured out from the forest in a wave, rushing straight for the guard post at the base of the wall.
—rush!!
The two guards on duty reacted instantly. Scrambling. Reaching for weapons. One of them shouted something that got swallowed by the noise.
But the rats didn't behave like rats.
They dodged. Every strike that came down they split around it. Every sweep of a boot they flowed past. Moving with the kind of coordination that made it immediately clear something was directing them.
The guards were fully occupied.
And while they were occupied, five silhouettes crossed the open ground in silence and slipped into the outpost.
Without much of a fuss at all.