novelraw Chapter 172: How is Guilliman doing?
Chapter 172: How is Guilliman doing?
The sun above a camp outpost several kilometers away from the wind devil slowly came into its descent, a lazy sinking that dragged the last warmth from the air and replaced it with a creeping darkness that swallowed the surroundings piece by piece.
First the treeline.
Then the outer watch posts.
Then the valley beyond.
Inside the camp the activity didn’t slow. Several groups moved between tents, coordinating in low voices, exchanging information with the practiced efficiency of people who did this regularly. Supply runners cut across open ground. Officers hunched over maps inside half-lit shelters. Outside the camp perimeter, the groups that had been out since morning slowly filtered back in through the checkpoints, tired, many of them carrying something, exchanging the valley for the relative safety of torchlight and tent canvas.
This was a staging outpost.
From here the forces of Kong Shi hunted the creatures that nested in the valley. Every group that passed through these gates was registered, verified, and sorted. The operation was controlled. Methodical. The way the Kongs liked things.
At the edges of the camp the torchlight thinned.
And in the gaps between the light, something moved.
,,,,,,,,,,,,,
A group slowly appeared inside one of the larger tents toward the rear of the camp, each of them wrapped in darkness, cloaks drawn, posture still. They filtered in one by one without sound and found their places without being told.
Outside the tent the guards stood with their backs to the entrance, eyes forward.
Not a word passed between them.
Not a signal. Not a look.
Just the careful, deliberate silence of men who had been told exactly what not to notice tonight.
"Is everyone here?"
Inside, the River Bandit moved through the dimness counting them. His eyes passed from one figure to the next. Slow. Deliberate. He wasn’t rushing this.
The full count was 20.
They had all passed through the official checks at the stronghold entrance without issue. Their documentation was clean, their reasons for being in the valley were legitimate on paper, and the camp itself was currently hosting a myriad of different powers and factions all gathered around the same hunting ground. Finding a group willing to work alongside strangers without asking too many questions had been easy enough.
It always was when the offer was generous enough.
It was all about money.
"Good."
The River Bandit reached into his coat and began distributing the badges. Identification. Each one bore the markings of a slayer registered through proper channels, names attached to dummy accounts, paperwork routed through intermediaries long before any of them had set foot near this valley.
The documentation trail was clean.
The main issue had never been whether they could pass verification.
Athens’s S Ranks were legendary slayers. Old ones. The kind whose names existed in records that predated the current stronghold administration by decades. Getting verified by the Kongs was entirely possible.
That wasn’t the point.
The point was that they refused.
Allowing themselves to be registered under a tyrant’s system, to submit their names and ranks and movements to be tracked and filed by people who believed that power entitled them to sovereignty over others....
They didn’t operate that way.
They believed that submission was agreement.
That bending the knee, even for the sake of convenience, was the first link in a chain.
So they used dummies instead.
"We are moving out in one hour," the River Bandit said, his voice flat and even. "You will be briefed on your specific targets by your team lead."
The tent held its silence.
The full operation had a single ultimate goal sitting at the 9th step of the valley. Every one of the 20 was expected to be present for that. No exceptions.
But the valley was vast, and the journey to the 9th step on foot would take time.
In that time, each team of five had free reign to operate independently. Hunt what they found. Accumulate what they could. The mission at the end was fixed. Everything before it was open.
......
Thirty minutes later Guilliman and his team slipped out of the large tent and moved quietly into the darkness.
The camp continued around them, indifferent.
"Why are we leaving early?"
Guilliman glanced sideways at the two A Ranks, a slight furrow in his brow.
The River Bandit had clearly said one hour.
"Ehhh."
Evil Spirit Lucas waved a hand without slowing his pace, a lazy gesture that communicated exactly how seriously he was taking the question.
"You guys need to chill."
He glanced back with that easy smile sitting on his face.
"Yunju gives suggestions. That’s all they are. You don’t have to take everything he says literally." He shrugged his shoulders once. "What’s the difference between one hour and thirty minutes?"
Himself and Yunju went back far enough that the usual hierarchy didn’t quite apply between them. The kind of respect that existed there wasn’t the tight formal kind that newer members carried around. It was something looser. More horizontal.
"Plus," the other A Rank added.
Her voice was calm.
Her hands, wrapped in a faint purple that seemed to faintly pulse against her skin, shifted slightly as she walked.
She was called Poison Lilly.
"If we leave in pieces instead of all at once, the Kongs are less likely to notice the pattern." She kept her eyes forward. "One group leaving early is nothing. All twenty walking out together at the same time from the same checkpoint draws attention."
Guilliman didn’t respond to that.
She had a point.
They reached the outer perimeter, presented their IDs under the dim light of the checkpoint torches, and passed straight through.
No hesitation from the guards.
No second looks.
—woosh
The valley opened up in front of them.
It was enormous.
Even standing at the edge of it, the width of the thing was difficult to fully register. The mist that filled its lower reaches didn’t billow or drift. It simply sat there, thick and dense, swallowing the middle distance completely. A single degree of deviation in direction was enough. One wrong bearing and the team ahead of you would simply vanish, absorbed by the white nothing until it was like they had never existed.
"If you’re interested," Evil Spirit Lucas said, turning half around as they pushed deeper in, "we’ve got the location of a hunting ground not far from our route."
He let that sit for a second.
"A few Wayfarer High Lords in the area. Good chance to stack some gene points before we hit the 9th step."
The journey there on foot was at least a week. Factoring in the need to actively avoid Kong troop movements, probably a little longer.
Plenty of time.
"Oh, we don’t mind."
Eric gave a single nod. His expression stayed neutral.
’They clearly want something from us.’ He thought. ’Might as well get something back in return.’
"Nice."
Evil Spirit Lucas smiled, sharp and satisfied, and took a hard turn into the mist.
The group followed him in.
,,,,,,,,,,,,,
Thirty minutes after that, back inside the camp, an alarm split the night air.
A head rolled across the ground near one of the inner stalls.
Guards rushed from two directions. The old stall owner at the center of it seemed completely unhinged, stumbling, shouting, his eyes unfocused, drawing every available set of eyes in the vicinity straight toward him.
And while every head in the camp turned toward the commotion....
The remaining members of Athens walked quietly through the ID checkpoints.
Different entry points.
Different timings.
They filtered into the valley one by one, absorbed by the mist without a single raised voice or second glance.
......
Not far from one of those checkpoints, another group was making their own way forward.
Among them walked a young woman with silver hair, her steps measured, her gaze drifting to the side.
She caught sight of them.
One look was enough.
"Athen," she murmured.
She recognized the movement. The way they dispersed. The way no two of them passed through the same point at the same time. It was distinctive to anyone who knew what Athens looked like when they were operating deliberately.
In the past she would have intervened.
Their methods had always struck her as grotesque. The bluntness of them. The willingness to cut through formality with violence when they decided it was necessary.
But watching the quiet precision of it now, the covert choreography of a group that answered to its own logic....
It reminded her of someone.
Someone who had never once hesitated to make that kind of call either.
’Guilliman.’
She held the thought.
The image that surfaced wasn’t a recent one. It was older. A young man in torn armor, eyes that held something proud and solitary in equal measure, looking at the world like it owed him nothing and he expected nothing from it.
’I wonder how he’s doing.’