novelraw Chapter 132: Blood And Craft (1)
Chapter 132: Blood And Craft (1)
[Veltharr — Artisan District — 9:00 AM]
Raven found the practitioner in the same place as the first time.
On top of his workshop.
Window open.
The smell of blood magic components that someone with training could recognize from twenty meters away.
She knocked on the door.
The practitioner opened it.
He looked at her.
He looked at Alex behind her.
"You brought the bearer."
"He needs to practice without the Fragment." Raven entered without waiting for an invitation. "I thought your pending mission was the right opportunity."
"I didn’t tell you I had a pending mission."
"You didn’t need to."
The practitioner looked at Alex.
Alex looked at Raven.
"When did you decide this?"
"This morning."
"Were you going to tell me?"
"I’m telling you now."
---
The practitioner’s name was Soren.
Twenty‑five years old.
Ritual scars on both hands that went up to his elbows — more extensive than Raven’s, a northern tradition that worked with energy volume rather than directed precision.
Dark hair with gray at the temples.
Eyes with that specific quality of high‑level blood practitioners.
He put three cups on the table.
"The mission," he said.
"I’ve been putting it off for three days because I work alone and the target has variable protection."
"What target?" asked Alex.
Soren took out a paper.
A merchant.
Name: Davan Oross.
Established in Veltharr two years ago.
Transport and storage operations in the market’s port district.
"Transport?" asked Raven.
"It’s a front." Soren picked up his cup.
"For six months, Oross has been using his warehouses for human trafficking — specifically northern beastfolk who can’t pay their debts. He holds them until someone else pays for them."
A pause.
"With interest."
Alex processed it.
"Debt slavery."
"Veltharr doesn’t fall under Temple jurisdiction, but it does have local laws. The problem is that Oross has three local officials on his payroll." Soren pointed at the paper.
"The northern Trade Guild secretly hired me to recover the debt documents — if the documents disappear, the debts legally disappear." A pause.
"And if Oross has an accident during the process, the Guild has no objection."
Silence.
"How much protection?" asked Raven.
"Four guards in the main warehouse. Two at the entrance of the office building where he keeps the documents. Oross himself is level 55." Soren looked at Alex.
"What’s your base level without the Fragment active?"
"Forty‑three."
"Without Fragment abilities?"
"Battle Flow. Basic combat technique. The knife."
Soren evaluated him.
"Enough for the guards if we don’t trigger presence." He looked at Raven.
"You without the Fragment?"
"Pure blood magic. Without Army of Bones."
"Effective level?"
"Sixty‑two base."
Soren nodded.
"Tonight."
---
[Veltharr — Market Port District — 8:00 PM]
Oross’s warehouse was the fourth building from the canal.
Dark stone, two stories, small windows on the upper level.
The kind of construction that doesn’t want to be noticed — no insignias, no indicators of commercial activity visible from the street.
The three of them on the roof of the building across the way.
Soren had a drawing of the interior — he had gotten it that afternoon through a contact he preferred not to name.
"The back entrance has a rune lock. Basic — level 40, blocking direct magic." He pointed at the drawing.
"The documents are on the second floor, north room. A physical safe plus a level 50 rune lock."
"Do the inside guards have a rotation?" asked Alex.
"Every forty minutes. The two at the entrance do a round every fifteen minutes."
"Is Oross inside?"
"According to my contact, he has a meeting in the south district until ten." Soren looked at the building.
"We have a ninety‑minute window."
"What’s on the lower level?"
"Actual storage. Boxes. The ones he’s holding are in the basement."
Alex looked at him.
"How many are in the basement?"
Soren looked back.
"The contract is for the documents."
"How many are in the basement?"
Pause.
"Eight, according to information from three days ago." Soren measured his words.
"Getting them out complicates the mission."
"How much does it complicate it?"
"Extra time. Potential noise. The basement has its own guard."
Alex looked at the building.
Raven beside him, in a low voice.
"The contract is for the documents."
"I know."
"If we get the people out, Oross will know someone entered before we can get out with the documents."
"I know."
"And?"
Alex looked at the drawing of the interior.
"Is there a way to get the documents and open the basement in the same amount of time?"
Soren studied the drawing.
"If we split the objectives." A pause.
"Me on the documents. You two on the basement."
"The basement guard?"
"Level 48. Alone."
Alex looked at Raven.
Raven looked back.
"Without the Fragment," she reminded him.
"I know."
"Battle Flow and basic technique against level 48?"
"And you."
Raven considered the angle.
"It works."
---
[8:23 PM — Back entrance]
The rune lock was exactly level 40 as Soren had said.
Soren disabled it in forty seconds with the specific northern blood magic technique — not brute force but infiltration, the energetic equivalent of finding the space between the runes instead of crashing against them.
Alex watched the process.
"Can that be applied to physical locks too?"
"With modification." Soren didn’t look up from his work.
"Blood magic works on any system with energy flow — physical, biological." The last rune gave way.
"Your blood magic is different from mine — more direct, more aggressive. For this, it needs refinement."
"How much refinement?"
"Weeks of practice." The door opened.
"Tonight is the start."
---
[Interior — Level One — 8:25 PM]
The warehouse smelled of damp wood and something harder to identify.
Alex identified it in three seconds.
Accumulated fear.
It wasn’t an active threat.
Soren headed to the second floor, silent in a way that only someone who had been doing this work for decades could manage.
Alex and Raven toward the basement.
---
The basement guard was sitting in front of the door with the posture of someone who had been in the same spot for four hours and didn’t expect anything to change.
Level 48.
Sword at his belt.
No heavy armor — it wasn’t that kind of job.
Alex and Raven in the side corridor.
Raven pointed at her own hands — low energy, enough for deflection but not attack.
Alex pointed at the guard — direction of approach.
The same wordless coordination they had perfected over weeks of travel.
Raven went first, from the opposite side of the corridor, visible enough for the guard to turn toward her.
"Who—?"
Alex from behind.
Without Blood Weapon.
Without Shadow Step.
The same movement that Raven had taught Kira on the road and that Kira had replicated in a single repetition — except this time Alex executed it with months of foundational training and Battle Flow activating at first contact.
[Battle Flow — 3%]
Hand on the guard’s neck.
Pressure on the correct point — not to kill, to interrupt blood flow to the brain for enough seconds.
The guard lost consciousness without a sound.
Alex held him so he wouldn’t hit the floor.
He leaned him against the wall.
"Good," said Raven quietly.
"I learned from you."
"Technically you learned from Kira, who learned from me."
"The learning chain is still yours."
Raven considered that.
"Fair."