Ray dropped a couple of pellets at his feet.

  CRACK-HISS.

  A wall of thick, grey smoke exploded outward, swallowing the road in an instant. The bandits shouted in confusion, coughing as the alchemical fog blinded them.

  "Spread out! Swing!"

  the Leader screamed from somewhere in the gray.

  "They can't see us!"

  Ray stood perfectly still in the center of the cloud. He closed his eyes. He Activated Quad-Concurrent Partial Immersion, his innate passive skill Cognitive Network also activated to offset the incoming mental strain.

  Ray activated the Serene Cultivator’s ‘Aetheric Perception’ skill and the Grizzled Veteran’s ‘Tactical Assessment’ skill. The world shifted. The smoke vanished from his mind’s eye, replaced by a wireframe grid of the battlefield. The physical world fell away, leaving only energy. He saw the bandits with glowing red heat signatures stumbling in the dark, their life force flowing, he can see they are panicked.

  He reached out with his mind, with the ‘Understudy Protocol Resonant Link Communication’ Active.

  Rina, listen to my instructions and we will deal with them. Try not to kill them.

  Ray’s voice echoed in her mind, clear as a bell, cutting through the chaos.

  Three targets. Clock positions 9, 10, and 11. Engage the 9. Leg sweep, throat strike.

  Rina didn't hesitate.

  To the bandits, she was a ghost in the fog. To Ray, she was a dancer.

  She dropped low, spinning under a blind axe swing from the bandit at 9 o'clock. She hooked her leg behind his knee and kicked hard. He crumpled with a scream. Before he hit the ground, she drove the pommel of her dagger into his throat, hard enough to collapse the windpipe, not hard enough to crush it.

  He went down, gagging and incapacitated.

  Duck,

  Ray mentally commanded Rina.

  Rina dropped flat on the dirt. A short sword slashed the air exactly where her head had been a second ago.

  Ray began to walk. He moved with the lazy, fluid grace of the Stoic Assassin as he used the ‘Flowing Shadow Technique’, his hands empty.

  A bandit lunged out of the smoke, swinging a club wildly. Ray didn't block. He stepped into the swing, placing his palm flat against the man’s chest.

  Using the World-Weary Healer’s ‘Anatomical Strike’ skill, he hit the bandit’s Solar Plexus.

  As he hit the bandit pulse of disruptive mana shot into the nerve cluster. The bandit’s diaphragm seized instantly. He dropped the club, clutching his chest, unable to inhale, and collapsed silently.

  Target at 6 o'clock,

  Ray projected to Rina.

  He’s rushing you. Use his momentum.

  Rina spun. A bandit was charging her blind, sword raised. She stepped aside like a matador, grabbing his wrist and using the bandits momentum and her hip as the center she redirected and threw him.

  The bandit flew through the air and crashed into another bandit, sending them both into a heap of tangled limbs.

  From the carriage, Captain Svane watched. He had reinforced his eyes with mana to pierce the smoke. His jaw was slowly unhinging.

  He wasn't watching a brawl. He was watching a single organism with two bodies.

  Ray turned his back on an enemy because he knew Rina was already striking them. Rina dodged attacks she couldn't possibly see because Ray was her eyes. There were no verbal commands. No hesitation. Just pure, synchronized violence.

  It was terrifyingly efficient.

  Ray caught the Bandit Leader’s wrist as the man tried to stab him from behind. Ray didn't look at him. He simply pressed his thumb into a pressure point in the armpit.

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  Anatomical Strike: Brachial Sever

  The Leader screamed as his entire arm went numb and useless. Ray swept his legs, sending the man crashing into the dirt.

  The wind picked up, dragging the last wisps of smoke away.

  A blue translucent screen appeared in front of him.

  [SKILLED APPLICATION DETECTED]

  [EVENT: SYNCHRONIZED COMBAT]

  [PERFORMANCE EVALUATION: INSPIRED]

  [ANALYSIS: Host successfully multiplexed sensory data through the ‘Understudy Protocol,’ effectively converting a secondary ally into a remote-guided kinetic weapon. By layering ‘Tactical Assessment’ (Veteran) over ‘Resonant Link’ (Understudy), the Host achieved ‘Zero-Latency Command,’ allowing the ally to evade attacks outside her visual range. Furthermore, the effective application of ‘Anatomical Strike’ (Healer) to inflict calculated paralysis rather than healing demonstrated exceptional adaptability. Largest mastery gained.]

  [Tactical Assessment +20% (CAPSTONE already reached, adding half of mastery gain to the next archetype skill 'Pain Suppression'), Anatomical Strike +15%, Flowing Shadow Technique + 10%]

  [MASTERY CAPSTONE REACHED: 'Pain Suppression' at 100%.]

  [You have transcended mimicry and achieved true artistry in this skill.]

  [INSPIRED RESULT: Your neural pathways have adapted to the extreme load of split-stream combat command. Your innate skill 'Cognitive Network’ has improved significantly. Increasing the efficiency in offsetting mental strain cost.]

  He dismissed the notification window.

  Ray and Rina stood back-to-back in the center of the road. Around them, eight men lay groaning in the dirt. Broken noses, dislocated shoulders, seized muscles. None were dead. All were wishing they were.

  Rina was breathing hard, her chest heaving, her daggers still in her hands. Her eyes were wide, dilated with adrenaline.

  Are you okay?

  Ray asked silently.

  A little winded,

  Rina projected back, her mental voice shaky but triumphant.

  But… I’m okay. I saw them, Ray. When you spoke… I saw everything.’

  Ray turned to the Bandit Leader, who was clutching his paralyzed arm and sobbing.

  Ray kicked the pouch of gold, the toll money, back toward him. It landed in the dirt next to his face.

  "You caught us on a good day,"

  Ray said coldly.

  "Use that to pay for a maester. If I see you on this road again, the next time won’t just end with a broken nose and bones.”

  Ray grabbed Rina’s shoulder.

  "Let's go back to the carriage."

  Rina nodded, sheathing her daggers with a sharp snick. She walked back to the carriage, her head held high, this skirmish has gained some confidence and validation that her training was not for naught.

  Svane opened the door for them. He looked at Rina, then at Ray.

  "That was…"

  Svane searched for the word.

  "Seamless. You two fight like you share a brain. It takes veteran shield-brothers a decade to learn that kind of trust."

  "It's just training, Captain,"

  Ray said, sitting down and picking up his book and a snack from his belt pouch and started eating while reading the book as if nothing had happened.

  Svane shook his head, closing the door.

  Just training,

  he thought.

  Impossible. The two were like an assassin squad.

  The carriage rattled forward, leaving the moaning bandits behind on the road.

  Rina looked at her hands. They weren't shaking anymore. She looked at Ray.

  "Did I pass?"

  she whispered.

  Ray turned a page of his book. A small, genuine smile touched his lips.

  "You didn't hesitate,"

  Ray said.

  "You passed."

  Outside the window, the terrain began to change. The scrubland gave way to jagged black rocks. The smell of the ocean was replaced by the heavy, choking scent of sulfur and coal dust.

  They drove on until sunset, toward the orange glow on the horizon that marked the Understudy test was over. The Iron-Wake Domain awaits.

  The carriage rattled over the crest of the ridge, and the world below them opened up like a jagged, festering wound in the earth.

  Ray looked out the window, his eyes reflecting the hellish orange glow rising from the canyon floor.

  The Iron-Wake Domain was not like any other domain. It was a machine.

  Massive blast furnaces roared into the night sky, belching thick columns of black smoke that choked out the stars. Rivers of molten slag cascaded down stone aqueducts like veins of liquid fire, illuminating the thousands of cramped, soot-stained tenements clustered around the factories.

  The sound was a physical force.

  THUD. THUD. THUD.

  Steam-powered drop hammers, each the size of a house, pounded raw ore with a rhythm that vibrated the carriage floorboards and rattled Rina’s teeth.

  The air that drifted through the window didn't smell like the ocean. It tasted of sulfur, pulverized coal, and the coppery tang of old blood.

  "By the Founders..."

  Svane murmured, leaning forward. Even as a soldier who had seen battlefields, the sheer, industrialized oppression of the scene gave him pause.

  "Is that…"

  Ray said, pointing upward.

  Overlooking the valley of fire, perched on a sheer obsidian cliff like a predator watching a dying animal, sat the Thorne Manor.

  It was a fortress of black stone and iron spikes. It was dark, save for the flickering lights of patrol lanterns moving along the walls. It stood apart from the noise and the heat, cold and silent.

  Veteran: “Tactical nightmare. The noise covers footsteps, which is good for infiltration. The smog covers visual range, good for stealth. But look at the choke points. One road up. One bridge. The guards aren't sleeping; they’re on high alert because they’re an occupying force.”

  The Grizzled Veteran growled in Ray’s mind, analyzing the terrain instantly.

  "It looks like a prison,"

  Rina whispered, pulling her cloak tighter around herself.

  "It is,"

  Ray said.

  "For everyone down there."

  He turned to the carriage driver.

  "Take us to the city’s main gate."

  The carriage descended the switchback road, the heat rising with every turn of the wheels. By the time they reached the valley floor, the air was thick enough to chew.

  A massive iron gate blocked the entrance to the town proper. But as they approached, Svane stiffened. His hand dropped to his sword hilt, and his eyes widened in genuine shock.

  "That's not the local militia,"

  Svane hissed.

  "Look at the armor."

  The men manning the barricade weren't wearing the ragged leathers of a mining watch. They stood in polished, articulated steel plate that gleamed orange in the furnace light. On their breastplates, embossed in gold, was a sigil: a snarling wolf’s head.

  "The Gilded Wolves,"

  Ray murmured to himself, he recalls his short encounter with them, the event where his family was hosting Titus Thorne’s visit at their Greywood Keep.

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