Free Web Novel"Alright,"
Pavela said, her voice carrying a crispness that came from being completely convinced.
"The Path of the Tower is out. Absolutely no more using it."
-- "That's more like it." --
"But—"
Pavela's brow furrowed.
"You mean I absolutely can't use the Return Power anymore? Not even a little bit?"
-- "What I said was that you can't use the power of the Path of the Tower anymore." --
Pavela blinked. frёeweɓηovel.coɱ
-- "Unless the trajectory of your Way Back shifts." --
-- "Using the power of another Way Back theoretically won't pass through the damaged conduction paths." --
-- "Thus, it won't trigger a backlash." --
Pavela's eyes instantly lit up.
Drowsiness, lethargy, and that heavy fatigue welling up from the depths of her soul—all of it was swept away by something in an instant.
"So there is still a way?!"
She sprang up from the wall. The movement was too sudden, causing the pain in her left shoulder to make her wince, but it didn't dampen her excitement at all.
"You should've said so earlier! How do I shift it? What are the conditions? Is it like last time—"
-- "Theoretically, it requires—" --
Pavela didn't hear the rest.
Because the air changed.
That sensation of density suddenly spiking and then plummeting returned.
She lunged to the left, rolling into the shadows at the base of a wall on one side of the alley.
An explosion.
The wall she had just been leaning against exploded, leaving a hole the size of a washbasin in its center, with brick fragments and dust scattering in the shockwave.
A faint blue arrow pierced through from the other side of the hole, pinning itself into the ground opposite. The blue light expanded—
A second explosion.
Pavela was overturned by the air blast, rolling twice on the snowy ground until her left shoulder slammed into a cast-iron lamp post.
Pain.
The agonizing pain from her shoulder to her fingertips made her vision go white for a moment.
Gritting her teeth, Pavela used the lamp post for support to push herself up from the ground.
The angle of her left shoulder was wrong; she felt the bone might have slipped out of its socket.
She had no time to deal with it.
Because the third arrow was already coming.
Pavela stumbled forward as the arrow flew over her head and lodged into the lamp post behind her.
The cast-iron post snapped in half during the explosion, its upper half crashing to the ground with the still-burning lampshade, scattering flames and glass shards across the snow.
She lay flat on the ground, her ears ringing.
Then she heard footsteps.
Not just one person's.
It was four people.
From four different directions.
Pavela looked up. ƒгeewёbnovel.com
Through the curtain of snow, four figures were walking toward her from the various exits of the alleyways.
They weren't running; they were walking.
Their pace was composed and unhurried—the kind of gait a hunter adopts only after confirming their prey has no way out.
She looked around.
This was an open space in the center of the Old District, perhaps once a small square, now reduced to a few broken stone pillars and a dried-up fountain.
Four alleyways led here from four directions, forming a Crossroads.
And at the exit of every alleyway stood a person.
She had been driven here.
From the very beginning, those seemingly random arrows, the pursuit that fluctuated in distance, and the intentionally left escape routes—all of it was meant to herd her in this direction.
Supporting herself with her left hand, Pavela slowly stood up.
The pain in her left shoulder made her movements much slower than usual; she swayed twice after standing straight before steadying herself.
Her cloak had been lost at some point, revealing the school uniform underneath, soaked with blood and muddy water.
Her short silver hair was wet with sweat and snow, clinging to her forehead and cheeks. A few strands hung before her eyes, but she didn't bother to brush them away.
Her gaze swept across the four people one by one.
Directly ahead, the Archer.
A woman, slender in build, standing in the shadows of the alley entrance, her longbow hanging at her side. No arrow was notched, but the leather finger tabs wrapped around her right index and middle fingers glowed with a faint blue light.
She was the one who had given Pavela the biggest headache tonight.
To the left, the Short Axe Man.
The same one whose belt she had cut earlier.
He had switched to a new axe, a size larger than the previous one, held with both hands. The faint blue light on the blade was more intense than before.
The look in his eyes had changed—less impatience, replaced by a certain calmness that had settled after repeated setbacks.
To the right, someone she hadn't seen before.
A short individual clad in heavy leather armor, hands empty, yet the tips of all ten fingers shimmered with faint blue points of light, like ten tiny stars.
Behind her, the last one.
Tall and thin, wrapped in a dark cloak, his weapon obscured. But his stance made Pavela instinctively alert—his center of gravity was extremely low, and his feet were spread wider than a normal person's, like a frog ready to spring.
Four people.
All of them were Ferrymen.
Any one of them alone would be trouble for the current Pavela.
Four together?
Pavela did a quick calculation in her head.
She could probably last thirty seconds.
If her luck held out.
Snowflakes swirled and fell in the open space between her and the four, like a silent funeral.
Pavela took a deep breath.
A hairline fracture in her ribs gave a faint crack at the movement, the pain making the corner of her eye twitch.
Then she spoke.
"So."
Her voice was raspy, yet it carried far in the silent, snowy night.
"Who exactly are you?"
The four did not answer.
"I'm asking seriously now."
Pavela wiped the blood and snow from her face with her left hand, her tone carrying a casualness that was completely mismatched with her current situation.
"You've been chasing me for so long without even an introduction. Isn't that a bit impolite?"
"I just went out today to have some cake, only to stumble upon a murder scene and then get chased around by you lot—"
She thought for a moment.
"How long has it been? Feels like I've been running for half a lifetime."
"So before you make your move, can you at least let me know how I'm going to die?"
"Otherwise, even as a ghost, I won't know who to haunt for revenge."
Silence.
Snow fell into the dried-up fountain basin, making a fine rustling sound.
Pavela hadn't expected anyone to answer.
Her purpose in saying these things wasn't really to get an answer—she just wanted to stall for a few more seconds before the fight, to let the pain in her left shoulder numb a bit more, to steady her breathing, and to let the tactical calculations spinning in her head run a few more cycles.
But the Short Axe Man spoke up.
The Iron Teeth Society.
His voice was low, with a northern accent, carrying a hint of forcibly suppressed fear.
Pavela blinked.
"...What?"
"We are the Iron Teeth Society."
The Short Axe Man said.
"You are a high-sequence Wayfarer. We hunt high-sequence Ferrymen."
"That's why we're killing you."
Pavela looked at him.
"Just like that?"
"Just like that."
"You don't know who I am?"
"There's no need to know."
The Short Axe Man's faint blue axe blade flashed in the light reflected off the snow.
"Who you are, your name, your status—none of it matters. What matters is your Way Back."
The Path of the Tower, Destroyer.
"If your power goes out of control, everything around you will be destroyed."
"We're not here for revenge, we're not on a mission, and we haven't been hired by anyone."
"We're simply doing what we've always done."
"Eliminating the source of disaster before it strikes."
His gaze fell on Pavela.
"And you are that source."
Pavela fell silent.
Snowflakes landed on her shoulders, on her wet silver hair, and on the small pool of blood by her feet that was being covered in white.
She smiled.
"Oh, so your motives are... quite noble?"
She tilted her head.
"But there's one small problem."
"I don't want to die."
The words were spoken very softly.
As soft as the sound of snow hitting the ground.
Yet the bodies of the four tensed simultaneously.
"So," Pavela said, "since you were polite enough to answer my questions."
She drew the dagger from her waist.
The blade was still stained with previous blood, glinting with a dark red luster in the snowy light.
"Then I have to do my best too, right?"
"Even if I die, I have to die—"
She didn't finish her sentence.
Because the sky lit up.
A blinding white light rose from the southeast of the Old District, trailing a long plume of smoke as it pierced through the curtain of snow and blossomed into a pale flower against the leaden sky.
The pale light poured down from the sky, illuminating the entire square as if it were broad daylight.
In this light, the snowflakes turned into countless tiny silver fragments, swirling, tumbling, and falling.
The figures of the four Iron Teeth Society members were stripped of all shadow's protection in the white light, every one of their outlines as sharp as if carved by a knife.
Everyone looked up.
Pavela arched an eyebrow.
What, did the Imperial Emperor actually show up?
