Beribu kilometer dari bungalo tempat Azaron Wargrave baru saja menyapa para Ksatrianya, tampak sebuah lanskap yang tersembunyi dalam kegelapan meskipun matahari tergantung tinggi. Pertentangan itu mengganggu, cahaya ada, namun gagal menerangi. Tanah terbentang seluas sebuah kota, bangunan memanjang ke segala arah seolah wilayah yang makmur dan penuh kehidupan, keteraturan, dan pergerakan.
Tetapi kehidupan, dalam pengertian biasa, tidak ada di sini.
Setiap orang di wilayah itu membawa kehadiran yang dingin dan menekan. Langkah mereka tanpa suara, gerakan mereka presisi dan terukur. Jubah menutup rapat tubuh mereka, menyembunyikan berbagai senjata tersembunyi di lipatan kain gelap. Belati, jarum, bilah, racun, dan artefak tergeletak tak terlihat namun selalu siap. Mereka adalah pembunuh, masing-masing direndam dalam darah dan kesunyian. Dan tempat ini, kota bayangan hidup yang luas ini, adalah Guild Pembunuh, markas besarnya, lokasi yang hanya diketahui para pembunuh dan dihapus dari semua catatan lain.
Di dalam salah satu bangunan, struktur tertinggi di seluruh lanskap, seorang pria duduk sendirian.
Bangunan itu menjulang di atas yang lain seperti pengawas diam, kehadirannya menakutkan bahkan di antara para pembunuh. Di dalam, di ruangan remang-remang di lantai paling atas, seorang pria duduk di belakang meja dalam keheningan total. Satu-satunya sumber cahaya adalah sebuah bola yang menggantung di dinding, cahayanya samar sekadar mendorong bayangan menjauh. Bahkan begitu, kegelapan tampak membandel menempel di sudut-sudut ruangan, seolah enggan mundur.
Wajah pria itu tersembunyi dalam kegelapan, tersamar oleh tudung yang menutupi kepalanya. Bayangan itu sendiri seolah lahir darinya, dibentuk oleh kehadirannya ketimbang oleh ketiadaan cahaya.
Dialah Pemimpin Pembunuh.
Dia bukan pendiri asli Guild Pembunuh. Guild itu berfungsi seperti aristokrasi kuno, kekuasaan tidak pernah diwariskan lewat darah semata, melainkan direbut lewat kekuatan. Setiap kali seorang pemimpin mati, yang terkuat dari generasi berikutnya mengklaim gelar itu, mengukir namanya ke dalam sejarah melalui darah, ketakutan, dan keberhasilan.
Pria itu duduk dengan sangat tenang. Ruangan itu sendiri terasa menyeramkan hanya karena kehadirannya. Kehadirannya tidak berkobar, pun tidak menekan udara dengan niat maupun kejahatan. Dia sekadar ada, dan kehadiran itu saja sudah cukup mencekik ruang di sekelilingnya.
'Sungguh tidak masuk akal keluarga Wargrave ini...'
Pikiran itu bergema diam di kepalanya sementara jarinya mengetuk meja dalam urutan lambat, berirama. Sebuah lilin tunggal berdiri di atas meja di hadapannya. Kini padam, sumbunya masih sedikit hangat. Beberapa menit lalu, lilin itu menyala stabil.
Lilin itu bukan hiasan. Ia sebuah alat, sebuah artefak. Pemimpin Pembunuh menggunakannya untuk memantau nyawa Blue. Api yang padam memberitahunya semua yang perlu diketahui.
Blue sudah mati.
'Bagaimana?' tanyanya dalam hati, pikiran itu tajam dan dingin. Dia tidak bisa memaksa dirinya benar-benar percaya bahwa Matahari Kesepuluh melakukannya sendirian. Ya, dia sudah memperhitungkan kemungkinan Matahari Kesepuluh menang. Kemungkinan, bagaimanapun, adalah satu hal. Hasil sama sekali lain lagi.
Pikirannya menyusuri penghitungan skenario, perhitungan, dan jalur pertarungan, cara-cara Matahari Kesepuluh bisa meraih kemenangan. Penghadangan, artefak, kartu truf tersembunyi, campur tangan dari luar. Namun betapapun dalamnya dia menganalisis, dia tidak menemukan sesuatu yang nyata, sesuatu yang cukup konkret untuk memuaskannya.
'Aku yakin Emovirae akan menghabisinya,' pikirnya tenang. 'Toh, Matahari Kesepuluh tidak mungkin menang tanpa konsekuensi buruk.'
Rencananya sempurna, disusun seolah dia telah melihat masa depan itu sendiri. Setiap variabel sudah diperhitungkan. Dan tetap saja, sesuatu menggaruk-garuk keras kepala di bagian belakang pikirannya, sebuah pikiran yang tidak bisa dia tekan sepenuhnya.
Bagaimana jika Matahari Kesepuluh secara ajaib menang melawan Emovirae?
Itu gagasan konyol. Seperti tidak rasional sama sekali. Dan tetap saja, keluarga Wargrave terkenal mencapai yang konyol. Matahari Kesepuluh sudah melakukan sesuatu yang mustahil dengan mengalahkan Blue. Lalu mengapa dia tidak bisa mencapai sesuatu yang sama konyolnya dengan membunuh Emovira Peringkat 5?
Emovira Peringkat 5 dan Blue adalah keberadaan yang sepenuhnya berbeda kelasnya, memang, tapi tetap saja...
'Aku tidak punya lilin untuk Emovira,' akunya dalam hati. Di atas meja hanya ada lilin tunggal yang mewakili nyawa Blue. Tidak ada untuk Emovira, yang berarti apa pun hasilnya, dia tetap buta terhadapnya.
'Aku akan bertanya pada
Thousands of kilometers away from the bungalow where Azaron Wargrave had just addressed his Knights, a landscape could be seen, hidden within the darkness despite the sun hanging high in the air. The contradiction was unsettling, light existed, yet it failed to illuminate. The land stretched outward with the sheer size of a city, buildings extending in countless directions as though it were a thriving territory filled with life, order, and movement.
But life, in its ordinary sense, did not exist here.
Everyone within this territory carried a cold, oppressive presence around them. Their steps were soundless, their movements precise and measured. Cloaks draped tightly around their bodies, concealing various weapons hidden within the folds of dark fabric. Daggers, needles, blades, poisons, and artifacts lay unseen but ever-ready. These were assassins, each one steeped in blood and silence. And this place, this vast, living city of shadows, was the Assassin Guild, its main headquarters, a location known only to assassins and erased from all other records.
Within one of the buildings, the tallest structure in the entire landscape, a single man sat alone.
The building towered above the rest like a silent overseer, its presence imposing even among killers. Inside, within a dimly lit room within its highest floor, a man sat behind a desk in utter stillness. The only source of light was a single orb hanging from the wall, its faint glow barely managing to push back the shadows. Even then, the darkness seemed to cling stubbornly to the corners of the room, as though it refused to retreat.
The man’s face was hidden within that darkness, obscured by the hood that covered his head. The shadows themselves appeared to be born from it, shaped by his presence rather than the absence of light.
He was the Assassin Leader.
He was not the original founder of the Assassin Guild. The Guild functioned much like an ancient aristocracy, rule was never inherited by blood alone, but seized by strength. At the death of each leader, the strongest of the next generation claimed the title, carving their name into history through blood, fear, and success.
The man sat with utter ease. The room itself felt chilling simply because of him. His presence did not flare, nor did it pressure the air with intent or malice. He simply existed, and that existence alone was enough to suffocate the space around him.
’To think the Wargraves were this ridiculous...’
The thought echoed silently through his mind as his finger tapped against the table in a slow, rhythmic sequence. A single candle stood upon the table before him. It was unlit now, its wick still faintly warm. Just minutes ago, it had been burning steadily.
The candle was not decoration. It was a tool, an artifact. The Assassin Leader had been using it to keep track of Blue’s life. The extinguished flame told him all he needed to know.
Blue was dead.
’How?’ he questioned internally, the thought sharp and cold. He could not bring himself to truly believe that the Tenth Sun had accomplished it alone. Yes, he had accounted for the possibility of the Tenth Sun winning. Possibility, however, was one thing. Outcome was another entirely.
His mind shifted through countless scenarios, calculations, and battle paths, ways in which the Tenth Sun could have achieved victory. Ambushes, artifacts, hidden trump cards, external interference. Yet no matter how deeply he analyzed it, he found nothing tangible, nothing concrete enough to satisfy him.
’I’m sure the Emovirae would finish him off,’ he thought calmly. ’After all, the Tenth Sun couldn’t have possibly won without adverse consequences.’
The plan had been flawless, arranged as though he had seen the future itself. Every variable had been accounted for. And yet, something clawed insistently at the back of his mind, a thought he could not fully suppress.
What if the Tenth Sun miraculously won against the Emovirae?
It was an absurd notion. Completely irrational. And yet, the Wargraves were infamous for achieving the absurd. The Tenth Sun had already done something impossible by defeating Blue. Why, then, could he not accomplish something equally ridiculous by killing a Rank 5 Emovira?
The Rank 5 Emovira and Blue were existences of entirely different classes, yes, but still...
’I don’t have a candle for the Emovira,’ he acknowledged silently. On the table sat only the single candle that had represented Blue’s life. There was none for the Emovira, which meant that regardless of the outcome, he would remain blind to it.
’I will ask "him" in about an hour,’ he decided. ’"He" would have the answers.’
For now, that was enough.
’Now that everything has turned out like this, it’s a mess.’
His thoughts continued to move with cold efficiency. The information surrounding the incident might not be suppressed entirely. With Blue dead, Black was likely dead as well. That meant the weaker assassins were either eliminated or had escaped. Either way, the forest that had served as the battlefield had also become a graveyard, one that housed hundreds of corpses.
Yet the Assassin Leader felt nothing.
He had already concluded that the Wargrave family would not come after him. Their retaliation would be directed toward whoever had ordered the assassination of the Tenth Sun, not the Assassin Guild itself. This confidence stemmed from certainty, he had left no traces leading back to him. Blue and Black had been the only direct connections, and both were now dead.
’I can’t be the only generation of Assassin Leader who couldn’t kill a single Wargrave during the True Awakening,’ he thought, irritation briefly flickering beneath his calm exterior.
Throughout the history of the True Awakening, the Assassin Guild had always succeeded in killing at least one Wargrave. Not all siblings survived each generation’s Awakening. The Wargraves were monsters, yes, but they were not gods.
This generation, however, had defied precedent, they had all survived.
Some barely so. Most had emerged half-dead, missing limbs, their hearts beating by the thinnest of margins. But survival, regardless of condition, was still survival.
The current Assassin Leader could not allow such a stain to exist on his reign.
If Lily of the Abyss were still alive, he would never have pursued Asher after his survival. He would have waited patiently for the next Wargrave to be born. After all, Azaron and his wife Lily bred children with almost absurd frequency, as though it were an advantage granted by fate itself, as though they were rabbits instead of humans.
But Lily of the Abyss had died, and so, he struck.
’Although the Tenth Sun didn’t die during the True Awakening,’ he mused, a faint smile tugging at his lips beneath the hood, ’it doesn’t change the fact that a Sun still fell during my time.’
That alone preserved his legacy.
His hand moved slowly to the file resting on the table before him, Asher’s file. He opened it and read through the contents once more, his eyes hidden but focused.
’Even after failing his awakening, and awakening on the third try, he still turned out this monstrous...’ a quiet sigh escaped him, lost within the shadows, ’after this, I should send one beautiful or handsome assassin toward one of the Suns or Moons.’
A plan began to form, cold and deliberate. Infiltration through affection. He was already aware of the Wargrave family’s rule against childbearing unless one was the Primarch, but that mattered little to him. He did not seek offspring.
He sought information, someone inside the family, someone close enough to hear whispers, observe patterns, and uncover weaknesses from within. And love, he knew, was often the sharpest blade of all.
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