Soul Digger-Chapter 47 - 47: Brewing storm

Sleep offered no escape. Cole spent the remaining hours of the night in a state of agitated vigilance, his mind replaying Elara's words on a loop.
"You don't get to choose."The thought was a cage, and his mercenary instincts, honed by years of prizing freedom and detachment above all else, rattled against its bars. He was a contractor, not a patron saint. His services were rendered for coin or for his own survival, not for the abstract currency of hope.
As the first grey fingers of dawn stretched across the sky, casting the city in a palette of slate and rose, Cole was already moving. He needed to see. He needed to witness the consequences of his decision to leave Launda Evazabeth as a gift-wrapped problem for the town. He told himself it was a tactical assessment—gauging an enemy's response by observing how they handle a captured asset. But it was a thin lie. He was drawn to the epicenter of the trouble he had started, a moth to a flame he himself had lit.
'I still wonder, how she bypassed the guiding tree and killed those people.'
He moved across the rooftops with a renewed, almost predatory silence. The city was waking up below him. The smell of baking bread from a corner bakery, the distant clang of a blacksmith's hammer, the chatter of early risers heading to the market. It was a city humming with life. The thought left a bitter taste in his mouth.
The old baking factory was no longer isolated. From two blocks away, Cole could see the crowd. It wasn't a mob, baying for blood. It was a somber, organized gathering. Men with sturdy arms and grim faces stood guard at the perimeter. The town's assistant area chief, a man named Borin whom Cole recognized from his infrequent visits to the central square, was there, speaking in low, urgent tones to a few others.
Cole settled onto the roof of a dilapidated tenement opposite the factory, melting into the shadows of a shattered roof. He could hear snippets of conversation carried on the morning breeze.
"…found her just as the sun came up. Paralyzed, just like Tomas said."
"…the Lord's judgment. He struck her down and left her for us."
"…what do we do with her? The Plotters will come looking…"
There it was again. "The Lord." They were already mythologizing him. He wasn't a man who had won a fight; he was a divine force who had enacted justice.
He watched as two men carried Launda out of the factory on a makeshift stretcher. Her eyes were wide with a mixture of terror and disbelief, darting around at the silent, accusing faces of the townspeople she had terrorized. She could not move a muscle, a living statue, a testament to his chillingly precise strike.
They weren't hurting her. They were securing her, treating her like a dangerous animal that had been caged. They were being civilized. It was almost more damning than a lynching.
A cold knot of satisfaction tightened in Cole's chest, quickly followed by a familiar wave of dread. His plan had worked perfectly. He had turned the Faction's agent into a source of information and a symbol of the town's defiance. But in doing so, he had painted a target on the entire city.
He spent another hour observing, watching as they transported Launda to the town's small, fortified jailhouse. The crowd dispersed, but the tension remained, a palpable hum in the air. This was not an ending. It was an opening salvo.
The Plotters Smoke Faction, as ridiculous as their name was, had to be a serious organization to operate with such impunity until now. They would not take this loss lightly. They would retaliate.
Deciding he had seen enough, Cole began to make his way back toward the relative anonymity of the Rose District. He moved through a labyrinth of narrow alleyways, the walls close enough to touch on either side, the stench of refuse and damp stone thick in the air. He was lost in thought, calculating the Faction's likely response time, their resources, their next move.
Cole had to leave as quickly possible, find a suitable faction to join and get the ball rolling. These small yet unsettling threads kept binding him tighter and tighter to sant Flores. Perhaps, sant Flores being the reason for Cole acquiring the Venerables heart was a tiny yet significant factor.
The attachment towards the place might be deeper than he first assumed.
'All these small conflicts could brew a storm if left uncatered for.'
He was so engrossed in the strategic puzzle that he almost missed it.
It was a flicker of movement in his peripheral vision. A shadow detaching itself from other shadows.
His instincts screamed a fraction of a second before the attack came. He dropped, rolling forward on his shoulder as something sliced through the air where his head had just been. The sound was a sharp *shink*, the whisper of high-quality steel. He came up in a crouch, his eyes scanning the alley.
Standing twenty feet away was a man. He was of average height and build, dressed in simple, dark traveler's clothes. He had a plain, forgettable face, the kind you'd lose in any crowd. The only remarkable thing about him was the pair of short swords he now held, one in each hand, and the utter stillness in his eyes. They were the eyes of a predator—devoid of anger, of malice, of anything but cold, lethal purpose. This was no Launda. This was a professional.
The man didn't speak. He didn't announce his faction or his intentions. He simply lunged.
The alley exploded into a flurry of motion. Cole, unarmed, was forced onto the defensive. He used the narrow walls to his advantage, kicking off the brickwork to dodge a lightning-fast thrust. The man's blades were a blur, a web of steel that sought to trap and dissect. Every move was efficient, precise, and deadly. There were no wasted steps, no flashy acrobatics. It was the brutal economy of a seasoned killer.
Cole deflected a strike with his forearm. The force of the blow was staggering. He used the momentum to spin, lashing out with a powerful kick aimed at the man's knee. The attacker flowed around it, impossibly fluid, and answered with a low slash aimed at Cole's thigh. Cole leaped back, the tip of the blade slicing through his trousers and leaving a burning line of fire along his skin.
For the first time since arriving in Sant Flores, Cole felt the exhilarating, terrifying thrill of a true fight. A result of the unfair match up's he had prior to this encounter, similar to during his old days Cole felt the scale of death handing balanced, tipping at each side unpredictability. A true 50/50 clash of skills
However, Cole's immortality was still an unknown cheat code.
He grabbed a discarded iron pipe from a pile of trash, its weight a crude but welcome comfort in his hand. The clang of steel on iron echoed down the alley. Sparks flew as he parried a vicious two-bladed scissoring attack.
They were a whirlwind of violence in the cramped space. Cole fought with the desperate ingenuity of a cornered brawler, using his environment, his strength, and his sheer unpredictability. The assassin fought with the chilling perfection of a textbook, each movement a calculated step toward a fatal conclusion.
Cole feinted a high swing with the pipe, then dropped and swept the man's legs. The assassin leaped over the pipe, and in mid-air, threw one of his short swords like a dart. Cole twisted, the blade embedding itself in the brick wall by his ear with a solid
THUNK!
Landing, the assassin pressed his advantage with his remaining blade. Cole was forced back, step by step. He could feel his stamina starting to wane. The lack of sleep, the emotional toll of the last twelve hours—it was all catching up to him.
He saw his opening. The assassin lunged for a final, decisive thrust at his heart. Instead of parrying, Cole dropped the pipe and lunged *forward*, inside the arc of the blade. He slammed his shoulder into the man's chest, driving him hard against the opposite wall. The breath whooshed out of the assassin. Cole brought his hand up, not in a punch, but with his fingers rigid, aiming for the same nerve cluster in the neck he had used on Launda.
But the man was ready. He snapped his head to the side, and Cole's strike glanced off his shoulder.
The assassin used the moment of separation to push off the wall and create distance. He stood poised, his single blade held ready, his breathing even, his expression unchanged. He had an opportunity to press the attack, to finish a winded and injured Cole.
But he didn't.
He gave a single, almost imperceptible nod. It wasn't a sign of respect. It was an acknowledgment. A confirmation. Then, with a speed that defied belief, he turned, scaled the alley wall in three fluid steps, and vanished over the rooftop. The short sword he'd thrown remained quivering in the brickwork.
Cole stood alone in the silent alley. He looked at the sword, then up at the empty roof. This wasn't an assassination attempt. It was a test. A probe. The Plotters Smoke Faction had sent a professional to accurately gauge his strength.
And now they knew.
He pulled the sword from the wall, the steel cold and expertly balanced in his hand. The "distraction" he had sought to clear his head was over.
"When I leave this place, I'll add the faction Head to my list." Cole uttered in a low, thick voice. "Right beneath Atasa."