Primordial Heir: Nine Stars-Chapter 387: Hunt On 2

The second city was two hundred miles east.

They appeared in an alley, the scroll crumbling to ash in Eleven's hand. Above them, the sky was just beginning to lighten—the false dawn before true morning. They had hours still.

The target here was different: a safe house disguised as an ordinary residence in a wealthy district. The organization's agents here were higher-ranked, more dangerous. They would not die as easily as the laborers in the warehouse.

Number Seven and Number Eleven approached separately, circling the large house from opposite sides. They observed for long minutes, cataloging every detail. Two guards on the roof, hidden behind decorative battlements. Four more inside, rotating patrols. And in the master bedroom on the second floor, three figures sleeping—the leaders of this cell.

The plan formed without words.

Number Seven took the roof.

He climbed the side of the house like a spider, his fingers finding holds invisible to normal eyes. He reached the edge of the roof, paused, listened. The two guards were talking quietly, their attention on the street below, never looking up.

Seven rose behind them.

His hands moved in two directions at once. One guard's neck snapped with a sound like a dry branch. The other's mouth was covered, his throat cut before he could scream. They fell together, and Seven lowered them gently to the roof tiles.

Below, Number Eleven had already entered.

He moved through the house like a shadow, avoiding the patrolling guards with ease. They passed within feet of him, never sensing his presence. He flowed around corners, through doorways, always one step ahead of their awareness.

The patrolling guards died one by one, in different rooms, at different times. A maid's closet for the first. A study for the second. A hallway for the third. The fourth simply vanished from his post—one moment there, the next gone, never to be seen again.

By the time Seven descended from the roof, the house was empty of threats except for the three sleeping in the master bedroom.

They entered together.

The three leaders woke to the sensation of cold steel at their throats. They were skilled, experienced, dangerous. They had survived decades in the organization's shadows.

None of them survived the next three seconds.

As expected the third city was in a different direction entirely.

They followed the list. City after city, cell after cell. Each night, they appeared in a new place, executed their mission with the same silent precision, and vanished before dawn.

A port town with a smuggling operation. Dead.

A mountain village with a hidden recruitment center. Dead.

A capital city with a network of informants. Dead.

They moved through the darkness like a plague, leaving only corpses behind. The organization's tendrils were long, stretching across the continent, but the shadows were longer. They found every hidden place, every secret cell, every agent who thought themselves safe.

Sometimes they killed quickly—a knife, a snap, a silent fall. Sometimes they took their time, extracting information before delivering death. Always, they left nothing behind. No evidence. No survivors. No trace that anyone had been there at all.

By the third night, they had visited nine cities.

By the fourth night, seventeen.

By the fifth night, twenty-three.

The organization's network was vast, but even the vastest network had weak points. And the shadows found every one.

On the sixth night, they appeared in the last city on the list.

This was the largest cell, the most dangerous. A fortified compound on the outskirts of a major city, guarded by demonized soldiers and led by a man who had been with the organization since its founding decades ago.

Number Seven and Number Eleven studied it for a full hour before moving.

They found the weaknesses. The guard rotations. The blind spots. The moments when the demonized soldiers' attention flickered, their enhanced senses overwhelmed by the constant presence of their own kind.

They entered separately again, but this time the plan was different. This time, they would be seen. This time, they would have to fight.

Seven took the main building. Eleven took the barracks.

The moment they struck, alarms blazed. But it didn't matter. The shadows were already inside, already killing, already moving faster than their enemies could react.

Seven faced the leader in the compound's central hall—an old man with cold eyes and a body twisted by decades of demonic modification. He was strong, fast, experienced. He had killed hundreds in his long life.

He lasted thirty seconds against Number Seven.

Eleven cleared the barracks in less than two minutes. Demonized soldiers fell before him like wheat before a scythe. Their enhanced strength meant nothing against his speed, his precision, his absolute dedication to the kill.

When they met again in the courtyard, surrounded by the bodies of their enemies, they were both breathing hard for the first time. Blood—not their own—coated their clothes. Cuts marked their skin from the fierceness of the fight.

They looked at each other, assessed, nodded.

Number Eleven produced the last teleportation scroll.

They vanished as the first rays of dawn touched the horizon.

---

They reappeared in the Emperor's study as the sun rose over the capital.

The Emperor sat in his chair by the fire, exactly where they had left him. He looked up as they materialized, his eyes taking in their battered appearance, the blood on their clothes, the exhaustion in their posture.

"Report," he said quietly.

Number Seven stepped forward. "Twenty-four cells eliminated. Four hundred and seventeen hostiles confirmed dead. All targets on the list removed."

Number Eleven added, "No survivors. No evidence. No trace."

The Emperor was silent for a long moment, studying his shadows. Then, slowly, he nodded.

"Good. Rest. You've earned it."

They bowed and melted back into the shadows, disappearing into the darkness from which they had come.

The Emperor sat alone, staring at the fire, thinking of the message this would send. The organization would wake to find a quarter of their network gone, erased overnight by an enemy they couldn't see, couldn't fight, couldn't even identify.

They would feel fear now. They would feel hunted.

And that was exactly the point.

The fire crackled. The sun rose. And across the continent, in twenty-four cities, the bodies of the organization's agents lay cold and still, a silent warning to those who thought themselves untouchable. Time was charging indeed.