Night Attack (2)

REINHARDT'S POV

I woke with a start. A chilling noise had pierced the sepulchral silence enveloping the mansion, reaching my ears like the first wail of a nightmare coming to life. My heart began to pound with the force of a war drum, each beat reverberating in my ears as my eyes struggled to adjust to the darkness wrapping me like a thick cloak. The luxurious guest room now transformed into a prison of menacing shadows. As I directed my gaze toward the window, the silvery glow of the moon confirmed what I already feared: it was nearly midnight.

The orders I had received echoed in my mind with clarity: infiltrate this mansion, earn the absolute trust of its owners, and "survive" until midnight. Everything had gone better than my most optimistic calculations had predicted, but that word—"survive"—kept hammering in my brain like an unsolved enigma. Couldn't decipher why they had specifically chosen such a term, so laden with danger.

Daphne's family had struck me as peculiar from the moment I crossed their threshold, but far from showing hostility, they had displayed hospitality bordering on the extraordinary. Daphne herself had embodied everything that I, with my ten years and my life stunted by pain, considered the perfect definition of human kindness: empathetic to her core, affectionate with a genuine warmth that seemed to radiate. Nothing in her behavior or that of her family suggested the bloodthirsty, ruthless nature Mica had described.

I rose silently, pushing aside the silk blankets. The door opened without the slightest sound, and I slipped through the corridor with the silent agility I had perfected during my years in the orphanage. As I raced down the endless hallway, a terrible doubt began to crystallize in my mind, heavy as a slab of marble. Should I confront my own group, risk my life and the entire mission, just to save Daphne? The chaos now spreading through the mansion like a plague confirmed what my instincts had begun to whisper: my fears were materializing.

The first body I encountered was like a punch straight to my soul. Daphne's sister lay split in half, her once-elegant figure now a grotesque display of pure violence. The blood had spread across the pristine white marble floor like a crimson flower with infinite petals, creating a contrast that seared the brutal reality of what was happening into my retina. The metallic smell clung to my nostrils as a constant reminder of mortality, and my stomach churned violently. At that precise moment, the words Daphne had spoken days earlier returned to my memory with painful clarity, her voice tinged with a concern I now understood in its full magnitude.

—It's the group of assassins terrorizing Sherazade —she had said, her blue eyes clouding with genuine fear.

"Seriously…" I muttered to myself, bitterness tainting my thoughts as I continued my desperate sprint down the hallway. My breathing had become labored, mingling with the metallic scent impregnating every corner of the air like a deadly perfume. I finally reached the rose window, that magnificent circular stained glass that by day filtered sunlight into thousands of colored fragments but now reflected only the ghostly glow of the full moon.

Beneath that majestic silver moon stood five figures dominating the scene like dark gods descended from Olympus. They were positioned on an intricate web of thick threads gleaming like spiderwebs under the nocturnal light.

They had arrived. My group had arrived, and their theatrical entrance surpassed even my most dramatic expectations. Those five figures represented the core of the group I had joined out of necessity, and I clicked my tongue with a frustration burning within me as I finally realized that the group of assassins Daphne spoke of with nocturnal terror was none other than my own.

"Are we attacking this place simply because they possess wealth?" I wondered, my thoughts piling up in my mind like runaway horses. The specific objectives of the mission had never truly been revealed to me, the details shrouded in a mystery that now began to take on a sinister meaning. Suddenly, glancing below the window, I could see the mansion's bodyguards heading toward the forest with coordinated movements suggesting military experience.

"What… what should I do? Should I descend to help them?" The weight of indecision clung to my shoulders like a lead burden, momentarily paralyzing me between my moral principles and loyalty to my comrades.

From my elevated position, which granted me a privileged perspective of the battlefield, I could observe Anastasia in detail, one of our comrades whose age seemed to match Tanya's. Her long hair fell in soft waves over her shoulders, extending to the upper part of her back like a field of lavender flowers illuminated by the first golden ray of morning. Each strand reflected the moon's silver light with the delicacy of a polished crystal mirror, revealing a texture that whispered the softness of the finest silk ever woven by human hands. Her face was a canvas where serenity had painted its strokes with the meticulous precision of a celestial artist, endowed with clear, smooth skin that glowed like freshly fallen snow under a clear winter sky.

The armor she wore was a symphony forged in precious metal, designed with a level of artisanal detail that intertwined its protective function with the sublime elegance of a royal tapestry. It was crafted from gleaming silver metal, polished to reflect the surrounding world like a mirror eternally trapped in a lucid dream. Golden engravings snaked like celestial vines across the entire metallic surface, concentrating especially on the breastplate and shoulder guards with designs that seemed to tell epic stories in a visual language. At the center of her chest, a circular medallion in the perfect shape of a blazing sun shone like a captured shooting star in metal, acting as the pulsing heart of the entire armor, a symbol that seemed to connect directly to divine light like an unyielding beacon in the fiercest storm.

The armor enveloped her torso, arms, and legs with articulated plates that moved like the iridescent scales of a winged dragon, allowing fluid mobility without sacrificing vital protection. The breastplate molded to her figure like a serene river embracing the natural curves of the earth, enhancing her silhouette with the graceful fluidity of a consummate dancer.

In her right hand, Anastasia wielded a colossal sword that resembled a war lance more than a blade. The blade, an intense black like the primordial void, was adorned with serrated edges and golden runes emitting a faint but hypnotic glow. The hilt, wrapped in the finest black leather and capped with a pommel carved in the shape of a mythical beast's claw, suggested this weapon had been her faithful companion in countless bloody battles.