The fury burning behind my eyes was hot enough to melt structural steel.
The moment I stepped past the heavy iron perimeter gates of the Luminous Knight Bureau Association, my hands clenched into white-knuckled fists inside my tactical gloves. Those absolute bastards. The investigative journalists had actually done it… they had pierced the veil of my meticulously constructed ghost network and splashed my personal life across the front pages of the morning broadsheets.
SHADOWS UNVEILED: BUREAU'S LEGENDARY 'SHADOW WALKER' HARBORS SECRET FAMILY IN THE COUNTRYSIDE
Every word of that heavily sourced intelligence piece felt like a targeted blade aimed directly at my throat. They had discovered them. My beautiful, loving wife and my sweet, precious little daughter were no longer a ghost story hidden in the archives. They were currently resting in the quiet, peaceful sanctuary of Karama Village… a secluded rural haven where the soil had finally cleared of those invasive, parasitic neospiders and the local ecosystem had made a full recovery. It was supposed to be impenetrable. Safe. Entirely removed from the chaotic, blood-soaked political crosshairs of the major districts.
Fortunately, my biological siblings were still completely in the dark about it. Elicia, with her silver hair and those overbearing "grandma instincts" of hers, was entirely consumed by her prestigious duties as the head principal of the Sisiphon Magic Academy. And Eirene? That weird-eyed little freak was presumably still busy playing the role of a quiet, low-life appraiser, spending her mundane days locked away in dusty archives reading books and ignoring the rest of the world. Better yet, Eirene only has blood manipulation, she would die of blood loss rather than reading books.
Neither of them had any idea that they were an aunt and a sister-in-law.
But if the press had found out, it was only a matter of time before the high-tier syndicates, assassins, or the Immoral Knights attempted to trace the lineage to Karama Village to use my family as leverage against me. I couldn't let that happen.
"We need to move. Right now," I growled, my voice dropping into that cold, terrifying register that had earned me the title of the Shadow Walker.
My elite vanguard party fell into step behind me, though they weren't exactly thrilled about the sudden, frantic pace I was setting. We sprinted down the transit corridors, pushing our physical limits to cross the borders into the high-end sectors.
"Elias, slow down! You're going to snap your own armor straps at this rate," Catherine groaned from behind me, her heavy staff clattering against her specialized plate carrier as she struggled to maintain my blistering, high-stat agility pace.
"I second that! This is a complete violation of our standard post-mission recovery protocols! We just cleared a high-tier subterranean zone, and now you're marching us like we're fleeing an apocalyptic cataclysm!" Patricia protested loudly, her hands flailing in exasperation as she adjusted her spell-catalyst pouches.
I didn't answer them. I didn't care about standard protocols or physical exhaustion. The safety of my family was the only parameter that mattered.
We tore through the inner boundary lines and officially arrived at the pristine, white porcelain walkways of the 8th District. The towering, oppressive obsidian architecture of the Capital Knights Bureau Association headquarters loomed ahead, casting massive shadows over the cobblestones. This was the absolute apex of military authority in Caria City; if I wanted to force a complete media blackout, secure a counter-intelligence detail for Karama Village, and rip the throat out of whoever leaked my file, I needed to confront the Chief immediately.
As my party and I approached the heavily fortified secondary checkpoint leading directly into the Bureau's main administrative courtyard, a tall, impeccably armored figure stepped forward to block the path, a heavy halberd resting casually against his shoulder.
I skidded to a halt, the fury radiating from my frame causing Catherine and Patricia to instantly go silent behind me.
The gatekeeper tilted his visor upward, revealing a highly familiar, sharp-featured face that instantly broke through my blinding rage. It was Damien Morkov… my former elite classmate from our academy days, and one of the few men in this fortress who actually knew exactly how lethal I could be when pushed over the edge.
"Whoa, easy there, Shadow Walker, I saw the morning papers, Elias. I figured you'd be showing up here looking to break someone's jaw."
I forced the blinding, white-hot fury deep down into my chest, tightening the absolute chokehold I had on my expressions until my face was a mask of cold, professional detachment. I couldn't afford to lose my composure in front of the gatekeeper… not when I needed the Bureau's resources to seal the security breach around Karama Village.
"Oh, greetings Damien, long time no see."
Damien didn't budge from his stance, his heavy halberd remaining perfectly balanced against his armored shoulder as his eyes drifted briefly to the exhausted, visibly annoyed forms of Catherine and Patricia behind me.
"I'm just doing my job, Elias, toll and status card."
Knowing the bureaucracy of the 8th District checkpoints, I didn't bother arguing. I reached into my tactical belt pouch, pulled out three crisp silver pieces to cover the administrative entry fee for my three-person party, and held them out.
"Here,"
I grunted, dropping the coins into his open gauntlet. As I did, my gaze drifted up to the front of his helmet, tracking the ridiculous, overly styled bangs framing his face beneath the visor line. I couldn't help but let out a sharp, irritated click of my tongue.
"And hey... get your bitch-ass haircut out of here. I like it buzz cut. You look like a total clown standing at the vanguard gate with that mess."
Damien let out a low, familiar chuckle, entirely unfazed by the insult.
"You never change, Shadow Walker."
He stepped aside, waving his halberd to clear the checkpoint. I aggressively marched past him, my heavy boots clicking against the polished stone walkways as Catherine and Patricia hurried to keep up. I took about ten rapid, furious strides into the sprawling plaza before a sudden, incredibly jarring realization hit me like a physical blow. I stopped dead in my tracks.
Because I spent nearly all of my operational time buried deep within the dark, subterranean criminal networks of the lower sectors or executing deep-cover stealth runs in the outer continents, I realized I had completely forgotten the navigational layout of the 8th District. The massive, luxury administrative complex had changed its interior perimeters since my last formal briefing, and the sheer scale of the 15-square-kilometer sector was making my head spin.
Swallowing my pride, I spun around on my heel and looked back at the gatehouse.
"Hey, Damien, mind giving me a little help here? I actually need to get directly to the Capital Knights Bureau Association headquarters."
Damien blinked, staring at me for a beat before a wide grin broke across his face.
"Sure thing, elite, follow me."
As we trailed behind Damien's steady pace through the elite sector, Catherine and Patricia completely quieted down, their eyes wide as they looked up at the towering gothic spires and the pristine, shimmering architecture of the high-end district. They were hardened guild adventurers, used to damp caverns and rustic wilderness outposts; this was their absolute first time stepping into the grand heart of the kingdom's military elite.
We rounded a massive marble bend leading toward a grand, decorative plaza centered around a massive crystal fountain. Suddenly, a strange, vibrant commotion caught my attention. A dense crowd of off-duty female knights and starstruck academy squires were completely encircling someone near the water's edge.
I slowed my pace, my sharp, tactical gaze cutting straight through the gaps in the crowd to lock onto the center of attention.
It was a remarkably short girl, but what immediately shattered my focus was her face. The structure, the alignment, the very essence of her features bore a terrifying, undeniable resemblance to Eirene… the quiet, eccentric little sister I thought was currently rotting away in an archive reading old books. But there was a glaring biological mismatch: she didn't have Eirene's striking, freakish heterochromia. Instead, she possessed a pair of sharp, vibrant jade-green eyes that perfectly mirrored my own stare.
My eyes drifted down, taking in her remarkably developed, heavy bust size… which looked entirely disproportionate and weird given her short stature… before locking onto her hair. It was a deep brown, but the tips of her locks were pulsing with an unnatural, faint bioluminescent glow.
I reached out, grabbing Damien's shoulder armor to halt him in his tracks.
"Hey, who the hell is that girl?"
Damien looked over at the fountain, a look of deep reverence crossing his features.
"Ah, you haven't heard, Elias? That's Evelyn Rynd. She's a brand-new recruit for the Luminous Knights. She officially registered just a week ago, and she already violently shattered the leaderboards… she's currently ranked 3rd in the entire association."
Behind me, Patricia let out a sharp, audible gasp, while Catherine's eyes practically popped out of her head.
"Hey, Elias.... Are you... are you related to her? She has your exact surname!" Catherine hissed, violently nudging my armored side.
My mind instantly went into a frantic, chaotic tailspin.
Evelyn Rynd? Top 3?
The absolute absurdity of the statement made my blood run cold. I was the legendary Shadow Walker
, an elite operative who had spent years executing high-stakes assassinations and deep-cover operations for the state, and I was only ranked 5th on that very same leaderboard. What kind of monstrous, catastrophic power did this short girl possess to completely leapfrog me into the top three within a single week?
I desperately cycled through my memory of the Rynd lineage, trying to make the math add up. It was impossible. The only biological siblings I knew I had were Eirene… that weird-eyed, mundane little nerd who was the youngest of us… and Elicia, our silver-haired middle sister running the magic academy. Who the hell was Evelyn? Was she some sort of distant, hidden cousin from the outer countryside estates that our parents had kept secret from us?
Determined to rip the truth out of the situation and find out exactly why a walking powerhouse was running around using my family's name, I stepped away from my party. I marched directly toward the fountain, the crowd of squires parting in a hurry as the cold, intimidating aura of the 5th-ranked Shadow Walker approached the glowing slime hybrid girl.
I aggressively marched through the parting crowd of female knights, my heavy steel boots clicking sharply against the white porcelain tiles of the fountain plaza. I kept my face locked into a stern, unyielding military glare, determined to demand an explanation from this stranger who was somehow sitting at the number three spot on the kingdom's leaderboard.
But before I could even open my mouth to interrogate her, the short girl turned her head, her jade-green eyes locking directly onto mine.
"Wait... big brother?!" she gasped, her face instantly lighting up with an expression of pure, unadulterated excitement.
Before I could even register the words, she lunged forward. To my absolute horror and bewilderment, she threw her arms completely around my armored torso, hugging me tightly right there in front of the entire plaza. I stood frozen for a fraction of a second, my brain struggling to process the sheer audacity of the gesture. I was a complete and total stranger to this girl, yet she was greeting me with the casual, deep familiarity of a lifelong sibling.
Brother? The word echoed in my mind, sending a spike of intense irritation through my chest. Is this girl completely delusional?
I had an immaculate, flawless memory. Never once during my entire childhood inside the Rynd household, nor during my years executing black-ops across the continent, had I ever met a girl with weird, pulsing bioluminescent tips in her hair.
Bracing my weight, I placed my gloved hands on her shoulders and firmly pushed her back to establish some basic operational distance. As I did, my tactical instincts flared in alarm. The sheer physical density and resistance in her frame when I pushed her away was staggering; she didn't budge like a normal human girl. She was deceptively, terrifyingly stronger than I expected for someone her size.
"Hey, hey, hold it right there, we literally just met. Do I know you?"
Evelyn tilted her head, her brown locks shifting over her shoulders as she looked up at me with a pout that looked entirely too practiced.
"You know me, right? It's Evelyn! Your youngest sister."
I stared at her blankly beneath my visor. The claim was mathematically impossible. The youngest sibling in our family line was Eirene… that weird-eyed, mundane little academic nerd who was currently somewhere in a quiet district reading books and staying out of trouble. I didn't have a second little sister, let alone a super-powered hybrid monster who had casually leapfrogged my rank in a single week.
Before I could firmly protest her ridiculous claim, Catherine and Patricia pushed their way through the crowd, completely throwing off my intimidating momentum.
"Awww, look at her hair! It actually glows!"
Patricia the paladin squealed, her tough exterior instantly melting as she reached out, practically starstruck by the shimmering green tips of Evelyn's locks.
Beside her, Catherine the mage completely ignored the magical aura entirely, her jaw dropping as her eyes locked directly onto Evelyn's incredibly developed F-cup bust line. Catherine looked down at her own chest, letting out a deeply depressed, tragic sigh.
"Ugh... my chest is literally smaller than hers. How is that even fair for a new recruit?" Catherine said
"Quiet, both of you! We are in the middle of a security assessment,"
I snapped, tossing a sharp glare at my party before turning my focus back to the short girl. I crossed my arms, looking down at her with a calculating, objective stare.
"Listen to me. There is no way you are my sister. Well, perhaps you are some sort of distant cousin from an offshoot branch of the family that I was never briefed on. All of my true biological siblings were born and raised back in Town Allure. So, tell me… where exactly were you born?"
The moment the question left my mouth, the cheerful, bubbly expression completely vanished from the girl's face. Evelyn grew intensely, strangely silent. Her jade-green eyes flickered with a sudden, unreadable coldness that lasted for just a fraction of a second, her lips pressuring into a tight line as she completely failed to provide a hometown or a lineage record.
Seeing her freeze up under basic cross-examination, I let out a sharp, victorious click of my tongue.
"See? I knew it,"
I said, a smug, vindictive smirk spreading across my face as I completely dismissed her sibling claims.
"You're clearly just my distant cousin. And since you're going to be running around the Bureau using my family's prestigious name while sporting that completely bizarre, radiant hair of yours... I'm just going to call you Slime Girl from now on. Look at your weird hair… it looks exactly like the toxic bioluminescent slimes I spent weeks purging down in the lower caverns years ago."
Evelyn's eyes narrowed slightly in mock annoyance at the nickname, but before she could banter back or protest, the heavy obsidian double doors of the main administrative wing suddenly groaned open across the courtyard. The ambient mana in the air shifted violently, drawing my sharp attention away from the fountain. I needed to leave this strange "Slime Girl" behind; I still had a massive, raging fire to put out regarding the news leak about my wife and daughter in Karama Village.
"Sorry, Slime Girl, I have to get going,"
I muttered, completely cutting off whatever retort my new "cousin" was about to throw at me. I spun on my heel, my heavy cape flaring in the plaza wind.
"Girls, follow me."
Catherine and Patricia scrambled to match my sudden, aggressive pace as I stormed away from the fountain, leaving Evelyn and her circle of admirers behind. My focus was locked back onto the main objective. The investigative report about Karama Village was a ticking time bomb, and every second my family's location remained compromised was a second a high-tier syndicate could use to plan an ambush.
I marched up the grand marble steps and slammed through the heavy obsidian double doors of the Capital Knights Bureau Association. The moment I crossed into the shaded interior corridor, I spotted him. Standing near the central logistics desk, holding a crisp stack of administrative ledgers, was the always-composed, entirely bitchless secretary of the association, Nautilus Cotton.
The twenty-year-old bureaucrat looked up, his sharp eyes tracking my approach.
"Greetings, Shadow Walk…"
His greeting was cut off completely by the sharp, metallic clack of a weapon clearing its holster. Moving with a blinding fraction of my high-stat agility, my hand blurred down to my hip. Before Nautilus could even blink, the heavy, cold steel barrel of my Death Chant Revolver was pressed brutally against the small of his back, right between his immaculate shoulder blades.
"Take me to Roman. Right now," I hissed into his ear, my voice dropping into a terrifying, razor-thin whisper that made Catherine and Patricia freeze in absolute shock behind me.
Nautilus didn't panicking, showing the eerie composure that made him Chief Roman's right hand, but he slowly raised his hands away from his ledger. Without a single word, he turned on his heel and began walking down the long, high-ceilinged corridor at gunpoint. I tracked his steps closely, keeping the heavy revolver perfectly leveled beneath my cloak to avoid a massive panic among the lower-ranking squires passing by.
We bypassed the secondary tactical rooms and arrived at the grand, obsidian double doors of the command sector. Nautilus pushed them open, leading me straight into the sprawling chief's office. The moment we crossed the threshold, I gave Nautilus a sharp, silent shove forward.
"Get out," I growled at him. Nautilus gave a smooth, unbothered nod, adjusted his uniform, and quietly stepped back out into the hallway, shutting the heavy doors behind him.
Now, only Chief Roman Calico and I remained in the room. The towering, weathered commander was sitting behind his massive mahogany desk, casually reading through a master file. He didn't even look up when the doors slammed shut.
Driven by pure, unadulterated fury, I stormed forward, cocked my right fist back, and violently slammed it down onto the surface of his desk.
CRACK!
The dense, polished mahogany violently fractured under the raw kinetic force of my gauntlet, sending a web of deep splinters rippling across the woodwork.
"Hey, Roman! Hide my family's records! Wipe the Karama Village data from the master archives before the syndicates use it to tear my life apart!"
Chief Roman finally closed his file, his expression remaining entirely unmoved by my outburst or the destruction of his furniture. He leaned back into his plush chair, letting out a deep, booming sigh.
"Calm your heat, Shadow Walker, I already made them private to the public. The moment that trash tabloid hit the stands this morning, my black-ops division enacted a total information quarantine."
He reached into his drawer, pulled out a thick, magically sealed document, and slid it across the cracked desk.
"Look at the live network logs yourself if you don't believe me."
My hands were still trembling as lingering adrenaline as I snatched up the papers. My eyes rapidly scanned the glowing magical runes of the Bureau's core database. He wasn't lying. The records for my wife and daughter had been completely scrubbed from the open military registries, encrypted under a Level-Zero clearance protocol that only Roman and Nautilus could access.
"Listen to me, Elias, I know why you're aggressive about this. But if you want your family to live a normal life, sending a battalion of Luminous Knights to guard a peaceful rural village will only draw a massive target on their backs. There will be no guards protecting it openly. They will remain completely invisible, just like you."
I stared at the proof in my hands for a long, silent moment. The suffocating weight that had been crushing my chest since dawn finally began to lift. I lowered my head, sliding my Death Chant Revolver back into its hidden tactical holster, and let out a long, ragged sigh of pure, overwhelming relief. They were safe. For now, the shadows were still protecting my sanctuary.
I paused, my hand resting flat against the cold bronze handle of the office door. The fierce adrenaline that had driven me to fracture Roman's mahogany desk was finally cooling, leaving only the grim, calculating focus of the Shadow Walker.
Behind me, the heavy leather of Chief Roman's chair creaked as he leaned forward, his weathered hands folding over the encrypted file of my family's new, invisible life.
"Anyways, Elias, do you still want to investigate the Dodorant Citadel? You wanted that Crimson Phantom's head on a spike, didn't you? I keep my promises… your family is completely safe from the Bureau's records now. No guards will step foot in Karama Village to draw unwanted attention. You have your blank slate. Now give me results."
Hearing him bring up the Crimson Phantom made my jaw tighten. That blood-sucking, winged abomination was a ghost story currently haunting the high-tier sectors, an apex predator that threatened the very stability of the kingdom. Tracking it down was no longer just a Bureau assignment; it was a preemptive strike to ensure threats of that magnitude never found their way toward the peaceful countryside where my wife and daughter slept.
I didn't turn around, keeping my back to the Chief as I adjusted the fit of my tactical gloves.
"Yes, my party and I are heading out immediately toward Lulu City to pick up the trail. But I have one condition, Roman."
I tilted my head back slightly, letting my sharp, visor-shadowed profile catch the ambient light of the office.
"Don't execute that escaped syndicate prisoner we brought in just yet. Keep them alive in the lower holding cells. I still have questions that need answers, and I want to squeeze them dry the moment I return."
Without waiting for his confirmation, I pushed the heavy doors open and stepped back out into the grand, white porcelain corridors of the administrative wing, where Catherine and Patricia were anxiously waiting. It was time to leave the 8th District behind and hunt down a ghost.