The last burning embers of daylight finally dipped below the western horizon, and the cool, heavy shadows of twilight swallowed the capital. Safe from the blistering UV rays that threatened my mutated sixth-evolution skin, I stepped out from the deep architecture of the upper districts. I unbuttoned the front of my fire-resistant crimson trench coat just enough to let my massive, translucent blood wings snap outward into the freezing night air.
With a single, violent beat of my wings, I launched myself into the sky, leaving the obsidian spires of Caria City behind as a microscopic grid of glowing lanterns.
I flew at S-rank vanguard speed for two grueling hours, cutting through the atmosphere like a silent, crimson meteor. The wind howled against my Leech's Hollow Mask as the flat rural plains gradually warped into the jagged, terrifying silhouettes of the Rebelbub Mountain Range.
I touched down lightly on one of the razor-sharp alpine peaks, my single jade-green eye scanning the endless, pitch-black gorges stretching out beneath me. This terrain was massive, a treacherous maze of stone and volatile mana currents. But I wasn't entirely blind out here. My analytical mind flashed back to a past operation… the grueling search-and-rescue mission where I had tracked down Chief Roman's lost son, Cassius, deep within these very same ravines. I knew how the shadows clung to these rocks.
I began to wander through the upper ridges, leaping across chasm to chasm with silent precision, my wings flared just enough to catch the updrafts. Evelyn's absorbed data had given me the general coordinates, but the Immoral Knights' localized mana barriers were designed to distort visual tracking from the air. I needed to find the exact structural anomaly.
After twenty minutes of methodical scouting, my jade-green eye locked onto a deep, unnatural thermal distortion cutting through the mountain mist.
There it was. Nestled perfectly between two colossal, clashing cliffs was a gargantuan, dark-iron castle. Its jagged towers blended seamlessly into the surrounding stone, and spanning across a terrifyingly deep, bottomless ravine was a single, heavily fortified stone bridge leading directly to the main portcullis. The active security wards hummed with a faint, corrupted crimson glow.
The snake's nest was finally in sight.
Without a sound, I folded my blood wings tightly against my back, sealing them away beneath my crimson trench coat. I tilted my body forward and dove off the peak, plummeting straight down through the shadows toward the perimeter of the bridge. It was time to shed the mask, put on Vanessa's face, and introduce myself to her husband.
The cold alpine wind whistled through the jagged chasm as my boots struck the solid stone ledge overlooking the grand bridge of Rebelbub Castle. The landing was silent, cushioned by the residual kinetic dampening of my high-tier vanguard biology. I stepped backward into the deepest recess of the cliffside, where the natural granite overhang provided an absolute shield against any wandering scout vanguards or localized scrying wards humming from the dark iron towers ahead.
Reaching down with my right hand, I tapped the cold surface of my golden Inventory Ring. A sharp, localized rift split the freezing air with a muted metallic hum. I extracted the canvas-wrapped bundle that Evelyn had seamlessly liberated from the Bureau's high-security contraband vaults and dropped it onto the dirt before me. The dark-iron breastplate, the heavily stitched black-and-crimson tunic, and the matching tactical armored skirt spilled out across the stone… an authentic, unblemished uniform worn exclusively by the inner circle of the Immoral Knights.
To embody the illusion completely, I had to strip away every single piece of identity that defined the Crimson Phantom. I unbuttoned the reinforced collar of my fire-resistant crimson trench coat, sliding the heavy, blood-flecked fabric off my shoulders. Next, my fingers unlatched the heavy leather straps securing the bone-plated Leech's Hollow Mask from my face, exposing the jagged, mutilated lines of my Glasgow smile to the freezing mountain air. Finally, I unbuckled my tactical leather purse and stepped out of my standard combat dress.
One by one, I fed my signature gear into the weightless, vacuum-like void of the spatial ring, my internal system interface mathematically calculating the precise structural load shifting within my 25 kg weight limit:
[Inventory Ring 19.5 kg/25kg]
[Fire-Resistant Crimson Trench Coat: 4.5 kg]
[Leech's Hollow Mask (Bone-Plated): 2.0 kg]
[Tactical Leather Purse: 7 kg]
Contents: 1x Bible, 1x Flask of High-Grade Holy Water, 3x Charcoal Notepads & Pencils, 5x Remaining Silver Pieces.
[Standard Dress: 1.5 kg]
[Death Chant Shotguns: 9 kg]
[Death Chant Tommy gun: 5kg]
With my signature gear safely sealed within the pocket dimension, I stood naked in the freezing alpine shadows, a physically broken weapon waiting to re-forge itself. I reached down and methodically pulled on the Immoral Knight uniform. The fabric was stiff, smelling faintly of the anti-magic preservation salts used in the Bureau's vaults, but it fit perfectly over my frame. I buckled the dark-iron breastplate tightly against my ribs and secured the tactical armored skirt around my waist, ensuring the metal plates didn't clink or betray my movements.
Then, I initiated the biological catalyst of my advanced Shapeshifting trait, unlocking the dormant DNA sequence of Vanessa Katt that I had extracted and cataloged during our first bloody encounter weeks ago.
[Analyzing genetic data... 100% match found in blood reservoir. Commencing Morphological Shift.]
The transformation was an agonizing, hyper-accelerated marvel of cellular reconstruction. Deep within my throat, cells rapidly mutated, divided, and fused as my severed, useless vocal cords re-knitted themselves, and my tongue… long since rendered mute… grew back into a fully formed, functional muscle capable of replicating her distinct, high-pitched northern cadence.
At my left shoulder, the stump where my arm had been violently lost flared with a blinding, agonizing heat. Muscles, nerves, and arterial pathways exploded outward in a controlled surge of biological regeneration, weaving themselves together like living threads until a flawless, pale left arm grew back entirely, ending in five perfectly formed fingers.
The mutation did not stop there. The empty, scarred socket of my right eye began to burn as a fresh, vitreous humored sphere formed within the cavity, the iris bleeding into a striking, vivid crimson that perfectly matched Vanessa's gaze. Across my cheeks and lips, the deep, jagged scars of my Glasgow smile began to violently tingle, the damaged tissue dissipating and smoothing over until my skin was entirely unblemished. My heavily tanned, field-worn complexion rapidly faded, shifting into the pale, porcelain skin characteristic of the noble houses of the northern gorges.
Finally, the internal pressure beneath my shoulder blades subsided completely as my massive, translucent blood wings dissolved back into my bone marrow, leaving my back entirely smooth beneath the dark tunic.
[Visual confirmation: 100% accuracy. Heart rate, scent, and vocal cords successfully calibrated. Successfully shapeshifted into Vanessa Katt]
I raised my newly formed hands, turning them over in the dim twilight to inspect the texture of the skin. I blinked with two functional eyes, feeling the strange, forgotten sensation of depth perception returning to my vision. I cleared my throat, letting a soft, experimental breath escape my lips… the tone was light, frantic, and laced with the subtle, aristocratic edge of the commander's wife.
The Crimson Phantom had ceased to exist. Standing on the precipice of the Rebelbub gorges was Vanessa Katt, returned from her failed mission to deliver her final, fatal report to her husband. I rolled my shoulders to settle into the weight of the dark armor, stepped out of the shadows of the cliffside, and began a confident, rhythmic march toward the fortified stone bridge.