Stepping off the last stair and onto the main walkway of the Eastern Wing, Deacon forced the lingering fragments of whatever the hell that vision-memory thing had been out of the forefront of his mind, pushing it down far enough that it wouldn’t show on his face.

  Right now wasn’t the time to try and figure out why he suddenly remembered something he shouldn’t even have been awake for. His uncle wouldn’t have sent that message, wouldn’t have told him to stay close or not take off the mask or pendant, unless something serious was going on down here — but the why of it, the part that mattered most, Bjorn had conveniently not explained at all.

  So Deacon did the only thing he could with the limited information he had on him: he focused.

  Keeping just half a step behind his uncle, close enough that Bjorn could reach for him if he needed to but not so close he looked like a lost toddler, Deacon let his eyes drift across everything around them while maintaining a calm, neutral expression.

  There was no point looking tense — that would only let them gather even more eyes on them and put both himself and his uncle in a potentially precarious position, and the last thing he wanted was to find out what kind of consequences were those for his uncle to tell him to be wary.

  He eyed people walking along the sandstone sidewalks without any sort of order, cutting across the street whenever they felt like it, slipping between slow-moving carts and boxy mana-powered vehicles that didn’t even slow down unless someone got directly in front of them.

  Nobody seemed concerned about getting hit, and the drivers didn’t seem particularly concerned about people walking across the streets.

  It looked rather chaotic, but underneath it, there was some kind of inherent nuance the locals had with the drivers, one Deacon couldn’t quite make out yet.

  , Deacon remarked.

  What stood out to him more was how many people weren’t wearing masks. The haze in the air caused by what he assumed to be poison wasn’t exactly subtle, yet the locals moved through it without a hint of discomfort. Only a handful wore filtration masks as he and his uncle did, and those people stood out immediately. Tourists, most likely, judging by the way they clustered together in tight little groups, pointing at signs, stalls, or architecture as if they’d never seen sandstone before.

  Some wore armor, usually the ones still stuck in their Tier 1 stages. Others, who were clearly Tier 2 judging by the pressure they gave off when he passed them, wore casual clothes and looked completely unbothered by the lack of armor immediately on their person.

  , Deacon realized, remembering one of the lessons his uncle drilled into him during stamina training. If the equipment was Soulbound, you still kept its passive effects even when it wasn’t physically on your body. But if you wanted to use any active abilities it provided, you needed to actually wear it; keeping it in a spatial storage wouldn’t work.

  The same rule applied to armor. You could benefit from the stat bonuses while it was off your person and in your spatial storage, so long as it was Soulbound, but that didn’t mean your skin suddenly became as durable as the armor itself. To get that protection, you still had to wear the thing.

  Locals, obvious enough in his eyes, moved like they knew exactly where everything was and did not have the same glint of curiosity and fascination in their eyes like the tourists. And more than that, Deacon kept catching the same detail over and over again: thin column-like black lines in the middle of their fingernails.

  Turning to watch a maskless human haul a crate across his shoulders before disappearing down an alley, Deacon noticed the same markings on the man’s fingernails. He spotted it again on an armored beastkin with armadillo plating along its jaw as it stepped into a butchery. When the beastkin reached for the door handle, Deacon caught a clear view of the identical markings running across the middle of its claw-like nails.

  Every maskless person that he could see had those nail markings.

  Deacon thought, keeping his expression flat as he glanced at a streetpost with carved lettering that confirmed they were still in the Eastern Wing.

  None of those options were particularly comforting.

  , Deacon thought as he slipped ahead, weaving past a group of people in bellboy uniforms hauling what looked like three shipping-container–sized loads of cargo down the street — presumably toward a hotel, given their outfits. They moved without a care in the world, chatting as they worked.

  Other than that, everything looked… normal enough. Crowded, noisy, a little chaotic, but nothing that screamed out of place in a city.

  There was a heavier human population here, sure, but that was typically normal given how much higher their population is in comparison to the many other races that exist within the Tower.

  Hell if his uncle was right, the both of them were the only two J?tnar left within the Tower.

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  Going off his earlier observations, though, he noticed something else — the way people shifted around them. Not stumbling out of the way or reacting with hostility, but… consciously avoiding coming too close, giving both him and his uncle a noticeably wide berth as they passed.

  Though the reason why didn’t take long to figure out.

  The insignia of the Sovereign Blades was stamped clearly across his training suit, and Bjorn wasn’t exactly subtle either, not with the mask, the coat, and the enormous sigils across his shoulders and back marking him as the Grandmaster of the Knight Order.

  [Tiger Beastkin Lv 39]

  [Elf Lv 42]

  …

  [Human Lv ??]

  Keeping his pace just half a step behind his uncle while continuing to Identify

  The one thing every person he identified had in common was that they were far above him in level, some by dozens, and many were an entire Tier higher than he was, easily doubling his own strength.

  Even so, they still moved out of both himself and his uncle a wide berth – having recognized the insignia of the Sovereign Blades' Knight Order on his training suit as well as the mask and cloak his uncle wore that had the insignia on his shoulders and across his back.

  He opened his mouth. “Order Ma—” but the words cut off on their own as something caught his eye.

  Off to the side, in the corner of his vision, he spotted a pair of City Enforcers patrolling along the opposite walkway, and at first glance, there was nothing remarkable about them; they wore a uniform that was easy for people to identify as Enforcers and walked in a tight-knit group of three.

  But the more he watched, the clearer it became that their posture wasn’t the normal alertness of guards on duty. Their shoulders were rigid, their weight kept too far forward on the balls of their feet, their gaze kept darting to alleys and looked to be scanning people up and down, while their fingers would twitch towards their weapons whenever a loud noise could be heard nearby.

  It reminded Deacon of the human guards during the siege on Floor Seven… Why? Why were they just as jumpy as they were and that alert?

  He wondered silently as he glanced at the sign and back towards them, and the moment the thought finished forming, the nearest Enforcer’s gaze locked directly onto him.

  The moment their eyes met his, he felt three separate pin pricks of mana brush against his body — the three City Enforcers hit him with an Identify

  However, unlike the Identifies he’d felt a month ago when he was pushing open the Sovereign Blades’ Trial Door, these didn’t sink into his soul at all. Instead, something grew around his soul and deflected the Identifies.

  Pausing in place as the sensation around his soul faded, he realized the source almost immediately – his pendant.

  “What the fuck?” Deacon muttered under his breath as he snapped his gaze back to his uncle and hurried to catch up.

  Doing so, he did not notice that Bjorn had already turned his head slightly, pinning the three City Enforcers in place under the sheer pressure of the bloodlust rolling off him.

  Catching up to his uncle, who had paused for him, Deacon muttered a quick apology before they continued on. As they walked, he briefly peeked beneath the collar of his shirt to use Identify

  Item Name:Serpent Pendant

  Type:Rarity:Description:A necklace made in the image of a powerful serpent that was passed from father to son, who sought to give his son a memento in order to remember him by and protect him from the gaze of others.

  Effects:Ouroboric Shroud – A looping strand of Ouroboric mana coils around your presence, gently guarding your Records out of reach. From all but the most powerful of gazes, any attempts to Identify, scry, or divine into your Records will redirect the probing sight back onto its source, causing the caster to read a reflection of themselves onto you.

  Requirement:

  Deacon thought, blinking once and forcing his expression not to shift as he released the collar and let it fall back into place. He hadn’t expected anything close to that kind of effect.

  Still absorbed in the panel he’d just read, he followed his uncle into a tailor’s shop without realizing they had already crossed the next street over. The interior was filled with a large assortment of clothing, ranging from everyday wear to armor sets. But not a single person was in sight.

  Deacon thought, eyes drifting over the front counter while his uncle rang the small bell sitting on it.

  “What’s wrong?” Bjorn asked him, glancing down for a moment, sensing Deacon’s panic from earlier.

  “Nothing,” Deacon said, with a dismissive shake of his head. Instead, eyeing the incense urns that were strewn across the walls with windows and the main entrance, and seemed to be clashing against the visible poison wafting through the air of the bazaar.

  Bjorn returned his attention to the front of the shop — in time for a long silver-haired elf in a black butler suit to appear behind the desk.

  “Hello there,” the elf said with a soft, practiced smile, lifting one hand in a casual wave. At the gesture, every shutter in the entire shop snapped downward at once, slamming into place and sealing off the outside light and noise.

  Snapping to attention, Deacon spun on his heel toward the source of the voice, his hand already on the hilt of Echoform Reliquary in his Spatial Sling Bag.

  “You’re late, you knife-eared bastard,” Bjorn said in an amused tone as his right hand reached up toward his mask.

  The elf scoffed. “Yeah, well, with this bullshit war about to erupt, customs have gone insane. I paid four times the usual rate just to get you-know-what across the border.”

  Deacon stopped mid-draw, eyes jumping between the two of them.

  The elf’s eyes settled on him, the faintest smirk forming as he took in Deacon’s stance and the half-exposed weapon. “Apologies for startling you, young J?tunn.”

  Though the sudden appearance startled him, his uncle’s relaxed demeanor and now maskless appearance put him at ease.

  Sliding Echoform Reliquary back into his Spatial Sling Bag, he offered the elf a tentative nod.

  “I assume he’s your protégé? The one the armor is for?” the elf asked, already reaching under the counter. “Same measurements as the suit, correct?”

  “He is,” Bjorn confirmed, giving Deacon a brief, proud look. “And yes.”

  The elf pulled out a four-piece Barbarian set wrapped in white cloth, placing it neatly on the counter and sliding it across toward Deacon.

  “Good luck, kiddo,” he sighed, leaning forward and offering a hand to shake. “Name’s Sil.”

  “Deacon,” he replied, shaking his hand before turning to Bjorn with a frown. “What war?”

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