Nocturnus didn’t like the lot he’d been dealt since dying. But perhaps this torture was what he deserved.

  He’d been a fool to trust that Engraver, the one who had promised him immortality. It had sounded like a good deal at the time; when his flesh failed him he could live on forever as a fighting machine, possessed of an indefatigable body, no longer held back by mortal limits, able to carve his name into the annals of history as the greatest warrior the world had ever known. The Undying Black Knight.

  Instead, he’d died, and that event had turned out to be a much greater inconvenience than he'd hoped. In the blink of an eye, two hundred years had passed, and he’d found himself reduced to a disembodied voice, peering through the eyes of a clumsy, untrained little girl and tasked with trying to keep her alive in the monster-infested ruins of everything he’d once held dear.

  It had been a long time since Nocturnus Virralis had thought of himself as a good person. He’d killed uncounted thousands to reach his formidable triple-digit Level.

  In the quiet nights, sometimes he wondered if it was all worth it. If the perverse thrill he felt during the moment of the kill, when he cemented his superiority over a mighty opponent, was really worth striving for.

  Perhaps his newfound duty was a penance enforced upon him by the divine. Perhaps saving this poor, helpless girl was the only way for his soul to earn salvation.

  And then, when Keldryn had joined them, he learned for sure how wretched his existence was. The Black Traitor. The father of the Second Monster King. The one whose callousness had brought ruin to everything he’d ever held dear. The one who had doomed the Kaiju Coast. He would have joked about it being the perfect material for an opera if it had happened to someone else.

  The promise he’d extracted from Mikayla on the day they met rang in his mind. He’d insisted that, when she no longer needed him, he would be passed on to some promising young squire. Someone whom he could mentor into a worthy successor. Nocturnus felt like spitting upon the person he’d been only two weeks ago, to make such a thoughtless demand. Surely there wasn’t a single desperate fool out there willing to listen to anything he had to say. His name was in the annals of history alright, as the most awful blight on his home that had ever been known.

  And then there was his current predicament.

  His fingers flexed, the Black Knight’s hand floating in front of his face. Its black panels were woven together with strings of maroon light. “Hm. Good range of motion. Surprising, for a Lapis core,” the man wearing him sounded like he was taking mental notes.

  He held Nocturnus’ arm out, into a machine that he couldn’t fathom the purpose of. It looked like that Furankish execution method, a guillotine, he believed it was called. “Damage mitigation test,” his pilot commanded.

  A blade fell down and landed on his arm.

  Oh. So it was a guillotine.

  Nocturnus quietly blessed the fact that his wearer felt pain and he didn’t. Then cursed his inability to do anything to hamper the man wearing him.

  When he’d woken once more and realised that the person wearing him was not Mikayla, he’d been wary. The fact that he’d had a brief and chaotic glimpse of Mikayla using his Armour to fight a group of strangers and coming off second-best meant there were only so many possibilities.

  It was actually quite strange, he hadn’t realised he could perceive the shape of the body inside the Black Knight until he’d felt how different this massive, muscular man was from Mikayla’s slim yet unathletic body. This man also showed no signs of knowing his remnant mind possessed this Core.

  His first instinct was to shout. To demand that this stranger return his Core to his charge. But his words were stayed by the knowledge of his own weakness. He was, ultimately, a talking rock. He had no power of locomotion. No capacity to improve his situation. If he were to demand that this stranger return him to Mikayla and free her, it was much more likely that they would merely take a much greater interest in him.

  That was something to be avoided, because so far, he had escaped undue scrutiny.

  “Hm. That damage mitigation was pretty low. Was this Core made for a masochist or something?” the man had grunted while he was lost in his musings.

  That accusation had Nocturnus biting a shout back from his metaphorical tongue for an entirely different reason.

  “No special functions, either. At least that funky Grasscutter core had those interesting jumpy legs,” The man was talking out loud to himself. Understandable, because from what Nocturnus could see through his eyes, there wasn’t anyone else in the room.

  “Though, I suppose I shouldn’t have expected too much from a Black Knight. It must be really old, predating modern Engraving techniques, it’s got to be an antique . . no one wants to wear the Black Traitor’s armour, after all. It might even be an Astralia original? Nah, I’m not that lucky,” A deep and grim chuckle shook the Armour’s insides. “All the same. It’s probably worth keeping just for being a Black Knight. A good addition to my collection,”

  Those words struck fear deep into Nocturnus’ heart. Collection? Was this man some kind of purveyor of Armour Cores? A connoisseur, perhaps? He’d known such men in his former life. People who took battle-weary blades and armours of great renown and strung them up like paintings, denying them their fate on the battlefield, to be sundered in glorious combat. Being trapped behind glass, set into a display case, never to be used again and merely ogled like some splatter of dye . . he couldn’t imagine a more terrible fate.

  Before he knew it, faint, shaky breaths were echoing through the inside of his helmet. He didn’t need to breathe, of course. But he remembered breathing well enough that the reflex of hyperventilation was still there.

  “Huh? Is there someone in here?” The man wearing him cast around the large room. They were in some kind of underground training area, one large enough for the Black Knight to scale up to size ten. Not that the wearer had done so thus far. The room was empty, save for some assorted equipment.

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  Dark lines narrowed Nocturnus’ vision; the man was squinting. “Show yourself! If you’re here to assassinate me, try it!” he challenged.

  Nocturnus imagined that he was raising an eyebrow. The wearer had guessed that there was someone invisible watching him, probably preparing to assassinate him.

  The maroon aura flared, triggering another Core in the man’s Controller, and a bulky hammer emerged in the Black Knight’s hands. One head was a solid slab of mana, the other tapered to a wicked point like a scythe. He reversed his grip and span like a farmer reaping wheat, no doubt hoping to strike his presumed invisible assailant.

  While the wearer tried to find a nonexistent threat, Nocturnus thought furiously. There had to be some way to take advantage of this. He kept breathing, making faint noises to keep his enemy off-balance.

  The man paused, pressing his back to a wall and brandishing his scythe at thin air.

  “Is this all? I’m disappointed,” Nocturnus did his best to pitch his voice as though it was a silky whisper coming from further away than it was.

  The man took a defensive stance, eyes darting back and forth. “If you’re going to take a swing, stop wasting my time!”

  “Oh?” Nocturnus whispered. “Are you in a hurry?”

  His task was compounded by the fact that he barely knew anything about this man. Nothing about his weaknesses, his joys, his struggles. Still, the desire burned within him to do something, anything, to torment him.

  An idea struck him. The Goliath Guard. Last he’d heard from Mikayla, they were about to arrive at Cliffwatch and rejoin the Guard there. It seemed like a logical supposition to guess that Cliffwatch had been taken over or subverted somehow, without the Goliath Guard’s leadership knowing.

  Even after two hundred years, he couldn’t imagine that any organisation founded by Nicholas and the rest of his old friends would condone stealing Cores from their people.

  “How foolish did you think we were?” he tried, carefully controlling his voice to not let any hesitation creep in. “Did you really believe the Guard wouldn’t notice what you’ve been doing?”

  The man lunged to his right, but again struck only empty air. “Are you a bounty hunter? How much is my head worth?”

  Nocturnus didn’t quite stifle a snort of amusement, which worked out because it made the man flinch. He’d received useful information; people didn’t put bounties on unimportant goons. This man had significance to his organisation, and didn’t seem surprised that he was a wanted man. A criminal then, one who’d made a career out of his misdeeds. “Enough that I’m in no rush. Sleep with one eye open. Or track me down. It’s up to you,”

  “Oh, that’s your game is it? Stalk me and torment me until I’m a paranoid wreck, or else bait me into a trap? Where is your little hideyhole? I am not afraid of any poisoned dagger!”

  Nocturnus didn’t say anything. Continuing to engage with this man would only undermine the effect he’d engendered. Better now to let his imagination run wild.

  His wearer continued to cast around, working his way around the testing arena, his breaths coming short and sharp as he searched fruitlessly. “Scan. Scan! Scan, damnit! Show me something!”

  Of course, his Scans were fruitless. There was nothing to see, though of course he assumed that the assassin was simply immune to having his location revealed.

  The wearer’s search was interrupted when a younger man peered into the room. “Flyreh?”

  He yelped as a thrown hammer struck the doorframe, inches away from him. “You are to call me sir!” Flyreh roared, and Nocturnus tucked the knowledge of his wearer’s name away.

  “Yes sir! Sorry sir! What’s wrong, sir?”

  “Tell the . . actually, no,” Flyreh joined him in the doorway, letting his hammer fizzle out and reappear in his hand. He’d panicked when the guard had appeared, expecting him to be the assassin for a second, but couldn’t admit that or apologise. It would make him look weak. Better to let these jumped-up hoodlums think that making mistakes in his presence could cost them their heads. “We’ll go together,” he said instead. “You might find a knife in your back on the way there. And keep your Armour up!”

  “Yes, sir!” The younger man’s body was rapidly coated in an Amber Sentinel armour. “Sir, if you don’t mind me asking, did something happen to your usual Armour?”

  “There might be an invisible assassin right behind us. I don’t dare risk turning this Black Knight off to put on Brass-Beat Brawler, or else a knife might enter my chest during that moment of vulnerability. How’s your Mana?”

  “I’ve got plenty, sir!”

  “Good. Mine will last for a while too, long enough to get somewhere safe so I can change,”

  Nocturnus had to swallow the urge to let out a triumphant cackle. His scheme was working better than he’d hoped. Flyreh was convinced that there was an invisible assassin stalking him, and was about to spread that paranoia to all of his co-conspirators!

  He did his best to memorise the layout as Flyreh rushed through the underground halls, the aide he’d enlisted chasing after him and casting concerned glances at every shadow.

  It only took a few minutes before he was barging into an office, barking, “Lahlee!”

  Nocturnus started. He didn’t recognise the human woman who answered to that name - who seemed very upset at being interrupted - but he remembered it. That was the Branch Head. The one Keldryn had been readying to report to.

  So, the pup’s commander had turned traitor. Nocturnus itched to punch her head right off her shoulders.

  He listened and waited as Flyreh explained what he’d heard and the conclusions he had drawn. “You were with the Guard. Did you ever hear anything about assassins?” he finished.

  Lahlee’s brow furrowed. “No, but I can’t imagine I would have. I wouldn’t put a secret cadre of assassins past the Monarch of the Rainbow Forest, or that scheming bag of bones they call a Dean,” Vitriol tinted her voice as she thought about Dean Wujing.

  “Alert everyone. Be on guard at all times, keep every door closed. The locations of all our people are to be monitored and any unexplained disappearances -“ Flyreh suddenly conjured his hammer and swung at the empty back of the room.

  Naturally, he failed to hit an assassin that did not exist.

  “Are to be reported immediately,” he continued as though he hadn’t broken stride. “We sleep in shifts, and I want at least two guards posted on my, yours and Mahendra’s beds. Can you think of any precautions I’ve missed?”

  Lahlee frowned thoughtfully. “There’s no point in using code phrases when we might be being listened in on as we determine them. I think you’ve covered everything that’s practical and won’t do more harm than good. But for the love of the Sun Archiver, please tell me that you’re almost done with your project and we can leave this place soon,”

  Flyreh scowled. “We haven’t made much progress. The damn snake isn’t cooperating. We might have to pack it up and take the chance that it’ll still be viable in a different location,”

  Lahlee didn’t like that, but didn’t object either, and Nocturnus silently cursed as his current wearer left her office with an off-handed comment about rallying the troops. His efforts might have only made it more difficult for Mikayla and Keldryn to muster an escape. Though, there were upsides. Being on high alert indefinitely would wear on the soldiers. They would grow tired. Low on Mana. Stressed.

  Yes, this might actually be a good thing. So long as Mikayla and Keldryn didn’t try anything while the guards were alert, and waited until the stress was wearing them down before making a move, it would work in their favour.

  This was good. Definitely. He hadn’t blundered again. His charges would be alright. Surely.

  Because Nocturnus couldn’t help but feel like he would be beyond any hope of redemption if he failed again.

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