News of the blood-warrant reached the Third Herb Shed before sunrise.
Sera Thorne kicked open the side door, shaking autumn rain from her leather coat.
She held a damp quarantine notice torn from the yamen bulletin board in the market square.
Barnaby Holt nearly dropped his clay kettle when he saw the magistrate’s dark crimson seal.
“Quarantine?” Barnaby rasped, his voice trembling with fury. “Vane-Locke claims Mina is an infectious hazard? The magistrate is demanding her surrender within five days!”
Kaelen Vance did not stir from his woven hemp hammock.
He pulled the wool blanket tighter over his chest, his eyes fixed on the dark wooden ceiling.
“Five days,” Kaelen said in a calm, flat voice. “With the full moon Yin-Marrow harvest less than six days away, Vane-Locke is getting impatient.”
Barnaby paced across the uneven floorboards, clutching his wooden spoon like a weapon.
“Derrick Vance will not protect her,” Barnaby said, spit flying from his lips. “The servants in the upper manor say Derrick locked himself in his study after seeing the elders yesterday. Madam Evelyn has already ordered the stable boys to grease the wheels of an iron carriage.”
“Of course she has,” Kaelen said softly. “Evelyn has waited three years to harvest Mina’s marrow. She would hand Mina over today if she did not fear Master Ash’s wrath.”
Barnaby stopped pacing and leaned over the low table.
“We have to pack the carts,” Barnaby urged. “We take the mountain trail toward the northern provinces today. If an Iron Bone master marches his guards here, this wooden shed will burn in minutes.”
“Running is a fool’s errand,” Kaelen replied, taking a slow sip of lukewarm chamomile tea. “Mina cannot travel two hundred miles on rough cart tracks in the freezing rain. Her Frost-Marrow Decay would flare before we reached the provincial border.”
“Then what do we do?” Barnaby asked, his weathered face tight with panic. “Wait here like lambs for the slaughter?”
“We are not lambs,” Kaelen said. “And why run when we have four hundred and sixty-five spirit stones in the lockbox?”
Kaelen reached toward the low table beside his hammock.
He picked up a piece of charcoal and a scrap of wrapping paper.
He scribbled three lines on the paper and handed it to Sera.
“Call Deacon Vane,” Kaelen said. “Tell him Master Ash requires specialized equipment from the Ghost Market immediately.”
Sera glanced down at the paper, her eyes narrowing as she read his neat handwriting.
“Thirty mercenaries?” Sera asked, looking up at him. “And twenty repeating arbalests?”
“Thirty seasoned killers and twenty military crossbows,” Kaelen confirmed. “Tell Vane I will pay sixty-five Low-Grade Spirit Stones in cash. If the gear arrives before noon, he can keep five stones as a delivery bonus.”
Sera did not argue.
She rolled the parchment into a tight scroll and tucked it inside her leather bracer.
“I will drag him out of his gambling den myself,” Sera said.
She turned on her heel and vanished into the cold morning mist.
Kaelen closed his eyes and let his breathing settle into a slow, rhythmic pattern.
A pale blue notification drifted across his thoughts.
[The Fallow Slate] [Current Streak: 84 Hours 00 Minutes] [Active Multiplier: 85x READY]
Eighty-four hours, Kaelen thought, feeling the immense reservoir of idle energy pooling in his chest. If I jump into the yard to build fortifications myself, my streak shatters. Why swing a shovel when I can hire thirty veterans to sweat in the rain for me?
Studying complex formation arrays took three years of tedious geometry and gave him a headache.
A dozen heavy crossbows and a few jars of burning oil accomplished the exact same result for sixty-five spirit stones.
Four hours later, Deacon Vane scurried into the back courtyard through the laundry alley.
The appraiser was soaked to the skin, his silk robes spattered with thick yellow mud.
Behind him came three enclosed freight wagons, their canvas covers lashed down tight against the downpour.
“Young Master,” Vane whispered, bowing so low his nose nearly brushed the damp porch planks. “Everything has been procured according to Master Ash’s instructions.”
Vane raised his hand, and the drivers pulled back the heavy oilcloth coverings.
Twenty heavy repeating arbalests lay neatly arranged in wooden racks.
Each weapon was crafted from tempered ironwood and bound with cold-forged spring steel.
They featured top-mounted box magazines that held ten heavy quarrels each.
Beside the racks sat four iron chests filled with armor-piercing Spirit-Iron bolts.
Their barbed tips gleamed with a faint blue sheen under the gray sky.
“These bolts are forged from refined star-iron slag,” Vane explained, rubbing his wet hands together. “At forty yards, they will punch through an iron shield like wet paper. Even an early Iron Bone master will suffer if he takes twenty in the chest.”
Behind the wagons, thirty men filed silently through the garden gate.
They wore dark leather brigandine armor beneath rough wool cloaks.
Every man carried a scarred broadsword or a heavy cleaver, their faces hardened by years of surviving the lawless black markets.
These were not clumsy manor retainers.
They were veteran mercenaries from the Ghost Market who had fought border wars and bandit raids.
Each one operated at Mortal Pulse Rank Five or Rank Six, hardened and ruthless.
“Thirty men,” Vane reported, his voice hushed with excitement. “Ten marksmen and twenty close-quarters veterans. They take orders directly from Miss Thorne.”
Kaelen pointed toward the floorboards beneath the counter.
“Mina, pay the man,” Kaelen said.
Mina skipped out from behind the counter, carrying a small wooden tray.
She retrieved sixty-five glowing Low-Grade Spirit Stones from the hidden hearth cache.
She handed them over in a velvet sack.
Deacon Vane took the sack with trembling fingers, bowing repeatedly as he backed out of the yard.
His commission was secured, and Master Ash’s generosity exceeded all expectations.
With the transaction complete, Kaelen’s wealth stood at four hundred Low-Grade Spirit Stones.
Sera Thorne stepped into the center of the muddy yard, her voice turning sharp and commanding.
“Form up,” Sera said, her cold gaze sweeping across the thirty mercenaries.
The mercenaries straightened their backs, recognizing the posture of a trained caravan scout.
“You ten with the red scarves, take the roofline and the false eaves,” Sera ordered. “I want five arbalests facing the northern alley and five covering the eastern lane.”
She pointed her spear toward the whitewashed pine fence.
“The rest of you take positions behind the blinds,” Sera continued. “I want overlapping fields of fire across every foot of dirt. If a stray dog enters this street without barking in advance, put four bolts in its chest.”
The mercenaries moved with silent, lethal efficiency.
They hauled the heavy repeating arbalests into the hayloft, behind the whitewashed garden fence, and inside the false eaves of the drying shed.
Within two hours, every approach to the Third Herb Shed was covered by concealed firing ports.
Kaelen watched the preparations through his window slats while sipping a fresh bowl of hot tea.
“Barnaby,” Kaelen called out.
Barnaby hurried over, wiping sweat from his gray sideburns with the hem of his apron.
“What is our plan for the perimeter?” Barnaby asked. “Those arbalests are deadly, but an Iron Bone master can deflect iron bolts with his bare skin.”
“A direct strike with bare hands cannot deflect fire-ash oil,” Kaelen said. “Go into the storage cellar. Bring out the thirty earthen jugs of refined sulfur oil and ground fire-ash.”
Barnaby’s eye lit up with sudden understanding.
“The high-pressure fuel from the extraction stills?” Barnaby asked.
“Precisely,” Kaelen said. “Bury ten jars along the front wall, ten along the garden fence, and ten beneath the porch steps. Pack them with river gravel and jagged iron nails.”
Kaelen pulled a spool of thin copper friction wire from under his pillow.
“Run the detonator wires through the floorboards,” Kaelen instructed. “Tie all thirty leads to this wooden lever beside my hammock.”
Barnaby chuckled, a dark grin spreading across his weathered face.
“If anyone breaches the gate, you do not even have to stand up to turn them into roasted meat,” Barnaby said.
“Standing up takes too much energy,” Kaelen said. “Make sure the wires do not tangle with my teacup.”
Barnaby took a spade and the spool of wire, heading out into the mud to plant the lethal buried traps.
He worked with fierce enthusiasm, burying each clay jar six inches beneath the soil and packing them tight with iron shrapnel.
He threaded the copper wires through tiny drilled holes in the porch foundation, leading the main line straight to Kaelen’s bedpost.
Meanwhile, footsteps pattered lightly across the ceiling rafters above Kaelen’s head.
Mina climbed out onto the upper loft window, holding the edge of the wooden roof frame.
Her cheeks were flushed with healthy color, and her eyes sparkled with clear azure light.
Under the nourishment of Kaelen’s pure Supreme Pills, her Frost-Marrow Decay had stopped consuming her blood.
Instead, her dormant spiritual meridians had opened, pushing her cultivation to Mortal Pulse Rank Four.
“Kaelen!” Mina called down from the loft. “What should I do?”
Kaelen looked up at his little sister.
“The roof tiles,” Kaelen said. “Assassins love jumping down from roofs in cheap romance novels. Coat every slate in frost.”
“Frictionless frost?” Mina asked, tilting her head.
“As smooth as wet ice,” Kaelen nodded. “If someone drops from the elm tree, I want them sliding off into the alley before their boots touch stone.”
Mina beamed with pride.
She sat on the edge of the windowsill and placed both hands against the wet stone tiles of the sloping roof.
She closed her eyes and circulated her Frost-Pine Qi.
A wave of intense, crystalline cold surged from her palms.
The falling raindrops froze on contact with the stone, turning into a sheet of pure black ice.
The frost spread rapidly across every single tile, coating the roof in a mirror-slick layer three inches thick.
Mina crawled carefully back into the loft, looking down with bright satisfaction.
Any assassin attempting to land on the roof would lose their footing instantly.
They would slide straight off the edge and fall into the alley below, landing directly in the crosshairs of Sera’s repeating arbalests.
By the time the afternoon sun sank beneath the western horizon, the quiet herb shed had become an iron fortress.
Thirty veteran mercenaries patrolled the shadows of the alleyways.
Twenty repeating arbalests were loaded with armor-piercing Spirit-Iron bolts.
Thirty pressurized fire-ash jars lay buried in the mud, wired directly to Kaelen’s lazy hand.
And the roof was sealed with frictionless black ice.
Sera Thorne walked through the back door, running a thumb over the cocked mechanism of a spare arbalest.
“The firing angles are set,” Sera reported, a grim satisfaction in her eyes. “Even a Rank Nine cultivator will have his legs pinned to the flagstones if he tries to force the door.”
Deacon Vane stood near the counter, shivering in the cold air as he counted his silver tokens.
“This is not an apothecary,” Vane muttered under his breath. “This is an imperial slaughterhouse disguised as a drying shed.”
Mina giggled as she slid down the wooden loft ladder, landing softly on the sawdust floor.
“Nobody is taking me anywhere,” Mina said, raising her small chin with fierce confidence.
Barnaby stood on the porch, his clothes covered in yellow clay and red mud, admiring the hidden copper wires.
“Master Ash would be proud,” Barnaby grunted.
From his hammock, Kaelen pulled the lever test-pin half an inch, feeling the satisfying tension in the copper wire.
He let it slide back into place and took another sip of tea.
A soft notification chime echoed through Kaelen’s sea of consciousness.
[The Fallow Slate] [Current Streak: 96 Hours 00 Minutes] [Active Multiplier: 97x READY]
Ninety-six hours, Kaelen thought, a cold smile touching his lips. Ninety-seven times multiplier. Let Vane-Locke bring his yamen guards. He will find out that walking into my yard costs more than his life is worth.
Outside, the rain began to ease into a light drizzle.
Barnaby returned to the front porch steps with an iron spade to bury the final two oil jars.
He drove his spade deep into the red clay soil beside the foundation pillar.
Clink.
A sharp, metallic ring echoed from the bottom of the hole.
Barnaby paused, frowning in confusion.
“Did someone bury an old iron pot here?” Barnaby muttered to himself.
He dug his spade in again, clearing away wet soil and tangled pine roots.
The object was not an iron pot.
Barnaby reached his hand into the mud and pulled out a heavy, dull-gray cylinder.
It was forged from solid lead, roughly eighteen inches long and three inches thick.
Thick bands of green sealing wax locked the threaded cap in place.
Across the weathered lead casing, delicate frost-flower runes were carved into the metal, glowing with a faint, ghostly chill.
Barnaby stared at the markings, his single hand trembling violently.
His breath hitched in his chest as his eye widened in terror and recognition.
“No,” Barnaby whispered, his voice cracking with shock. “This... this cannot be.”
He dropped his shovel into the mud and rushed into the shed, clutching the heavy lead cylinder against his chest.
He burst into the back room, his eye wide with disbelief.
“Kaelen!” Barnaby shouted, his voice echoing off the rafters. “Look at this!”
Kaelen opened his eyes, glancing at the mud-covered cylinder in the old alchemist’s hand.
“What did you dig up, Barnaby?” Kaelen asked lazily.
“The frost-flower runes,” Barnaby stammered, holding the cylinder toward the lantern light. “The seven-petal winter plum crest! This was buried twelve years ago by your mother, Claire Vance!”