Chapter 324: The Panther of Shadows

Luke kept the arrow taut, eyes locked on the fallen figure before him. Bartholomew, the so-called King of Bastion, lay splayed on the wet grass, breathing in short, ragged bursts. The blade had found his heart, enough to kill any ordinary man on the spot, but Bartholomew was no ordinary man. A powerful healer, he bled time from the last shreds of mana at his command, stretching each second out like a borrowed life. The fight had ended; now only the inevitability of death remained.

Luke stepped forward, the shadow of his bow falling across the king’s still chest. “It’s over,” he said, voice low and hard. “You die here, forgotten, alone. Not like the woman you stole everything from. Even in death, there are still people who remember her.”

Bartholomew coughed, blood slicking the corner of his mouth, darkening his unkempt beard. Luke did not look away. He had killed hundreds on the way here, but none haunted him like that single memory, the death that should never have been: Angelica.

With monumental effort the king lifted a trembling hand. “Wait…”

Luke drew the string to its limit. The arrowhead gleamed under the moon, aimed true at Bartholomew’s chest. This would not be a clean execution; it would be a fulfilment, a verdict delivered with the weapon that had belonged to the woman he remembered.

“You need to… understand,” Bartholomew rasped, each word soaked with blood. “When you learn the reason… you’ll stand with me.”

He choked on it, forcing the words out in a final gasp. “I only wanted… to protect everyone… from 51. That’s all…”

Luke frowned. “What is 51?”

The king’s breath thinned. He was already at the edge of his last exhale, and Luke had no intention of letting him go without feeling the arrow’s judgment. He let his fingers go slack, the string humming.

A woman’s voice cut across the courtyard, calm and final: “This is as far as you go.”

A sharp sound split the night. The bowstring flashed in the moonlight, and Bartholomew’s head rolled across the grass, severed in a single smooth motion.

Luke froze, the arrow still nocked. Confusion knotted his face as he slowly turned toward the voice. Erza Grimhart stood there, watching with composed detachment, the black thread still vibrating between her fingers.

“What did you do?!” Luke barked, rage breaking through shock. “I had to kill him!”

She stepped forward without flinching, measured as ever, as if the moment’s weight meant nothing to her.

“I have spent months dreaming of driving an arrow into that bastard’s heart,” Luke snapped, advancing half a step, bow still drawn.

Erza paused beside the decapitated body. Then, unexpectedly, a faint smile touched her lips.

“Nice outfit,” she said quietly.

Luke blinked.

“The Acolyte Assassin’s garb, right? The god I serve does not grant it lightly.”

“Don’t change the subject!” Luke snapped, heat rising. “Why did you do it? Why kill Bartholomew?”

She regarded the corpse without haste. Her voice was dry, almost indifferent. “Because I had to kill him.”

Luke still held the string taut, but the grip had lost its certainty. Shooting her would not bring him peace. He felt, suddenly, that even a finished arrow could not pierce the knot inside him.

“Why the theater, then? If you were going to kill him all along?” His voice carried a raw edge of frustration.

Erza crouched beside the corpse, her fingers brushing the earth before she answered. “The agreement was simple. I would protect Bartholomew as long as he remained within the fortress. Outside it, my protection no longer applied. And I kept that promise.”

Luke ground his teeth.

“I would have let you take the kill,” she continued, her tone flat, almost clinical. “Especially since you wear that garb. But months ago my master, Siegfried, received a directive from Lakarion himself. The order was clear: when the moment came, I was to end the King of Bastion. That moment arrived tonight.”

From her storage item she produced a blackened skull crowned with a stub of candle. The stench of iron and spent wax clung to it, the unmistakable aura of a ritual tool used far too many times.

“To the great Lakarion,” she intoned, voice shifting into litany, “God of Assassination, Panther of Shadows… I deliver this soul.”

She placed the skull beside the body and lit the candle with a snap of her fingers. The flame cast her face in flickering relief, shadows deepening her presence until she seemed less mortal and more avatar.

Luke exhaled hard, turning away. The bitterness still burned, but it was drowned by futility. He turned the bow over in his hands, thumb tracing the worn wood. When he called the system’s identification spell, the window appeared with words etched into memory:

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[Angelica’s Bow (Common)
Description: A simple training bow, issued during Boot Camp when Angelica chose the Archer class. Though basic, it marks the beginning of her journey into precision and discipline.]

His chest tightened. The day he received that bow, he swore to avenge her death. Swore every last name would be crossed off—Paul, Kruger… and finally Bartholomew. With this weapon, he had nearly fulfilled the vow.

Erza continued her whispered devotions to her god, unmoved by the world around her. Luke held the bow a moment longer before sliding it back into his inventory. It didn’t matter whose blade had severed the neck. Every arrow loosed, every corpse felled by Angelica’s bow had led to this end.

That was enough.

He closed his eyes, and Angelica’s face rose in his mind—peaceful, frozen in that first instant of death. Within the pocket dimension her body remained untouched, preserved as if awaiting a dream that would never end. He pulled the cover back to see her once more, then replaced it gently.