The sickening and agonizing sound of solid bone violently shattering echoed loudly across the stone tunnel.

The Tier 3 Orc had stomped directly onto Tasmin’s right leg, pinning her shin completely to the floorboards under two tons of raw weight.

The tibia and fibula bones in her lower leg instantly fractured into dozens of jagged splinters.

"AGGGGHHHH!"

Tasmin let out a raw blood-curdling scream of pure agony.

The pain was blinding.

It entirely short-circuited her higher brain functions, causing her vision to violently flash white.

She dropped one of her daggers, clutching frantically at the muddy stone floor as the monster slowly ground its heel deeper into her shattered leg.

"Captain!" Reonn screamed from the cavern entrance, desperately firing a volley of enchanted arrows.

The arrows struck the Orc’s mythril-plated back and shattered completely harmlessly.

The Boss ignored the archers.

It reached down with its massive free left hand.

Its thick leathery fingers completely wrapped around Tasmin’s entire torso.

The beast effortlessly lifted the screaming assassin high into the air, dangling her like a broken bleeding ragdoll.

The Orc brought her close to its massive ugly face and it squeezed its grip.

CRACK!

Tasmin felt two of her ribs violently snap under the pressure of its hand.

Her lungs were heavily compressed, forcing a wet bloody cough from her lips.

She was being slowly crushed to death.

’N-no...!’

But Tasmin was her Sovereign’s elite flanker.

Even with a shattered leg and broken ribs, she was lethal.

Through the blinding haze of pain, Tasmin gritted her teeth.

Her dark eyes locked onto the glowing crimson eyes of the monster staring at her.

She still had one flaming dagger tightly gripped in her right hand.

’You want to look at me?!’ Tasmin shouted Im her head as she didn’t aim for the thick hide nor did she aim for the armor.

Using every single ounce of her remaining physical strength, Tasmin violently twisted her upper body in the monster’s grip and aggressively drove the burning iron dagger directly into the Orc’s left eye.

SQUELCH!

The blade sunk deep into the soft gelatinous tissue of the eyeball, the dark crimson flames instantly cooking the optic nerve and searing the surrounding brain matter.

"AGHHHHHHHHH!!!!"

The Tier 3 Boss shrieked in agony.

It was a completely different sound from its earlier battle cry.

It was the desperate high-pitched scream of a predator that had just been permanently maimed by its own prey.

Tasmin hung in its grip, blood pouring from her mouth, and she actually laughed.

It was a crazy laugh.

"How’s the view, ugly?!" Tasmin mocked the screaming behemoth.

The blinded pained Orc didn’t try to crush her anymore.

Driven purely by blind animalistic reflex and sheer pain, the monster violently opened its hand and dropped her.

As Tasmin fell through the air, the beast wildly swung its massive right leg in a blind, sweeping kick.

The heavy iron-plated boot connected perfectly, directly with the center of Tasmin’s chest.

The impact was utterly catastrophic.

Tasmin didn’t just fall.

She was violently launched through the air like a fired artillery shell.

She shot backward down the tunnel at a terrifying velocity as she completely bypassed the remaining scouts standing near the entrance, flying entirely out of the cavern and into the gray, rainy daylight of the Umbral Basin.

She didn’t hit the mud.

She slammed back-first, directly into the massive trunk of a towering black ironwood tree located thirty yards away from the cave mouth.

CRACK!

The sound of her spine impacting the solid wood was sickeningly loud.

Tasmin’s body completely folded around the tree trunk.

The force of the impact violently shattered her spine, completely pulverized her shoulder blades, and heavily ruptured her internal organs.

She fell face-first into the freezing black mud at the base of the tree.

She was completely mangled.

Her limbs were bent at highly unnatura sickening angles.

She didn’t scream anymore...

She couldn’t.

Tasmin laid in the freezing mud as a massive pool of thick dark red blood rapidly expanding around her shattered body.

"CAPTAIN!"

"TASMIN!"

She could faintly hear the panicked hysterical screams of Reonn and the scouts rushing toward her.

She could feel the heavy vibrations of their boots in the mud but their voices sounded incredibly far away.

Like they were underwater.

’I’m sorry...’ she thought, if she had the Genesis Rune that Eluned had kissed onto her knuckles then it would have been alright.

But after the Novice Trial ended, Eluned took it away and Tasmin was out here without permission...

’I didn’t even tell my Lord, I didn’t tell Fenna... I wanted to prove myself...’

Tasmin tried to drag air into her lungs.

She couldn’t.

Her chest wouldn’t expand as she just let out a weak, wet, bloody wheeze.

The pain was slowly fading away, replaced by an overwhelming numbness.

The gray daylight of the Umbral Basin was rapidly turning completely black at the edges of her vision.

She knew exactly what was happening.

She was a professional killer so she knew what a fatal wound felt like.

Tasmin was dying.

Her final fading thoughts weren’t about the mission.

They weren’t about the mythic ores in the cave.

As the darkness completely swallowed her consciousness, the image of a tall golden-eyed Sovereign flashed clearly in her mind.

’M-my Lord...’ Tasmin thought with a single, hot tear mixing with the blood and freezing rain on her cheek. ’I’m so sorry... I completely failed you.’

The world went completely black.

...

Warmth.

The very first thing Tasmin physically registered was enveloping warmth.

It wasn’t the freezing, biting chill of the Umbral Basin mud.

It wasn’t the searing heat of her flaming daggers.

It was a soft and deeply comforting warmth pressing down on ber entire body.

She could smell pines and a lngering trace of pure concentrated nature magic.

Tasmin’s dark eyes violently snapped open.

She didn’t wake up slowly.

Her instincts violently rebooted her nervous system.

"Haah... Haaah..."

She gasped for air with her chest heaving as she instinctively tried to reach for the daggers at her waist to defend herself.

She wasn’t in the mud...

She was lying flat on a massive, incredibly soft mattress, covered in thick expensive linen bedsheets.

Tasmin aggressively scrambled backward against the headboard, sitting up on the bed.

She frantically looked down at her own body.

She was wearing a simple, clean white cotton tunic and then she desperately patted her chest, her right leg as well as her spine.

There was absolutely nothing wrong with her.

Her tibia wasn’t splintered into a dozen pieces.

Her ribs weren’t caved into her lungs.

Her spine was completely intact.

There wasn’t even a single microscopic bruise or faded scar remaining on her pale skin.

’My wounds... they are completely gone,’ Tasmin thought. ’The Goddess... Lady Eluned must have utilized a massive restorative spell on me... I should be dead.’

She looked wildly around the room.

It was an unfamiliar pristine stone room.

It wasn’t the crowded Warlord Barracks as it was a private, heavily reinforced chamber located directly inside the main Keep.

And she wasn’t alone...

Sitting directly next to the heavy oak bed, slouching in a dark wooden chair, was her Lord.

Silas was sitting there.

He wasn’t wearing his coat as he was dressed in his simple black shirt with his elbows resting heavily on his knees.

Tasmin completely froze.

The cold confident Warlord wasn’t glaring at her.

He looked incredibly exhausted.

There was a deep visible look of worry etched entirely across his face.

The dark bags under his golden-ringed eyes told her he hadn’t slept a single minute since they carried her here probably.

He looked at her with his expression softening slightly as she coughed a bit to clear her dry throat.

"You’re awake..." Silas stated though his deep voice sounded very quiet.

Tasmin didn’t care about military protocol.

She didn’t care about looking tough.

"The girls!" Tasmin panicked immediately, gripping the dark bedsheets with trembling hands. "My Lord! Did Reonn and the scouts return properly? Did the monster—"

"They all returned entirely safely," Silas interrupted her smoothly, raising a hand to calm her rising heart rate. "Reonn triggered a flash-bang, grabbed you from the mud, and the scoute successfully retreated back to the territory walls... No one else was critically injured."

Tasmin let out a massive shuddering breath of pure relief then the crushing weight of her own tactical failure hit her like a physical blow.

She had marched her people directly into an unmapped suspicious cavern without securing proper logistical clearance from the Keep.

She had gotten greedy, and it had nearly gotten all of them slaughtered.

"I am so sorry!" Tasmin babbled frantically with hot tears aggressively welling up in her dark eyes.

She didn’t stay on the bed.

She violently threw the covers aside and threw her entire body forward.

Tasmin hugged Silas, completely burying her face into the crook of his neck.

She wrapped her arms tightly around his broad shoulders and began openly crying against his shirt.

"I am so sorry for going on an unauthorized scout without your permission!" Tasmin sobbed. "I almost got the girls killed because I was overconfident! I was so incredibly scared, my Lord! I thought I was going to die in the mud!"

Silas didn’t push her away nor did he reprimand her for breaking boundaries.

He wrapped his hands gently around her trembling back, pulling her securely against his chest.

He slowly patted her back, letting her cry out the severe trauma of a near-death experience.

"It’s okay," Silas whispered softly with his chin resting against her dark hair. "You’re alive... You got them out."

They stayed like that for several minutes with the quiet stone room filled only with the sound of her muffled sobs.

Eventually, Tasmin slowly pulled her face back.

She wiped her red tear-streaked eyes, looking up at him with a guilty vulnerable expression.

Silas reached out and gently brushed a stray tear from her cheek.

His expression remained calm, but the warm comforting aura slowly vanished.

"You are going to get your official punishment for breaking operational protocol and endangering the girls later..." Silas told her.

Tasmin nodded frantically, willing to accept whatever discipline he deemed necessary.

"Yes, my Lord. I completely accept any punishment."

Silas stared at her.

He looked at the pristine, flawless skin of the assassin sitting on his bed.

He didn’t see the healed girl.

His mind violently flashed back to exactly three hours ago.

He remembered the exact horrifying moment Reonn had carried Tasmin through the iron gates.

’Fuck...’

He remembered seeing his elite Huntress reduced to a mangled bleeding unrecognizable sack of shattered bones and ruptured organs.

’Stop...’

He remembered the blinding panic he felt when Eluned had to literally burn half of her divine mana reserves just to jump-start Tasmin’s stopped heart and heal her up.

Silas was a Lord and he treated his Vanguard as his property.

They were his people...

Seeing one of his very own soldiers physically broken and mangled didn’t just make him sad.

It made him violently angry.

"However," Silas continued with his voice dropping to a tone that made the hair on Tasmin’s arms stand straight up.

The atmosphere inside the private Keep changed.

The ambient air in the room didn’t just drop in temperature.

It thickened as the overwhelming killing intent seeping out of his pores was so dense that Tasmin’s breath completely caught in her throat.

She felt like she was suddenly trapped at the bottom of the ocean.

Silas slowly leaned forward.

The blue in his eyes completely vanished, entirely overtaken by a brilliant incandescent golden light that illuminated the dark corners of the room.

"Show me the exact monster that did all of that to you," Silas commanded coldly.

Tasmin swallowed hard, terrified by the pressure radiating from the man sitting in the chair.

"Take me exactly where that monster lives," Silas vowed. "So I can personally make it regret the very day it was pulled into its cursed existence."