Ragnarök, Eternal Tragedy.
Chapter 128: Breaks First

Chapter 128: Breaks First

They stood in front of the building that didn’t blink.

No guards marked the entrance.

No lanterns swayed in warning.

But the silence around it felt orchestrated—not in welcome, not in peace, but in readiness. The front gate was reinforced with tempered iron plating, welded into stone at both edges like someone wanted to remind anyone approaching that cost came before entry.

The street had cleared by dusk.

But not from fear.

Just pattern.

Routine.

A trick in motion.

"Alright," Maverick whispered, adjusting the grip on his tonfa as he glanced across the perimeter. "How are we doing this?"

Amari didn’t hesitate.

"Chaos."

He didn’t say it loudly. He didn’t have to.

The word itself cracked the air like a pulled blade—sharp, final, commanding.

No more planning.

No more stealth through hesitation.

Just action stitched in silence.

They moved.

Fast.

Amari broke left—his Kusarigama already slung free, chain coiled through his fingers like a serpent waiting to strike. The first target stood near the water basin outside a side door, humming softly, sharpening something dull against a stone slab. He didn’t see Amari coming. Not until the blade curved through the torchlight and split his throat clean, soundless, blood rushing in one direction, Amari already gone in another.

Maverick followed on his right, boots scraping against crumbling rock, tonfa drawn. He broke two men fast—jaw crushed with a downward elbow, then knee shattered by full-body pivot. Neither screamed. One gurgled once. Then fell.

Kenneth circled wide, his quarterstaff extended. When two sentries approached from the north corridor, arguing about patrol assignments, they didn’t notice the glint of metal beneath the hanging cloth until Kenneth swept low and cracked a knee inward, then slashed the other’s throat with the flick of an activated blade.

The architecture bled now.

Not with noise.

Just trail.

Crimson trickled into the drainage line. Steel touched shoulder. Cloth dragged corpse.

Milo emerged behind a cluster of crates and handled three in rapid succession. His sais barely visible, he maneuvered between shadows with sharp angles and momentum that felt rehearsed—jaw strikes, temple punctures, thigh slashes.

Johnny kept moving.

The dual rods flicked wide, then tight. His motion curved around walls, breaking a soldier’s elbow, catching another’s ankle, flipping one off balance long enough to sink a blade into the sternum.

They worked like they hadn’t failed before.

Like Dragunov shame had been branded into muscle memory.

Shylo had never been there at all.

By the time the first body fell, he had already slipped between the columns of the western passage, moving with a pace not defined by stealth, but absorption—like light didn’t know how to reflect off him. His rope dart remained coiled and quiet, stashed against his hip. He didn’t need it. Not yet.

He scaled the wall side with exact placements—foot angled between brick, hands pressing only where silence answered back. Past the ledge, he darted between laundry lines and rooftop storage, pausing only when his ears caught the faint strain of music somewhere below—a harp, maybe, out of tune.

The upper quarters were lavish.

Which meant vulnerability.

Those with comfort often expected guards.

Expected protection.

Not invasion.

Shylo pressed against the wall and waited.

Two sentries passed by, whispering about dinner orders and Xavier’s disdain for overcooked poultry. One laughed. That laugh stopped when Shylo moved. A subtle chokehold. A crushed trachea. Then silence. No sound. No pause.

The bedroom door stood three yards ahead.

Wide wood.

Ornamented frame.

Locks faintly lined with runic etching—but faded, incomplete. Illusion dressed in ritual.

Shylo crouched low. Breath steady.

She was inside.

He knew it by the air.

Below, Amari was already climbing through the side hall, his blade blood-soaked, face cut with determination, every step echoing not physically—but through the energy behind it.

Another body dropped.

Two guards rushed in response.

Amari pivoted, one foot planted against the wall, chain twisting, blade striking sideways and lodging into a shoulder blade. The man screamed once.

Then gurgled.

Maverick grabbed the second and crushed his throat between forearm and elbow, dragging him behind a curtain.

Kenneth didn’t slow.

Milo didn’t blink.

Johnny stepped over a body with fluid calm.

None of it was pretty.

It wasn’t supposed to be.

Chaos lived in motion.

Within the stone-lined hallway beneath the family’s quarters, the temperature shifted.

Lionel Xavier paused mid-stride.

His coat, draped over one shoulder, slid slightly against the wall, catching on a torch bracket as he tilted his head. No sounds followed—no screams, no shouts, no clash of steel—but something had changed. The stillness felt too deliberate. The quiet too engineered. As though silence itself had been choreographed.

A breath passed.

Then another.

Lionel didn’t speak. Didn’t call for his men. Didn’t summon flame or command.

He simply turned.

And walked back toward the heart of the building, his steps measured, his expression unreadable, his fingers brushing once across the hilt sheathed at his side—just in case.

Upstairs, Shylo moved like shadow learning to hold shape.

The bedroom door eased open beneath his touch with barely a whisper of resistance, hinges treated with herbal oils, the scent faint but fresh. The moon outside filtered through a lattice window, casting pale streaks across the fur-lined carpet and the draped silks that hung from bedposts like banners left to rest.

The room held warmth.

But no comfort.

There were books stacked in corners, a water basin settled beside an iron stand, and a loose cloak folded over the footboard, too finely woven to belong to someone outside bloodline legacy.

The girl lay beneath thin covers, one arm stretched loosely across a pillow, breathing steady, mouth parted in sleep. Hair coiled against the sheets, thick and ink-dark, curled like retreating fire. She didn’t stir. Not yet.

Shylo stepped forward, each movement filtered through years of practiced tension. His rope dart remained tucked tight against his side, and he kept one hand near the blade—not to draw, but to listen.

He paused beside the vanity.

Then turned toward the far side of the bed.

Then froze.

The girl inhaled sharply—then exhaled slower than before.

Her brows furrowed.

Her lashes swept upward.

And then she spoke—softly, not in fear, but with the clarity of someone who had learned not to question her instincts.

"Who’s there?"

Her voice carried no panic.

Just warning.

"Come out," she said. "I know someone’s in here."