Chapter 46: Shadow Assassin Appears
The sky over District 8 burned a dull crimson as if mirroring the chaos erupting below.
Kael stood motionless atop a shattered rooftop, his black coat fluttering in the wind, eyes locked on the tremors rumbling through the dead zone. He wasn't alone. He could feel it in his bones—a chilling presence, calculated and cold. This wasn't just a response from the Protocol Enforcement Division… it was something else.
"...He's here," whispered the voice of the Shadow Protocol in Kael's head. "The one created for elimination."
Kael narrowed his eyes.
A flicker of movement—then silence. The world seemed to hold its breath.
Then he appeared.
A blur of black cloth and blades dropped from the sky, landing without a sound. His mask was pale white, like polished bone, with two hollow eye sockets that glowed faintly red. The figure straightened, revealing a lean, almost frail build, but Kael could feel the immense pressure leaking off of him like a collapsing star.
"Ryo Kazen," the masked figure spoke with robotic clarity. "Shadow Protocol user. Status: Kill on sight."
Kael blinked. This wasn't a human. It was... something else.
"Let me guess," Kael muttered, stepping forward. "They sent you because no one else could get the job done."
The masked figure didn't answer. Instead, a blade materialized in his hand—dark as a void, edged in static.
Combat Protocol: Initiated. Target Locked.
And then he vanished.
Kael barely had time to react before the blade sliced the air where his neck had been a second earlier. He dropped low, ducking under the swing, and countered with a Shadow Pulse blast—but the assassin was gone again.
Fast. Too fast.
"Data Echo!" Kael shouted, activating a burst of memory shadow clones around him. The duplicates scattered, dodging the next flurry of strikes. Two were shredded instantly—clean slashes through their cores—but the distraction gave Kael a moment to study the assassin's movements.
He wasn't teleporting.
He was folding through dimensional shadows.
"He's using a folded layer of the Shadow Protocol. A side-dimension travel technique. Whoever built him… knew the Protocol intimately."
Kael gritted his teeth. This wasn't just a rogue agent. This was a weaponized Protocol user, crafted solely to hunt him.
"Fine. Let's see what happens when the prey bites back."
He activated Phantom Shift, his body phasing slightly out of sync with reality. As the assassin launched another strike, Kael phased and reappeared behind him, sending a Reaper Slash aimed for the neck.
The blade met resistance—and for the first time, Kael saw the assassin flinch. He'd grazed the mask.
A thin line cracked across its surface.
"You can bleed," Kael whispered.
But his triumph was short-lived.
The assassin's blade shifted, curving and splitting into twin daggers. He rotated, slashing across Kael's chest in a deadly X pattern, throwing Kael backwards into a wall of broken steel.
Pain exploded in his ribs.
Kael coughed up blood, vision flickering. "Shit…"
As he pushed himself up, something strange happened.
The assassin paused. His body trembled slightly.
Then, a flicker of hesitation.
Kael's eyes widened. "You're… glitching?"
The assassin's red eyes flickered erratically. He staggered, as if two commands were fighting inside him.
ERROR: Target Identifier Conflict.
Initiating Core Memory Retrieval...
For a split second, the assassin's true face flashed in Kael's vision—an image that made his heart lurch.
It was familiar.
"…No," Kael breathed. "That's impossible."
But the Protocol whispered it to him, confirming his worst fear.
This assassin... wasn't just a hunter.
He was once human.
And not just any human—he was an erased Protocol Candidate.
"Who are you?" Kael asked, more to himself than anything.
The assassin backed off, blade trembling in hand, glitching uncontrollably.
Then—
A massive pulse ripped through the district.
The assassin vanished.
Kael stood in the silence, heart pounding, chest bleeding.
His world had just shifted again.
Whoever built that assassin knew everything about the Shadow Protocol.
And worse...
They were sending more.