Strongest Among the Heavens
Chapter 528: JACK: Vindobona

Chapter 528: JACK: Vindobona

Jack the Ripper.

O where did he hide?

O where did he go?

Where else? He hid under the protection of the Lord. He went to the Great City of Vindobona.

Territories were one thing, Divine Territories were another. Divine Territories warped the fabric of space-time and housed entire cities within what seemed to be a single gateway leading to a small neighbourhood. Divine Territories were created and under the protection of a great divine entity. Some time ago, a report came out estimating the total population of the Nebulous Bazaar to be over eight million.

Two hundred thousand people lived here in the Great City of Vindobona. The City of Endless Water. The City of Canals. A floating island where waterfalls fell in every cardinal direction, the entrances from the Nebulous Bazaar connected alongside those waterfalls. Tickets for tourism or simply to live were expensive. Every citizen was documented and paid what was called the "Otto per Mille" tax—meaning Eight per Thousand or eight percent per thousand. Merchants paid even heftier fines.

As a Divine Territory, it was in some ways not apart of the Nebulous Bazaar and therefore exempt from the No Violence Law that protected the Bazaar. There was no need to fear, however. The Church was mighty and the Templar Order was mightier. Indeed, the presence of the Templar Order could be felt almost everywhere in the city. Knights patrolling, knights helping locals, and knights eating at local stores.

For Christians of all denominations, it was a paradise.

Gondolas drifted lazily beneath arched marble bridges and every turn of a corner revealed another tight alleyway drowning in the scent of brine, wine, and ancient stone. The city never truly slept. Not in the morning and not at night.

Neither did Jack.

The white mask clung to his face like second skin, the thin slits of his eyes flashing with something dangerous as he nursed a glass of clear, tasteless wine. No one saw him. He was a patch of living shadow, folded into the bar’s darker corners, an afterthought even to the drunk in this bar of young Christians.

"Haa...I was like them, once upon a time."

The darkness wrapped around him like a coat, smoothing his presence out of existence. His aura? Erased. His mana? Masked. Even his voice did not speak into the air.

He was nothing.

Until the Mercenary appeared beside him.

Jack didn’t need to look to know something was off. His instincts—sharpened like the edge of a guillotine—flared hot.

The Mercenary who, to his senses, teleported into the seat was middle-aged, broad-shouldered, wearing a tan coat far too dirty for Vindobona’s cleanliness. Blond hair, sun-touched, messy like a painter’s. His voice was easy, almost casual.

"Black coffee," the Mercenary said to the bartender.

"Ah, right." Jack sipped on the wine bottle he stole. "The drink of the devil."

Jack openly announced himself. There was no need to play coy.

"Ah, you as well? I’m Polish too. City?"

"I can’t remember. My parents took me away when I was a child."

"Świnoujście," the Mercenary said. "Although I didn’t stay long either. Born during Jaruzelski’s rule."

"Ah, a dark time for our country. Glad those bourgeois bastards died. He lived too long a life."

"Oh? He passed away?"

"Mhm."

The Mercenary smiled, blowing on his black coffee before drinking. It was a long, long sip. Jack chuckled and downed the rest of his bottle. Steam curled upward between them, wreathing the space like ghostly hands.

Jack’s fingers danced along the edge of his coat, deciding between the hilt of his golden rapier and knife hidden beneath.

"You’re here for me," Jack said flatly. "You’re that Mercenary. What was the name? The Omen. I’ve heard rumours of you. No energy, no mana. Just death."

"I’m an assassin. I only do my job."

"I as well."

The bar exploded into violence and the energy of two mighty fighters.

Jack moved first—always first. His form melted into the shadows, twisting himself into smoke, intending to slip away unseen as he had done a thousand times before and strike from behind.

Only—he couldn’t.

"Heavenly Spell #88..."

The entire bar erupted in sudden light, as if a small sun had been birthed in its center. Magic circles spun through the air, hundreds of them, layered atop one another like a blooming lotus. A thick, ancient grimoire hovered in the man’s hand and magic circles erupted from it and slammed everywhere. Pale gold runes burned into reality itself, flooding the bar with an oppressive brilliance.

"...Let There Be Light."

The dark element was nullified. The shadows around him snapped taut like a snare. The darkness recoiled, the Natural Mana around him screaming in protest.

The people in the bar were blinded and stunned. Everything was moving in slow motion, however. The drunk men were stunned, jaws open, not realizing a battle was even occurring.

"Oh my." Jack smiled. "How rude."

In a single, fluid motion, he drew his golden rapier and the Omen unsheathed his own weapon: a long black sword, pulsing faintly with anti-magic energy.

Steel met steel with a shriek. Sparks spat across the bar. Still, nobody realized. Nobody was fast enough.

Jack’s mask tilted. "You’re bold," he said, voice mock-genteel. "A cat chasing a ghost."

The Omen didn’t respond. His grin was wolfish as he vanished—a burst of speed too fast to track.

Jack heard it—the shift of wood, the subtle whistle of displaced air. His instincts roared. He twisted, catching the black sword with his rapier just in time to deflect a decapitating strike.

The impact shook through his arms. This assassin was no fool.

Jack danced back, his rapier shifting modes in an instant—sacrificing strength for pure speed. "I see you~"

Slash! Blood was drawn. He caught the cheek. Jack smiled behind his mask and waited again. Then...slash! Slash, slash! His blade became a flickering phantom, whipping through defensive arcs too fast for normal eyes to follow. But this man...

In a sprint or in a leap, the Omen was far faster.

In a burst, Jack just barely outsped him.

The Ripper’s enhanced senses were bolstered by Mastered Flow of Mana. The former Champion could hear the whistling cut of air, the scuff of boots, but no mana signature, no aura flare. The Omen moved like a phantom, a machine designed for one purpose: assassination.

The first slash missed Jack’s heart by a hair’s breadth.

The second tore through his jacket, catching his flesh.

Jack parried the third by intuition alone, his rapier singing as it caught the black blade on its narrow, gleaming edge.

The fourth strike—

He didn’t let it happen.

Jack spun low and kicked a fallen chair at the Omen, buying himself a millisecond. He lunged, rapier flashing in a series of perfect thrusts. All of them missed. This Omen was far too fast.

Another blur of movement—Jack caught only the tail end of the mercenary’s coat before the black sword arced toward him. He caught it with the rapier but stumbled, the raw anti-magic clashing against his own elemental foundations, disrupting the fine-tuned flow of his mana.

"Anti-magic...the bane of my existence...!"

A crash—bottles shattered, liquor ignited from residual sparks, the bar rapidly falling into chaos. Only now, as a total of four seconds went by did the people start to react as they should. The Omen was everywhere at once, circling like a hawk, each attack timed for where Jack would be, not where he was.

Slash!

There was only one choice: to grab the men in the bar and hurl them as a sacrifice. It worked. The Omen cut through them and Jack was able to use the precious time to fully avoid a second strike.

"How about this one!?"

Jack tossed a teenage boy who was taken by his cousin here to have his first drink. The Omen slammed the butt of his sword into the teenager’s temple and kept going. Hardly hesitating, but indeed hesitating.

"Haha! Is it mercy? Empathy? Or..."

Another younger boy. Another non-lethal attack. Another dodge. Jack was slowly inching to a nearby window. From his judgement, the range of the Heavenly Spell was limited to the bar and only the bar. If he made it outside: game over.

"...is it because you don’t want to anger the Templar and their families here?"

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