Extra's Sign In System: The Hero's an Idiot!

Chapter 175: Chapter 175: The Phantom’s Escape (Bonus Chapter)

Chapter 175: The Phantom’s Escape

The Blackbark Oubliette was suffocatingly quiet.

Inside the damp, wooden cell, the invisible ghost stood perfectly still. Draven maintained his grip on Nyx’s left shoulder. He reached his right hand through the narrow gap in the thick, living wooden bars, clamping his fingers firmly onto Lucien’s shoulder.

He had both of them.

Outside the cell, Interrogator Theseus waved his glowing rod of light, barking a harsh command at the heavily armored Elven guard down the hall.

"Unlock the door," Theseus ordered bitterly.

The guard stepped forward, a heavy ring of iron keys clinking against his emerald armor.

They were out of time.

Draven closed his eyes beneath his invisible hood. He completely bypassed the failing, fragile constraints of his middle-aged human body and tapped directly into the absolute depths of his core.

[Void-Step]

There was no chanting. There was no glowing magical circle.

The space inside the Blackbark Oubliette simply tore open. A jagged, silent vacuum ripped through the ambient air, completely swallowing Draven, Nyx, and Lucien simultaneously.

The Elven guard stopped walking. Theseus blinked in sheer confusion.

The human diplomat and the Elven prisoner were just gone.

CRACK!

The spatial jump was instantaneous, but the physical backlash on Draven’s host body was apocalyptic.

High above the prison sector, inside the dusty, abandoned storehouse, the air violently contorted. The three bodies materialized out of thin air, crashing heavily onto the wooden floorboards in a tangle of limbs.

"Captain!" Natalie gasped, dropping her bow and rushing forward from her sniper position at the window.

Draven hit the floor hard. The sheer, overwhelming strain of channeling high-tier spatial magic through a fractured, low-tier human container instantly broke the [Blank Canvas] output.

The invisibility shattered like brittle glass. The rugged, heavily scarred face of the Nordic guard named Haldor reappeared in the dim light of the storehouse.

Draven rolled onto his side, violently clutching his chest.

COUGH!

He hacked aggressively, expelling a massive, dark puddle of blood onto the dusty floorboards. His breathing was incredibly rapid and shallow.

It felt as though every single mana channel inside his chest had just been dragged through a bed of razor blades. He could not stand up. The physical vessel was entirely incapacitated.

Nyx pushed herself off the floor. She ignored the bruises from the fall and immediately knelt beside him.

She stared at the puddle of dark blood, and then looked up at Draven’s pale, sweat-soaked face. As an assassin, she knew the exact physiological limits of a human body.

She realized he had willingly pushed his container to the absolute brink of total organ failure just to pull her out of a cage.

"You fool," Nyx whispered fiercely, grabbing the edge of his heavy iron chainmail to keep him from slumping over.

"I am the assassin. You do not tear your own vessel apart for me. Be reasonable for once, Captain!"

Draven wiped his bloody chin with the back of his trembling gauntlet. He let out a weak, raspy exhale, looking up at her with gray, unfazed eyes.

"A Captain does not leave his Squad behind," Draven muttered, his voice strained but carrying an undeniable, heavy authority.

"Get me up."

Before Nyx could pull him to his feet, a terrifying visual shift occurred outside the storehouse.

"They know," Natalie reported, her voice tight with alarm as she peered through the cracked windowpane.

"The Interrogator realized the cell is empty."

"Are they sounding the horns?" Lucien asked, dusting off his diplomat uniform and drawing a concealed dagger from his boot.

"Worse," Natalie pointed upward.

"Look at the leaves."

Lucien and Nyx looked through the window. High above them, the colossal, emerald-green leaves of the World Tree were physically shifting. The ambient, peaceful green light radiating from the Verdant Canopy suddenly died.

In a matter of seconds, millions of massive leaves across the entire upper district turned a pulsing, glowing, violent red.

The entire sky above the Elven realm was bathed in a terrifying, crimson glare. It was the royal alarm.

The World Tree itself was acting as a silent, suffocating siren, warning every single Elven citizen that a high-level breach had occurred.

"They are locking down the branches," Lucien assessed quickly, watching dozens of heavily armed Elven patrols rushing across the distant wooden bridges, their armor reflecting the red light.

"Lord Lionel will see this," Nyx stated grimly.

"If the canopy is on lockdown, Lionel knows his framed assassin has vanished. He is going to accelerate the timeline. We have to get back to the Stoneheart City immediately."

Lucien did not hesitate. He stepped forward, grabbed Draven by the heavy iron belt, and hoisted the incapacitated Captain cleanly over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry.

"Lead the way, Nyx," Lucien said.

Nyx kicked the back door of the storehouse open.

The streets outside were entirely bathed in the blinding red glare of the warning leaves. Elven guards were swarming the main thoroughfares, their curved glaives drawn, aggressively checking every single building.

Nyx did not flinch. She looked at the pulsing red light covering the wooden pathways.

"The light is too harsh," Nyx whispered, a sharp, tactical smirk crossing her face. "It washes out their natural depth perception. They cannot see the contrast of the shadows."

Nyx darted out of the storehouse, utilizing the blinding, crimson glare of the alarm to completely mask their movements.

Lucien followed closely behind her, carrying Draven’s dead weight. Natalie covered their rear, moving silently from branch to branch with her arrow knocked and ready.

"Patrol incoming! Dead ahead!" Natalie hissed over their comms.

"Into the brush," Nyx ordered.

They did not take the main stairs. Nyx guided them off the pathway, forcing them to dive beneath a massive cluster of drooping, overgrown foliage.

The leaves directly above their heads were glowing with that terrifying warning red, casting a pitch-black, impenetrable shadow directly beneath them.

They pressed their backs against the rough bark of the tree. Lucien held his breath, keeping Draven perfectly still.

CLANK. CLANK.

A squad of elite Elven rangers sprinted right past their hiding spot, completely blinded by the glowing red leaves radiating directly into their own eyes.

Once the footsteps faded, Nyx slipped out from beneath the red canopy.

They moved relentlessly downward, slipping past the panicked civilian sectors and the fortified checkpoints.

The crisp scent of pine slowly gave way to the heavy, oppressive smell of burning coal and hot iron. The mechanical groan of the massive steam-lifts echoed in the distance.

They had reached the borders of the Dwarven realm.

They had successfully escaped the canopy. But the clock was ticking faster than ever.