After leaving the house, Mikael moved toward the Bastion. After a brief journey, he saw the Bastioerior. About two kilometers away stood a 20-meter-tall stone wall encirg the area in a circur shape.

  But this wasn’t the real problem for infiltration. The real challenge was the armed soldiers statioop the wall, each equipped with automatic rifles. If that were the only issue, it might have been manageable, but the guards were alert, actively sing for any potential threats to the Bastion.

  Floodlights illuminated a 100-meter radius around the Bastion, and armed guards patrolled the walls, making infiltration nearly impossible.

  ‘If I try to get in, I’ll be detected even if I go at max speed. I’m not fast enough to cross the 100 meters of illuminated ground, climb a 20-meter wall, and do it all without being spotted…’

  ‘If only I could go invisible, but I haven’t learned any spells yet. So, I’ll o find another way inside.’

  Mikael circled the Bastion, looking for ary point. All he found was a closed wooden gate, useless for a stealthy entry.

  Realizing there was no obvious weako exploit, he began tize. ‘Maybe I could try digging uhe wall? No, that would require a tunnel over 100 meters long, and it would take far too much time—not to mention, I have no idea if I could even struct a tuhat holds up.’

  ‘Hmm, underground is out, but what about ing in from above? I’d need some kind of catapult… Yeah, that’s not happeniher. Even if I somehow mao build ohe nding would be painful, maybe even fatal.’

  ‘Underground and sky approaches are off the table,’ he thought, studying the wall carefully. ‘Maybe I could destroy the floodlights from a distahehe darko slip ier thaher ideas, but still risky. If I hit the lights, it’ll alert the guards uhey’re pletely oblivious.’

  With a pn in mind, he collected eight small rocks and positioned himself 120 meters from the wall. He identified the fest floodlights, carefully practiced his throwing teique, and took a deep breath before ung the first rock.

  Shatter.

  The floodlight burst into thousands of small gss shards. The soldiers looked around, startled, trying to identify the source of the disturbance. Before they could react, a sed floodlight shattered, followed moments ter by a third.

  "ENEMY ATTACK!" shouted one of the calmer soldiers.

  He had barely finished his call when the fourth and final floodlight in that se was destroyed under Mikael’s assault.

  Seeing the 100 meters that were once brightly lit now cloaked in darkness, Mikael seized the opportunity. While the soldiers were still in fusion, he sprinted across the now-shadowed ground. At the wall, he leaped with all his strength, managing to reach a height of 10 meters in one jump. As he began to fall, he stabbed his sword into the wall, anch himself. Using small irregurities on the surface, he climbed higher, driving his sword iedly to pull himself up.

  Twenty seds after shattering the fourth floodlight, Mikael finally reached the top of the wall. Croug low, he analyzed his surroundings. With the cover of midnight and dressed in bck, he was nearly invisible, blending seamlessly into the darkness.

  “Stay calm. Take out your fshlights and illuminate your surroundings. Stay alert for any potential attack,” shouted a posed soldier.

  Seeing that the soldiers were about to light up the darkened wall, Mikael slipped past them and jumped down from the inner side of the wall.

  Thump

  He rolled upon nding to soften the impact, preventing any injury. Surveying his surroundings, he noted he had nded in what looked like a slum. Small, makeshift houses filled the area, crafted from metal scraps, bits of wood, and even pieces of psti pces.

  The street was little more than a narrow dirt path windiween these shacks. Thin, disheveled people in ts wandered aimlessly, their faces marked by hopeless, empty expressions. Unsurprisingly, there were no streetlights here, which suited him well for staying out of sight.

  He gnced back up toward the wall and thought ‘I’d better put some distaween me and that wall. All this noise, plus the sudden floodlight outage, is bound to attract attention. I’m here to steal, not to fight.’

  Moving stealthily, he began navigating across the rooftops of the shacks. Uhe cover of darkness, he quickly crossed into a more developed area. Here, the buildings were plete, properly structed houses, uhe patchwork structures in the slums. Funal streetlights illumihe streets, making it harder for him to stay ued.

  heless, he mao climb onto the rooftops and tinue moving deeper into this better-maintained se. After crossing a few houses, he stopped and thought ‘The infiltration is plete. Now, I o locate the serums. Logically, they’d be in the more luxurious district.’ He looked toward an area where the streets were , well-maintained, and lined with vil-style houses.

  The area was also patrolled by occasional guards and was well iluminated. ‘I don’t know where the serums are hidden, so I’ll have to ‘gently’ persuade someone who does.’ he pnned.

  Meanwhile, back at the walls, events were unfolding in respoo his entry.

  k, k, k.

  The sound of metal boots echoed along the wall before a disgruntled female voice loudly excimed, “What the heck is this?”

  The soldier who had taken and when Mikael attacked approached, and made a military salute. “Captain William rep to el Aaliyah. There was an enemy attack that destroyed the floodlight, but after the initial assault, it has been calm for now.”

  The speaker, now identified as Captain William, was a middle-aged man with a strong build and a serious demeanor that exuded authority.

  In trast, el Aaliyah was a fairly young woman in her mid-twenties. She could be described as beautiful, with her long, silky bck hair and pierg brown eyes. However, what was most striking about her was the serious expression on her fad the fidence she projected.

  The el frow William's report and said, “Nothing? Did you check with the uards oher side of the wall to see if they were attacked as well?”

  William replied, “I didn’t issue any special orders; I was waiting for a superior directive.”

  Aaliyah sighed at his response before saying, “Give the order to tighterols on the wall. We may be attacked again soon. Also, sider that this initial attack might have been a diversion, with the real assault happening at another location.”

  William saluted before he began shouting orders to the soldiers.

  Meanwhile, the el ied the floodlight to assess the damage aermine what had caused it. She ran her hand over the jagged edges of the broken mp, noting that the gss shards touched her skin without cuttihen, she found a small objed pulled it out. “A stone?” she spoke incredulously.

  She kept the stone in her hand and checked the other floodlights, disc three more stones. Perplexed by her findings, she decided to ask the soldiers some questions to better uand the situation at the time of the attack. After her inquiries, she learhat the stones had been thrown from outside the illuminated area.

  ‘From outside the illuminated area to the wall, there’s just over 100 meters, which means that the person who threw these stones must be quite strong—at least a Tier 3 enhancer, and probably a Tier 4 or maybe even a Tier 5.’

  ‘No, it’s probably not a Tier 5; it’s more likely a Tier 4. I mean, whiearby bastion would allow one of their extremely limited Tier 5s to atta enemy bastion, especially if the attack caused as little damage as this?’

  ‘Or maybe this is a diversion to infiltrate the Bastion. It would make sense if he first destroyed the guards' visibility before slipping past them.’

  She turned and looked in the dire of the city, a battle-hungry grin on her face. ‘I hope you're not weak. It’s been a while since I’ve had a fight worthy of the name.’

  She regained her posure and sighed. ‘I got too excited. There isn’t even aainty that there’s an infiltrator, and evehat he could give me a good fight,’ she thought dejectedly.

  Even without beiain, Aaliyah still gave orders for the soldiers to patrol the city more frequently and be on guard for a potential infiltrator.

  Meanwhile, on Mikael’s side, he was unaware that he’d been ‘discovered,’ but even if he knew, he wouldn’t have been surprised. After all, he’d thrown stoo destroy the floodlights—and as far as he knew, her zombies nor beasts would do something like that.

  Mikael had a pn to infiltrate the luxurious area, though it would be challenging giverols and the bright lights.

  He jumped down onto a street he high-end distrid began walking toward it, adopting a casual, slightly drunken demeanor. The look was somewhat odd paired with the sword at his waist and the backpa his back, but in this post-apocalyptic world, it wasn’t all that surprising.

  “Hic, hic, hic…”

  Mikael stumbled along, but the soldiers on patrol only gave him a quice befn him. After all, he seemed pletely at ease, so why would they think otherwise?

  After he’d walked a short distance, a lone soldier politely stopped him. “Sorry to disturb you, my lord, but why are you outside at this hour? It’s past curfew.”

  Internally, Mikael broke into a sweat at the question, but he put on his best act, snapping, “Who are you to question me? I go out when I want, and no one says otherwise!” He feigned being out of breath before tinuing, “Now get out of my sight before I have you thrown out of the soldiers!”

  He visibly paled at the threat. “Sorry to have disturbed you, my lord,” he stammered, quickly exg himself.

  The other soldiers who withe se shot the newer a few pitying ghey knew better than to question a noble—most of them were notoriously unreasonable.

  Mikael ‘muttered’ to himself, but loud enough for the nearby people to hear. “These damn soldiers think that just because they have firearms, they question me!”

  He tio stagger along until he was finally out of sight of all the soldiers. At that moment, he discreetly slipped into one of the most luxurious vils by passin by a window that was left open.

  Mikael moved discreetly through the vil, quietly searg the rooms for any inhabitants. He opened a door slowly, peeking into the darko see that it was just a bathroom. He closed the door silently and tinued his search.

  One room, then another—finally, after cheg all the rooms on the first floor, he made his way to the sed. Upon opening the third door, he found an excessively luxurious bedroom with someone asleep on the bed.

  Seeing this, Mikael ehe bedroom quietly. With his new angle, he saas sleeping: a heavily ht man.

  the se, Mikael thought, ‘Survivors are practically skin and bones, while nobles like this guy eat enough to bee ht... Great distribution of resources.’

  Mikael approached the sleeping man and gave him a sp across the face.

  The man woke abruptly, startled by the sting on his cheek, and sat up, fused by what was happening.

  Mikael didn’t give him time to prehend the situation; he pressed his swainst the man’s neck.

  Feeling the cold steel at his throat, the man froze in shock. “What?” he stammered, terrified to see a strahreatening him in his own bedroom.

  Mikael spoke coldly, “I have some questions. And I assure you, if you don’t answer, you won’t like the sequences.”

  The man’s face turned red as he snapped back, “Do you know who I am? If you so much as touch a hair on my head, I’ll have your entire family wiped out.”

  Mikael felt a fsh of disbelief at his words. ‘This son of a bitch thinks he’s some young master in a cultivation novel?’ he thought, befrabbing the man’s head and lifting him off the bed with one arm. Then, with a swift move, he brought the man’s head down hard onto his rising knee.

  Crack.

  The man’s skull collided with Mikael’s khe siing ch of bone filling the room. He colpsed to the floor, trying to scream in pain, but Mikael was faster, g a hand over his mouth.

  Mikael stared into the man’s tear-stained eyes and said, “I’m going to remove my hand, and if you try to scream, you’ll be dead before the guards even hear you. Uood?”

  The man gave a fearful nod.