Ulfig's team didn't get to walk far into the estate before they were stopped by even more guards and mercenaries, not like they would be able to stop them. The more they defeated, the more powerful the guards and mercenaries that replaced their comrades were. Whilst Ulfig's team was constantly fighting, Ark's team was rapidly dashing around in the shadows, making their way inside the mansion.
Ark was still a little nervous, but luckily for him, the rest of the team was experienced, and they knew exactly what to do. The mansion was three stories tall, with both a basement and an attic. It only took them a minute to sweep through the entire first floor, yielding them nothing, except for a few close encounters with some guards. After finding nothing on the first floor, and having wasted some time, they decided to split up. It was a bit risky, but they didn't have much time at all, and they had to do it if they wanted to get this over with before the city guards arrived.
They were four people, with four different places to check, making this idea the best one. Eliryll would check the second floor, Gilpin would check the 3rd floor, Ryner would check the attic, while Ark would check the basement. Gilpin was a little discouraged by this since he thought that the second floor was the most likely to not be that important. They didn't hold up long at all though, and assigning these roles took barely half a minute.
Ark didn't want to waste any time, and sped off as soon as he got the order to. As he descended the stairs to the basement, he could hear faint laughter from below. Slowing down, Ark perked his ears, and slowly made his way down the stairs. In reality, he wasn't slow at all, it was only slow in comparison to his earlier speed. At the bottom of the stairs stood two guards. These guards weren't compared to the guards Ark had seen so far at all, they were on a different level. Behind these guards was a big basement, almost resembling a wine cellar, but instead of wine, there were cages everywhere. Inside of these cages were slaves. Women, men, children, demi-humans such as dwarves and elves, and even two demons.
What almost all of these people had in common, was the despair in their eyes, and the sickening wounds covering their bodies. These slave-merchants were not nice by any means, and one of them enjoyed torturing people quite a lot. In the middle of all of these cages, sat two men around a small table. They were currently engrossed in a heated game of cards, with piles of silver laying on the table. Laughter echoed, tears were being shed, and Ark was still standing in the staircase. As he saw this scene in front of him, his temper flared up, could you really call these people humans?
Just when Ark was about to move, he heard some muffled crying coming from one of the cages. A small child had started to cry and was trying her hardest to destroy the iron bars of the cage. Desperately banging on the cage, she wanted to get out of here and see her family again. The two men, disrupted from their game of cards, were not amused.
"Kid, shut the fuck up!" One of the men snapped as he stood up from his seat. The child was not in a good state of mind and didn't listen to him at all, continuing her antics. The man was enraged seeing this and started walking toward her cage. As the man passed the other cages, everyone shirked back as far as they could, avoiding looking at him. A lot of slaves glanced at the small girl with pity since they knew what would come.
As the man walked up to the cage, he stared at the kid, before waving his hand at her. As he did, he stirred up the wind mana in the surroundings, and a strong gust of wind attacked the poor child. The child couldn't protect herself at all and was sent flying straight into the iron bars on the other side of the cage. As the other slaves saw this, they could only clench their hands and watch. They had no power, and there was nothing they could do, but everyone wanted to desperately get out of here, and if they could, they would murder these bastards!
Ark was shocked seeing this, and he instantly moved. As Ark approached, one of the guards furrowed his brows, he was sure he felt a presence just now, and he was about to say something when he suddenly felt a sharp pain in his neck before everything went completely dark. As his comrades head was suddenly sent flying, the other guard could feel a warm splash of blood on his face. Dumbfounded as he was, he didn't have the time to react before a hole was poked straight through his head.
This happened in just a split-second, and everyone in the basement was dumbfounded. From nowhere, a handsome young man had appeared and slain two of the strongest guards in this entire estate. The two slave-merchants were very surprised at first, but they quickly calmed down, they weren't scared of some kid.
"Oh, what do we have here? Did you come here looking for some milk?" One of the men said before he started laughing. Ark didn't answer and instantly appeared in front of the man. He was about to kill the man when he felt a sharp pain emanating from his back. With a surprised expression on his face, Ark noticed the man in front of him smiling calmly. When he looked down, he could see the tip of a dagger protruding from his stomach. He felt another sharp pain, and the dagger was suddenly gone.
Blood started pouring like crazy out from the wound, and a man clad in dark clothes appeared right next to the smiling slave-merchant. In his right hand was a jagged dagger, covered in Ark's blood. The assassin smiled eerily as he licked some of the blood on the knife, thereafter showing an expression of euphoria. The slaves that had finally found an ounce of hope was brought back down in despair.
Ark's vitality was rapidly fading, and his eyes were slowly losing all their original luster. After trying hard to stand up, Ark fell to his knees. Staring at the slave-merchants and the assassin with deep resentment in his eyes, Ark coughed a bit of blood and fell over in his own pool of blood...