I Am a Villain, So What?

Chapter 238: The Sniper in the Dark

The blade came down.

Fast. Brutal. Unforgiving.

Alicia shoved Leon backward, her rapier flashing out to intercept the strike.

CLANG.

The impact sent a violent shockwave up her arm. Her knees nearly buckled. The Knight Commander wasn’t just a man; he was a walking siege engine.

"You’re out of your depth, girl," the Commander snarled. The corrupted greatsword in his hands hissed, dripping with dark mana.

Alicia didn’t waste breath talking.

Her crimson eyes flared. The ambient temperature in the room skyrocketed in a fraction of a second.

[Level 8 Fire Magic: Crimson Lotus]

White-hot flames erupted from her free hand, engulfing the Commander in a localized inferno. The lavish mahogany furniture instantly vaporized into ash. The stone walls cracked from the sheer, blistering heat.

But the Commander didn’t burn.

A jagged, obsidian amulet on his chest pulsed with a sickly purple light. The anti-magic artifact drank the flames, dampening the white-hot inferno into harmless, choking steam.

"Infernus sends their regards," the Commander sneered.

He swung again.

Alicia ducked, the greatsword cleaving the ruined desk in half. She was fast, but the room was too small. The anti-magic field radiating from his armor was physically suffocating her mana pathways. He pressed her hard, unleashing a relentless, lethal barrage of heavy sword strikes that forced her entirely on the defensive.

Footsteps thundered in the hallway.

The ruined oak doors were shoved wide open. Dozens of elite Valemont guards poured into the room, their weapons drawn and ready for blood.

Behind them, leaning on a gilded cane, stepped the Chancellor.

His sharp, calculating eyes swept the burning room. They landed on Leon, then snapped directly to the silver-haired girl cornered against the far wall.

The Chancellor froze.

Then, a slow, sickeningly greedy smile stretched across his wrinkled face.

"By the dark abyss... the lost princess."

"Chancellor! What is the meaning of this?!" Leon shouted, struggling wildly against two guards who suddenly grabbed his arms. "She is my sister! Stand down!"

The Chancellor ignored his ’king’ entirely.

His mind was already doing the math. One royal bloodline was enough to force the dimensional gate open. But two? Two was absolute insurance. Two would anchor the rift permanently.

"Change of plans," the Chancellor barked, pointing a crooked finger at Alicia. "Do not kill her! I want her breathing! She is Priority Target Alpha!"

The guards charged.

Alicia gritted her teeth. She raised her wand, but the air suddenly grew impossibly heavy.

Anti-magic suppression fields.

Four cultist mages in the back row slammed their staffs into the floor, projecting a dense, suffocating ward over the room. Alicia felt her mana pool choke. The flames dancing at her fingertips sputtered and died.

She parried a thrust from a guard, kicked his knee, and spun away. But there were simply too many of them.

A corrupted blade flashed from her blind spot.

SHLUCK.

"Gah—!"

Alicia stumbled. A deep, jagged slash tore through her left shoulder. Warm blood instantly soaked her tunic.

Her arm went completely numb. The rapier nearly slipped from her grasp.

"Take her down!" the Commander roared, stepping over the debris.

Alicia clutched her bleeding shoulder, her vision swimming.

A slave camp. The heavy chains. The cold iron cages.

Never again.

She refused to be a prisoner. Not to the Empire. Not to her own corrupted people.

Forcing every last, agonizing drop of mana through her violently burning circuits, she didn’t aim at the soldiers.

She aimed straight up.

A hyper-condensed sphere of fire materialized at the tip of her wand. It was reckless. It was suicidal.

She fired.

BOOM!

The fireball detonated directly against the central load-bearing arch of the ceiling. The massive explosion rocked the subterranean hideout like a localized earthquake.

Huge chunks of stone and packed earth rained down. The ceiling caved in violently, crushing the front line of guards and kicking up a blinding, choking cloud of dust and debris.

"Secure the Prince!" the Chancellor screamed over the collapsing rubble.

Alicia didn’t look back.

Using the absolute chaos of the cave-in, she slipped through a jagged opening in the crumbling wall, plunging blindly back into the dark, labyrinthine sewer tunnels.

Her breath came in ragged, desperate gasps. Her shoulder throbbed with every heartbeat, leaving a trail of fresh blood in the murky water.

She was completely out of mana.

She was bleeding out.

And she was entirely cornered in the dark.

*****

Her vision blurred. The edges of the sewer tunnel faded into absolute black.

Every step was pure agony. Blood poured freely from her shoulder, leaving a dark, trailing stain in the filthy water.

Alicia stumbled. Her knees hit the muck with a heavy splash.

Behind her, the rhythmic, armored footsteps echoed relentlessly. They were closing in.

The Knight Commander towered over her. His massive greatsword dripped with corrosive, dark mana.

"I’ll take you back, little princess," he growled, raising the corrupted blade high above his head. "Even if I have to sever your hamstrings and drag you back by the bone."

Alicia closed her eyes.

BANG.

A hyper-compressed, ethereal bullet tore through the absolute darkness.

Zero recoil. Absolute precision.

It punched cleanly through the Knight Commander’s knee.

The giant roared, the reinforced joint shattering instantly into bone and shrapnel. He collapsed into the filthy water with a massive, heavy splash.

I stepped out of the shadows.

The ivory grip of the Lumeveil Enforcer gleamed in the dim, flickering torchlight.

I didn’t say a word.

"Who’s there?!" the remaining Valemont vanguard shouted. They formed a defensive wall, raising their heavy steel shields to block the narrow passage.

I just raised my revolver.

Trajectory Override.

I squeezed the trigger.

The ethereal bullets didn’t travel straight. Directed by my mana and spatial awareness, they curved violently in mid-air. They bypassed the steel shields completely, finding the exposed necks and visors of the elite soldiers hiding behind them.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

It wasn’t a battle. It was a systematic, emotionless execution.

Soldiers dropped into the water one by one, their bodies hitting the muck with lifeless thuds.

I walked forward, holstering the smoking gun, and grabbed Alicia by her uninjured arm. I violently dragged her behind a thick stone pillar, ripping her out of the open line of sight.

I pulled a high-grade healing potion from my inventory—one of Ariana’s highly concentrated brews—and shoved the glass vial into her trembling hand.

"Drink it," I ordered.

Alicia looked up at me. Her crimson eyes were completely shattered. Devastated. She wasn’t just bleeding physically; her mind was visibly breaking under the weight of her brother’s impending doom and her people’s horrific betrayal.

But right now, I didn’t care about her tragic backstory.

I was furious.

My eyes glowed with a faint, lethal blue mana in the dark as I stared down at her.

"What is the meaning of this, Alicia?" I hissed, my voice cold and laced with biting anger. "What the hell were you thinking?"

She flinched, clutching the vial against her chest.

"Sneaking out into the absolute worst part of the Capital in the middle of the night? Plunging into a sewer system alone?!" I stepped closer, my glare pinning her against the cold stone. "Who are those people chasing you? Why are you throwing your life away?"

She lowered her head. Her shoulders trembled.

"You would be dead right now," I snapped, the harsh reality echoing off the damp walls. "If my Detection hadn’t picked up your mana signature leaving the estate... if I hadn’t followed you down into this sewer... you would be a corpse floating in this filth."

Alicia didn’t argue. She didn’t offer a single excuse or try to defend herself.

She just sat there silently, letting my harsh words wash over her. She knew she was in the wrong. She had let the ghosts of her past blind her, and it had nearly cost her everything.

I exhaled a sharp, angry breath, running a hand through my hair to calm the adrenaline spiking in my veins.

"Drink the potion," I said, my tone leaving absolutely zero room for argument. "We are leaving. And you have a massive amount of explaining to do when we return to the estate."

Alicia pulled the stopper with her teeth and drank. The alchemical magic immediately went to work, sealing the jagged, bleeding gash on her shoulder.

I turned my back to her, keeping my senses dialed to the maximum to monitor the tunnels for any more reinforcements.

"Can you walk?" I asked flatly.

"...Yes, Boss," she whispered, her voice hoarse and broken.

"Then stay close. Let’s go."

I led the way through the tunnels, my hand resting on my holster. We left the slaughter behind in the darkness, slipping silently back to the surface. The cold night air of the Capital hit our faces, washing away the stench of the sewers, as we headed straight back to the safety of the estate.