Rise of the Blood Sovereign

A rhythmic sound of knocking could be heard on an old door of a dilapidated small house inside Linston. The door creaked open after the knocks and a face appeared.

The man simply looked at the hooded figure in front of him before extending his hand. The figure extended his own hand and dropped a small stone into the hand of the man who looked at it before pouring in some mana.

A small number and two symbols appeared on the stone. The number 23 shone with a dark green light while the two symbols shone with different colors.

One symbol was a snake that had three tails and shone yellow, signifying that the person was a high-ranking individual in the organization, while the second one, a ghost-like figure that swayed to the side shone a pale red.

The man simply returned the stone before closing the door. Upon the door closing, sounds of multiple locks being unlocked and some arrays being dispelled were heard before the door opened and the figure came inside.

"We didn\'t expect to have such an important guest visiting us today, please enter, sir Shade." The man that had opened the door said as Lyle, who was currently wearing a disguise and looked like a man in his early forties nodded at him before taking off the hood from his face.

"My name is Esteban, sir, I will take you to our branch." The man bowed slightly while Lyle nodded at him.

Esteban was a tall man that stood about 1.9 meters. He was slim and wore an old butler outfit. There was a monocle on his right eye, while the left one was closed as a scar ran from the cheek all the way to the forehead.

It was easy to imagine just what the result of such an injury was.

Lyle followed Esteban who uncovered a hidden door on the floor before heading down. It took them about 1 minute to get to another door, which was only opened after Esteban did a series of knocks and showed a small card to a small gap in the door.

Upon entering through the door, Lyle was met with about 70 people who were all moving around.

Some people were having a conversation, some were sitting down and writing down stuff that some assassins were telling them about, some were having arguments…

This was the branch of the Midnight Dagger that was present in Linston. Most of the assassins and spies that were currently inside would leave the city in a day or two as this city was a quick stop for them to rest a bit and give a report before either heading toward their mission or to the headquarters in order to finish or apply for a new mission.

The headquarters wasn\'t the only place one could submit their missions and get new ones, one could even do it right here in this branch.

The difference was of course the quality of the missions and the rewards. Since the headquarters was located in one of the largest cities of the empire, the sheer number of mission requests it was given was huge.

Most of the missions were for assassins that were Tier I and below, while a respectable amount was for Tier II ones.

There were way fewer missions for Tier III assassins, which was the rank that Lyle held.

As for Tier IV, those kinds of missions were completely unknown to even Lyle and the others that held the same rank as he did.

The Tier IV assassins were the cream of the crop and the missions they were given were of very high importance, which meant that the organization would do everything they could to keep the missions a secret.

Lyle went to an office.

As he was the only one that had the Tier III clearance, he was given special treatment, of course.

Instead of waiting in line and giving out reports outside, he would immediately receive an agent that would take care of him.

He entered the office and sat down in a chair as the agent nodded at him. The main goal of Lyle\'s visit today was to give a report about the dungeons and how they were changing. By volunteering to get more information, he could easily stay here for longer in order to level up and become stronger.

Since his missions had been a success and the duke was dead, he had some leeway when it came to how quickly he had to go back to give a report about it, not to mention that the arrival of the system had messed things up even further.

From what he could tell, most of the assassins and spies that were outside were working on gathering information as well. The whole world had changed and assassination requests had become quite rarer nowadays.

It took Lyle some time to go over everything that had happened. He couldn\'t simply tell the agent that he had entered the dungeon with a servant of his, he couldn\'t even tell her that there was a second person with him currently as Adam was not part of the organization at all.

Telling her that he had entered the dungeon was also out of the question. He had entered the ogre dungeon, which was one that was far below his original level of power. Upon remembering how the ogres had exited the dungeon, however, Lyle was actually given a good excuse.

"So, you noticed that ogres started exiting the dungeon and decided to go in?" The agent asked Lyle who simply nodded at him.

"Correct, monsters coming out of the dungeon is not something to be taken lightly as it has never happened before, at least to my knowledge," Lyle said as he leaned back against the chair.

"I went inside in order to see whether anything else had changed, and well, the answer I received was not very pleasant."

"There were more monsters, and they were more powerful compared to before."

"If these types of things start happening everywhere in the empire, then we might have a serious problem at hand, so I will be staying here for a couple more days to observe things, see how the city lord, military, and adventurers guild will respond to the changes."

"I see, I will send out the report to the headquarters, please wait for a bit before they respond." The agent said as Lyle nodded at her before leaving the office.

He made his way over to a waiting area and sat down on a sofa. There were already multiple people present, but none of them talked with each other or greeted him or anyone else.

Assassins were loners most of the time. They would always wear masks and tried to never show their face to their colleagues as there was always the chance of one of them trying to sabotage them or even kill them.

The organization forbade infighting, but that would not always be respected. There were always those that wanted to take shortcuts, instead of finishing more difficult missions and improving themselves, they would target the other assassins and try to take credit for their actions.

The way that the organization checked the identity of the assassins was actually via the stone that Lyle had given to Esteban. The stone was created in a similar fashion to the adventurer guild badges, only that it didn\'t have the same functions.

For example, instead of the stone being fully activated by mana, it needed to be bound by blood and mana in order for nobody else to use it, but even then, some people could crack it and use it for themselves.

The stone had a verification number, a symbol for what rank one was, and a personal symbol that the assassin could choose.

The organization had actually made the stones together with the help of some organization long ago, but nobody knew who exactly. Some speculated that the Midnight Dagger was able to get the help of the adventurers guild for the stones,  but nothing of the sort had ever been verified.

It took about 15 minutes for the agent to come back and call Lyle who went back into the office. He was given clearance on gathering information in Linston. It was what Lyle expected and he was quite satisfied as he could now improve himself and at least reach Tier I before going back to the headquarters.

Lyle then proceeded to exit the office and made his way to the main door. He no longer needed to stay here as he had fulfilled his goal, as for any missions that he could take right now?

He didn\'t need them. The ones he was currently able to do were far below his rank and it would look suspicious if he was to take them, not to mention the low rewards that they gave wasn\'t something that interested Lyle in the very least.

He went out before making his way back to the inn where Adam was waiting for him. The young man had mostly recovered and they were going to go to another dungeon today.