THE LAST KEEPER

Chapter 319. WHO GAVE HIM AWAY?

The chamber remained silent after Nokai retracted, the kidnappers still kneeling with fear written plainly across their faces. Sagiri looked at them for another second before speaking flatly.

"Does anyone need a ride?" He asked with a wicked smile settling on his face.

"Brother, you have a carriage?" Azir asked, and Sagiri’s smile widened. Even so, he ignored the question.

Confusion immediately spread through the room. Even Azir blinked at him. Sagiri ignored it completely and stepped toward one of the assassins, the one trembling hardest. Nokai rested loosely at his side now, but the threat somehow felt worse.

"I need one of you to do something for me. You, with crooked teeth. Go tell your master. He should try harder next time. I am disappointed." The assassin swallowed hard and nodded violently. Sagiri didn’t wait for another response. The man did not wait to be asked twice before quickly running towards one of the six exits.

"No, I have something worse. Everyone, breathe in." Sagiri turned to Azir after the footsteps of crooked teeth got further and further. Everyone had a puzzled expression on their face.

Sagiri didn’t wait for another response. The Archive suddenly unfolded beneath the chamber, swallowing the room in darkness. Several men panicked as space twisted around them before they found themselves trapped inside the black stillness of the Archive pocket alongside Azir and the others.

Sagiri moved immediately. The Archive stretched outward through Thazir, and he stepped within it, crossing enormous distances in seconds before emerging briefly atop a rooftop overlooking another district. Even with the Archive, he could not jump directly into the inner city with the added weight and without destabilizing the movement through the layered canyon structures, so he pushed the Archive outward again and moved a second time. Then a third. Then a fourth. Each jump carried them deeper toward the center of Thazir while the city blurred past in fragments of rooftops, bridges, and sleeping streets beneath the night.

By the final movement, the warm lights of the inner city had risen around them once more.

The entire process took only a few seconds. Four movements within the Archive and the outer city disappeared behind Sagiri until he finally stepped out before the gates of the War Fortress, landing softly. The archive collapsed and shrank instantly to a small size.

The guards reacted at once at the unexpected arrival, and weapons rose along the walls.

Archers turned from the battlements above. Soldiers poured toward the entrance while alarm calls echoed through the fortress levels. They had not seen him leave or alive, and he did not look friendly in the slightest. One moment, the gates had been secure, and the next, a man cloaked in darkness had appeared directly outside.

"Identify yourself!" One of the gate warriors shouted as spears lowered toward him. Sagiri walked forward anyway, unbothered by the threat. His cloak moved lightly behind him while Nokai rested quietly at his side. The soldiers stiffened as he approached, but held their positions.

"Stop there!" Another barked. Sagiri finally stopped a short distance from the gate and lifted his eyes toward the walls.

"Where," he asked calmly, "is your City Lord?" The men exchanged looks before hardening again. One stepped forward, trying to sound fearless.

"You don’t ask questions here, stranger." Sagiri stared at him for a second. Then his voice lowered slightly.

"Stranger?" The pressure in the air shifted immediately. "Then tell me this." His eyes moved across the walls slowly. "Who did I just save from the jaws of death if it’s not the city lord you should have been protecting with your lives?" Silence hit the gate instantly.

The silence at the gate stretched uncomfortably after Sagiri’s question. The guards looked at one another, uncertainty replacing some of their earlier confidence.

Sagiri took another slow step forward.

"Who," he asked again, quieter this time, "was responsible for making sure the City Lord did not leave the fortress alone?" Nobody answered.

The pressure in the air thickened. Then Nokai snapped out violently from his side with a metallic scream that cut across the fortress entrance. Panic exploded instantly. Soldiers stumbled backward. Spears lowered. Archers above pulled tight on bowstrings as the black blade hovered beside Sagiri with visible killing intent pouring from it.

"Flares!" someone shouted from the wall. A second later, bright southern signal flares burst into the night sky above the War Fortress one after another, painting the canyon walls red and gold.

Alarm horns followed immediately. Footsteps thundered across the battlements as more soldiers rushed toward the gate positions. Sagiri didn’t move during any of it. He stood in front of the fortress while Nokai floated beside him like something barely restrained, and his eyes remained fixed on the men ahead.

"Your City Lord was taken beneath your own city," he said coldly. "And yet you are all pretending not to know. Why then do I smell guilt?" By then, even the men on the walls had stopped pretending this situation was under control.

So the majority of them knew the city lord had left the fortress. It must have been a regular occurrence, and even worse, Sagiri knew someone had given him up to the assassins this time.

Sagiri knew that the men in the archive would not die if they did not breathe for just two or three minutes, and a whole minute had just passed. He also knew the men on the wall would not engage until Zifara gave the order. Even so, he knew that someone on the gate must have given intel to someone outside.

That is the person he needed to kill.

Sagiri stood motionless beneath the burning flare light while alarm horns echoed across the War Fortress and soldiers continued flooding onto the walls above. Nokai hovered beside him, humming faintly in the night air as the pressure around the gate kept growing heavier. His eyes moved slowly across the guards in front of him.

"One more question," he said quietly. Nobody interrupted him this time. "Who gave out information that Azir had left the fortress?" The moment the words landed, several faces changed. Small reactions. Brief. But Sagiri saw them immediately. Fear. Hesitation. Realization. Someone opened their mouth to answer...

A violent gust of wind tore across the gate.

Figures landed almost instantly on the battlements above.

The elite.

A second later, the Kai himself appeared on the upper wall. His cloak snapped behind him, and dozens of elite warriors spread across the walls in perfect formation, bows already drawn outward toward every possible threat. The General’s arrival had taken less than a minute.

Zifara looked around once. Taking in the situation and searching for the enemy. From the terrified guards, his eyes landed on Sagiri. His expression was one of buzzlement.

"What happened, Chief of N’folu?" he asked. "What is this?" His eyebrows were narrowed.

The entire gate fell silent.

Zifara’s question lingered in the air for only a second before Sagiri answered.

"This happened." The Archive suddenly tore open, and nearly two dozen men came tumbling violently out onto the stone before the fortress gate. They hit the ground gasping, coughing, and disoriented from being held within the black space for too long. Some scrambled backward immediately the moment they saw the fortress soldiers surrounding them, while others simply collapsed trying to breathe properly again.

The guards on the walls reacted instantly, lowering their weapons toward the assassins. Zifara’s eyes narrowed sharply. Sagiri remained standing at the center of it all with Nokai hovering beside him.

"Azir was taken beneath the city by these men to be killed." His voice was calm now but colder somehow. "These assassins knew he had snuck out of the fortress dressed like that somehow. He could have been dead if I had gotten there a minute or two late." His eyes slowly lifted toward the fortress walls and the gathered soldiers.

"Someone here knew he left the fortress and passed the information to them. Won’t you agree with me, General?" Silence followed immediately.

The statement carried so much ice that even Zifara remained silent for a while. Sagiri took one slow step forward.

"I will not leave this place," he said quietly, "until I find whoever did it." The pressure behind those words settled over the gate.