Word came from Vasryn three days later, a brief note delivered by Isyrae herself rather than a standard messenger, requesting Diablo's presence at a neutral location just outside Velmoor's southern gate the following evening. The note carried few details beyond the time and place, though the careful, deliberate phrasing suggested Vasryn had indeed managed to reach Reyner through whatever channels he'd been working since their last conversation."Alone?" Akeno asked, reading over his shoulder once he'd shared the note's contents with the group."Doesn't say," Diablo said. "Given Reyner's own preference for careful, controlled circumstances, I'd guess he wants this handled with minimal complication.""I still don't love the idea of you walking into this without backup," Natsu said, frowning."If Reyner wanted me dead, he's had ample opportunity already," Diablo pointed out. "This is someone who's spent weeks gathering information rather than acting on impulse. I don't think a public mee

Two weeks passed in relative quiet after the guild's gathering, the coalition's review process apparently grinding forward at whatever glacial pace Reyner had warned it might take, and Diablo allowed himself to settle further into the manor's routine, training with Natsu's group by day and handling smaller guild quests that kept the guild's coffers steady without demanding the kind of attention Thornfield had required. The uneasy peace held long enough that he'd begun to wonder if Baelric's faction had genuinely decided to respect the council's authority after all.That illusion shattered on a quiet morning when Isyrae arrived at the manor gates herself, rather than sending a standard messenger, her expression tight with an urgency that immediately set Diablo on edge."Vasryn needs you at the guild," she said. "Now. Something's happened."He made the walk in tense silence beside her, pressing for details she either didn't have or wasn't willing to share before they reached the guild h

The keep's outer walls rose in crumbling silhouette against the midday sky, centuries of weathering having reduced most of its original fortifications to little more than scattered rubble and a few standing sections of stone too stubborn to fully collapse. Diablo passed through what had once been a proper gatehouse, now little more than a gap between two leaning towers, and found the keep's inner courtyard waiting beyond, open to the sky where a roof had presumably once stood, weeds and scattered debris covering ground that had likely seen no formal maintenance in generations.Baelric Corvane stood at the courtyard's center, exactly as his letter had promised, alone, a broad shouldered man with close cropped gray hair and the kind of weathered, scarred features that spoke to decades spent hunting rather than any formal military career. He wore practical leather and steel armor, a heavy longsword sheathed at his hip, and carried himself with the rigid, controlled bearing of someone who

Baelric's final charge came with the full weight of thirty years' accumulated skill behind it, longsword driving forward in a strike meant to end the confrontation decisively, no longer testing, no longer probing for weakness, simply everything the veteran hunter had left to give. Diablo met it head on, and for the first time since the fight began, allowed a genuine fraction more of his true strength to surface, not enough to end things with lethal finality, but enough to make the outcome unmistakably clear.Their blades met in a final, thunderous clash that cracked the last of the courtyard's ancient flagstones entirely, dust and debris scattering outward from the point of impact, and in the same fluid motion, Diablo redirected the collision's momentum, twisting Baelric's longsword aside and sweeping the hunter's legs out from beneath him with controlled, deliberate precision.Baelric hit the cracked stone hard, sword skittering just out of reach, and Diablo had the flat of his own b

Three weeks passed after the return from Ashfall Keep, the manor settling back into its familiar rhythm of training and guild work while the coalition's formal review continued its deliberation somewhere beyond Diablo's direct influence or awareness. He'd grown accustomed to the uncertain waiting by now, though the tension of it never fully faded, a persistent undercurrent beneath the otherwise ordinary flow of his days in Velmoor.Word finally arrived on a quiet afternoon, not through Vasryn this time, but delivered directly by Reyner himself, who appeared at the manor's gates with considerably less caution than his previous visits had carried, an easy, measured confidence in his bearing that Diablo recognized immediately as good news before a single word passed between them."The council has reached its decision," Reyner said, once Diablo had invited him into the manor's modest study, declining any offer of refreshment with a small, polite gesture. "I won't draw out the suspense unn