Steel flashed beneath the evening sky.

The assassin’s blade descended with ruthless precision, aimed directly toward Amelia Ravencrest — a strike prepared long in advance, calculated and practiced, executed at the exact moment when the target was most vulnerable.

Unfortunately for him, Ethan was already there.

The sword moved instinctively, guided by years of battle experience the assassin had no way of accounting for. The blade collided against the sword with a sharp crack that echoed throughout the courtyard, and the force traveled through Ethan’s arms immediately.

Stronger. The realization surfaced at once. The assassin was stronger than Ethan’s current realm — not overwhelmingly so, but enough. Enough to make a direct confrontation dangerous.

Yet the attack had failed. And for now, that alone was enough.

For a single heartbeat, another scene overlapped with reality. Snow stained red. A broken battlefield. Amelia’s weakening smile as she apologized for leaving him behind.

A cold fury surged through Ethan’s chest.

Not again. Never again.

The assassin had chosen the wrong target. And the wrong lifetime.

For the briefest moment, surprise appeared in the assassin’s eyes — not because his strike had been blocked, but because it had been blocked by Ethan. A child. A target who should never have been standing there. That moment of hesitation was all Ethan needed.

"Run!"

His voice cut through the courtyard. Amelia froze. The young attendant beside her looked even more shocked. Neither had fully processed the fact that a masked assassin had just attempted to kill a member of House Ravencrest.

"Take Amelia and go!"

This time the command carried enough force to break through the confusion. The attendant immediately grabbed Amelia’s hand, and the two retreated toward the nearest guarded corridor.

Only then did Ethan allow himself to focus completely on the enemy standing before him.

The assassin recovered quickly — far quicker than an ordinary criminal. His initial shock vanished, replaced by the cold calculation of someone who had survived complications before and intended to survive this one as well. Without warning, he stepped forward once more.

The second attack arrived faster than the first. The blade swept horizontally toward Ethan’s neck — a killing strike, direct and efficient, the sort of technique designed to end fights before they became problems. Ethan retreated half a step. The edge passed mere inches from his skin.

The assassin pressed forward relentlessly. One strike became two, two became three, each attack flowing seamlessly into the next with no wasted motion and no unnecessary aggression. Only efficiency.

This wasn’t a desperate killer. This wasn’t some hired thug.

This was a professional. Someone trained specifically for assignments like this, who had likely carried out a dozen just like it without a single witness surviving to describe what they had seen.

The courtyard echoed with repeated clashes as Ethan continued giving ground — patiently, deliberately. Every second mattered. Not because he intended to defeat the assassin alone, but because every second increased the likelihood that someone else would notice the disturbance.

A shout echoed from somewhere beyond the courtyard. Then another. The disturbance had finally been detected.

The assassin heard it too. For the first time, irritation appeared within his eyes. His mission had already failed — Amelia was alive, the alarm was spreading, and the element of surprise was gone. Yet instead of retreating, his gaze settled upon Ethan.

The killing intent surrounding him intensified immediately. Ethan felt it settle over the courtyard like a drop in temperature.

Slowly, he adjusted his grip on the sword. His breathing remained calm. His posture remained steady. Because despite the danger standing before him, one thought continued repeating within his mind.

The assassination had failed. Everything that happened after this was secondary.

And for the first time since his return, Ethan allowed himself a small smile.

The assassin sensed it immediately — that something was wrong. The child standing before him had not changed.

Yet somehow, the battlefield had. For the first time since entering Ravenhold, uncertainty appeared in the assassin’s heart.

From the moment his first strike had been intercepted, the operation had been unraveling. Yet what truly unsettled him was not the failed assassination.

It was Ethan.

Every attack he launched was anticipated. Every opening he attempted to create disappeared before it could be exploited. No matter how he adjusted his rhythm, the young heir standing before him seemed to remain precisely one step ahead — moving with the calm, unhurried precision of a veteran warrior in a body that had no business possessing such instincts.

It was impossible. And yet here they were.

This time, Ethan advanced.

Until now, he had focused entirely on delaying — survival, stalling, buying time until Ravenhold responded. But Amelia was already safe. The objective had been accomplished. The assassin’s mission had failed. Everything that followed now belonged to Ethan.

And Ethan Ravencrest had spent an entire lifetime learning how to fight men like this.

The shift was immediate. For the first time since the battle began, the assassin found himself retreating, his expression changing as the realization settled that a killing mission had somehow become a fight for survival.

The courtyard echoed with rapid exchanges as Ethan pressed forward relentlessly. His body lacked the strength he once possessed, and his cultivation had yet to recover, but experience remained — and experience was something no assassin could compensate for on short notice. In a contest of raw power, Ethan would lose. Fortunately, battles were rarely decided by power alone.

The assassin launched a deceptive thrust toward Ethan’s shoulder before abruptly redirecting toward his throat. A clever adjustment. Against most opponents, it would have worked. Against Ethan, it failed. Before the attack could fully develop, he stepped inside the assassin’s reach and struck the man’s wrist with the blade.

A sharp crack echoed through the courtyard. The assassin staggered, his grip loosening. For the briefest moment, an opening appeared.

Ethan did not hesitate.

The sword descended like a falling hammer. The assassin barely avoided a direct hit, but the strike still crashed into his shoulder with enough force to send pain flashing across his face. The momentum of the battle shifted completely.

Then, from somewhere beyond the courtyard — "Seal the gates! Nobody leaves Ravenhold!"

The command spread rapidly throughout the fortress. Additional voices followed. Boots thundered through nearby corridors. The response had begun in full.

Far away, hidden within a service passage, the maintenance worker heard those same orders. The moment fear appeared in his eyes, he already knew the truth. The mission had failed. The assassin had been exposed. The fortress was mobilizing. And if he remained, capture was inevitable.

Without hesitation, he turned and ran.

In the courtyard, the assassin reached the same conclusion. Amelia lived. The alarm had spread. Reinforcements were coming. The only remaining option was escape — and the only obstacle standing between him and that escape was Ethan.

A small blade appeared suddenly in his free hand.

Ethan’s eyes narrowed at the faint glint of something dark along the edge.

Poison.

The assassin lunged — not toward the exit, but toward Ethan. One final desperate attack born equally from failure and fury. A man who had never expected to be cornered by a ten-year-old making his last calculation.

Ethan moved first.

The poisoned blade missed by inches. At the same instant, the sword crashed directly into the assassin’s throat with the full weight of Ethan’s momentum behind it. The impact echoed throughout the courtyard. The assassin staggered backward, his weapon slipping from his fingers, and then he collapsed.

Silence followed.

For several moments, neither moved. Then Ethan slowly lowered his weapon.

The assassin would not be rising again. The threat to Amelia had ended.

Yet somewhere within Ravenhold, the second conspirator was still running.

-----

The warning horn rolled across the fortress moments later, deep and unmistakable — a sound every knight in Ravenhold understood without needing to be told what it meant.

Lockdown.

Within moments the entire estate came alive. Orders spread through the corridors. Patrols doubled. Gates closed. Knights moved swiftly across the grounds, transforming Ravenhold from a fortress at rest into a fortress preparing for war.

The assassin’s body was quickly secured. Additional guards arrived to reinforce the family residence wing. Yet despite the activity flooding the courtyard around him, Ethan’s attention remained fixed on Amelia.

The young girl still stood where the attack had taken place, the earlier shock not yet fully gone from her face. Only minutes earlier, death had been descending toward her. Had he been a moment slower —

Ethan pushed the thought aside before it could finish forming.

Hurried footsteps echoed from the nearby corridor. Several attendants appeared first.

Then Elena arrived.

For perhaps the first time since Ethan’s return, her composure was nowhere to be seen. The moment she spotted Amelia, everything else ceased to matter — the guards, the assassin, the lockdown, none of it. Only her daughter.

"Amelia!"

The single word carried more emotion than Ethan had ever heard from her. Elena crossed the courtyard immediately and dropped to one knee beside her daughter, hands moving quickly across her arms and shoulders, checking for injuries despite seeing none. Only after confirming Amelia was unharmed did some of the tension leave her face.

For a brief moment, Elena Ravencrest was no longer the woman who managed half the administrative weight of House Ravencrest with calm precision. She was simply a mother who had almost lost her daughter. 𝕗𝕣𝐞𝐞𝘄𝐞𝚋𝚗𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹.𝚌𝕠𝚖

"I’m alright, Mother."

Amelia’s voice trembled slightly. The brave expression she had been trying to maintain collapsed almost immediately, and without hesitation she threw herself into Elena’s embrace.

Elena wrapped her arms around her daughter and held her tightly. Neither spoke. Neither needed to.

After several moments, Amelia slowly lifted her head. Her eyes wandered across the courtyard before finding Ethan. She stared at him for a long moment.

"Brother..."

Amelia’s small hands tightened around Elena’s sleeve.

"You came."

For a brief moment, Ethan couldn’t answer.

A warmth spread through his chest that no victory on any battlefield had ever given him.

"It’s over," he said. His voice remained calm. "The bad man can’t hurt you anymore."

Amelia stared at him for several seconds before slowly nodding, the fear in her eyes easing slightly.

Elena had witnessed the entire exchange. Her gaze shifted toward Ethan — toward the sword still resting in his hand, toward the assassin lying nearby, then back toward her son. A complicated mixture of emotions surfaced in her eyes. Relief. Concern. Pride. Had Ethan not been there —

She stopped herself from completing the thought.

Slowly, she rose to her feet and approached him. For several moments, she said nothing. Then she placed a hand upon his shoulder.

"You did well." Her voice was softer than usual. "Very well."

Before Ethan could respond, another group entered the courtyard.

At their head stood Gareth Ironwood.

The veteran commander surveyed the scene in a single sweep — the damaged courtyard, the gathered guards, the fallen assassin, Amelia, Elena, and finally Ethan — and his expression made clear that years of experience had already filled in most of the story without anyone needing to speak.

"What happened?"

Ethan explained. The suspicious servant. The irregular movements. The stolen guard information. The investigation. And ultimately, the assassination attempt itself. The more Gareth listened, the more complicated his expression became.

When Ethan finished, silence settled over the courtyard.

Then Gareth released a slow breath.

"You investigated all of this yourself?"

"I noticed a few things that didn’t seem right," Ethan said. "So I decided to see what was happening."

For several moments, Gareth simply stared at him. Then he shook his head — not in anger or accusation, but with the controlled concern of a commander who had nearly failed in his own responsibility.

"If you suspected something was wrong, you should have come to me. That’s my responsibility." His gaze remained fixed on Ethan. "Following suspected infiltrators and Investigating them yourself, those aren’t things I expect a young heir to handle."

The courtyard remained quiet.

Then Gareth’s eyes moved toward Amelia. Toward the assassin. And finally back toward Ethan. The concern slowly faded, replaced by something that looked considerably like respect.

"You’ve done well." The words carried considerable weight, and several nearby knights glanced at one another in quiet surprise — praise from Gareth Ironwood was not something handed out casually.

Before anyone could continue, a knight hurried into the courtyard and saluted sharply.

"Commander."

Gareth turned immediately.

"The second suspect has been captured."

The atmosphere shifted at once.

"Alive?"

"Yes, Commander."

For the first time that evening, satisfaction appeared in Gareth’s eyes.

"Secure him. We begin questioning immediately."

The knight saluted and departed.

As the courtyard gradually settled, Ethan looked toward the darkening sky above Ravenhold.

The assassin was dead. The conspirator had been captured. Amelia was alive. The attack had failed.

And for the first time since his return, he understood something clearly.

The future was changing. Not through luck. Not through coincidence.

Through his own actions.

The thought lingered briefly.

This assassination attempt had never happened in his previous life.

Ethan was certain of that. Some memories had blurred with time, but anything involving Amelia remained painfully clear. Had someone tried to kill her at this age, he would have remembered.

Yet it had happened.

His return had already begun changing the course of events.

The realization was both reassuring and unsettling. Reassuring because fate could be changed. Unsettling because it meant the future was no longer a path he could follow step by step from memory alone.

Ethan exhaled slowly.

Knowledge remained one of his greatest advantages. But from this point onward, memory alone would not be enough. The future was no longer something he could simply predict.

He would have to face it.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[Ding!]

[Main Mission Progress Updated]

Alter the Fate of House Ravencrest

Progress: 5%

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[Ding!]

[Emergency Mission Completed]

Protect Amelia Ravencrest

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rewards:

• War Merit ×1000

• Free Attribute Points ×5

• Special Reward Unlocked ×2

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Ethan glanced at the notification before dismissing it without a second thought.

The rewards meant little. The special reward meant even less. He had already received what mattered most.

Because standing before him was proof of something far more important than any number the System could display.

His sister was alive.

In his previous life, he had been trapped behind a sea of monsters, arriving too late to save her on the battlefield. This time, he had anticipated the danger.

He had arrived first.

And for the first time since returning to the past, Ethan truly believed the future could be changed.