章 567: Alote Till

Ryu's gaze flashed, the forward motion of his hand becoming a swift downward slap. There was no hesitation in his actions, no pause, and it almost seemed as though this was what he had planned to do from the very beginning. 

In one moment, an incisive knife that hid within the darkness was blazing a trail toward him. In the next, it had been pierced into the ground at Ryu's feet down to the hilt. It wasn't until a moment of silence that the air suddenly exploded apart, a cacophonic boom spreading throughout the region.

Ryu's robes fluttered beneath the impact, but he remained unmoved. His gaze looked up from the dagger in the ground through the now open doors of the inn. Within, he caught sight of a young man sitting at a table. Though he was expressionless eating as though these matters had nothing to do with him, Ryu's eyes couldn't be fooled in the slightest.