48 Reclaiming Hope (VI)

Cato Sicarius slowly opened his eyes and saw the famed pale-white ceiling of Macragge's Honour's medicae ward, where classical reliefs and the names of distinguished Apothecaries throughout history gleamed before him.

He raised a hand and touched the side of his neck, pressing his fingers slowly against the spot where he had been struck.

The pain that followed had already faded to little more than a dull ache, but Mephiston had not held back much when he knocked him down. He thought he had likely been unconscious for around twenty minutes.

No, perhaps even longer, considering he had been carried to the medicae ward. Sicarius thought with a trace of unwillingness.

He sat up, sighed silently, and accepted it nonetheless—he had simply been outmatched. There was nothing more to say. That ghostly Blood Angel had defeated him with effortless ease. In a true fight to the death, the time between his collapse and awakening would have been enough for him to die thousands of times over.

But why was he so strong?

Sicarius silently contemplated the matter, repeatedly recalling that flash of blade-light from when Mephiston had truly made his move, that speed and strength.

Even that crude reconstruction from his hazy memories gave him the sense that he could not match it. Instinctively, he changed tactics, built theoretical models, and ran a series of data analyses. In the end, he reached one conclusion: I have no chance of winning. None at all.

Any attempt at probing would be laughable before that kind of speed, as absurd as someone trying to knock down a Titan at close quarters with a wooden stick.

At that thought, Sicarius could not help but laugh.

He rose to his feet, put on the uniform laid beside his bed, and pushed open the door. Outside,