A few days had passed since Arthur completed his reconnaissance of the three lords and decided to eliminate the middlemen first. He'd analyzed his two targets and the methods he could use to deal with them without causing innocent casualties.
With such constraints, he couldn't use explosives and had to restrict himself to silent assassinations.
Which brought him to a run down warehouse in East London at two in the morning.
According to Ravenscar's memories, this facility served as a distribution hub for one of his arms trafficking operations. More importantly, it housed a laboratory where they developed "specialized solutions" for problem elimination.
The poison Arthur needed was stored in a vault three levels underground. It would be poetic justice to use poison gained from Ravenscar's criminal warehouses to cause the deaths of those responsible.
The warehouse was heavily fortified—motion sensors, thermal cameras, armed guards rotating every four hours. For mundane thieves, it would be impregnable.
For a wizard with an invisibility cloak and access to the Mirror Dimension, however, it was merely an inconvenience.
Shifting to the Mirror Dimension, Arthur walked through heavily guarded doors without triggering any sensors or alarms. First, he made his way to the security room. He stunned the guard and switched off all the cameras—couldn't leave digital evidence. After placing monitoring wards to alert him if anyone came to check, Arthur left the room.
Soon he found the lab's cold storage where the poisons were kept. There wasn't much protection there—arrogance born of believing their security was impenetrable.
Inside the cold storage, shelves were lined with vials, syringes, and containers marked with symbols that promised creative death. Arthur located what he'd come for—a clear liquid labeled "Compound Seven" in Cyrillic letters.
The perfect assassination tool, from what Arthur had researched. Absorbed through skin contact. Death within minutes. Most importantly, it was manufactured and used by at least twelve different criminal organizations worldwide.
When bodies started dropping, everyone would have suspects. No one would look for magical involvement.
Arthur pocketed several vials and erased all traces of his presence with carefully applied mystic arts. Returning to the security room, he repeated the same steps, restored the cameras and then silently woke the guard. Then he waited and watched from the Mirror Dimension.
The guard stirred, looked around confused, and assumed he'd simply dozed off for a few minutes. A quick Legilimency probe revealed no doubts or suspicions.
Satisfied, Arthur returned home.
Phase one complete.
—
Four days later - Ministry of Defense Charity Gala
The ballroom of the Grosvenor House Hotel buzzed with the controlled chaos of high-society networking. Hundreds of military officials, government ministers, and foreign dignitaries filled the opulent space, champagne glasses catching light from crystal chandeliers.
Arthur observed from the hotel's service corridors, invisible beneath his cloak. He'd spent three days studying General Marcus Whitmore's schedule to find the perfect opportunity. It hadn't been difficult—the man was a consummate politician who never missed a chance to advance his career through strategic connections.
Currently, Whitmore held court near the champagne fountain, regaling a group of young ministers with war stories that were probably fabricated. His dress uniform gleamed with medals earned through corruption rather than valor.
Arthur prepared the Compound Seven-filled needle concealed in his palm and waited for the perfect moment.
It came an hour into the event, when Whitmore moved toward the main reception line where visiting foreign ministers were greeting attendees. The crush of bodies, the constant movement, the formal protocol of handshakes and brief conversations created ideal cover.
Arthur drifted through the crowd like smoke. As Whitmore raised his arm to pat a colleague's shoulder after greeting the German Defense Minister, Arthur struck.
The needle pierced Whitmore's upper arm through his dress uniform—a tiny pinprick barely noticeable amid the evening's festivities.
Whitmore winced and glanced down but saw nothing unusual. Arthur had already melted back into the crowd and shifted to the Mirror Dimension to watch the show unfold.
Two minutes later, General Marcus Whitmore stumbled.
"Sir? Are you feeling alright?" A young lieutenant caught his arm as Whitmore swayed.
The general's face had gone ashen. Sweat beaded on his forehead despite the ballroom's perfect climate control. "I... feel rather..."
He collapsed onto the marble floor.
Chaos erupted. Military personnel shouted orders while someone screamed for a doctor. Security began cordoning off the area as Whitmore convulsed, foam bubbling from his mouth.
Arthur watched from the Mirror Dimension as paramedics fought desperately to save a man who'd been dead the moment the needle found its mark.
Twenty-three minutes later, they pronounced General Marcus Whitmore dead of apparent cardiac arrest.
Arthur remained long enough to observe the initial investigation. Agents and detectives swarmed the scene, questioning witnesses and analyzing everything Whitmore had consumed or touched. The immediate assumption was foreign assassination—but by whom?
"Russian operatives," one investigator muttered to his partner. "Has to be. The General was spearheading our new Baltic defense initiative."
"Could be Chinese intelligence. Or North Korean. Hell, with his level of clearance, could be anyone."
Arthur smiled beneath his invisibility. No mention of supernatural involvement. Just the natural assumption that important people had dangerous enemies.
Perfect misdirection.
—
One week later - Westminster Abbey
General Whitmore's funeral was a state affair befitting his rank and public reputation. The Gothic arches of Westminster Abbey filled with military brass, government officials, and foreign dignitaries paying respects to a "fallen hero."
Arthur found it deeply ironic that they were honoring a man who'd murdered innocent civilians for power and money.
Colonel David Graves stood in the front row beside Whitmore's widow, his face a practiced mask of grief. As Whitmore's former aide and current head of Special Forces operations, Graves was handling much of the funeral protocol.
Which meant he was shaking hundreds of hands.
Arthur positioned himself near the abbey's main entrance, invisible and patient. The funeral service lasted ninety minutes—hymns, eulogies, and military honors for a man who deserved none of them. Then came the receiving line where mourners offered condolences to family and colleagues.
Graves stood beside the general's widow, accepting sympathy and sharing fabricated "fond memories" of his murdered partner in crime.
Arthur prepared another needle filled with Compound Seven.
The line moved with funeral solemnity. Foreign military attachés, government ministers, fellow officers—all offering respects with formal handshakes and brief words of comfort.
Arthur waited until Graves was greeting a delegation of representatives from foreign countries. Multiple conversations happening simultaneously, bodies pressed close together in the narrow space—perfect cover for what came next.
As Graves turned to shake hands with a Minister, Arthur struck again.
The needle found flesh between Graves' collar and neck—barely a mosquito bite amid the formal embraces and shoulder clasps.
Graves touched his neck absently and excused himself to find someone to check what had bitten him. He was on guard after what had happened to General Whitmore.
But he never made it to calling for help.
Colonel David Graves collapsed in Westminster Abbey's main corridor, twitching and foaming exactly as Whitmore had done. This time, the chaos was even more intense—a second high-ranking military death in eight days sent shockwaves through the entire defense establishment.
Arthur observed the aftermath from the Mirror Dimension. Immediate security lockdown. Intensive investigations. Frantic assumptions about coordinated foreign intelligence operations.
"This is systematic," one agent told his superior. "Someone's targeting our command structure with surgical precision."
"Russians?"
"Most likely. Though it could be state-sponsored terrorism from multiple sources working in coordination."
Again, no mention of supernatural involvement. The investigators were hunting for human enemies using human methods, exactly as Arthur had planned.
Perfect execution.
—
Two weeks later - Arthur's London Manor
Arthur sat in his study, newspaper clippings spread across his mahogany desk like trophies. The deaths of General Whitmore and Colonel Graves had dominated headlines for weeks, spawning parliamentary inquiries, security reviews, and international tensions as various nations denied involvement.
The chaos was exactly what Arthur had expected.
There was never any doubt about wizarding world involvement. This was because General Whitmore and Colonel Graves had never dealt with the supernatural, and there was no apparent magical motive. All investigations were directed toward mundane threats.
Compound Seven was documented as a tool of Russian, Chinese, Iranian, and North Korean intelligence services. The poison's origin remained untraceable through conventional forensics. The delivery method was a complete mystery.
Arthur had successfully proven his assassination protocol worked flawlessly.
Now he could focus on the primary targets—Lords Ravenscar, Greycairn, and Ashridge.
Finding the right opportunity where all three would be present simultaneously would require patience, but Arthur had waited many years for justice. A few more days meant nothing.
Killing them in their heavily warded estates would inevitably raise suspicions about supernatural involvement. Public assassinations were ideal—during chaotic social events, they would point investigators toward conventional enemies and known criminal rivalries.
Arthur closed his files and opened a portal to Kamar-Taj. Despite his focus on revenge, he maintained his training schedule at the mystical sanctuary.
—
The next morning - Kamar-Taj
Arthur finished his meditation in the courtyard as dawn broke over the Himalayan peaks. The familiar routine of breathing exercises and dimensional energy channeling helped center his mind, though thoughts of his assassination campaign never completely faded.
As he rose from his lotus position, a fellow trainee approached him. Arthur remembered seeing him around the sanctuary—a man in his late twenties who'd joined only a few months after Arthur arrived.
"Hayes," the trainee said, "the Sorcerer Supreme requests your immediate presence in her office."
Arthur didn't think much of the summons and made his way through Kamar-Taj's ancient corridors toward the Ancient One's chambers.