The heavy iron counter of the Brimstone Mercenary Conclave groaned as the three Tier 5 apex beast cores were deposited into the receiving grid. The high-tier registrar's hands visibly trembled as his measuring arrays flared with a blinding, saturated light, verifying the absolute purity of the harvest.
Clack. Clack.
The automated registry mechanism cycled with a loud, metallic echo. The iron slates above the grand hall slid back, dissolving their old Gold status and stamping a new, shimmering silver-white notation onto the ledger.
[BRIMSTONE CONCLAVE — REGISTRY UPDATE]
>> Adventurer Team: The Eternity Group
>> Current Standing: PLATINUM RANK (Tier 5 Authorized)
>> Operational Clearance: Sovereign Sector Thresholds Granted
Before the registrar could even hand over the newly forged Platinum insignias, the reinforced oak doors of the guild hall were violently blown off their iron hinges. A localized hurricane of razor-sharp, emerald-tinted wind mana surged into the room, shattering the front glass displays and forcing the surrounding mercenaries to scramble for cover.
***
"Who did it?" a voice roared, vibrating with a raw, suffocating grief and murderous intent.
Barging through the debris was Mayor Tan. His expensive primordial silks were disheveled, his face twisted into a mask of pure, unbridled rage. Behind him marched a towering figure clad in heavy, ash-stained volcanic plate armor—the Chief Guard of the settlement. Outside the guild threshold, the mangled bodies of Tan's hunting party lay arranged under white linen sheets, brought back by Markus as cold logistical data.
The Mayor's emerald eyes locked instantly onto Markus's dark traveling coat. "You... The Eternity Team," Tan hissed, his wind mana condensing into floating, spinning kinetic blades around his shoulders. "My son's displacement log shows he tracked your exact coordinate path into the northern crags. He is dead, along with twelve of my estate's finest enforcers. You will give me a satisfactory answer right now, or I will personally throw you and your little trophies into the deepest subterranean mana-dampening dungeons until your flesh rots off your bones!"
Markus didn't flinch. He didn't even adjust his posture. With absolute indifference to the spinning wind blades, his silver-blue eyes flared with a deep, geometric light as he activated Fate's Eyes to run an immediate structural analysis on the two authority figures.
[FATE'S EYES: TARGET THREAT EVALUATION]
TARGET 01: Mayor Tan
- Biological Lineage: Primordial Human (Awakened)
- Combat Tier: Tier 5 Baseline
- Core Specifics: Compressed Wind-Element Mana Core
- Structural Vulnerability: Erratic emotional load; unstable vector balance.
TARGET 02: Chief Guard
- Biological Lineage: Primordial Human (Awakened)
- Combat Tier: Tier 6 Boundary
- Law Comprehension: Laws of Fire 5%
A minor five percent mastery, Markus noted internally, dismissing the threat parameters within a fraction of a millisecond. Insufficient density to disrupt my spatial corridor.
***
"Your threats are a waste of time, Mayor," Markus spoke, his voice a freezing, level frequency that cut cleanly through the howling wind mana in the room. "The sequence of events is entirely logical, dictated entirely by your son's lack of cognitive foresight."
"You dare—!" the Mayor stepped forward, but the Chief Guard placed a heavy, ash-stained gauntlet on his shoulder, his eyes narrowed as he felt the absolute, unyielding density of Markus's presence.
"Two hours before our deployment," Markus continued smoothly, ignoring the interruption, "Young Master Tan chose to intercept my team in the central plaza, utilizing your estate's authority to harass my team members. Because his actions represented a minor logistical delay to our schedule, I utilized localized laws to anchor him in place for exactly two hours as a baseline disciplinary correction."
The guild hall fell into a deathly, ringing silence. The surrounding mercenaries stared at Markus in utter disbelief. He was openly admitting to paralyzing the Mayor's son in broad daylight.
"A lifetime of unpunished delinquency and artificial authority within this settlement clearly bred a fatal overconfidence in the boy," Markus stated flatly, his silver-blue eyes locking onto the Mayor's trembling frame. "Driven by a petty desire for emotional revenge, he illegally abused your mayoral seal to breach the guild's restricted ledger, extracting our hunting coordinates. He assembled a crude, uncalibrated Tier 3 gang and ventured deep into a high-risk Platinum-rank sector."
Markus gestured slightly toward the window where the bodies lay.
"He did not possess the strength or tactical logic to navigate a Tier 4 crisis zone. His group walked directly into a territorial ambush by Tectonic Dread-Wolves. My team arrived at the coordinates to fulfill our legally binding Tier 5 contract. We eliminated the anomalies and harvested the materials, but your son's party had already been pruned by the local ecosystem before our arrival. If you are seeking a liability to blame for his expiration, I suggest you audit your own parenting metrics."
The Mayor's breath hitched, his face turning a deep, volatile purple. The truth was a brutal, jagged pill to swallow—his son's own arrogance had meticulously engineered his own demise. "You... you could have saved them! You are a Platinum team!"
"We are a harvesting unit, not a charitable escort," Markus replied coldly, sliding his fingers over the four newly forged Platinum badges on the counter and passing them to the girls. "We operate on a strict efficiency ledger. We do not waste energy salvaging variables that actively seek their own destruction."
The Chief Guard's hand tightened on the Mayor's shoulder, his low-frequency fire mana flaring slightly but refusing to ignite. He looked at Markus, then at the four girls, whose eyes briefly glinted with a gold, primeval hue—a sign of a physical density that shouldn't belong to mere newcomers. The Guard knew that if a battle broke out inside the guild hall, the settlement's infrastructure would not survive the spatial backlash.
"Let it go, Mayor," the Chief Guard whispered heavily, his voice tight. "The contracts were legal. The boy entered a Platinum zone without authorization. The guild ledger protects them."
Mayor Tan stood paralyzed, his breath coming in ragged, shallow gasps as the howling wind mana around his shoulders flickered and died. The realization that his own leverage had been utterly dismantled by a clinical application of the guild's own bylaws left him hollowed out.
Markus picked up the four freshly minted silver-white Platinum badges from the iron counter, slipping them into his coat with a practiced, fluid motion. He turned his piercing gaze back to the broken politician one last time. He didn't look at him with hatred or malice; he looked at him like a senior engineer inspecting a poorly insulated wall.
"A city's infrastructure cannot stand when its anchors are structurally compromised," Markus said, his voice dropping into a low, echoing frequency that filled the silent guild hall.
"If you intend to preserve the remaining longevity of the Tan Mansion, I suggest you implement a far more active control over your family members. A supervisor who only inspects the damage after a total structural collapse is not a leader—they are merely a cleanup crew. Monitor your perimeter more closely in the future, Mayor. The wild does not issue warnings."
The Mayor flinched as if struck, his hands clenching into tight, trembling fists, but he could find no words to counter the absolute, freezing logic of the critique. Beside him, the Chief Guard slowly lowered his hand from his sword hilt, a grim expression of respect passing over his weathered features.