Chapter 205: Leaving Zenthoria
The trio hammered at Vasek’s thermal bubble with increasing desperation. Garrett’s blades rang off the barrier — clang, clang, clang — each impact sending shockwaves that rippled through the mist. Aria’s light beams refracted harmlessly. Ruby’s water attacks evaporated on contact.
The bubble held.
Vasek’s face twisted into a bloody grin. Sweat poured down his burnt skin, but his eyes burned with vicious triumph. "Is that all? Your domain can’t break through, and your little friends can’t—"
Kael didn’t speak.
He reached for something that didn’t require hands, feet, or movement.
Slaughter Intent.
It stirred in his chest.
He gathered it. He focused it. Compressed the weight of his intent into a single, invisible lance of pure killing intent, and projected it directly at Vasek.
Vasek’s grin collapsed. His eyes bulged. Blood erupted from his nose — cough, hack — spraying red across his chin and chest. The concentration required to maintain the thermal bubble depended on absolute mental focus. The slaughter intent didn’t just distract him — it invaded his mind, pressing the weight of countless deaths against his consciousness like a physical force.
The bubble flickered.
Pulse. Pulse. Flicker.
"Now!" Kael shouted.
Garrett moved first.
His blades came together in a crossing pattern — shiiiing — and he launched into the fourth form of his personal blade technique. Wind mana spiraled around both weapons, compressing into razor-thin edges that howled as they cut through the air. He drove the twin slashes directly at the flickering weakest point of the bubble.
CRACK.
The thermal barrier shattered like glass — tink, tink, tink, tink — fragments of condensed heat scattering in all directions. Vasek screamed as his protection vanished.
Ruby struck next.
Her hands moved in a complex pattern, water mana gathering from every source within range — the mist, the blood on the ground, the moisture in the air itself. The water condensed into a massive serpent — different from the dragon she’d used before, this one was sleeker, faster, designed for penetration rather than raw power.
Aria crossed her forearms in front of her chest in an X shape.
On her right hand, a sphere of hyper-concentrated, blindingly white solar light ignited — so bright that the surrounding mist turned golden. On her left hand, a sphere of pitch-black, absolute shadow manifested — so dark that it seemed to absorb the light from Aria’s other hand.
She began chanting.
"Chariot of the Sun, blind the waking world. Shroud of the Abyss, bury the dying star. Weave the loom. Where dawn meets dusk, let reality collapse."
The white and black spheres pressed together. Light and shadow — opposing forces fused. Violet energy crackled between them, unstable, screaming with contained destruction. The sphere that formed was small — barely the size of a fist — but it radiated power that made the air itself flinch away.
Aria was sweating. Veins stood out on her neck. Her arms trembled with the effort of holding the fusion together.
"Cosmic Spectrum: Twilight."
FWOOOOOM.
The violet sphere launched.
"Torrent Serpent Strike."
SWOOOOOOSH.
All three attacks converged on Vasek’s broken body at the same moment — Garrett’s wind blades cutting through his shoulders, Ruby’s water serpent punching through his torso, Aria’s twilight sphere striking his chest.
KA-BOOOOOOM.
The explosion flattened everything within a twenty-meter radius. Shockwave rippled through the compound, toppling already-damaged buildings, shattering remaining windows, sending debris flying in every direction.
Kael released the domain.
The indigo sky snapped back to normal. Kael’s legs gave out as he dropped to his knees, breathing hard.
The dust settled.
Vasek lay in the center of the crater where the explosion had detonated. What remained of him was barely recognizable. Missing limbs. Missing torso sections. A face frozen in an expression of shock and rage. Dead before he hit the ground.
Garrett lowered his blades, chest heaving. "Finally."
Ruby stared at the remains with wide eyes. "Fucking hell. How the heck is that guy so tough?"
Aria sheathed her weapons and turned toward Kael. "Well, he was a Rank 9 cultivator after all."
She crossed the crater in quick strides and knelt beside him. "Are you alright?"
Kael raised a hand. "Give me a minute."
Aria stayed close but didn’t touch him. Her presence was enough.
Kael sat in the ruins of Vasek’s main building — what had once been the syndicate boss’s throne room, now just a collapsed framework of charred beams and shattered stone. His mana circulation was chaotic, the channels still recovering from the strain of maintaining a Reality Annex with binding contract amplification. He focused on the Mantra of the Void Sovereign, letting the ancient technique smooth out the turbulence.
A few minutes passed. His breathing steadied.
"We better rest," Kael said.
Ruby approached, her white hair smudged with ash and blood that wasn’t hers. "I’m going back to my family now."
Kael looked up. "Just like that?"
"Just like that." Ruby shrugged. "I wanted to see Zenthoria for myself. Test my abilities against real opponents. My family isn’t aware I’m here right now. If I don’t return soon, they’ll send people looking."
She paused, then smiled. It transformed her sharp features into something almost warm.
"I hope to see you alive at the next Vorn clan banquet, Young Lord."
"We’ll see."
They exchanged nods. Ruby gathered a few items from her storage ring — a change of clothes, a communication token — and departed without ceremony. The white-haired prodigy vanished into Zenthoria’s back alleys like a ghost.
Kael stood and walked to Vasek’s corpse. He crouched, placed his hand on the syndicate boss’s ruined shoulder, and severed the head with a single shadow-extended blade. The head went into his storage ring.
The group rested at an hotel called The Weeping Angel — a grim name for a grim establishment in Zenthoria’s neutral district. The rooms were clean enough, the beds soft enough, and the locks sturdy enough to rest without fear.
Kael, Garrett, and Aria collapsed into their assigned rooms to rest.
The next five days blurred together.
They worked through the remaining names on Ursula’s list. Smaller bandit groups. Individual targets. No organization like Vasek’s syndicate — just scattered criminals who thought themselves safe in Zenthoria’s lawless depths.
They were wrong.
Kael used Shadow Step and darkness manipulation. Aria used her shadow-light with great synergy. Garrett used wind-enhanced speed.
By the fifth day, the list was complete.
The Vorn branch office was quiet when they returned.
Baron Eltemiro stood behind his desk, staring at the three figures who had walked through his door with barely a scratch between them.
"You’re alive," he said flatly clearly shocked.
"Disappointed?" Kael asked.
"Stunned." Baron pushed his spectacles back up. "When Ursula’s mission briefing crossed my desk, I calculated your survival probability at approximately three percent. The Pillar Knights alone should have ensured your death. Vasek’s syndicate should have finished the job. The entire assignment was designed to be inescapable."
He paused.
"And you walked back through my door five days later looking like you went on a vacation."
Garrett shifted uncomfortably.
"The Vorn Clan Transfer Gate," Kael said. "We’re leaving."
Baron nodded slowly, still processing. "The gate will be ready in ten minutes. Your report has already been filed through official channels. Mission accomplished."
"Perfect."
Kael turned toward the exit.
The transfer gate hummed to life in the warehouse beneath the branch office. Kael, Garrett, and Aria stepped through the shimmering portal together.
The chaotic, burning ruins of Zenthoria vanished behind them.
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