All four of them stared dumbfounded at the members of the council as armed and armored guards piled into the room. Silently, they lined up behind the council members, eight in total. Eik cursed under his breath.

"You can't be serious," Andihar breathed, a hint of fury in his voice. "This is a blatant misuse of power!"

"Call it what you will, but we are simply acting in the best interest of the Nidafjeld Alliance," the mustached man said.

"We brought Vendekaabe here as a guest of our and presented a proposal in good faith against Moon Shall Swallow—an operation he is willing to assist us in, by the way. He is not yours to arrest!"

The council members weren't impressed. "Seize him." The guards moved in, clearly cautious of both Andihar and Gul. They took a struggling Vendekaabe by the shoulders and had him immobilized in an instant with an ability that resembled, or was, Bind.

"Eik!" he yelped, his frantic kicks easily caught by the much more powerful guards. "Eik!"

Aura began surging out of Eik but Gul pulled him back. "Don't! Violence won't fix this one, Eik."

"What the hell do I do then? They can't do this!"

"Eik!" Vendekaabe called, voice now controlled, eyes staring. "No matter how this ends, I want to thank you for your kind hospitality. The bed was much more comfortable than what we have back in Luna."

"Take him away already," the mustached man said with a dismissive wave. "We are simply following your request," he continued with a barely suppressed smile of derision. "we will investigate these claims ourselves."

***

"What the fuck just happened?" Eik raged when they left the building. Vendekaabe had been taken away quickly and they had been unable to do anything about it.

Again, the scope was shifted. He had never quite felt the Nidafjeld Alliance move as the enormous entity it truly was. Mostly, he had experienced the Alliance as smaller parts of a whole, such as Atla, the house Dayarunar and the Ougi clan, and such.

Ougi and Dayarunar had been powerful beyond belief, able to do anything they wished, yet now… They were powerless to oppose Alliance officials. They had decided that Vendekaabe was now theirs, and so that became the truth. There was nothing to be done.

"How can they just… How can they just decide to take him? We need him! Why are they so passive? An opportunity to end this once and for all is staring them right in the face and all they can do is grumble and consider? We have to fuckin' act!"

"Look, Eik," Andihar said with a sigh. "You have to understand that these people—all of us here in the Nidafjeld Alliance, really—were born long after the conflict with the cult began. To all of us it is quite literally a never-ending war. And we had all expected it to continue long after we're gone. In a way, the conflict is as much a part of our culture as the brisik you always order in restaurants."

"That's a ridiculous way to view something that steals away our people's lives!" Eik argued, filled with frustration. "Moon Shall Swallow is literally no more than a few years away from finishing what they have been working on for thousands of years! I set them back a few years with what I did, but all it did was buy time! It's going to be the end of the Unified Mass!"

Gul's jaw was clenched so tight that his words were hissing through his teeth. "An inconvenient truth. And for such a wide-reaching and scattered organization as the Nidafjeld Alliance, inconvenient truths are best suppressed and avoided."

"A true truth!" Eik exclaimed. "No amount of suppression and avoidance will make this shit go away! It'll kill us! I've seen—felt—what they are preparing for!"

"You've felt it?" Andihar asked, stepping closer.

Eik nodded, a bead of sweat springing forth on his forehead. "In the Stirring Cradle, after I destroyed the materials stored down there. Something appeared as I was leaving. A spectral eye, rooted in something distant and ancient. All the way inside my soul I felt it. It was the Lord of the Moon."

Both Gul and Andihar studied him intently, frowns on their brows. "You're saying you've met the Lord of the Moon?" They didn't sound convinced.

"A small and incomplete part of it, yes. I'm sure of it." The manner of depth he had felt from the eye was the same depth he felt from Monarch's Will. It had to be another Worldbreaker. But he couldn't tell them that he knew what a Worldbreaker's presence felt like without revealing more to them than he felt ready to.

The two men exchanged glances. "Well, even if it wasn't the Lord of the Moon you saw, the overall situation is still urgent enough to warrant action, I would say," Andihar said. "And since we can't rely on the Alliance right now, we're just going to have to employ our own forces."

"We can do that?" Eik asked, surprised.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

"In order to keep everybody happy, the Alliance doesn't put that many restrictions on member civilizations. We are free to launch attacks on hostiles so long as we don't directly involve the Alliance at large. I'm sure you're perfectly aware of the laxity after being constantly harassed by the Gohkamorians for all those years."

"Yeah, okay!" Eik said, regaining some hope. "Let's do that then! Do you think we can find an X-ranker or two to help us?"

Andihar and Gul shared another glance before both chuckling at the apparent absurdity of Eik's question. "Even if we could find and X-ranker, I doubt we could convince any of them to help us."

"But if the Unified Mass disappeared, even being X-rank wouldn't save them. I could offer some of my Legendary Mystery Medicine as a reward."

"Good point," Andihar admitted, tilting his head from side to side. "but it doesn't change the fact that we don't know where to find an X-ranker. I can't remember hearing about any X-ranker who continued to live in normal society for very long after pushing past S-rank. Something happens to people who ascend to that level that changes their entire perspective on life."

"Damn, and here I was getting my hopes up," Eik muttered.

"Although I don't doubt than an X-ranker would be immensely interested in your pills. Just the achievement of reaching X-rank in itself is irrefutable proof of an overwhelming thirst for power. And your pills have the potential to take them further," Andihar said. "Don't be surprised if one of them ends up at your doorstep one of these days."

Eik wasn't sure if that would be a good or a bad thing. On one hand, X-rankers were very powerful and mysterious people, but on the other hand they were still very powerful and mysterious people. Unknowns were dangerous, and he already had plenty of unknowns to deal with.

"All right, since we've lost our source of knowledge on the vulnerabilities of the cult's plans, we're going to have to make locating the oracle our priority," Gul concluded as they passed through a park filled to the brim with luscious and vibrantly colorful flower beds. "We need to figure out how to get to Luna."

"Yeah, about that," Eik said. "I've been wondering about what Vendekaabe said there at the end. That the bed I gave him was comfortable. He never slept at my place."

"But he did at mine," Andihar muttered. "I'll turn his room upside down when I return. Maybe he left something behind in case things went south today. Like the the next step of the oracle's plan, or where the oracle is held."

"Yeah, he's held his cards close until now to maintain leverage. And he said that he doesn't know where she is, although I'm pretty sure I do," Eik said.

"You do? Where?"

Eik chewed on his lip as he recalled the tense escape. "The primary temple of Moon Shall Swallow, below which the Stirring Cradle lays. And getting inside is not going to be a simple task."

***

Gilim Ougi had a terrible stomachache. He had been on the toilet all morning, dreading what was to happen come noon. Today was the day of the duel with Eik Magnasen, the insolent Earthling who had kissed grandfather's ass and cozied his way into the clan like a snake. As he rightfully should, Gilim had made his displeasure known and pushed Eik into a public fight…

How the hell was he supposed to have known that the guy was so much stronger than him even though they were the same power rank and he had trained with his family's backing for his whole like while Eik had only just Awakened by the time Gilim hit A-rank?

How the hell was he supposed to have known that Eik had the capability to decimate the standing records of the A-rank Crucible raw damage output test to such a degree that even the old top score looked like it had been done by some low-class chump pulled off the street at random in comparison?

And how the hell was he supposed to have known that Eik Magnasen was one of the most extraordinarily skilled and inventive alchemists in the world? That he had single-handedly developed and created potentially one of the greatest advancements of the millennium in the Unified Mass. That he might well soon attain the title of Elixir King at an age where most people could barely even begin to dream of it.

How was he supposed to have known any of that? It wasn't fair. And if he tried to get out of the fight, he would be the laughingstock not only of his entire clan, but of everybody in the Alliance.

He was doomed.

An hour and a half later, he was forced to step onto the stage by the stares of his family members. After Eik's public announcement of a duel between them during the event at the Alchemist Guild, the whole thing had been taken as an open invitation and spread across Gimleh like wildfire. And there was nothing that rich people with too much time on their hands enjoyed more than watching a bit of violence after lunch.

He gripped his spear tightly enough for his knuckles to turn white. The blood red blade shone in the light from the high sun and reflected crimson onto the tiles of the arena.

The fight was to take place on the widest of the arenas owned by the Ougi clan. A built-in S-rank energy barrier would ensure the safety of the audience while allowing the fighters to go all out without worrying about collateral damage.

Big as it was, there was room for thousands of spectators. And that still didn't seem to be enough as even the walkways between the seats were occupied by people eagerly waiting to see a beating.

All things considered, Gilim was in excellent condition right now. That's right. He should never allow himself to forget that he was a genuine member of the venerable Ougi clan, brought up from infancy to be the best among the best. Regardless of what some inconsequential damage score said, Eik was nothing but a potion maker from a fresh world. If he simply put his mind to it, Gilim could crush him like he had crushed so many opponents before.

Rudely, Eik didn't arrive until the very minute they had scheduled for. Such behavior put the A-ranked noble in a foul mood. Having regained his moxie, he relaxed his grip on the spear and exhaled deeply.

Yes, he could win. Eik may be capable of deadly attacks, but if they never hit, what good would they be? Gilim was swift as lightning—surely much faster than a toxin user like Eik Magnasen.

Not to mention defense. Having clearly all of his focus into offense, what would a glass cannon like Eik do when he was faced with Gilim's bloodletting blade? What could he do? In a real fight like this, this so-called number one would crumble.

"Good of you to show up!" Gillim called loudly across the arena. "I was beginning to think that you had turned tail and fled!"

Frowning, Eik threw a confused glance back at Ihasu who stood at the foot of the arena, his finger raised to point at the young master as if to ask if he was hearing him right.

Gilim huffed, confidence now emanating from him like the smell of farts emanating from a rotten cabbage. "That's right! I've seen through your tricks! I will graciously show everyone here how well you will truly fare in a real match."

Eik simply shrugged and stood with his hands in his pockets, weaponless as he waited for the call to start.

"A-rank duel between Gilim Ougi and Eik Magnasen," Clan Leader Gul, acting as adjudicator for the match, called, voice enhanced. "Begin!"

Before he could even register it, Eik vanished before Gilim's eyes.

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