452 Making Their Move
-You have killed a level 38 Tier-4 Master Knife Fighter.-
-You have killed a being more than ten times your primary level and a Full Tier above your own; rewards will be multiplied by the Maximum Multiplier, a sextuple.-
-You have received 228 SPN-XP.-
-You have received 24 AGI.-
-You have received 24 DEX.-
-You have received 24 MIND.-
-You have obtained 6 KIN points-
-You have recieved six Tier-4 Wind/Earth Codexes.-
‘Hm, well, that’s something new. Having killed Tier-3’s in the past, I know that it gives average XP, but it looks like killing Tier-4 beings gives SPN-XP. Then there’s the 4 points in three stats; that’s kind of nice too.’ With a snap of his fingers, a burst of BlackFire erupted on the corpse, incinerating it while only leaving behind two items, a spatial neckless and a ring.
“Six KIN, and huh, twin-element Codexes, innnnteresting~.” Cynrik hummed as he picked up the two items, tossed them in his inventory, and glanced toward the Arena.
“Either way, I guess these six Codexes belong to Brance; after all, I don’t have an Earth Affinity.” Cynrik rubbed his eyes momentarily with a shrug since they were a little sore from leaving [Mana Sight] active for so long. When he reopened them, Cynrik popped his neck loudly, crouched down, and kicked off the ground before expelling some flames for flight as he traversed the two kilometers distance to meet up with the group.
—
Near the northern gate of the Arena, Brance swiftly ran back and forth while examining every nook and cranny of the nearby buildings until he was satisfied and met up with Garrison, who had already finished his task.
“It looks like you win this time, Instructor Garrison,” Brance said after spotting the smug grin on the man’s face, a sign that he was relieved the cost of dinner wasn’t his responsibility.
“What can I say? My Teacher’s pay isn’t as large as you’d expect; plus, how could I allow myself to be overshadowed by a student?” Exaggeratedly rubbing his nose, Instructor Garrison diverted his eyes as he felt ashamed, having tried so hard to win a foot race against a First Year Student, one that was a whole Tier lower than him.
“Ah, I see; well, I hope that the food allowance covers everyone; I mean, the contract did state that we would be provided proper nourishment during our stay in Valor City.” When Brance watched Garrison falter due to his pointed words, he stifled a laugh as he pushed his tongue against the inside of his cheek.
“You, you punk, you played me? Hah, I should have known better than to think you innocent. Being the younger brother of that scheming brat Ivar, I would expect no less than for you to have picked up a thing or two along the way, if not by osmosis.” Instructor Garrison sighed as he massaged his temples, only to be verbally attacked a second later from above.
“Whose a scheming brat? I know you aren’t bad-mouthing me behind my back, Garrison. Do you think I won’t be able to pick a fight with you because I’m only Tier-3? I’ll have you know I quickly dispatched someone the same Tier as you, and I might add with ease.”
“Speak of the devil, and he shall appear,” Brance muttered as he watched Cynrik fall from the sky like a meteor before landing on one knee in a perfect superhero landing.
“Would it kill you to run over like a normal person?” Brance complained as he walked over to Cynrik and noted the copious amounts of blood and gore coating his golden uniform.
“Yep, it sure would. Are you telling me you don’t want to try flying around here? With the Zero-G environment, it’s pretty fun.” Standing up and dusting off his pant leg, Cynrik tilted his head and looked back over his shoulder at a frowning Garrison.
p、A,nd A-n、o、ve,1 “You’re covered in blood.” That was all Garrison said. He knew there was no point in taking the bait the young man had laid as it would drag him into a clear argument, which Garrison had no means of winning.
“Am I? Hm, I didn’t even notice, one fire bath coming right up,” then, with a loud snap and a woosh, Cynrik was bathed in black flames for a couple of seconds. When they were extinguished, he was clean as a whistle.
“So, good news and bad news. The good news is I fucking bodied that bastard who tried to catch us in that faulty contract.” With a sniffle and a wing flex to loosen up his back, Cynrik scratched his cheek before leading with the better of the two batches of information.
“And the bad news?”
“Well, our oh-so-loving Grandfather and that Opurn bastard sold us out. All our available info is out on the black market. Names, place of birth, Origin Affinities, everything leading up to the Selections, it’s all out in the world now.” Cynrik stated in an annoyed tone as he crossed his arms over his chest.
“That and the fact that we jumped from Peak Tier-1 to Initial Tier-3 in less than a year. Honestly, I think that is the part that has all these hidden and not-so-hidden organizations on our tail.”
“Fuck, FUCK!” Brance shouted as he kicked the shattered cobblestone road with his toe sending fragments of stone all over the place.
“Yeah, I guess we are out in the open now—no point in holding back like I initially planned.” Cynrik walked over to Brance and patted him on the shoulder while he observed what the rest of the group was doing.
[I suppose that means I don’t have to hide from you that I told Garrison our real names. I felt bad about dragging him into this without knowing Ivar and Björn were just aliases.]
[I wouldn’t have cared in the first place. He is under that binding Soul Contract; it’s not like he can betray us. Regardless, we’ve kept this façade up for too long. It’s time to make ourselves known.] Cynrik’s face twitched for a second when he heard Brance leaked their names, but other than that, he showed no reaction.
“Lookie here, Garrison, you no longer have to bother calling us by our nicknames. With our info out there, it won’t matter. When we arrive on the surface, I will finish our registration and change my brother’s and my names to normal. It shouldn’t be a big deal since our Systems have Ivar and Björn registered as official Aliases.”
“So, Cynrik and Brance?” With narrowed eyes and budding confusion apparent on his face, Garrison took a deep breath and tried his best not to worry about the potential consequences that could arise from this name issue.
“Yep, anyway, time to grab the kids and get a move on,” Cynrik stated as he brought two fingers to the corner of his lips and whistled loudly.
Recognizing the signal, the members of MyrkLys pivoted and made a mad dash toward Cynrik, Brance, and Garrison, leaving only Head Dean Rimsfel, and Kurza confused and staring as everyone bounced away from their assigned positions.
The sudden movement was enough to get both of them to head toward Cynrik; it only took them longer to get to the rest of the group since neither was familiar with moving in the Shadow Realm.
Once everyone was regrouped, Cynrik went down the line requesting everyone’s findings, starting with Gabby, who was known to be the most observant of the bunch.
“I found eight operatives hiding, five in plain sight and three tucked away in semi-decent hiding positions. Using the checklist you taught us, I could notice the five suspicious people who would check their Watcets almost at precisely the same time as if waiting for some notification.” Gabby explained as she hopped off Milo’s back, and the cat shrunk to his huggable size.
“When it comes to the three guys hiding, they were even easier. Well, at least for Milo. His keen eyesight found them way faster than I would have been able.” Hearing his name come up, Milo puffed out his furry chest and let out a slight mew sound.
Everyone else had found similar instances. Upon hearing about how over 40 people were lying waiting for MyrkLys to show up, Cynrik frowned slightly before returning to his usual expressionless poker face.
Taking a deep breath, Cynrik glanced up at the sky and swiftly located all the spies, followed by memorizing their Mana Signatures.
“Only 40, that isn’t as bad as I initially planned; still, there are a lot of high Tier bodies on our tail. The strongest of which rivals Geralt. Troublesome, so troublesome.” Cynrik muttered under his breath.
If the enemies were all on the lower end of the spectrum, it wouldn’t have been so dire as for him to go almost nuclear, but when he spotted the impressive Mana fluctuations off a guy standing in plain sight, his frown returned.
“Tsk, fuck!” Cynrik suddenly cursed as his eyes began following a familiar group of Mana Signatures.
“Son of a bitch!” Hearing his older brother swear in a non-casual manner, Brance activated [Mana Sight] and cursed aloud as well.
“We have no other option, I will try to get us as close to them as possible, but unless we can get a message to Geralt in time, I don’t see any way out other than a no holds barred dog fight.” After saying that, Cynrik slammed his arms down and, half a beat later, was fully decked out in his battle gear.
His showy performance was enough to trigger the other members of MyrkLys into action, leaving Garrison, Rimsfel, and Kurza with their mouths hung open and awkwardly staring at the armed-to-the-teeth MyrkLys.
“What the fuck is going on?” Coming to first, Garrison broke the silence as Milo transformed and Gabby fitted his armor onto his body.
“VSFA is moving into position to head on stage. Our Academy teams are entering the Arena through the eastern exit, which has set all the spies into motion.” Cynrik stated as he brought out Vii and Sie and equipped their gear.
“Worse yet, Geralt still hasn’t arrived to usher the groups in, meaning he either isn’t on-site or in some viewing on a floor we don’t have access to. Odds are, he has no clue what is going on or that we are even missing. My money is on the fact that bastard Vice Headmaster “Forgot” to mention that we aren’t with the other teams.”
“So that alone is enough for you lot to go in guns blazing? No, absolutely not. Do you even realize what you are about to do? We aren’t at VSFA, where you can run around willy-nilly like vigilantes; this is Society, and the rules are different.” Garrison felt the urge to shake Cynrik to violently knock some sense into the boy.
“Normally, I’d agree with you, this wouldn’t be a good idea, but…” while Cynrik spoke, he extended out Umbra Mana strands to everyone and lifted the entire group off the ground.
“When the world is against you, and in this sense, I mean the military, the government, and every black/underground organization. You sometimes have to strike while the iron is hot.” Without breaking eye contact with Reality above, Cynrik quickly pre-typed out a message and set it up to send the instant his Watcet got a signal.
“And the iron is smoldering, MYRKLYS, LET’S CAUSE A RIOT!” And with that, Cynrik exploded off the ground toward the sky, carrying everyone along.
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