Nonami had heard rumours about the tournament over the past few days among the inhabitants of the growing tent colony around the sanctuary. A few talked of nobles most likely dominating the entire event—the great houses flexing their cultivated strength, their refined techniques, their generations of accumulated power.

  But that would not be the case.

  Not with him there.

  It would be a chance to earn not only points, but to hone his blade against stronger foes. Foes that would hopefully include the Collar Gang bastards who had led them down this path. Forced them through those doors, and that had led to Otter’s death.

  He’d made sure they paid for every drop of blood.

  And more.

  With Saraleth’s help, he’d make sure the Collar Gang would be but a memory to Middlec. A cautionary tale whispered in dark corners about what happened when you crossed the wrong person.

  And if his guess was right, Bobbie would join this tournament. His people had been rather busy, after all. Completing quests and stealing from others.

  And Gravity Forging-Eight, such as Bobbie, wouldn’t let such a lucrative opportunity pass him by. The man was greedy. Ambitious. Exactly the sort to see an event like this and reach for it with both hands.

  Which meant Nonami would have his chance.

  His blade would have its due.

  Saraleth stepped to his side, her form flickering as she moved. Her head came to rest on his shoulder once more, her luminescent eyes fixed on the screen still hovering in the air.

  “So then, Nonami.” Her voice was soft. Eager. “Are we leaving now?”

  —- —- —- —-

  It wasn’t often that Pendeck felt himself questioning the logic behind Bobbie’s orders. Even now, as these captured slum dwellers and commoners got dragged from their destroyed tents and shackled, he could see the vague outlines of a plan that Bobbie had laid.

  He shifted, patting his grip on the checklist in front of him, running over the processes, hoping that these buffoons had followed the plan to the best of their ability.

  A woman shrieked somewhere to his left—the sound cut short by the crack of a hand against flesh. Chains rattled in answer, the iron links scraping and clanking as bodies got hauled upright, shoved forward, made to march.

  The procession wound through the wreckage of what had been, only hours ago, a modest camp of strivers. Leather armour—newly bought, stiff, barely broken in—caught the light as the prisoners stumbled past. The overseers had the weaker-looking ones carry the looted swords; the blades were peace-bonded with rough rope.

  These weren’t the ragged slum dwellers Pendeck remembered from the streets outside the trial realm. They’d been growing. Gathering points, completing quests, and shaking off the labels of mere slum filth that had clung to them at birth. Commendable, really.

  But now, with their efforts dashed, they were being marched toward the camp’s centre in chains. In order to follow the Collar Gang’s will, a destiny they never would have escaped.

  The sun pressed against the back of Pendeck’s neck, heavy and warm. He tilted his face toward it without thinking, feeling the heat soak into his skin as the light fell across his closed eyelids in bands of orange and gold.

  His mana should hum in response, should grow. That was the only way that made sense since he’d found that cultivation technique in the point shop. It seemed right. The Overturning Light technique was its name.

  A method of drinking sunlight directly, funnelling it to his Lagrange point, to pack the affinited mana motes into his core from radiance itself. With it, advancement to Core Formation wouldn’t be a matter of years. Months, perhaps. Weeks if he could purchase it before leaving the trial realm.

  Being the fourth most expensive cultivation technique in the shop, it would be difficult to get, to say the least.

  The scraping of boots on dirt made Pendeck lower his head, his eyes opening to meet the gaze of Bobbie. His leader had a finger scratching at the side of his head as his other hand pulled the cigar from between his lips, smoke curling lazily past his temple.

  To the man’s side, Mark—the blonde-haired playboy—strutted alongside, his gaze scanning around the destroyed camp appraisingly. Like it had all unfolded just as he had envisioned. Though Mark was not one to plan. He was a man of muscle and liked to claim, if subtly, every one of Bobbie’s successes as his own. Though he would never do that around the man himself. He’d play the flatterer, building up Bobbie’s ego whenever the situation called for it.

  “How is it going?” Bobbie asked as he stopped a short distance away.

  That was not a question of how the overall capturing of this camp was going. No—he was asking for a report. And thankfully, Pendeck had compiled one. Or at least, the admin staff had earlier.

  A cringe flickered through him, thoughts moving to Orndale, whom he’d had killed several weeks prior. The man hadn’t really deserved it. But he and his junior, Carl, would have proven to be more than a little problematic if word of what Pendeck had lost had gotten out.

  If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  “Things are going well, sir,” Pendeck said, flipping through the checklist and coming to a list of collected items. “Several low-ranked mana stones—at least twenty. More than a few weapons. Several low-level cultivation techniques, and several medicinal herbs and miscellaneous items.” He tapped his finger against the list and looked up.

  Bobbie nodded with some appraisal, his eyes lingering on the people being shuffled past by the other Collar Gang members.

  Pendeck frowned. Perhaps it was now as good a time as any to ask the question that had been burning at the back of his mind. Because whilst seizing resources from those weaker than them made sense—it was a common staple of the Collar Gang—what use was it, when they were in the trial realm, to dedicate their time and effort to such pointless actions?

  There was an abundance of mana in the air, and with enough points, they could supercharge that further with a guild hall’s cultivation room. They also had the Ascension Tournament coming up, and with the Collar Gang’s expansion in the trial realm—after sweet-talking a few of the slum dwellers via violent means or otherwise—they should have quite the force to put up a good score within the actual tournament.

  And yet Bobbie focused on these raids. Completing minor quests instead of targeting the major ones, like a strange predator stalking weak kills.

  “Bobbie, sir—would it be alright if I broached a question?” Pendeck asked, shifting uneasily.

  It would either be a massive mistake on Pendeck’s part for the next words to leave his mouth, or Bobbie would accept them with the grace he sometimes did. Though it was not a good trait to question the gang leader; many would not survive doing so. But Pendeck had earned himself quite the standing within the Collar Gang army, so hopefully his position would afford him at least that much respect from the man.

  Bobbie took a long drag of his cigar and moved it from his lips, exhaling a curling cloud of smoke that drifted away in the wind. He seemed to take in Pendeck for a moment, his eyes scanning over him, then moving beyond—probably watching those being shepherded toward the centre of the destroyed camp.

  Then, eventually, he nodded.

  “You may speak, Pendeck.”

  A sigh passed Pendeck’s lips; he’d overcome the first hurdle.

  “It’s just, sir—I may not fully be grasping your designs in all their magnitude.”

  There was a scoff from Mark. “Don’t use big words, Pendeck. It makes you look slow.”

  Which was ironic, coming from this muscle-brained idiot who knew nothing more than to follow and flirt. But Pendeck simply nodded and continued with his line of thinking.

  “It’s just—with these raids, we are wasting—”

  He gulped, noting the narrowing of Bobbie’s eyes at the word. Wasting. He reframed instead.

  “What I mean to say is, we could have spent more time cultivating instead of attacking these slum dwellers and commoners in their moment in the sun. Why? Surely it would have been more productive for us to bolster our main forces that came in already and strengthen the position we have when we go out.”

  There. His question was out, though rather pathetically. And the response he got was Mark stepping forward with the clink of his sword pommel against his belt, the scabbard scraping as he drew the blade an inch.

  “Are you questioning the boss’s orders, mate?”

  Pendeck shook his head, heart thumping within his chest. Whilst his own cultivation had grown considerably since entering the trial realm, Mark was still at least a realm or two ahead of him. A fight between them would be brutal and probably mostly one-sided.

  “It’s alright, Mark.”

  The order from Bobbie had the man sheathing his sword and stepping back into place with a quick nod before spitting to the side and eyeing Pendeck. The malice that had been there a moment ago was gone, replaced now with a certain curiosity—as if he hadn’t recognised the man from a moment before.

  “I’ll answer your question, Pendeck,” Bobbie said. “But first, let me ask you this.” He jabbed the cigar at him, smoke curling from its tip. “What do you think’s going to happen once all these ruffians get back to the slums? The commoners, too. What do you think they will do with this newfound wealth of power and knowledge they’ve gained?”

  Pendeck brought a finger to his lip, resting one elbow on the checklist.

  That was a question with a simple answer. With an influx of wealth, one’s life would often change overnight. Possibilities that weren’t there before would open up, and you’d be a fool if you didn’t run for them. Opportunity in the slums often meant power. And power meant a shake-up in the status quo.

  He returned his gaze to Bobbie, who met his eyes and nodded.

  “You’re getting it, aren’t you? These fools would become little more than an annoyance in the short term—but in the long run, they could become quite a headache. I don’t need more Scoda Gangs popping up and causing chaos in my streets. I want them nipped in the bud. Early.” Bobbie’s voice dropped, something cold threading through the words. “Because at the current, within the slums of Middlec, I see and hear everything. Everything is logged. Everything is tracked. Everyone is accounted for.”

  Pendeck’s heart thundered in his chest.

  Everyone was accounted for?

  Did that include people like Orndale on the admin staff? Would the man’s disappearance have reached Bobbie’s ears? Would it have noted him of Pendeck’s failure?

  Surely not.

  Pendeck gulped as Bobbie’s eyes lingered on him for a moment—longer than Pendeck felt they should have.

  But then Bobbie turned to the side, narrowing his gaze as a commotion erupted near the processing line. One of the prisoners—a man with a patchy beard and wild, desperate eyes—had wrenched free of the Collar Gang member gripping his chains. The links whipped through the air with a metallic shriek as he swung them like a flail, catching his captor across the jaw. Blood sprayed. The gang member stumbled, cursing, one hand clutching his face.

  The prisoner bolted—three steps, four—before two more Collar Gang members converged. One tackled him low, driving him into the dirt with a grunt. The other brought a club down in a vicious arc. Thwack. The prisoner’s head snapped forward. His body went limp, limbs splaying loose as a puppet with cut strings. They dragged him back into line by his ankles, his face carving a furrow through the dirt, chains rattling behind him like the tail of some broken serpent.

  Bobbie watched it all without expression. Then turned back to Pendeck.

  Would that be him? The thought slithered through Pendeck’s mind, cold and unwelcome. Would that be him, if Bobbie truly knew?

  No, Bobbie couldn’t know. Pendeck had been careful. Orndale’s death had been a quiet thing. Carl’s too. The records changed. Bobbie hadn’t figured it out yet.

  Had he?

  Was he running out of time?

  No, he’d be fine. Whilst Bobbie’s raids would no doubt continue, all Pendeck had to do was continue the quests he could, gathering the points he could. So that when the time came, and he entered the Ascension Tournament, he could bag enough points to get the cultivation technique. And then, then he’d have everything he needed to make sure his position with the Collar Gang was more than solid.

  “Oh, another thing,” Bobbie said, scanning the area. “Where is Cater? I haven’t seen the boy in a few days. Has he made it back to the main camp yet?”