Chương 28: Chapter 16 Part 2

For a long, agonizing moment, the only sound on the VIP balcony was the low, resonant hum of the A-rank monster cores. There were at least a dozen of them sitting on the thick oak table. They were perfectly spherical, ranging in color from a deep, venomous violet to a burning, chaotic crimson. These were the crystallized life forces of apex predators from the forbidden Zel'Mora forest.

The ambient mana bleeding off the pile was so incredibly dense it actually warped the air around the table, creating a faint, shimmering mirage. Axel stared at the fortune with wide, unblinking eyes. The dark elf swallowed hard, his ash-grey skin paling slightly as he slowly pulled his hand away from the hilt of his rapier. To a martial artist, a single A-rank core could provide the raw energy for a breakthrough that would normally take five years of meditation.

Twelve of them was enough to secure a man's legacy for a lifetime. Vice Guild Master Durgan, however, did not look at the cores. He looked at the woman who had thrown them. The veteran half-orc leaned forward, resting his massive, scarred forearms on the table. His flint-hard eyes narrowed, scrutinizing every inch of her. He saw a woman of peerless, porcelain beauty dressed in immaculate black-and-crimson silk, possessing not a single visible weapon, yet radiating an aura of absolute, unfathomable danger.

"Do you know what these are, girl?" Durgan asked, his voice a deep, rumbling gravel that vibrated in the wood of the table.

"Payment," she answered simply, her expression entirely unchanging.

"Provided you are strong enough to earn them. And, my name is Ming Xuan Ji. I suggest you remember it." Durgan's dark eyes narrowed further at the commanding tone. A heavy, dangerous silence descended over the table.

"I am the Vice Guild Master of the Zareth Kingdom's Warrior Guild," Durgan said slowly, the gravel in his voice grinding into a threatening growl.

"I have breached the fifteenth floor of the Grand Abyss. I have bathed in the blood of wyverns and shattered the skulls of warlords. You don't just walk into my hall, throw a king's ransom on my table, Lady Ming, and question my strength." The air pressure on the balcony suddenly spiked. Durgan did not draw his massive battleaxe, but he didn't need to. He activated his internal Qi. A terrifying, heavy aura of pure Earth-aligned energy erupted from his massive frame. It was a physical, crushing gravity.

The thick oak table groaned under the sudden weight, the wood splintering slightly. Axel grunted, the dark elf forced to brace his hands against his chair just to keep his posture upright as the gravity multiplied around them. It was a blatant test. A show of force meant to strip away the arrogance of a wealthy noble and see if there was actually a warrior beneath the silk. Ming Xuan Ji didn't even blink. She stood perfectly upright within the crushing field of gravity.

Her clothes didn't ripple; her breathing didn't hitch. To her, Durgan's overwhelming pressure felt like a gentle, passing breeze.

"Is this it?" Xuan Ji asked softly. Durgan's eyes widened in genuine shock. He pushed more internal energy into his aura, increasing the gravity until the floorboards beneath his chair began to visibly crack. Still, the woman in front of him remained entirely unaffected. Xuan Ji let out a quiet, disappointed sigh. She decided to show him the difference between a high-level warrior and a Heavenly Demon. Xuan Ji unlocked the spiritual vault in her Dantian just a fraction of an inch more.

She didn't emit a violently explosive aura; instead, she released a cold void. Thrum. The clash was invisible but catastrophic. Durgan's heavy, Earth-aligned Qi was not pushed back, it was consumed. Xuan Ji's dark aura swallowed his gravity whole, replacing it with a suffocating, freezing pressure that smelled faintly of iron and blood. It was the presence of a true apex predator, an entity that had massacred thousands and stood atop mountains of corpses.

Axel gasped, his hand flying to his throat as his wind-aligned Qi was violently forced back into his core, terrified of the dark energy pressing against his grey skin. Durgan's rich brown face visibly drained of color. The massive half-orc found himself entirely paralyzed, unable to draw breath, his combat instincts screaming at him that if he made a single hostile move, his head would be severed from his shoulders before he even saw the blade.

For three agonizing seconds, Xuan Ji let them feel the absolute depths of her power. Then, as quickly as it had appeared, she snapped the invisible vault shut. The suffocating void vanished. The air rushed back onto the balcony. Durgan exhaled heavily, leaning back in his chair, his broad chest heaving as he stared at her. The skepticism in his eyes was entirely gone, replaced by a profound, wary respect. Axel was trembling slightly, his eyes darting between Xuan Ji and the mountain of A-rank cores.

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"Point taken," Durgan rasped, wiping a bead of cold sweat from his graying beard.

"You have my undivided attention, Lady Ming. What exactly is the job?" Xuan Ji placed her hands flat on the table, leaning in.

"Protection. I require an impenetrable guard for exactly thirty days. You will relocate to the Vael estate in the noble district. You will guard a fourteen-year-old girl named Evanthe. She is incapacitated, bedridden, and completely defenseless. No one enters her room. No one touches her. You will act as her shield." Axel frowned, finally finding his voice.

"The Vael estate? We are elite dungeon divers, my lady, not glorified noble house guards. The Marquess has his own battalion of elite knights. Why do you need us to babysit?"

"Because the Marquess's knights are fodder," Xuan Ji stated bluntly.

"And the people hunting my disciple are not common assassins."

"Who is hunting her?" Durgan asked, his tone turning entirely professional, analyzing the tactical reality of the contract.

"The Blood God Cult," Xuan Ji replied. The name dropped like a physical weight onto the table. Axel swore under his breath in elvish, and Durgan's thick jaw immediately tightened.

"Zealots," Durgan muttered, his thick fingers drumming against the scarred wood of the table.

"Blood magic, sacrificial arrays, and a complete, terrifying disregard for their own lives. If they want the girl, they won't send a lone assassin sneaking through the windows. They will send a strike team. They will gladly burn the entire Vael estate to the ground and slaughter every maid and knight in their path just to get to her room."

"Which is why I am paying you plenty," Xuan Ji said smoothly, gesturing to the glowing monster cores.

"I need men capable of holding the line against a siege of fanatics. If you keep her alive for thirty days, the cores are yours. Furthermore, if she survives, she will need to learn how to properly defend herself so she is never a victim again. I will retain both of you as her personal weapon masters. Name your price for that future contract, and I will meet it." Axel looked at the cores, then at Durgan. The dark elf's eyes were alight with ambitious anticipation, but he deferred to the veteran half-orc.

Durgan looked at the A-rank cores. He knew the risk. Crossing the Blood God Cult meant inviting a brutal war to his doorstep. But the sheer wealth sitting on the table could fund the Warrior Guild for a decade. It could buy the finest dwarven armor for his men and secure Axel's path to becoming a Sword Saint.

"We accept," Durgan said firmly, his heavy hand coming down to cover the leather pouch.

"Axel and I will hold the Vael estate. If the cultists want the girl, they will have to pry her from my cold, dead hands. You have my word as a Vice Guild Master." Xuan Ji nodded once.

"Good. Because if she dies while under your protection, I will return and ensure you join her." The threat was delivered without a hint of malice; it was simply a statement of fact, and after feeling her aura, neither man doubted her for a single second.

"There is one thing I don't understand," Axel interjected, his sharp eyes narrowing as he looked at her.

"If this girl is so important to you, and the threat is so massive... why are you hiring us? With your strength, Lady Ming, you could slaughter a hundred cultists without breaking a sweat. Where will you be?" Xuan Ji straightened her posture, the cold, untouchable facade cracking just a fraction to reveal the desperate reality beneath.

"I am a warrior," Xuan Ji said quietly.

"I know how to sever limbs, shatter cores, and end lives. But my disciple's spiritual pathways are fracturing. She was subjected to a violent, forced awakening. The Yang energy inside her is literally boiling her blood and cracking her mortal meridians. I have suppressed it with an absolute-zero Yin seal, but I am not a healer. The seal will sublimate in thirty days. If I don't find a cure by then, she burns from the inside out." Durgan grimaced, instantly understanding the severity of the condition.

Spiritual decay was a horrific way to die.

"I need a diagnosis," Xuan Ji demanded, her dark eyes locking onto Durgan's.

"I bypassed the Mage Tower and came to the Warrior Guild because mages only understand external mana. They treat the world around them. I need someone who understands internal Qi. I need the highest authority on spiritual medicine in this kingdom." Durgan rubbed his graying beard, his tactical mind shifting from defense to logistics.

"You were right to avoid the Mage Tower," Durgan grunted.

"Half the clerics in that bureaucratic spire don't even believe meridians exist; they think it's just a subset of mana channeling. If you let a standard royal cleric try to heal a fractured Dantian with light magic, they'd likely trigger an explosion that would kill the girl instantly."

"Who, then?" Xuan Ji pressed.

"High Apothecary Silas Vane," Axel answered, leaning forward.

"He used to be a prodigy in the Mage Tower, but he was exiled ten years ago for conducting illegal experiments mixing natural mana with martial Qi. He's eccentric, greedy, and universally despised by the royal court... but there isn't a man alive who understands the human spiritual architecture better than he does."

"Bring him to the estate," Xuan Ji ordered.

"Today." Durgan held up a massive hand, shaking his head.

"I cannot do that today, Lady Ming. If you want the Vael estate locked down against the Blood God Cult, it cannot be rushed. A true defense takes time." Xuan Ji's eyes narrowed dangerously.

"I have thirty days. I am not wasting them."

"And you won't," Durgan assured her, meeting her gaze without flinching.

"But securing a perimeter against blood magic requires meticulous preparation. I have to pull my best heavy-shield bearers off their current contracts. We need to carve Earth-aligned defensive arrays into the courtyard stone physically, set up overlapping patrol shifts, and requisition heavy dwarven barricades. It's an operation."

"Furthermore," Axel chimed in, "Silas Vane doesn't just come when called. He operates out of a heavily trapped clinic in the alchemy district and rarely takes visitors. I will have to track him down, bypass his wards, and likely bribe or threaten him to leave his laboratory. That takes time." Durgan stood up, his massive frame towering over the table. He looked down at the dark-haired woman.

"Give me a full day," the half-orc commanded softly.

"Return to your disciple. By this time tomorrow, the Vael estate will be the most heavily fortified location outside the King's Palace. And Silas Vane will be standing by the girl's bedside with his tools. That is my promise to you." Xuan Ji analyzed the logistics. They were right. A hasty defense was a weak defense, and if Silas Vane was truly the best, he wouldn't be easy to acquire. The loss of twenty-four hours burned her soul, but it was a tactical necessity.

"One day," Xuan Ji agreed, her voice hard as iron.

"I will expect you at the estate by tomorrow."

"We will be there," Durgan said, placing a massive fist against his chest. Xuan Ji offered the Vice Guild Master a slight, respectful nod. She turned on her heel and descended the wooden stairs, her black-and-crimson robes trailing behind her like a shadow. She had secured her guard. Now, she just had to survive the agonizing twenty-four-hour wait to learn exactly what kind of nightmare she had to hunt down to save her disciple.