"Aaaaaaahhhhhh!"
Liana's scream was deafening and for a moment after it stopped, Nolan still couldn't hear clearly.
"Drop. Me. You. Bastard!" Liana yelled, trying to force him to drop her.
"If you shake too much we're both going to fall, idiot!" Nolan yelled back.
Liana shot him a glare but didn't say a word.
"Good gracious, did you die now?" Nolan exhaled. "Now I can drop you without wondering how many steps down I'm going to tumble."
"What? Don't drop me." Liana said boldly like it was her right.
"Why?" Nolan frowned. "My legs are screaming."
"Then take me up before they break? I swear I'll tell everyone what happened if you don't."
There it was.
As expected, she was going to use it as means of blackmailing him. A typical subconscious means the human mind uses when it holds a feared secret to get what it wants.
Nolan wasn't really threatened, but he had something else in mind.
He continued up the stairs, taking a step at a time, his legs screaming at him to throw the lady downstairs, but he fought the urge and finally reached the top, dropping her in front of her room.
He let out a breath of relief, opening his eyes to see her arms crossed, glaring. "Go on," she said. "Every detail is needed."
Nolan raised a brow and looked down at her boots. "What is that?"
"What is what?"
Immediately she looked down, he looked back up and said, "Take a rest, again." He hit her on the neck and she went unconscious again, falling to the ground.
He took her keys from her pocket and opened the door to her room, then he dragged her inside by the shoulders.
… …
Meanwhile...
Atrium of Founders.
All the guilds' Ace-ranks and Elite-ranks were gathered inside the meeting room, lining the sides of the long, polished wooden table.
At the head stood two officials in silver-grey coats—Lady Eva and Elite Vordd. Between them stood Elite Loretta, the guild's Special Advisor, who instead had a white coat.
At eighty, her hair was a sheet of grey, but her face belonged to a woman probably around her early fifties. She was arguably the oldest person in the guild.
Her knuckles rested on the table, gaze tracing the contours of the vast map laid out before them.
"The demons are moving," Elite Loretta's calm voice cut through the quiet room. "Their patterns have shifted. It's no longer the usual random aggression we face. It's starting to get a little more... coordinated."
"It seems my dire predictions were not so dire after all," a voice remarked.
All eyes turned to Elite-rank, Vordd Senian, Head of Intelligence. The man adjusted his glasses, a well-trimmed goatee framing his small, confident smile.
The prodigal son of Kingdom Vaelen's Senian family, who had left a life of comfort believing his genius was needed elsewhere.
Said to be the most suitable for the Assistant Guild Master role of the Cerulean Guardians after the fall of the last, but he unfortunately couldn't go past the Elite-rank and lost it to another mastermind.
"Your 'jokes' about demonic adaptation are becoming our reality, Elite Vordd," Ace Bren commented, his tone laced with a newfound respect.
"Precisely. I said they would learn. I just didn't think we'd be having this particular conversation so soon," Vordd replied, his gaze sweeping the room.
Lady Eva, Head of Recruitments, leaned forward, her finger stabbing at three red pins on the map. "The 'how' is right here. Three separate hordes of low-grades, all breaking from their established territories. They are all moving to a single convergence point." She tapped the location. "The Dark Woods."
Vordd didn't hesitate. He took out the three red pins and placed them directly over the Dark Woods. Then, with deliberate slowness, he selected a single black pin from the box and drove it into the heart of the Dark Woods.
"The grunts are mindless, we all know that. Something is calling them. But what is the thing doing the calling? That is the question. We've seen their tactics evolve from brute force to targeted strikes. You cannot look at this and tell me there isn't a strategist behind it. A ranked demon, pulling the strings."
"He's not wrong," Melvin added, his voice steady. "Ranked demons possess a cunning we often underestimate. It's only logical that after so many failed assaults, they would adapt."
Vordd snapped his fingers. "And that is why he's my favorite. If only he'd been at least an Ace when I first raised this… inconvenient truth."
"So… that explains why the ranked demons just went silent for the past two months?" Cyndy cut in with a bored tone.
Elite Vordd gave a simple nod.
"I see. Been tired of playing with these stupid low-grades for a while now." Cyndy shrugged and walked back a bit to lean on a pillar.
"Cyndy!" Melvin shot her a warning look.
"What? I'm tired of standing straight."
Lady Eva glared at here. "Ace Cyndy, get off the pillar. This is a serious matter we're here to discuss. Stop acting childish."
Cyndy rolled her eyes and pushed off the pillar. "But no one would've said a word if I was an Elite-rank," she mumbled.
"And that's why you aren't one. Earn it. Don't act like you're there already," Ace Vox said to her as she walked back to the table.
Cyndy nudged his shoulder hard. "I am. They just don't want to give me a promotion, stupid, and you know it. I mean, look at Sebastian."
"Oww," Vox grunted with a smile. "It's Elite Sebastian. Have some respect, penguin."
She nudged him again.
"Enough," Loretta's voice silenced the room once more.
She sighed and shook her head. This was nothing new. Everyone in the guild had to the deal with the girl's problem.
Pushing that aside, she focused on what they were here for initially. "This is not a debate about past theories. They have moved earlier than we predicted. And those three," she said, her eyes locking with Vordd's, "are not the only migrants."
Lady Eva and Vordd exchanged a sharp glance.
"What do you mean, they are not the only ones?" Vordd's asked.
"On the other side of the mountains."
The voice came not from the table, but from the shadows between the long windows. A man leaned against the wall, a wooden staff propped beside him.
He pushed himself up sluggishly. As he stepped into the light, his appearance came into focus: immaculate uniform with his silver-grey coat, neat posture, but with scattered, unkempt hair that fell over his eyes.
Elite Sebastian. Head of Training.
Or better known as The Oracle.
"The eastern passes," Sebastian stated, his voice carrying an eerie calm. "My projections gave us years. Now we have months. The villages on the outer rim of Cloveland will be the first to burn." He stopped beside Loretta, his hidden gaze seeming to scan the faces in the room. "The war we have been preparing for has decided to start without us."
A heavy silence filled the room, broken only by Loretta's low, urgent question. "Have you reached out to Aris?"
Sebastian gave a single, slow nod.
"Then that fool better be here fast," Loretta muttered, her voice a low growl. It was clear that her fury was contained, "before our people are all drowned in fire and blood."