2026-04-24 15:19:14Sky Court City was a sight to behold.
Although it wasn't as beautiful as the large floating island above them, it still had its pros.
The air was fresh and the road was clean.
“This world is very flashy.” Flint said to himself.
After a few moments of admiration, he went back to business.
“Excuse me Sir, I'm looking for a job, one where I can make quick money.” Flint asked an elderly man, selling some street snacks at the side of the road.
“Eh? Oh yer! Quick bucks right? See that big buck building over there? That's the Iron Golem Mercenary. It's the highest ranking guild in the city. I'm very sure a young man like you could find exactly what you need.” The elderly man directed him.
Flint gave him a small bow, “Thank you Sir.” He said, moving towards the direction of the building.
It was truly a large building up close.
Flint pushed open the door and moved in.
A thick wave of beer, ale, and a musky scent filled the room.
There was a noise of laughter and music blasted heavily.
On the outside, the Iron Golem Mercenary looked like something pristine but inside, it was a very crazy show.
Flint wasn't bothered. In his last life, he had seen even worse.
He walked forward, passing the tables that men celebrated by downing flagons of beer.
Stopping at the front of what looked like a register, Flint rang the bell in the middle.
The woman there turned to face him, a large scar was passing from her eyes to her nose.
She looked at Flint and gave him a snort. This guy had no weapons and looked very pale and skinny.
“The day care center isn't in this building, kid. What's a skinny person doing in a place like this.” The woman scoffed.
Flint ignored her remarks, “I'd like to get a job. Is there any one of high tier.”
Seeing that she was ignored, the woman pointed to a large board, where some papers were attached.
“Over there, you can pick any bounty you are interested in.” The woman said, turning back to resume her duty.
Flint nodded and walked to the board.
He browsed through the available bounty, nothing was to his likeness.
There were all things he could clear quickly.
“Fight away a hoard of Beast wolves.”
“Destroy a gathering of Tiger boars.”
Flint shook his head, this wasn't what he wanted.
Then his eyes landed on a bounty.
“Escort a Merchant's Daughter to fight through a dungeon.”
Flint tore it off the board, “This looks harder, and it looks like I might get enough resources.” He smiled.
With the limited time he had, he was looking for a lot of high bucks and quick earn
He brought the paper to the woman.
“I'd like this.” He said.
The woman took the paper from his hand, and adjusted her monocles.
“This is a S-Rank Bounty.”
“I know,” Flint nodded, “I'd like to go for the prize. I should be done with it quickly, would there be another S-Rank Bounty available.”
The entire guild went silent for a second, then it erupted into the heavy laughter of grown men.
“S-Rank? With those skinny arms? Would you be able to swing a weapon, Kid?”
“Can you imagine? His arms look like toothpicks.” Someone burst out laughing.
“You don't even know what you are dealing with. Bolos has been saving that S-Rank mission for himself.”
A massive man, at least seven feet tall, stood up from a nearby table.
A large mug of ale was in his hand as he walked forward.
“That's my bounty kid, I was saving it for the right time.” Bolos snarled.
“I picked it first. So I don't think there's anything I can do, since I'm very interested in it.” Flint said with a small smile, before turning to face the woman.
“Please can I get this ready? I'd like to set out soon.” Flint said to the woman.
Seeing that he was ignored, Bolos gritted his teeth and tipped the large mug in his hand.
This man was far larger than Flint and this mug was the exact size of Flint's head.
The thick pungent liquid was splashed on Flint, soaking his boot.
“The lady told you to scream,” Bolos’ voice sounded like stones gritting over each other, then he let out a deep chuckle, “Go back to your mama and ask her to wash those boots for you. You don't belong here.”
Flint looked down at his ruined boots, “You shouldn't have done that.” He said with a dark gaze.
His killing intent instantly shot up. This was something he had sharpened over a hundred lives.
Bolos felt like his head had instantly been severed.
Then realising he was afraid of a mere beginner, he was furious.
The man suddenly released his man, the air instantly turned thick and heavy.
A dark red mist floated into the air, seeping from Bolos’ body.
This aura was directed at Flint.
Unknown to Bolos, Flint was a mage with an infinite level of mana, there was nothing that would affect him.
[Skill Acquired: Blood Pressure Aura.]
“Kneel and kiss my boots and maybe I'd let you go without a scratch.” Bolos commanded with a narrowed gaze.
The onlookers were watching with laughter on their face
This youngster had already gotten on Bolos' bad side.
However in an instant, the scene in front of them instantly switched.
Flint stepped forward, and a terrifying aura spread through the room.
It didn't just focus on Bolos, it focused on those who were at a closer distance.
Dozens of fighters and mercenaries were slammed face first into the ground, the aura suffocating them fully.
“My turn. Kneel.” Flint ordered and before Bolos could think, his full body was pressed down.
He didn't even kneel.
His entire body was face down on the ground
There was no strength left in him to even turn, with the sense of suffocation, rising in his chest.
Flint frowned, placing his foot on Bolos' head.
“This is only a warning. You are no longer in charge here but I am.” He said.
Walking over Bolos' body, Flint stood in front of the register, and snatched the S-Rank paper.
“I'm sure you are done.” He said to the woman.
“Y–Yes, I'm done. You can have it now. The locations and the S-Rank would be attached to your mercenary profile on your communicator.” She quickly said, adjusting her monocles.
Flint nodded, and then he walked through the exit of the building..
As soon as he left, the pressure instantly vanished and the face-down mercenaries finally took in a deep breath, standing up to their feet.
“Who was that?”
“I have never heard of someone like him.”
Flint stood outside the mercenary guild, taking a look at his communicator.
He had about thirty minutes to arrive at the place of departure.
“Too bad, I didn't take in a travelling spell, that would be really needed right now.”
He checked his pocket. He had some silver loins in his pocket.
“Would this be enough for transport?”
Previous Chapter
Latest Chapter
THE ACTIVE READING
The split happened the way significant things happened when they had been agreed upon the night before — without ceremony but not without weight.Jolene went first.She left at the hour before dawn, before the sky had changed from black to grey. She had her pack and her notes and the guild contact information she had been building since the Northern Highlands and she left the waypoint without waking anyone except Flint who was already awake.She stood at the waypoint door.She looked at him."The maritime operation." She said."Yes." He said."And after." She said.He held her gaze.She was asking something specific. Not about the maritime mission. About what happened after — what the north would look like, whether the group would reassemble, whether what had been built would still be intact when the dust cleared."After." He said. "Find us."She looked at him for one more moment.Then she turned and walked northeast and was gone before the sky changed.He stood at the door and watche
CARAVAN COUNTERMEASURE
They stopped at a waypoint structure at the end of the second day north.Not a settlement. A trade rest point — four walls, a fire bracket, a well that was still showing contamination from the vein network's pre-reversion state. Terra sealed the well. They used water from their packs.That night Flint laid out the split.He did it the same way he did everything — in sequence, without weight added by inflection. But the group was quiet in a different way than it was quiet for tactical briefings. This was the quiet of people who had been moving through significant things together for long enough to know when something was ending."Dylan and Terra to the academy." He said. "Valdris's pattern gives you the three administrators. You need names. Jolene's notes on the decision records will give you the method for identifying them without tipping Soren's network." He looked at them both. "The goal is not arrest. Not confrontation. Document what they are and who they report to. Give it to some
The Dragon Marrow
They moved north at first light.The Hollow followed.Not from the direction Flint expected. Not north behind them — it was simply present, the tooth running its inverted wave at a continuous low frequency that said proximity without saying location. It had no location. It existed in the space between detectable things and moved through that space with the patient disinterest of something that had been given a function and had an unlimited amount of time to complete it.Caravan walked at the group's rear.He had said at dawn that holding the Hollow at distance cost him. Not in the catastrophic way of running a skill against its own limit — in the slow way of something that required sustained focus to maintain. Like holding a position in deep water. You could do it. Not indefinitely.He had not said how long indefinitely was.Flint had not asked because the answer would not change the direction.They walked north.---By midday the territory had changed enough to confirm the reversion.
DEVELOPMENTAL PROGRESS
It came that night.Not into the camp. Near it. The tooth woke him from sleep at the second hour past midnight with the inverted wave running so fast the luminescence was continuous rather than pulsed. He had it in his hand before he was fully upright.He pressed two fingers to his lips.The camp was dark. He could see Dylan's outline against the sky — on watch, the position he took in the second rotation. Dylan had seen Flint move and had gone completely still the way he went still when he was waiting for an instruction.Flint looked at the tooth.Then north.Then at the camp perimeter.Pack Sense registered nothing. The absolute nothing of something that was not a mana-present entity moving through a field that Pack Sense read for mana signatures.But the
DESTRUCTION METHOD
He told the group at dawn.Not everything from the night before. The Hollow first. The detection, the loss of the sigature, what Valdris had said about its nature. He laid it out the same way he laid everything out — in sequence, without weight added by inflection, and let the information carry its own mass.It carried significant mass.Dylan was the first to speak."Pack Sense caught it once." He said."At the edge of range." Flint said. "Northern bearing. It registered as nothing classifiable and then it was gone.""Gone or suppressed." Jolene said."I don't know." Flint said. "The signature did not fade. It stopped. Like a door closing."Jolene looked at her notes from Valdris's account. She had been reading them since before the group assembled. She had the expression she wore when data was not fitti
NO CONDITION
He sat outside the camp at the edge of the cleared extraction ground and looked at the stars.The stars above the western territory were wrong in the same way everything above it was wrong. The contamination in the ground reached high enough to affect the ambient mana in the air and the air affected how the stars refracted through it. They were the same stars. They looked slightly different. He had spent enough lives looking at different versions of the same sky to find it interesting rather than troubling.He was thinking about his wife.Not the way he thought about the mission. Not operationally. He was simply thinking about her the way you thought about someone you had not seen in a very long time — without agenda, without the forward pressure of wanting to get back to them. Just the fact of them. The specific fact of a person who existed somewhere and was real.Her name was Sael.He did not use it often. He had learned across enough lives that names were the most dangerous thing to
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