The Mage of Primordial Chaos

Chapter 483: Security System

With the Midnight Syndicate’s invasion taken care of, the girls and I headed back to Amane’s place to discuss our next steps. The survivors suffered no casualties at all and barely even any injuries, leading to a great boost in morale overall and an increase in loyalty towards me. I left Xiang Peng in charge of them though, since she wanted to do it anyway. 

Unlike Amane, she had no intention of adventuring with me again, seeing as how I already had way too many girls around me. Not that I blamed her—sometimes, it was better to just have a distant friend rather than a close lover. I respected her as a friend, but never once thought of her as a girl I loved, like the others. She seemed to be alright with that too, and we both agreed to just think of all the flirtatious actions she made towards me in the past as merely teasing with no heartfelt emotions behind them.

In any case, we soon arrived at the cathumans’ lair… only to find a group of armed men staring us down and blockading the entrance. They were led by the catman from earlier—the same one who had gotten nearly killed by Amane had I not stepped in.

“… What’s the meaning of this?” Amane asked, narrowing her eyes. Clearly, she had no idea what was happening here, and the Phlora, who had been left in charge, likely didn’t know either due to all the paperwork she was busy with.

“Matriarch, Ishizaki-dono told us you’ve been brainwashed by that man,” a soldier said, stepping forth. “Just by looking at all the girls he has by his side, it is clear he is scum. Evidently, he must’ve used the same brainwashing tricks on them, and has now captured you as well.”

“What…?” Amane said in a near-growl, slowly growing irritated.

“Don’t worry, Amane!” The man from earlier—Ishizaki—struck his own chest with his fist as a display of loyalty and set his hand on his blade. “I shall free you from his control. Now, draw, coward!”

He whipped out his sword and pointed it at me, and I could only facepalm before slowly rubbing the space between my eyebrows.

“… Let’s just go to the private beach,” I said. “Too tired to deal with these guys.”

“Wouldn’t walking there take longer?” Feng Mian laughed awkwardly. “But still… they’re really getting on my nerves too.”

“Heheh, darling, I can take care of them, if you like?” Axilia suggested, but-

“There’s no need,” Amane said, voice dark and low. “My clan… will be disciplined by myself. Draw, you said? Very well.”

With a shing, she pulled out her katana, and glared her two deadly red eyes at the man named Ishizaki.

“To claim your own matriarch is brainwashed is one thing, but to have the audacity to call my fiancee ‘scum’… Ishizaki, I already gave you a chance earlier today. But now… no matter what anyone says… I’ll need to make an example out of you.”

“W-Wha… m-matriarch…?” Ishizaki gulped in fear, seeing the rage and pure hatred in Amane’s eyes, as red as the blood that was about to be shed. He even reverted to addressing her by her title like he was supposed to, rather than her name.

“Xuan Kai, you have no objections this time, yes?” Amane asked without even turning to me. I shook my head.

“Do as you please. At this point, I just want to sleep.”

“Very well. My clan… does not have room for nuisances like you.”

Suddenly, Amane dashed forward and zig-zagged between the group of soldiers with Ishizaki at their front, and emerged behind them too quick to follow. Then, in a manner that seemed ironically slow compared to the blink-of-an-eye dash, she slowly clinked her bloodstained katana back into its sheath.

And at that moment, Ishizaki’s body was cut in half.

His waist, having been completely cut through, gave in, and he collapsed to the floor, dead, eyes still bulging. The other soldiers, on the other hand, didn’t die, but had their chest armors cut through perfectly and also fell to their knees in shock.

“… Hmph.”

“Wow,” Axilia clapped a few times. “It would’ve been better if you killed all the soldiers too, but I give that an 8/10!”

“So this is her true potential after maturing…” Yu An Yan murmured, clearly impressed. I was too.

“What are you waiting for, an invitation?” Amane asked the remaining guards. “Get out of my sight.”

“Y-Yes!”

The soldiers hurried away with their tails tucked between their legs, and Amane let out a deep sigh. When she turned around, I had already erased the corpse using Space Magic.

“Oh… the body…”

“I got rid of it,” I replied. “Wouldn’t want to stain this beautiful temple, would we?”

Amane smiled slightly. “No, we wouldn’t. But this means I’ll have to find a new commander… and that means more boring work.”

“Can’t you just push it onto Phlora?” I chuckled.

“She’s already doing all the tedious paperwork. I have a conscience, you know. As much as I want to, I can’t simply push all my duties onto her. Until I give her my position, that is—and it won’t be long before I do so.”

I nodded. “I want to try to head into Fragment later, but we should discuss what that old man told us earlier first…”

*****

After a short discussion to just organize all of the information we had so far and plan our next move, we headed to directly beneath Fragment where the arena was. The girls and I had fought in this place before, and apparently, there was a special mechanism that could trigger the stairway that led up to Fragment. Ling Xin knew how to operate it and was authorized to do so by the system, since she was a Council of Arcanity member.

“Here we are,” she said, standing before a control panel. “There’s going to be another one of these in Fragment that will take us up to the IMF Headquarters in the air, and I’ll be able to access that one as well.”

“I see… thankfully we have you with us, huh?” I chuckled, as Ling Xin maneuvered the control panel.

“And… there,” she said, stepping away. On the display screen was a green line of text:

[Authorization Successful]

As if on cue, a loud mechanical noise came from above us, and the girls and I left the control room to find the large diamond hovering in the air known as Fragment open a single door.

Or at least, that was what’s supposed to happen.

Instead, no door was opened, but the stairs did come down. Ling Xin frowned a bit, and I raised an eyebrow.

“I’m guessing this isn’t supposed to happen?”

“No… how peculiar,” Ling Xin murmured. “I was authorized by the system, and the stairs came down as proof of that. So why…”

“Let’s get closer to investigate,” Feng Mian suggested, and the rest of us nodded in agreement.

*****

“What’s… this?”

After a long walk, we finally reached the top of the stairs. What was waiting for us, however, was a sealed door that would not budge. There appeared to be a biometric authorization system of some sort, one that didn’t accept Ling Xin—nor any of us, for that matter.

“It says… Archpriest-Rank Authorization required. What does that mean…?” Qing Yue murmured.

“Huh… the Midnight Syndicate has Church-like rankings for its members, remember?” Lan Xiao Su suggested after some thought. “Perhaps this is referring to that…”

“In other words, we have to capture an Archpriest-Rank Midnight Syndicate member, at the very least, and take him here so we can enter as well,” Feng Mian concluded.

“Sounds about right,” I muttered. “But it seems the Midnight Syndicate is changing up the security systems all around Fragment… are they trying to make it their new base?”

“That would be a logical assumption,” Obsidia said. “But if they are changing up the security systems, then…”

Suddenly, we all realized.

“… My authorization…” Ling Xin began, but it was too late.

“—!”

The stairway below us suddenly gave way, and we began falling.

“Tch-!” I quickly activated my Sky Magic and caught Feng Mian in one arm and Qing Yue in the other. Yu An Yan could fly as well and caught her sister, while Mei Gui caught Lan Xiao Su. Ling Xin caught Axilia, and Obsidia caught Amane. Thankfully, we had enough people in the squad who could fly, so none of us were hurt as we slowly drifted to the ground. Lorelei and Yami naturally remained in my soul, so they were completely unaffected.

“God, that was close…” Yu An Yan sighed. “I don’t want to go through that ever again.”

“But this is a problem… where can we find an Archpriest-Rank from the Midnight Syndicate?” Feng Mian murmured quietly. “All the branches in the Fortress most likely were wiped out just from tonight… and that rank sounds quite high.”

“… Then we have to go somewhere else,” I replied. “That’s all there is to it.”

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