Chapter 92: The Power of Co-ordination and Affinities

Aden’s eyes locked with the eldest’s. The immense hatred that lay behind them didn’t perturb him further. He only had one goal in his mind: To finish what he started.

“It’s fine. I’ll go, but will you leave them here?” he gestured to the two kids behind him.

The eldest remained silent, then clicked his tongue with averted eyes. The outcome was clear if he left. There would be no safety for his younger siblings.

Without hesitation, he nodded. “Take them with you and keep them safe. If there’s time left, you can come back for me.”

Aden shook his head. “I can manage to take the three of you out of here without issue.”

“I insist you take them out first. Ensure their safety. Only then can I follow you.”

“If their safety is paramount, then you’d do well to stay with them throughout. After all, the methods I might use in keeping them safe might not be acceptable by you,” his voice dropped to a whisper low enough for the eldest to still hear. “Or anyone else for that matter.”

Hearing those words, the hardly suppressed rage within the boy flared. “I swear to whoever you serve, if you dare do anything to my brothers—”

“Then come with me and see for yourself,” Aden interrupted calmly.

His eyes went over Aden once, before he whispered, “…Fine.”

As if on cue, Lorelei flickered into the dome, her expression uncharacteristically somber. She looked at the children, then at Aden.

“There’s an abandoned building we passed by on our way here. Take them there,” he ordered.

He reached into the fold of his tattered cloak and produced the leather pouch of gold Lorelei had taken. His arms extended to give them to the boy, but sensing the lack of acceptance, he tossed it at his feet. It hit the ground with a heavy, metallic thud, but none of them looked at it.

As he watched Lorelei lift the children across her shoulders and hold the boy’s hand with ease, Aden reached out to Zero via the Sync.

’Zero,’ Aden commanded, turning his back to the children once more.

’Yes, Master?’

’Ensure they reach the building. If anyone touches them or dares hinder their path, erase them. Don’t ask for permission. Just do it.’

’Very well, Master. I will not fail you.’

Cutting off the transmission, Aden turned to Lorelei who stood beside him. The kids eyes had closed peacefully due to her influence, but the eldest still stood next to her, his face a mix of vigilance and pain.

He wordlessly waved his fingers, and tangible ropes of darkness extended from their tips before entangling themselves around the trio without their knowledge.

His eyes flitted back to the location where he tossed the gold pouch a few minutes ago. It wasn’t there and that caused a small sigh to leave Aden’s lips.

’At least his hatred didn’t eclipse his rationality. That’s good.’

With a thought, the dome dispersed silently, letting in the flood of reality to rush in with a sensory violence that made the air feel heavy. The silence of the dome was immediately replaced by the hysterical roars of thousands of spectators.

“There’s the man! But where are the kids?!” A voice shrieked from the announcer’s box, though the man’s bravado was clearly brittle.

The emergency orange lanterns flickered violently, struggling to stay lit as the arena’s main power grid groaned under the strain of Lorelei’s previous sabotage, but Aden’s perception was as clear as day.

He turned his head upwards, ignoring the foolish yells of the spectators and focused his attention on the nobles seated in the Platinum tier.

“Go,” Aden whispered.

Lorelei gave a sharp, predatory nod. Her silhouette bled into the long shadows cast by the flickering lanterns, and in a heartbeat, she was gone, carrying the sleeping children and the glaring eldest boy into the safety of the dark. Zero followed like a silent, invisible reaper, his awareness fanning out in a lethal radius. Any guard in the tunnels who even thought of raising a pike simply found their lungs empty of air—no struggle, just quiet removal from existence.

Aden stood alone in the center of the Pit.

From the darkened tunnels surrounding the sand, the Redwyn Cleanup Crew emerged. Unlike the common guards at the gate, these men were encased in Resonance-Plated armor that hummed with a dull blue light. They moved with the synchronized precision of a pack of wolves, their heavy pikes crackling with concentrated energy.

“Identify yourself, vagrant!” the lead hunter barked, his visor sliding down to lock onto Aden’s thermal signature. “By order of Master Kaelen, you are—”

The lead hunter’s visor flickered and his voice stopped abruptly. His sensors failed to register Aden as a person. There was simply no thermal signature to lock onto.

The others in the encirclement didn’t notice this, so they took the silence as a signal to attack.

And so their energies flared.

Five people from each side of the encirclement extended their palms and let out a low roar.

The orange glow of the emergency lanterns was instantly overwhelmed by the polychromatic flare of the Cleanup Crew’s coordinated assault.

These weren’t the clumsy swings of slum-guards, this was the Redwyn Elemental Tetrarchy, a specialized unit trained to overlap their Resonance into a meat-grinder of nature’s harshest laws.

From the eastern flank, two hunters slammed their palms into the sand. The white grains flew and shifted into a liquid-like state, rising into a Tidal Wave of Earth. The ground beneath Aden’s feet liquidated, attempting to pull him into a suffocating embrace of pressurized stone, while the wave above arched, ready to bury him under ten tons of solidifying granite.

Simultaneously, the northern wind-specialists exhaled in unison. They didn’t just blow air, they condensed the atmosphere into Vacuum Blades—invisible, high-frequency ribbons of wind that shrieked as they sliced through the air. They aimed not for Aden’s body, but for the space around him, intending to flay the very oxygen from his lungs and shred his tattered cloak into ribbons.

“Suppress him!” the lead hunter roared, his voice barely audible over the sudden elemental cacophony.

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