Chapter 203: Talent Worth Killing For

Lucas leaned in just a fraction, lowering his voice enough that it felt like a private exchange despite the crowd.

“Tell me, what do you mean hell broke loose? The floor opened and closed faster than anything we’ve experienced before.” He asked inquisitively but also quietly. Some words need not be heard by others.

Iori’s throat felt dry. His mind flicked through the highlights like a knife through meat: smoke, screaming, electric light turning on, flesh cooking, Kael’s silhouette vanishing, the basilisk’s jaws snapping shut on someone who’d been alive seconds earlier. The the burning hellfire that the monster of flames and fire insued in the whole floor.

The ifrit who made the whole place turn to Tartaros for no reason.

Little that Iori knew, the reason was Kael, since the first few days.

He didn’t dress it up.

“A strange kid joined in, said he died on the first floor. Fucker ruined everything, got most of the Snake clans dead by himself, caused a Zombie outburst, and stole the loot from a Basilisk we all hunted together.” He said almost spitting the facts.

He watched Lucas’s reaction closely. Lucas’s frown wasn’t disbelief. It was a calculation. Like he was already placing pieces on a board.

“And you didn’t do anything to him for all of that? The boss won’t like it.”

The words weren’t concern for justice. They were concern for order. For hierarchy. For the idea that the Sun Clan didn’t let a wildcard embarrass them.

Iori’s hands flexed unconsciously. He could still feel how wrong it had felt to have Kael in front of him, too capable, too unpredictable, too willing to throw other people into a grinder if it kept him moving.

“Can’t help it, the fucker had some strange gauntlets,” Iori said.

He didn’t elaborate. Not here. Not in front of a Lionard’s mouth that would happily run with half a story if it got them leverage.

Lucas’s gaze dropped to Iori’s hands like he was expecting to see the gauntlets right there, then lifted again when he didn’t. He didn’t press. Not yet.

Instead, he made a different count.

“All of those, Sun Clan?” Lucas asked.

“Yeah,”

Lucas’s grin returned, smaller, sharper.

“Good,” Lucas smiled as he turned to the other guy, “I’ll be taking my members with me.”

The Lionards man’s face tightened. Not anger exactly, more like a refusal that couldn’t be acted on. His group shifted, boots scraping stone, but none of them crossed the invisible line of “allowed conflict.”

Lucas didn’t wait for permission.

“Follow me, and don’t say shit, we’ll need to get you somewhere where we can understand more about the situation,” Lucas said.

Iori gave a short nod and motioned his five to close in. They moved like people who’d learned to stay together because separation was death.

“Something big happened?”

Lucas didn’t answer right away. He angled his head subtly, pointing with motion rather than finger.

“Big is an understatement, see that guy,” Lucas hinted with his head as he talked with a low tone.

Iori followed the hint without making it obvious, eyes sliding toward the direction Lucas indicated. One of the blue-armored Lionards stood there like a spear planted in stone, posture controlled, attention fixed on the portal with a patience that felt rehearsed.

“Yeah, what about him?” Iori asked.

Lucas’s tone flattened, the way it did when someone talked about rankings and records and the kind of pride that got people killed.

“His boss, Leonard, was the guy that held the record for the first floor, and some guy on your floor managed to break that record even. His boss is pretty adamant about making that new blood join them. And we can’t allow that, so we need all information on that guy.”

Iori’s stomach sank in an ugly, familiar way. If Kael was the person who had broken Leonard’s record, that meant every guild here would want him. Not because they liked him. Because he was a weapon, and weapons belonged to whoever could hold them.

Iori’s first instinct was simple, petty, and honest.

“You’ll kill him, right?”

Lucas stopped walking for half a beat, turning just enough that Iori caught the look, like Iori had suggested setting fire to their own base.

“Are you insane?”

Iori’s lips curled slightly, more tired than amused. “Why? If it’s the guy named Kael, he killed many of our members,” Iori said.

The names of the dead didn’t come to his mind as faces anymore, just gaps. Missing voices. Empty bunks. Quiet corridors.

Lucas stepped closer, voice lowered further, the warning sharpened enough to bite.

“Listen here, Iori, this isn’t the Sun Clan, you know, shit is different here. We’re all fighting for survival, and clear. losing potential talent is basically shooting ourselves in the foot. We need him with us first; only when he refuses, then can we try to kill him. Regardless of whatever grievances you have with that fresh blood, if you meet him, you’d better fucking act nice and smile about it. Our boss won’t like it. You missed your shot to kill him, but now if it’s the same person and he cleared and somehow is on the first floor, you can’t antagonize him… yet.”

The words were ugly, but they made sense in a way that made Iori hate them more. Recruit first. Own the talent. Decide later if the talent deserved to live. That was guild logic stripped of pretense.

Iori swallowed his response. He could argue. He could push back. He could try to claim moral ground.

None of it would matter.

So he asked the question that actually mattered in the hierarchy.

“Who’s the current boss?” Iori asked.

Lucas’s answer came instantly, like it had weight even here.

“Who else? Matthew Roberts.” Lucas said.

Iori froze for a heartbeat. He’d heard that name back on the first floor in the same way people talked about storms, respect mixed with dread.

“What? The Immortal King? He died?”

“Long time ago.” Lucas said.

Iori’s mind tried to fit the pieces together and didn’t like the shape it made. Matthew Roberts in the Sun Clan wasn’t a “promotion.” It was a takeover.

“How is he the leader of the Sun Clan, though? Wasn’t he a Holy Crusader member?” Iori asked.

Lucas’s mouth twisted in the kind of expression that said history is full of traitors and survivors.

“Was, before he switched sides, became the Sun Clan’s leader. Terrible personality though.”

Iori huffed out a breath that might’ve been a laugh in another life.

“Well, he was carried by his chest plate…”

Lucas’s eyes snapped to Iori so fast it made the air feel colder.

“Don’t mention that here if you value your life,” Lucas led the group outside the fortress. “We’ll head to base for now, and I’ll explain more about this floor once we’re away from prying ears and eyes.”

The fortress gates gave way to wider streets, still crowded but less compressed. The sound changed too, less echo, more open air, more footfalls on stone, more distant shouting. Guild banners fluttered overhead like claim markers. The second floor didn’t feel like safety.

It felt like a marketplace built on top of a battlefield.

And somewhere in it, moving unseen, avoiding recruitment hooks like knives, was the kid Iori couldn’t find.

Which meant Kael was already doing what Kael always did.

Making sure everyone else paid the price for being slow.

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