On the bridge spanning two streets, Ansel listened to Ravenna's irate complaints:
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"Finding soone with no trace in three days? And you want to do it?"
"You're quite good at ordering people around, Ansel. I'm not exactly your subordinate... not really."
"And you could have symbolically taken a single copper coin. Was it necessary to take everything?"
At this, Ansel cleared his throat. "Marlina took everything, not ."
"You shaless brat!" The scholar stomped on Ansel's shoulder in annoyance. "Don't shift the bla. Without your approval, would she have taken it all?"
Marlina initially wanted to explain that she acted on her own accord without Ansel's instructions, but she quickly realized she had no place in their conversation and that Ravenna wasn't serious.
"Stop complaining, my dear Miss Monster."
Ansel casually pinched the small Ravenna by the collar, lifting her before his eyes with a cheerful grin: "If we don't find that boy soon, my reputation will take a hit."
"Why should I care about your reputation… Let go!"
—Although she could disperse and reassemble at any mont, Ravenna still demanded that Ansel release her.
Once she settled back on Ansel's shoulder, her expression remained disgruntled, but she muttered, "Let's go back and check around that hideout again. That trafficker must have other places where he imprisons slaves. If that doesn't work…"
Miss Scholar paused, giving a slight huff: "Ask your little puppy; she'll surely wag her tail and help you out."
Her deanor clearly showed dissatisfaction with Ansel eting Seraphina openly instead of avoiding her.
"Seri? She has no ti for this. If nothing goes wrong—"
Boom!!!
A deafening explosion echoed from the vertiginous heights of the Lower District's central abyss, shaking most of the area.
Ansel shrugged: "She's quite busy now."
"Dealing with a few third-stage extraordinary beings wielding so toys, and she causes such a commotion?"
Ravenna looked up at the sky, frowning slightly: "No, it's not her, it's… huh?!"
Sensing sothing amiss, the petite woman's expression changed subtly. She turned to Ansel, her gaze sharpening:
"Does she need help?"
"Even if she did, it wouldn't be helping," Ansel replied leisurely. "I didn't co here to assist Seri—who would've thought she'd suddenly show up at Dispute Fortress?"
Ravenna, who had been slightly worried, narrowed her eyes at his words:
"Are you mocking for being jealous?"
"I never said you were jealous."
"Then you're saying I'm being unreasonable?"
"You are a bit unreasonable."
"What, do you dislike now?"
"I wouldn't dare."
Though their words seed quarrelso, the tone was undeniably affectionate.
Marlina glanced at the small figure sitting on Ansel's shoulder, nestled close to his cheek, then quickly lowered her eyes, focusing on the road ahead.
For Marlina, accustod to the grand avenues of the Imperial City, the filthy, cluttered paths of the Lower District were quite difficult to navigate.
*
anwhile, Seraphina remained unaware that just fifty ters below her, the boy she longed for happened to be crossing the bridge.
With her dark red eyes gleaming with malice, she crouched on the railing like a wolf poised to hunt.
Before her, four extraordinary beings stood in combat stances, so fearful, so defiant, so calm, all ready to clash, yet none daring to make the first move.
"You had better think carefully..."
Seraphina enunciated each word: "For every innocent life lost, I will crush one of your bones before sending you to your deaths."
The brutal words that escaped her rosy lips were like blades, or perhaps… it was the ferocious aura emanating from her that made her every gesture exude a terror beyond the grasp of ordinary extraordinary beings.
Among the four, two had already begun to waver under Seraphina's gaze, but one remained unperturbed, responding with an eerie calm:
"Miss Fenrir, we never intended to harm any of Dispute Fortress's citizens."
"Then you scum better remove the explosive arrays you've planted in the Lower District, imdiately!"
Seraphina roared, her voice echoing with raw power, and the red-black phantom swirling behind her—a beastly figure too indistinct to discern—cast a murderous glance that made the weakest of the four collapse, trembling in fear.
Seraphina hadn't expected such a swift response from the higher-ups. It had barely been monts before they dispatched a squad of extraordinary beings.
This squad, nine in total, all third-stage extraordinary beings, had drawn Seraphina's attention the mont she sensed their presence.
She confronted them at once, but the encounter did not yield the results she desired.
They weren't there to manage the Lower District but to test her ttle.
And so, Seraphina demonstrated her prowess, disabling five of them within ten seconds.
She had deliberately slowed her actions to inflict pain, a choice she soon regretted due to her "arrogance."
Despite her ferocious and nacing appearance, the wolf girl's heart was far from at peace.
The construction of the Lower District of Dispute Fortress resembles a deep well, with all the buildings stacked along the "well wall." Seraphina once asked the residents why it was built this way, and the answer she received was that it was originally a massive mine excavated during Dispute Fortress's expansion.
When the veins were exhausted, the esteed adventurers, being so close to Dispute Fortress, transford it into a larger Lower District as part of the expansion.
To maintain the stability of the district, the walls of the original mine are inscribed with nurous arrays to stabilize the rock. The adventurers viewed these arrays as a benevolent gift, providing them with a place to reside.
Though Seraphina was not a sorceress, after being reminded, she used the Head of Wind to investigate and indeed found a plethora of arrays. She initially thought the higher-ups of Dispute Fortress were considerate enough to protect the Lower District's residents.
However, upon the arrival of these extraordinary beings, she realized that protection was a… god-damn farce protecting… the hell! The arrays could be inverted at any mont, turning into a bomb capable of destroying the entire Lower District! They could even control specific areas to collapse selectively.
Seraphina could not comprehend why extraordinary beings… would target mortals.
What was the purpose of designing such a thing? If the intention was to destroy the Lower District from the beginning, why build it at all?
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