"...."
Rey stared at his duplicate, his mind racing through impossible scenarios, trying to comprehend what he was witnessing. The other Rey stood there with that knowing smile, radiating the sa Chaos signature as him.
Then the duplicate stepped forward, and Rey felt sothing shift in reality around them.
"Don’t resist," the other Rey said calmly. "This will only take a mont."
Before Rey could react, the duplicate dissolved into pure mystical energy—Ether at its most fundantal level, consciousness freed from physical form. The energy surged toward Rey, and he felt it rge with his own essence in a way that was both alien and intimately familiar.
mories flooded his mind.
Not new mories, but ones he’d deliberately partitioned away.
The complete plan, hidden from his own conscious awareness to ensure no interrogation or Soul examination could reveal it, even if he was captured.
And suddenly, Rey rembered everything.
The plan had never been to send a clone to the auction while he remained safely hidden.
That would have been the obvious approach—the one any competent investigator would anticipate and prepare counterasures for. The Category S Guards had already proven they could detect clones through Soul examination.
They’d captured his previous duplicate and learned its limitations.
This was sothing Rey had considered, though he didn’t know this to be the true facts.
So he had inverted the strategy entirely.
He attended the auction himself, in the flesh, with his true body and original Soul.
He beca the target, the bait, the distraction that would draw all attention and scrutiny. When the Special Investigators deployed their Divine Artifact to strip away disguises, they found exactly what they were looking for—the genuine perpetrator, with authentic mories and real Soul structure.
anwhile, his clone operated in the background with perfect freedom.
The duplicate had been created beforehand, carefully prepared, and positioned in Elkrim with its own objectives. While Rey sat in his observation booth drawing the Category S Guards’ focus, the clone moved through the auction hall’s secure areas with confidence born of complete knowledge.
It knew the security protocols—Rey had morized them during his ti overseeing the Red House stores and also when he investigated the other Houses.
It knew the ward structures, the mystical locks, the surveillance blind spots.
And most importantly, it knew exactly when the optimal mont would arrive.
When the Mirror of True Nas activated, every attendee’s attention fixed on the dramatic revelations. Guards focused on exposed identities. House representatives panicked about their compromised covers. The entire auction descended into chaos as hundreds of criminals realized their secrets were exposed.
In that chaos, no one noticed a single figure moving systematically through the storage vaults.
The clone had deactivated security wards with insider knowledge, bypassed mystical locks using techniques Rey had prepared specifically for this purpose, and transported every single item out of the facility using spatial displacent Artifacts of the highest grade.
Thousands of pieces.
Hundreds of millions in value.
The entire auction’s inventory, plus all the items Rey himself had planted for sale—everything removed in a coordinated operation that took less than fifteen minutes.
By the ti Rey was being captured and imprisoned, the clone had already completed the theft and secured everything in hidden storage locations scattered across Elkrim’s outer territories.
And because all the stolen items were connected to the criminal economy, because they’d been held in an illegal auction facility, because their ownership was legally ambiguous at best—the Houses couldn’t involve legitimate law enforcent.
They couldn’t report the theft to authorities without exposing their own illegal activities.
They were trapped by the very system they’d created.
He also knew these people would find out that the auctioned items were missing, and that they would seek out the Category S Guards in suspicion of him.
This was also part of his plan.
While they stopped the Special Investigators and delayed them, his clone would go past them, and set up an inescapable trap along their route. This required ti, so he wanted them to thoroughly investigate him as the suspect.
Thankfully, he had also wiped his mories, so this plan didn’t exist in his head.
They could obtain nothing.
It all worked well—according to expectation!
When they entered the wilderness and stopped to rest, the duplicate activated the final contingency.
All kinds of explosives, gotten from synergizing Artifacts and Scrolls.
Their destructive power even mimiced a Divine Tier Artifact.
This explosion was triggered by the Guards’ presence in that specific location, and it was catastrophic enough to destroy them when they weren’t expecting it.
Since it was a culmination of different energies, all of which overlapped and complented each other, the eruption possessed enough destructive force to annihilate everything in a massive radius, erasing the Category S Guards from existence with such overwhelming power they couldn’t even activate defensive techniques.
It was all to rescue Rey in case he got captured and the plan went south.
"Hehehe..." He began to chuckle aloud at this point.
His palm covered his face as more laughter echoed in the void around him.
Rey was very happy.
Why wouldn’t he be?
After all, he had pulled off the impossible and won this deadly ga once and for all.
"All according to plan..."
Once the mories settled fully into Rey’s consciousness, the integration was complete.
He stood in the crater where three Category S Guards had ceased to exist monts ago, understanding flooding through him with perfect clarity.
’Hmmm...’ After his excitent wore out, his expression beca more grim.
This entire scenario was only a counterasure in case his original plan went south.
And it had worked flawlessly.
But the consequences were severe.
Rey had just killed three Category S Guards.
Not criminals or rival operators, but legitimate law enforcent operating under official authority. That was a line that, once crossed, changed everything.
This situation only compounded his cris.
"They’ll hunt with everything they have now," Rey acknowledged coldly. "Not just investigators pursuing a suspect, but the full weight of the Guard hierarchy seeking vengeance for fallen colleagues."
The Land of Nether would beco impossible to operate in.
Every city would have alerts.
Every checkpoint would screen for him.
Category A Guards would be mobilized. Inevitably, they would even deploy Category S reinforcents or request assistance from higher authorities.
He would be forever on the run, unable to establish any stable position, constantly fleeing from pursuers with resources far exceeding his own.
Unless he left the Land of Nether entirely.
Rey’s analytical mind imdiately began calculating the implications of that option. The Land of Aether—the rival territory separated from Nether by heavily contested borders.
It was a place populated by beings who worshipped the Five Holy Gods rather than the Ancient Chaos God.
In Aether lands, he wouldn’t be a known criminal.
The Guards there had no jurisdiction over Nether cris. He could operate freely without constant fear of recognition and capture.
And crucially, Aether society was more tolerant toward half-breeds like him. Where Nether culture treated Cursed Ones as inherently inferior, Aether communities accepted them as victims of circumstance deserving of compassion.
But there was a problem—Chaos Art.
Aether forces were fundantally opposed to Chaos Energy. Using his native Art would imdiately mark him as suspicious, potentially dangerous. If he revealed Chaos capabilities, they’d assu he was a Nether agent or worse.
This brought him to the solution now within reach.
Rey withdrew the Seed of Origin from his spatial storage. The mystical catalyst glead with potential, its energy signature promising transformation for anyone who consud it.
He’d orchestrated this entire operation largely to acquire this single item. Manipulated the Red House, sabotaged the Noble’s purchase, arranged for it to appear at auction, then stolen it along with everything else.
And now he finally had it.
Rey examined the Seed carefully, his enhanced perception analyzing its structure. Standard grade, not Great, which ant it would grant one additional Art affinity to supplent his existing Chaos Art.
Spirit Art was the obvious choice—the most versatile Art, commanding elents and their attributes, widely accepted throughout both Nether and Aether territories. With Spirit Art, he could fight, defend, and operate without ever revealing his Chaos capabilities.
He could pass as a pure Spirit practitioner in Aether lands, completely concealing his true nature.
Rey consud the Seed without hesitation.
The effect was imdiate and profound.
Ether flooded his system, restructuring his fundantal essence to accommodate a second Art affinity. His Ether Pool expanded dramatically as it adapted to channeling multiple types of energy. New pathways opened in his consciousness, granting intuitive understanding of Spirit Art’s principles and applications.
He felt elents responding to his will—fire, water, earth, air, lightning, ice, all of them becoming tools he could command with thought and intent.
The awakening completed within minutes, leaving Rey standing in the crater with dual Art affinities and capabilities that far exceeded what he’d possessed before.
"Perfect," Rey said, testing his new Spirit Art by creating a small fla in his palm. The fire responded instantly, shaped by his will, demonstrating the natural affinity he now possessed. "This will be more than sufficient."
His plan crystallized with final clarity.
He had to leave the Land of Nether imdiately, before the Guards’ deaths were discovered and pursuit began in earnest. To do that, he would need to cross the border into Aether territory while avoiding detection.
Afterwards, he would establish a new identity as a Spirit Art practitioner, concealing all connection to Chaos Art.
And crucially—he could even seek out the Aether benefactor who’d backed the Sunlit Order.
The organization had been destroyed, all its mbers dead, but their sponsor remained unknown.
Soone with resources and authority had funded that operation, soone who’d opposed the Desgarron House and by extension the Nether political structure.
Rey could approach them claiming to be a surviving affiliate, soone who’d escaped the Desgarron destruction and now sought refuge. With his Spirit Art as proof of legitimacy and his knowledge of the operation’s details, he’d be credible.
And the resources he’d stolen from the Dark Comrce District—hundreds of millions in portable wealth—ensured he wouldn’t be stranded or dependent on charity. He could establish himself properly, build new networks, continue advancing toward his ultimate goals.
All while being beyond the reach of Nether authorities.
"The Land of Aether," Rey repeated, committing to the decision. "That’s where I go next."
He activated spatial displacent, preparing to teleport to the first staging point on his escape route.
Before departing, Rey took one last look at the crater where the Category S Guards had died.
He felt no guilt.
They’d been obstacles to his objectives, threats to his freedom, enemies who would have extracted information through torture and then executed him.
Their deaths were strategically necessary and tactically justified.
But he recognized the significance.
"This changes the roadmap," Rey acknowledged. "But it doesn’t matter in the slightest. My ultimate goal remains the sa..."
His revenge remained a priority, one that he could never get rid of.
"Ti to disappear," he said quietly.
The mystical energy surged, and Rey vanished from the crater.
Behind him, only silence remained—and the evidence of three Category S Guards erased from existence.
[END OF ARC 2: DARK COMRCE DISTRICT]
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