From the start, it didn't matter what Lorien Vareth took from Astra Pharmaceuticals. His true goal was simply to ensure the company's relentless pursuit of him.
"This recipe... I'll sell it myself."
There was no reason to hand it over to rentil Pharmaceuticals. After all, there were countless other buyers willing to pay handsoly.
This recipe could drastically enhance potion performance—easily worth billions of Gel.
Selling it wouldn't just enrich him; it would also cripple Astra's progress in the pharmaceutical race.
"The rcenaries Astra hired should be arriving any minute now," Vareth muttered to himself.
One of the rcenaries stood up, heading toward a stack of eight monitors displaying the feeds from the warehouse's BBC caras. With practiced ease, he began cycling through the views, scanning for movent.
"Hmm? Soone's coming," the rcenary announced, his tone sharpening.
At that, his partner leapt to his feet, grabbing his weapon with a confident grin. "Perfect. Ti to stretch my legs before the flight. This won't take long."
"I'll handle contacting our airport team," Vareth said, pulling out his phone. At last, the dull waiting ga was about to end.
"Wait—why is there only one guy?"
"What?" The second rcenary frowned, stepping over to the monitors. Together, they examined the footage.
"Look, it's just one person," the first rcenary pointed out.
"And what's with the mask? Doesn't look like a rcenary. No equipnt either."
Typically, rcenaries carried essentials—body armor, guns, and blades. Even ability users had so basic gear.
"Maybe he's not a rcenary at all. Just so random ability user? He doesn't even look strong. Why would Astra send soone like that?"
"Doesn't matter. He's here, so we deal with him," the second rcenary replied, moving to ready the defenses.
The two rcenaries finished their preparations and pressed a remote control, causing the warehouse door to slide open.
The entrance moved just enough for a single person to slip through sideways—a deliberate modification to the structure.
Guns drawn, the rcenaries positioned themselves. The plan was simple: as soon as the intruder stepped in, they would open fire. While ability users were resilient, even a few bullets could slow them down.
The air in the warehouse grew tense, the kind of anticipation that made even hardened soldiers uneasy.
Seconds ticked by, and then—
BOOM!
A deafening explosion echoed through the warehouse as the steel door was ripped clean off its hinges, hurtling inward with incredible force.
"Shit!" cursed one of the rcenaries as he threw his gun aside and lunged at the flying door.
CRASH!
The door crumpled and was sent flying back out of the warehouse. The rcenary, his body wreathed in a swirling aura of mana, had deflected it with sheer physical force.
But before they could recover—
Zap! Crackle!
With a sudden burst, the lights in the warehouse flickered and died, plunging everything into darkness.
Vareth reacted instantly. His core began to spin, threads of mana unraveling from it.
Little did he know, his core—and every trace of mana he emitted—was being carefully observed in real ti.
A glowing orb appeared above Lorien Vareth's head, bathing the warehouse in dim light. Yet, even with the light, there was no sign of the intruder. Gin had cloaked himself in distortion magic, blending perfectly into the shadows.
Distortion magic, when paired with darkness and shadows, was a devastatingly effective tool.
The rcenaries stood on edge, their bodies wrapped in protective mana, their eyes scanning the space for any hint of movent. Gin ignored them entirely.
His focus was locked on Lorien Vareth, watching the mage's every move.
Lorien Vareth's thod of spellcasting was painfully inefficient.
His core released countless threads of mana, most of which snapped or dissipated as he tried to form a spell.
Only a few threads succeeded in building a functional magic circle.
"He doesn't have the skill to control his mana efficiently," Gin noted. "That's why he relies on volu—using multiple threads to compensate for his lack of precision. Without his wand, he wouldn't be able to cast anything properly."
Satisfied with his analysis of the mage's abilities, Gin decided it was ti to act.
Drawing threads of mana from his core, Gin rapidly constructed three magic circles in succession, executing them one by one. The first circle shattered, releasing scattered mana particles that seeped into the steel door lying on the ground.
The second circle released a shockwave, slamming into one of the rcenaries with devastating force.
BOOM!
The rcenary was thrown backward, his face twisting in pain and confusion.
The mana shield wrapped around his body should have absorbed the impact, but the shockwave had bypassed it entirely.
"Argh!" he choked, blood spraying from his mouth as he collapsed to the ground, his body trembling violently.
The second rcenary charged toward the opposite side of the warehouse, convinced the attack had co from there. Gin, unfazed, constructed another magic circle.
This ti, the spell mixed shock and piercing force.
CRASH!
The second rcenary was flung into the air as if he'd hit an invisible wall, landing with a sickening thud. Like his partner, he lay on the ground, coughing blood, his body wracked with spasms.
Lorien's eyes widened in terror. He hadn't even seen the enemy, and both rcenaries had been effortlessly incapacitated. Panic gripped him.
He activated the enchantnts on his bracelets.
Hissss…
Thick fog poured out, filling the warehouse and obscuring the surroundings. With his enchanted boots, Lorien lightened his body and bolted for the exit.
The fog would blind any pursuer, but Lorien's second bracelet granted him perfect visibility within it.
Confident in his escape plan, he sprinted toward the warehouse door.
But just as he reached the threshold—
BANG!
The steel door he had stepped on flipped upward, throwing Lorien into the air.
He crashed back down with a thunderous noise, his body slamming into the ground with brutal force.
THUD!
Gin approached Lorien slowly, his expression cold and unreadable. Threads of mana coiled around him, forming sharp, precise shapes.
With a wave of his hand, Gin drove mana spikes into Lorien Vareth and the two rcenaries, pinning them to the ground.
Lorien's body went rigid, paralyzed by the spell.
He could only watch in horror as Ban reached into his pocket and retrieved the stolen recipe.
Gin tucked the recipe into his coat and turned, leaving the warehouse behind.
"Too easy," he thought. "Next ti, I hope it's more entertaining."
With that, he headed back toward the building where Jay was hiding, already thinking about the next mission.
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