"Sorry, but not now," he said curtly, already pivoting to leave.
Maya didn’t have much ti to process what Alex ant because, at that very mont, the brilliant glow suddenly surged outward, expanding at an alarming rate!
Alex sprinted toward the hall’s exit, weaving, dodging, and evading every attack that ca his way with sharp, calculated movents.
’Shit, I can’t outrun it!’ Alex thought in distress, ’I should have acted sooner!’
Realizing escape was pointless, Alex stopped in his tracks and conjured a smoke do around himself and Maya, making it as dense and reinforced as he possibly could.
’Shit, shit, shit—Freya!’ he cursed inwardly, ’I have to protect her too!’
He half wanted to rush to her position and pull her to safety, but a glance outside the thick do made him realize it was far too late. The blinding white light from the disc had already surged across the stage, closing in on them, seconds away from engulfing the smoke barrier.
"Brace yourself for impact!" he ordered Maya, tensing his body in preparation for the inevitable.
And yet... even after the white light swallowed the do completely, nothing happened.
Inside, Alex and Maya exchanged baffled looks.
"What’s going on?" Maya asked, her voice tinged with confusion.
"I have no clue," he admitted with a shrug.
After an indeterminate amount of ti, when the intense glow finally subsided, Alex cautiously dispersed the smoke do.
He wasn’t sure what he was expecting... but the sight that greeted him was certainly not it. Because—nothing had changed.
The auction house, the audience, the guards—everything looked exactly the sa as before, as if nothing had happened at all.
But...
"There’s sothing wrong here," he said after a mont.
"Look, their eyes!" Maya exclaid, pointing at the people near them.
It was then that Alex saw it.
The eyes of those around them seed dull—lifeless. They looked like patients in a vegetative state, or like people who were brain-dead.
Walking over to one of the invitees, Alex gently pushed them, and, following the force of his shove, they collapsed forward without resistance.
’Yep, they’re unconscious at best... and dead at worst,’ he concluded.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Several dull thuds echoed behind him. Turning around, Alex saw that a number of the guards who had been pursuing them were now sprawled across the floor.
That wasn’t the case for all of them, however. The two guards—the level 5s—still remained standing. Aside from the few wounds they had suffered from Alex, they seed fine. However, their expressions were blank and unfocused, and they kept glancing around as if they couldn’t comprehend what was going on.
Looking farther toward the back, Alex spotted Frieda staring toward the audience with the sa unfocused expression.
"You!" Alex shouted sharply, drawing her attention. "It was all your fault, wasn’t it?!"
Frieda flinched at first, startled, before her expression shifted to indignation. "Wait—what? How would this be my fault?!"
"Dunno," Alex shot back, his tone sharp and accusatory. "Maybe because you’re the one supervising this whole auction? Or maybe because you conveniently pushed for Maya to be the one doing the auctioning today?"
"What the hell are you talking about?" Frieda snapped, her usually pleasant expression turning fierce. "How does that make the one behind this? And for your information, it was Maya herself who insisted on being here!"
At that, Alex turned to Maya, who nodded in confirmation. "I wanted to spend the night with you and Mom, that’s why," she murmured so only he could hear.
Alex sighed. ’Great! Now I don’t have a clue who’s behind this!’
It could still be Frieda, but now that he had ti to think and saw the scale of the disc’s effects, it seed unlikely she was the mastermind.
’The principal branch of the Drazen family may have targeted Maya before, but it would be extrely foolish—borderline suicidal even—for them to risk harming the invited nobles at the sa ti. That makes it far more likely soone else is behind this,’ he reasoned.
As he ca to that conclusion, the answer beca obvious to Alex. ’The one behind the beast tides,’ he realized. ’So their target all along was the nobles?’
When he thought of this, the na of a recent criminal organization he had encountered ca to mind: Night.
Those guys were the only ones he knew about that would target nobles.
Just as he was processing this, the sound of approaching footsteps reached his ears.
"People are coming this way," he said aloud. He closed his eyes briefly, focusing on the sound. "And there are a lot of them."
Frieda and the two remaining guards brightened at the news, clearly thinking it must be reinforcents from the guards stationed outside who had heard the commotion.
Seeing their optimism, Alex simply shook his head. ’There are more people coming than there are guards outside. Besides, if those inside were affected by the disc, who’s to say the sa thing hasn’t happened to the guards outside? And the timing... it’s way too perfect for these people to just be guards.’
As that thought crossed his mind, another realization struck him. ’Wait... where’s the disc?’
He turned toward the stage, specifically to the glass case where the item had been displayed monts ago. It was empty. The disc was gone.
’Dammit! I was hoping that having that thing might have helped restore everyone’s senses... if that’s even possible,’ he thought, glancing around at the unconscious guests.
It was then he rembered soone he had left alone in their private booth.
’Shit, shit, shit—I hope she’s safe,’ he thought, alard.
As he looked upward, ready to leap toward their booth, he saw a figure flying out from it—bursting through the sa hole he had made earlier when he shattered the glass barrier.
The figure hurtled through the air at astonishing speed before crashing onto the stage with a resounding bang.
The explosion was brutal and devastating, sending debris and shards scattering in every direction. The shockwave rippled outward, making the entire auction hall tremble slightly.
From the sa opening, a second figure erged. This one was more slender, more refined. They leapt gracefully through the air, landing on the ground with controlled precision.
This second figure was none other than Freya.
Everyone present glanced toward the spot where the first figure had crashed, then at Freya, then back at the crash site, and then at Freya again—eyes flicking between the two in disbelief.
"What?" the matriarch snapped, a slight frown of displeasure forming on her face.
’Right, she once had an ability that increased her physical might,’ Alex reminded himself.
Unfortunately, there wasn’t much ti for interaction before the doors to the hall swung open and several hooded n, dressed in black attire, barged inside.
There were so many of them that Alex didn’t even bother to count.
They stord into the auction hall with the confidence of n who owned the place, quickly spreading out to encircle the entire room.
Then, a man dressed all in black—just like the others—strode into the hall as though he truly did own it, and imdiately began to speak.
"Oh, I see that so of you are still conscious," the man remarked, sounding almost surprised that there were survivors. "Well, he did say it was a possibility," he mumbled to himself, though his voice was loud enough for everyone nearby to hear. "Well, it doesn’t matter. You have two options as of now: you either surrender, and we can handle everything peacefully, in which case you’ll each get a comfortable cell for the trip back to the base... or you can resist. But in that case, you can’t bla us for what might happen to you."
After the man finished, silence hung over the room for a few seconds before a loud sigh broke it.
"I knew this day was going to be shit," Alex sighed again.
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