The end of the incident started in a flash. Two patrols guarding Millian’s prison only heard one explosion as the wall fell on them. Both survived due to their beefy endurance stat, but no amount of mental fortitude prepared them for what came next.

A roundhouse kick sent one of the men into a wall. The impact left him daze, but a quick palm strike in the face evaporated his consciousness. Meanwhile, the remaining patrol found himself hurled across the room into the approaching reinforcement.

The man slammed with painful clunch. In response, the reinforcement stayed put as clouds of darkness filled the stone corridor. Something was coming. The troops knew it. But what they did not know sent a freezer there spine.

A red visor shone, and a heavy plump object sailed out of the cloud. One mage panicked and exploded the projectile out of the sky with a fireball. It was a move of a blind reaction that would result in disastrous consequences.

The object dropped from the air, revealing the steaming, groaning, bloody body of Port. The sight of their mayor in his horrible state stunned the guard for a second.

That distraction was enough to end the battle.

Six bullets slammed into the group, dropping half a dozen wardens to the floor. Although half of their number fell, the reinforcement didn’t freeze. They prepared their magic and started firing. Sadly, none of them realized then that firing blindly into a curtain of darkness might not be the wisest idea. Horizon Dawn’s attack team already saw this coming. Two throwing knives impaled two of the six guards. One attacker closed in using this reaction gap and ended the fight.

A fist slammed into a nose, breaking it and launching a man into the far wall. The second guard could barely react to a masked woman’s uppercut. The following high-kick ignited a wall of flame, blasting the last two defenders into the wall.

The masked demoness breathed a sigh of relief.

“That was easier than I expected.”

“It is only this easy because we have an element of surprise,” Rem said. “We better hurry.”

…

Sometimes after Rem and Melody started their attack, Cytortia was assembling the F-U5.

F-U5 was an equivalent for Rem throwing his hand and screwing the subtlety. It was a high-power ballista meant to fire payload equal to A-rank magic through the dragon’s skull. Being the practical man, Rem decided to kill two birds with one stone. The architecture was simple, launched Luxinna’s overpower sword, the [Historia], at the dragon with as much power as Horizon Dawn could pack in it.

Luxinna charged the sword. Melody, Scathach and Ebony manufactured the launcher, while Cytortia and Rem designed the alchemical launching system powered by Burning Sunshine. However, they had one more problem before F-U5 activated. Thankfully, the problem was not the dragon. The damage the gang piled at it this last hour pretty much delivered the dragon to its last leg. Technical competence wasn’t the problem either. Scathach pre-assembled the launcher and stored it in her Storage Stone gear. No, the main problem was interference from the morons.

“This isn’t good,” Cytortia panicked as the adventurer prepare there spell. “They will start before we set up. What do we—Lux?”

“I already charged the sword!” Luxinna ignored Cytortia and rushed toward the assembling adventurers while arming her smoke bomb. “I will distract them, just fire the shot.”

The goddess shut up and focused on the task. In her heart, the young girl prayed for this nightmare to be over as soon as possible.

…

A well-hone instinct woke Aion up in his cell.

The cell was sparsed. Bloodstain dyed the grey brick of the floor and walls. Single torch beside the cell door provided the only illumination. Time to time, the flame would flicker, wavering the shadow of the metal bar separating the former Guildmaster from freedom. Aion’s eyes were anxious with hopelessness. His healing passive already fixed his ruptured eardrum and injuries, but it didn’t heal the abyss of defeats in his stomach. The iron shackled chaining him to the wall acted as a permanent reminder of his inevitable failure in the face of overwhelming power.

The depressing reminiscence was interrupted by the crashing sound of two guards tumbling down the stair. Aion looked up to see a red-hair woman in a black cloak and white-masked stepping into the dungeon. This woman couldn’t be more than a young girl, but there was something very familiar about her.

The former Guildmaster exchanged glances between her and the unconscious guard. What was she doing here?

“Guildmaster Aion,” the young woman started.

“Former Guildmaster,” Aion corrected self-depreciatingly.

“Fine,” She sighed, unfurling a piece of paper right in front of him. “You are being reinstated.”

“That is impossible. Illma would never allow it.”

“Illma isn’t a problem. The dragon attacking the town and the Adventurer Guild blundering in front of it is the current hot topic. At this point, you are the only one who could stop this disaster, and I am here to get you out.”

“You still believe they will listen to my order over Illma?” Aion spoke sadly. “She outranks me.”

“Maybe, but there is someone who already does,” suddenly the red-hair woman shouted. “You can come here now.”

Aion listened to another footstep incoming. To his surprise, it is the little girl, the girl who was taken away by Illma the last time he saw her.

“Guildmaster!” The little girl ran toward the bar. “A-Are you okay?”

“How did you find her?”

“My friend checked the prison pretty thoroughly,” the red-hair girl snorted, not realizing the good she was doing. “The guard here is weak as hell. We cleared the place in five minutes. They should stick with at thirty instead of twenty weaklings. My friend found her here on the top floor.” The girl’s tone suddenly turned angry. “He left with me before going to deal with another personal business. That idiot always vanishes when you need him the most.”

The girl turned toward the masked woman.

“Miss, can you free the Guildmaster?” Then the girl remembered what her mother taught her about asking for help. “Please?”

Beneath the mask, the face of Melody Solarmaria twitched up into a small smile. She could barely recall the last time anyone asked her nicely. That day her heart ballooned up five-times its size.

“Don’t worry,” she consoled the girl. “Here, let me do this.”

Melody lighted her hand on fire. She grasped the padlock on Aion’s cell and ripped the molten metal of its hinge. The girl swung the door opened and repeated the act on Aion’s shackles.

“Now, please order your underling to stop.”

“I understand,” Aion said. “But we need to get to the broadcaster.”

“This prison has one already warm,” Melody narrated. “We just need to get going.”

Aion and the little girl walked out of the cellar door toward their freedom. However, before the girl stepped out of the door, she smiled back ant old Melody the sentence she would never forget.

“Thank you for everything, Miss,” the girl sweetly smiled. “I won’t forget what you do for us! You are welcome back

anytime.”

The girl left. Melody stood there, grateful for her mask because she didn’t think she could wipe a stupid grin from her face.

…

A few moments earlier, the adventurers met a rude interruption.

“Everyone fir-“

A scantily cladded woman yelled, but a cloud of darkness exploded and severed off her command.

Luxinna leaped across the air, gritting her teeth as her vision blurred. She was on her last leg. All her limbs wanted to collapse, and her headache was killing her. The True Magic she awakened and used against Illma already tapped her dry. Moreover, the injury she took during that battle wasn’t helping her pain tolerance.

With forces holding her body falling apart, Luxinna forced her power to ignite one more time. One more shot, just one more before going empty. She had to make it count.

[Serene Glass] weaved into existence, forming a spear with the broad head of [Static Glass] wrapped inside and [Serene Glass] coating. It was a warning shot. Luxinna could destroy the adventurers and end the threat with this improvised technique, but she was too selfish to do that. A hero who saved that lost little girl would never be a mass murderer.

[Serene Glass: Overload Piercer]

Luxinna let the attack flew.

“What is that?” The young adventurer gasped at the golden lance above.

“Who cares! keep attacking?” A scarred adventurer beside him yelled.

The spear of lightning detonated before the single counter got cast. The sculpture ruptured, scattering high-speed powdered shards in an explosion. While discharge at such proximity would result in microscopic shards of glass obliterating any living body to shred into a pile of blood.

Thankfully, through the combination of depleting stamina and distance, the spear destroying power got reduced somewhat. However, despite being a shadow of what it could be, the golden explosion still toppled half the remaining adventurers and shook all of the standing buildings.

Everyone stared at the blast that must be over fifty-meter. How fast was that spear moving? How many of them could survive that attack directly? The spell alone must be worthy of a B-rank. Most of the adventurers wanted to cry. When did the exalted B-rank become such a common commodity?

A split-second late was enough for the first among them to notice the thrower.

Luxinna wanted to give herself a disappointing smile. She could imagine how she looked; an exhausted girl barely held onto her a weightless arm, trying to stay conscious despite her migraine. She was a drain. Her feet were so dead she couldn’t even dodge a punch from a kindergarten. Her clothing and body must look like a dying scarecrow. The bluff was busted; those eighty adventurers would gather themselves and blasted her to oblivion within seconds.

But the adventurer saw a different image.

What they saw emerging was a dark shadow wrapped in an ominous cloak. It was a mysterious and foreboding image right out of a childhood nightmare. Animal instinct told the eighty adventurers to run to the hill. That warning shot already told them everything. One wrong move and death itself would skin them alive.

That was a moment a certain goddess armed the ballistae with the magic sword. Huffing like she just finished a marathon, Cytortia gave a shemp roar in an attempt to boost her morale and fired the sword. The Burning Sunshine combusted in a control explosion, powering the firing mechanism and propelled [Historia] into the dragon.

The blade, forged from the blood of the strongest lightning-child of an entire generation, blessed by the most powerful entity that will ever exist and boosted by Cytortia, thundered toward the dragon. It was unstoppable, the raw recoil alone decimated its launcher into a pile of splinters and sent Cytortia flying.

The mightiest Holy-Sword of Phantasia penetrated the unholy barrier of the beast and stabbed through its body. The lightning element, boosted by natural power, spread from the sword, exorcising the dragon and roasting it from within.

The walking corpse of the lizard took one longing glance at the sky before roaring as it barely living soul imploded.

The dragon eyes went dark, and it collapses to the ground dead.

“What just happen?” The scantily cladded adventurer said to no one in particular.

That was when the message dropped.

‘This is Guildmaster Aion. With my newly reinstate position as a Guildmaster of Millian, I suspend Special Responder Illma Zoldia Road’s Emergency Charter. Road will now be under investigation from a breach of protocol, directly causing harm to the citizens, failure to respond to evacuation protocol. and misinterpretation of threat level endangering the area. All adventurers responding to the crisis must withdraw while the investigation remains pending. This order is effective immediately.’

Every adventurer stood blankly at that bombshell of information while the masked figure silently retreated to the shadow.

And that was how the Millian incident publicly end.

But privately, it ended differently.

…

Illma Zoldia Road crawled into her ships.

When she first arrived here, she came in a beautiful red dress with the force of the X-cution unit behind her. The mayor himself greeted her like a serf beneath her boot. Even the representative of the mighty Emma clan prostrated her authority.

Then misfortune struck, now she got nothing but a cloth on her back, and a charred stumped where her hand used to be. Illma gritted her teeth, she couldn’t feel her broken rib, but that the injury was unignorable. She needed to heal and come back here with every X-cution unit at her disposal. Damned it all her deal with Chuang. That elf won’t escape her wrath. Nothing else mattered other than seeing the head of the damned cockroach on a pike.

Illma walked toward the cockpit, so monofucus she missed the glowing red visor watching her. She only noticed the invader when a cold metal pressed against her back.

“I don’t know your ability,” said the muffled voice of Remus Breaker. “But I will presume it something to do with a killing pain I felt in my rib. Judging on how you hold yourself, you probably transfer your pain elsewhere. So here is a deal, one more magical fuckery, and I will put a bullet in your spine. Do I make myself clear?”

The voice and its threat sent a shiver down her spine. How did this happen? How did he get here?

“You must be wondering how am I here in your seemingly secure airship?” Rem said. “I am not obliged to answer you, but I would say your security is pretty fragile to overcharging. I have to say you are mega sloppy, coming onto the ship without noticing the lock already broke. Not that it matters much, I already put a few rounds into the engine as a redundancy.”

Illma froze. This guy was trouble. He held all the cards, and in her injured state, she was at his mercy.

“I am an Untouchable!” Illma yelled, trying to convince herself more than her terrifying captor. “You can’t kill me. The Seven Continental Alliance will never let you off.”

“Oh, so it the same old I-have-a-backer threat. Where do you think you are? China?” Rem deadpanned. “Here is the reveal, Illma. By the time this month is over, you won’t be an Untouchable anymore.”

“You act like you could manipulate the entire Alliance!”

“Oh, I can,” Rem replied apathetically. “Think about this. What earns you the special responder status? Is it your fighting skill? Your charisma? No, it is the X-cution production method in your brain. Let imagine this scenario: you are captured by a person who got access to both Alchemist bright enough to invent a truth serum and an engineer who led the X-cution exoskeleton project. Now how long would you think it would take to ply the X-cution data from your brain, upgraded it, and released it to the public. Not long, I guess.”

Rem whispered into Illma’s ears.

“Think about it. A personal army you can build without sacrificing any children, all available to the public domain. It will make you obsolete. The Seven Continental Alliance would revoke your status faster than I can list my friend in the Anti-defamation League. After that, you will be a walking liability without anything to offer more than replaceable flashy magic. You lost Illma. Karma will come in all its fury when your protection goes bye-bye."

Illma listened to all of this, and she refused to acknowledge it.

Deep down, she knew Rem got her. There was no way she came out intact. But how could this be, she was the heaven ascended Illma Zoldia Road. How could this happen to her?

“It won’t happen,” Illma cried. “I am the chosen one. I won’t-“

Bang! Bang! Bang!

A bullet slammed into her spine, another in her leg, and one more in her shoulder. Illma toppled to the floor, groaning.

“Well, you can be a chosen goddess from Heaven, but you bleed," Rem handcuffed Illma to the pilot seat. "And if you bleed, you can be defeated."

Rem left to rejoin the other.

It was a mistake, proving that even the most tactical knight could falter.