“Get in,” the guide ordered coldly whilst holding a door open. Rakna was already itching to cut off the man’s head but he calmly followed the instruction. Keeping the act of being Rita, he still gave him a weak glare beforehand and then stepped in, the door closing behind him instantly.

 

Rakna looked around at the modestly large room. There wasn’t anything fancy about it, for it was nothing more than a crude and insolent place; essentially a placeholder for a sole king-sized bed.

 

“Tch, they left me here to wait?” He muttered in distaste and ignored the nightgown hanging next to him on the wall, obviously meant to be worn by the women that enter here. He sat down on the edge of the bed with a scowl. He rubbed his neck where one could see the mark of an injection and allowed his body to heal it.

 

Before entering Bora Quaso’s residence, he had been injected with a toxin meant to weaken and paralyze the use of his physical strength and skills. There was also a violent dose of aphrodisiac mixed in.

 

‘It’s a surprisingly complex compound,’ Rakna thought as the nanobots that constantly ran through his veins began to destroy it completely. After the injection, he had been forced to halt his body’s immune response to get rid of it instantly lest someone noticed it. 

 

He grunted once he could feel the alien elements were fully expunged. “Eye, how long?” He asked out loud afterward and Eye of Symphony promptly answered.

 

[| T-Minus 465. |]

 

“A bit less than eight minutes, huh? Let’s hope that pig doesn’t barge in too soon,” Rakna muttered and crossed his arms patiently, feeling the familiar presence of Sonata inside his soul, ready to be drawn out at any moment.

 

He calmly waited for several minutes, without moving an inch, and passed the time by watching the feed of the Plateau’s cameras and tracking Cura and Rita’s positions. After a moment, he looked for Hans instead and saw him sitting on the bench of a small park, reading a book.

 

‘Of course,’ he snorted internally and spent another minute searching for Nyx, but as expected of her, there was not even a trace anywhere. 

 

“{Aah… this is nerve-wracking,}” Fray suddenly remarked with a groan.

 

Rakna didn’t reply right away and squinted at the bedroom door as if he was seeing something through it. “…as things would have it, you spoke at the best moment possible.”

 

“{…}” The fabulist fell silent as the door opened and Bora strutted in with a smirk whilst wearing a chamber robe. A servant closed the door behind him and the fat pig promptly turned toward his ‘toy’ sitting on the bed.

 

“What? You’re still dressed?” He frowned. “Who do you think you are?”

 

“…where is my brother?” Rakna decided to lead on with the act. At the same time, he faked being restless and mentally ordered his body to create fake blush to hide the fact that he had neutralized the aphrodisiac. ‘Give me a freaking Oscar,’ he jested internally.

 

“Ah? As if I would bother remembering that,” Bora quirked his lips in mockery as he walked to a cabinet. He took out a glass and poured himself some wine. “You should just shut up and listen to my orders. Then, maybe I’ll let your brother live.”

 

Rakna narrowed his eyes at the back of the man and suppressed the twitch of his hand wanting to call Sonata and cut him down. ‘Eye,’ he called.

 

[| T-Minus 112. |]

 

“Now, get prepared. Though… I wouldn’t mind tearing your clothes off myself too. Hm, yes, that would make you a nice appetizer for the other woman,” Bora cackled sadistically and Rakna stood up silently.

 

“Oh no, I know! Why don’t you strip down for me? Hahaha, yes, that’s perf—” The man stopped talking when he heard a strange sound, like a swarm of flies accompanied by low-pitched buzzes.

 

He turned around with a raised eyebrow and immediately gasped. He dropped his glass, letting it shatter on the carpet. He fearfully stumbled back as he now stood in front of the woman who had stolen the breath out of everyone in the Arena; someone who could end his life on a whim.

 

“Y-yo-you! How?!” He shouted startled and the unbelievably beautiful woman did not even bother to grace him with a response. All he received was a glare from those purple eyes. After more than ten seconds of her making no move, he gradually recovered his calm and shakily smiled. 

 

“O-oh…? Are you here to ask me a favor maybe?” He uttered dementedly, associating her lack of action with a need for his power and influence, instead of an assassination. 

 

Without realizing he was falling into a state of denial, he licked his lips and continued, “T-then, I’m sure we can reach an agree—” He blinked when he saw the room flip upside down. “—ment?” He finished his sentence in a daze. And then, with a thud, he hit the ground and the last sight his eyes beheld was his beheaded body, behind which floated an azure and red scythe.

 

“Really… how stupid,” Rakna spat as he extended his hand and called Sonata to his hand. He spun the scythe in his hand and turned it back into a sword.

 

“{…how anticlimactic,}” Fray couldn’t help but say.

 

“I know right,” the therian deadpanned and calmly made his way toward the door. He pushed it wide open as if he owned the house and glanced to his left, where a butler was standing with his eyes closed.

 

“…allowing your master to be killed, I see. Good to see this pigsty is not too dirty,” Rakna huffed to no one in particular and walked down the corridor, the butler lowering his head even further and silently allowing the ‘intruder’ to leave.

 

[| T-Minus 4, 3, 2, 1… Protocol Blackout Fully Loaded. Requesting Final Confirmation. |]

 

“Do it,” Rakna affirmed and Eye of Symphony rotated.

 

[| Confirmation Received. Launching Protocol. |]

 

* * *

 

Zasha was leisurely approaching Zone 1 when a high-pitched noise suddenly resounded from a random electronic store nearby. He hummed questioningly and looked at the source, and before he could identify it, another one emerged from somewhere else. Then a third, a fourth, a fifth…

 

In the span of a few breaths, the whole street was filled with the sound of alarms and lights started flickering. The Nine-Tailed Scorpion immediately felt that something was wrong and in the next instant, the noise reached its peak and a chain reaction of detonations began.

 

Devices all across Plateau Zero suddenly were overcharged with electric supply and exploded. The people walking on the streets yelled and screamed at the sudden disturbances. Fire spread out to the buildings and Zero’s digital network shut down.

 

“Is this… hacking?” Zasha uttered dumbfoundedly. “An Item capable of affecting such a wide area in such a short time? That can only be a Gold one; a high tier to boot… What a pain to have in a place like this Plateau,” he muttered to himself as the people around him tried to put out the fires.

 

None of these explosions or damages could ever hope to be enough to kill Hosts living in Zero, no matter if they had access to magic or not, but it would for sure induce disorder.

 

“Who would do this and why…?” The scorpion mused and soon enough, the crimson spots under his sunglasses flashed in realization. “Damn…!” He cursed and kicked the ground. Like a lightning bolt incarnated, he crushed the ground he was standing on and zoomed through the air.

 

Without ceremony, he grew out his nine scorpion tails while in the air and used them to punch a hole into the roof of Bora’s residence. The poison inside his appendages melted right through it and he fell right inside.

 

With a scowl, he calmly looked down at the headless corpse of Bora. He clicked his tongue, “What a useless bastard. He lazed so much he forgot how to fight,” he muttered and turned toward Oslort, the head butler, who was silently standing inside the room. This servant’s job normally included protecting his master’s life; someone charging in, like Zasha, was his duty to stop.

 

“Got tired of the piglet?” The scorpion sneered at the butler; a man whose real identity was a Host no weaker than himself. “Did the Pale Ghoul get rusty? Or is this a betrayal?”

 

“…don’t get ahead of yourself, Zasha,” Oslort indifferently said. “I’m not part of your little alliance of villains. I’m only here because Lord Temat was indebted to the Scorpions. The rest of the Abyss may listen to you and those things, but my Lord shall not. This place is going to fall today. There is no point in preserving that worthless life anymore.”

 

The butler grunted as he loosened the tie of his suit and began to head for the exit, “Oh, and as a friendly warning, if you are going to chase after that girl, be careful.”

 

Zasha snorted. “What, do you think I will lose?”

 

“It’s not ‘think’, I know that you will lose if you’re not on guard,” Oslort stated and stepped out of the room without any other word.

 

The Nine-Tailed Scorpion slightly lowered his glasses, revealing a pair of unicolor black orbs, just two mere dots of red light shining through the middle. They watched the butler leave before eerily shifting toward the corpse again.

 

“So, it’s that girl, after all. She moved a bit too fast… but, it should be fine,” he muttered to himself and started looking around for traces. His eyes turned from red to orange for a short moment and he headed out. “Hm, I wonder if something was urging her,” he mused and eventually halted in the middle of the corridor where the spiritual trails disappeared completely.

 

Zasha hummed and glanced at the decorative glass statue next to him. He stared at his reflection for a moment before grinning. “I see. Interesting. You thought you could escape like that?” He said with a chuckle and in a split second, he had already leaped through the roof.

 

He landed on an adjacent building and propelled himself again, too fast for most people to see him move. The spreading fires on his path were being put out seconds after he passed over them.

 

Then, eventually, Zasha extended his hand forward as if he was trying to reach for something that wasn’t there. He grinned and his hand pierced through something invisible, opening cracks in the air. “Got you,” he laughed and pulled whatever he was holding.

 

The purple-eyed beauty he was chasing was dragged out of the mirror dimension by her shoulder and the scorpion saw her eyes widen before he promptly used one of his tails to strike at her. She reacted skillfully and blocked it with her sword, but that didn’t stop her from being sent flying toward the ground where she crashed into a building.

 

“Well, well,” Zasha snickered as he watched the rubble burying her figure tumble about. He landed on the roof of another structure and summoned a large toothed sword into his hand. “You seemed to be in a bit of a hurry to leave,” he jested. “How about you accompany me for a moment? Don’t worry… I’ll make sure you’re not bored enough to run again.”