Inside the Rosaria Household, in the same reception room where Atlas and Seraphiel had made their contract agreement, Seraphiel was sitting on the couch. This time she was leaning back with a relaxed expression, no business on her mind for the moment.

She sighed and looked at Flora standing beside the couch. "Hah...Flora, can you now guess as to why I made the contract with him? And even gave up the favour my father had on Veloran?"

Flora shook her head. "No, My Lady...I am still in contemplation as to why you would go that far for a commoner Explorer just because he found an Epic Rank Relic."

Seraphiel smiled slightly at that reply. From Flora’s perspective she was completely right. That was the only information Flora had and from that alone the decision did look excessive. Seraphiel picked up the spherical relic Atlas had brought back from the Abyss-Rank Ruin and held it on her palm.

"Do you know what this relic is?"

Flora looked at it and shook her head again. "It looks peculiar My Lady, but I don’t feel that much Spirit emitting from it...so my conclusion is, it’s an....Uncommon grade relic."

Seraphiel chuckled softly. "Haha Flora, this relic is even above Epic grade. That’s exactly why you can’t sense a massive amount of Spirit from it."

Flora’s expression shifted but she stayed quiet and listened.

"It’s a Mythic Rank Relic." Seraphiel continued, rotating it slowly between her fingers as she looked at it. "I don’t know if he is lucky or something else entirely but...to gain something of this caliber from a single ruin makes him the most valuable resource for information and relics that our Household could have."

Flora’s eyes went wide. She processed the words several times before she managed to respond. "I understand that Lady Seraphiel but...when you made the contract with him, he didn’t have this value yet, right? So how did you conclude that he could become this valuable?"

Seraphiel turned toward her and smiled again. "Flora, you know that he cleared twelve Hollow-Rank Ruins in just twelve days right? From that alone one could draw certain conclusions and...not only that. When I asked for his information from the Guild in private, I learned that he had undergone an assessment and was officially a C-rank Explorer at that point but...just twelve days later he had become an A-rank."

Seraphiel paused and let Flora take that in.

The more Flora processed it, the wider her eyes got. She couldn’t put together how a growth rate like that was even possible within the rules of how cultivation worked.

"Flora, you are an A-rank. A peak A-rank at that." Seraphiel looked at her. "Tell me, how much time did it take you to reach this stage?"

"It-It took me a whole year to reach A-rank from B-rank..." Flora spoke slowly, her expression somewhere between disbelief and confusion. "How can a Human reach it in twelve days? It doesn’t make any sense...."

Seraphiel gave her a moment before continuing. "Even I needed six months to go from B-rank to A-rank. And when he told me about his growth, he had also added that he was planning to enter an Abyss-Rank Ruin alone...that’s exactly why he wanted to have that weapon made."

Flora’s attention came fully back to Seraphiel as she listened.

"When he came back with that scythe, it gave off an ominous aura. I didn’t think much of it at the time because he had told me it was Legendary grade...but now, looking at this Mythic relic he just pulled out of that same Abyss-Rank Ruin, I think we can both agree that the favour to Veloran was not too much to pay." Seraphiel finished and looked at Flora.

Flora nodded slowly, though her expression still carried some disbelief about the whole situation.

A knock came from outside the room.

"Come in."

Horliax entered. The Household steward walked in with his usual calm face and his hands crossed in front of him. Seraphiel looked at him. "Did you deal with that pesky Ronan?"

Horliax smiled and stretched out his right hand toward her. "Yes My Lady. I even retrieved the relic from him. That Luxas was really tough...he gave Kaelion a hard time but nonetheless we dislocated his arm. It will take at least a month to recover." 𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦

Seraphiel arched an eyebrow. "Luxas gave Kaelion a hard time?...did he use relics?"

"Yes, you are spot on as always My Lady." Horliax spoke calmly. "He used an Ancestral grade relic that nullified Kaelion’s attacks completely...but as always he overcame that within a few minutes and almost crippled Luxas."

Seraphiel nodded with a small smile and took the relic from Horliax’s hand. It was the same one Ronan had stolen. She examined it briefly before setting it on the glass table in front of her. Then she turned back to Horliax.

"Now, let me inform you about some good news, Horliax....."

- - -

At the same time, far away from the noble district of Lumivale, in front of the Abyss-Rank Ruin, Atlas stood looking down at both assassins.

Blood continued flowing from their heads. Even in that state their eyes stayed focused and their hands hadn’t loosened around the daggers. That was the part Atlas was most careful about. Atlas did not know that they were trained from birth for exactly this kind of situation and a downed assassin with a weapon still in hand was not the same as a finished one.

But he did know they were still thinking and planning something, and Atlas had to be careful about that.

After Atlas finished his earlier statement about pulling their organs out, the two of them glanced at each other for just a moment. Their heads were slightly embedded in the cracked ground but the look between them was deliberate.

A signal passed between them.

Atlas caught it but before he could act on what he noticed, both their bodies began to glow. The Spirit around them fluctuated violently, the pressure of it spiking outward in an instant. Atlas read the situation immediately and grabbed the scythe from where it was embedded in the ground, pulling it free and trying to move—

’Shit!’

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOM

An ear-deafening explosion erupted that swallowed Atlas and the surrounding area completely.