BANG.

Grey kicked a wooden door into flying splinters, his power so great it practically seemed to disintegrate beneath his heel. Maybe the door should have had more protection than it had, but much like how the Abilities of the Oracle had been useless against him, whatever protections were here were only all the more worthless.

Chogh let out a low yell, scrambling to his feet but failing to properly stand. He should have had more than enough coordination to pull it off, but the anxiety rampaging through his body and the sheer amount of suppressive force coming from Grey’s Neural Frame was too much for him.

Grey walked right through the flying splinters, his hand catching Chogh’s throat before the latter could even say anything.

It didn’t make any sense to him. Had he not already been kind enough? He didn’t understand how you could be so shameless.

Didn’t people have pride? If you were going to steal something, steal it from someone that hadn’t literally just saved your life, or maybe steal it from someone who hadn’t just spared you a second time on top of that.

Chogh gasped for air, but the grip Grey had on his throat was too strong.

The duo was currently in the squire quarters, a hallway lined with arched wooden doors that housed those that had awakened Holy Frames but had yet to go through their trials.

Chogh was meant to have moved out of here already, but one might imagine that the death of a Bishop and two Vanguard Class Holy Knights had put a slight damper on the efficiency of the Church.

Grey himself was surprised that he had even sensed what was going on from so far away. Chogh had been effectively over a kilometer of travel distance away from him between all the hallways, stairs, and floors that separated them.

But the strength a Mythical item released was simply too strong. It was subtle where Grey had been, but the closer he got, the more sure he was that Chogh had taken something from him.

What Grey didn’t understand was how.

While he had assumed that three was the right number of Loot Boxes, he had still looked Chogh over, but he hadn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary. The man didn’t look like he had taken any substantial treasure, and Grey himself didn’t have an inventory space strong enough to store a Mythical treasure, let alone Chogh.

His Rank Up! treasure was still in his pocket, he was holding the useless disk in his hand, and the Helm of Grace had fused to his Helm Frame and was about the only thing he could conveniently store away.

Chogh’s feet dangled. He scratched and clawed at Grey’s hand, but he couldn’t even crack past Grey’s END, let alone leave a mark worth anything.

Grey’s gaze was filled with murder, but he was scanning Chogh from head to toe. When he didn’t find anything immediately, he started scanning the room instead.

He could still feel the aura clearly, but his eyes weren’t picking up on anything special.

When he focused on the feeling more directly, he frowned, realizing that the aura was coming from Chogh himself. Was that item something that he had absorbed already? Did he already benefit from whatever the item was?

No, that didn’t make sense. They were Vector Class Mythical items. Anything that Chogh would have to absorb would have to be at that level as well.

Chogh had only just received his Abilities from his Trial, and unlike Grey, he didn’t receive a huge bump in their Levels. They were all stuck at just Level 1 right now, so he still wasn’t even close to the Established Class.

How could he absorb a Mythical Rarity item of the Vector Class?

Unless that item was specifically designed to be easy on the body?

Grey frowned, but then he spotted something.

His expression grew dark as he took hold of Chogh’s collar and ripped down.

The moment Chogh’s linen shirt was torn to pieces, what was hidden beneath was revealed.

A skin-tight Nexis Suit that pulsed with crimson lines of circuitry.

Grey’s grip on Chogh’s throat tightened and the latter faded in and out of consciousness, his face quickly turning red, then purple, then blue, and seeming to verge on black in the blink of an eye.

Grey threw Chogh onto the bed and pulled the Nexis Suit off of him. The anger in his belly seemed to want to find a place to vent itself and his mind practically felt like a ticking time bomb, but he was also trying to force himself to breathe.

—

Name: Crimson Dragon Nexis Suit

Rarity: Mythical

Type: Vector

Accepted Type: Linear; Recursive

Rejected Type: Branching; Resonant

Description: The mythical dragon is a creature beyond imagining, one of endless greed, but also of endless strength. It takes, but it keeps as well, hoarding power the likes of which the world could never fathom and has never fathomed before. Access a small portion of this power and rise to a level previously unheard of.

Abilities: +300 END

Dragonscale: Strengthen Neural Frame, granting immunity from outside interference.

Tyrant’s Edge: Abilities cast will gain a +2 Level amplification.

Hoard: When an Ability is used within the sensory capacity of the user, track its movement and copy its pattern.

—

’All of that and still +300 END in the end. Not bad.’ Grey thought to himself. Now this was a worthy reward, not whatever bullshit that Mon Amie crap tried to give him.

He found himself feeling a little bit better now.

He folded the Nexis Suit under his arm and looked toward Chogh with a deathly sort of intent in his eyes. The continuous series of pings from his chat, not to mention the death skull emojis floating out of the corner of his eye, definitely made it obvious what they wanted done.

But even now, Grey hesitated, his teeth grinding against one another as though to fight against his inclination versus what he felt was right.

"Whatever." Grey said, turning and walking away from the stripped Chogh. The idiot had taken a treasure he couldn’t even use, it wasn’t worth Grey’s time.