Guild Wars

Shadowheart saw their aggrieved expressions and laughed softly. "Such is life. You chose to make an enemy out of a force you could not possibly conceive the power nor the viciousness of. Take it as consolation that those who come after you will not make the same mistake after we use you as an example."

With that, he turned away from the three colored Elemental Kings and nodded to Hades. The hooded young man quickly appeared before the so-called top echelon and let his dark miasma engulf them. With the backdrop of agonized screams from soon to be withered corpses, the God Serpent Generals took their leave of the building.

As for the surviving two colored and one colored robes members? Nightwalker simply waved a hand, absorbing them all into a calamity portal against their will.

Their fates were sealed.

.........

Draco's Avatar continued working on his bloodline techniques while listening to the report. At the end, he smiled at Shadowheart once he got informed about their success and their actions, nodding his head with satisfaction.

"Good, you made use of the tricks I showed you. As long as you manage your Bloodline Energy well, you are practically unstoppable by the many forces in this world." The Avatar praised with a hint of contentment.

Shadowheart bowed slightly. "It's my honor to be praised by you. What do we do now?"

Draco looked to the distance as he folded his arms behind his back. His aura became strange, a mixture of coldness and amusement.

"Next? Do you really need to ask? The Elemental Group did not attack us simply because they were bored. They had been given that order from their higher up."

Draco's Avatar turned and faced Shadowheart with a gloomy smile.

"This means unless we deal with the one behind them, this kind of nonsense will likely keep repeating. I'm certain that it's not the Fifth Councilor. That man has little interest in Boundless and anything to do with it at this time. So it has to be someone below him or part of his faction that has the power to mobilize his resources."

Shadowheart listened to all this and nodded, feeling that it made sense. However, he was not sure why the Guildmaster was telling him this and why he was doing it in such a cold and gloomy tone.

"I dare not say I know the details of all Councilors offhead, but I dare to claim that when it comes to the Fifth Councilor, there is nothing I don't know about how he operates. There is only one person who would be able to mobilize his faction as if they had the same level of authority as him."

Draco faced Shadowheart with a cryptic smile that made the fellow feel like his next words were going to be explosive.

"And that person is the one who even introduced me to his faction, Maria of the Cartel."

Draco laughed as Shadowheart's head seemed to metaphorically explode.

"So, Brother Shadowheart, how does it feel to have revenge in the palm of your hand?" Draco asked with a smirk.

..............

Maria was currently extremely panicked.

She had sent out one of Old Master Rothschild's forces to investigate a certain force that had been growing in the Central State recently. However, a few minutes ago, she had received a report from the Cartel operatives under her own control that a group of 8 people had wiped out the entire organization.

Maria panicked because she did not know how she was going to appease the Old Master this time. She knew he was deeply infatuated with her, but he was not a fool, and she had never treated him like one. This was why she could enjoy such benefits without giving up herself fully.

Both she and Old Master Rothschild understood that the matter of being his was set in stone. He was just being kind enough to let Maria play around for a few years before she would inevitably, and quietly, enter his harem as the main wife.

That was why she had been rampant these past few years, fully embracing her near pedophilic urges to defile young boys without scruples. However, she had become more and more unhinged after getting a taste of the power that a Councilor had.

She had once lost it and harmed the family of one of her playthings out of spite and anger. To her surprise, the Rothschild family had quickly covered it up so thoroughly that even the Cartel would feel like a junior. Seeing this level of social and economic power, Maria had begun to acquire power of her own.

Her most recent target had been a handsome young boy who she had stumbled upon in an gauntlet in the Cartel's main arena in this state. Her interest had been peaked since he had revealed himself to be a Control master. Alas, he had run from her like the plague.

Given his ability, she had been unable to act on him like she had done the others, so Maria had bid her time and investigated him.

What she found shocked her.

After winning the gauntlet, he had spent a few days to subdue the 5th ranked mafia, the Sanguigno Brothers, then he went over to the castle of the 7th ranked Cardinals, killed all the men, captured the Madonna, Cherry and the daughter June, then turned the castle into his own private base.

As if that hadn't been enough to make a name for himself, he had paid a visit to the number 1 mafia group, The Boyz, and brutally destroyed them, before raiding the entirety of their 1st grade NuSmoothies stock. After that, he had met up with the Supernatural group and joined them at the highest ranked, a Superior Lord!

Heck, even though Old Master Rothschild could look down on the entirety of the organization, he still had to treat those Superior Lords with some level of caution.

And someone she had been eyeing had joined those ranks?!

After that, things had snowballed even more. Draco could be found where genocides occurred, usually against the enemy of Supernatural, Superhuman. After that, he opened three companies, one game company, one security department and one R&D lab.

In a matter of days, his game company pumped out enough money to be placed in the top 10 of Fortune 500 companies. Just selling those items for real world cash had made the company so rich, much less when the First Inter-Player International Competition occurred and they sold actual platinum to new players.

If it wasn't for the fact that the source of the funds was so easily traceable thanks to the AI providing detailed statements and transactions lists, the government and many other powers would have made a move to stifle them.

As it was, they couldn't find any legal reason to, as the entirety of this company's income flow was open to the public. Even the most honest top company had some hidden books where they did transactions that could never see the light.

The Purgatory Group didn't have any such weaknesses!

What clued Maria into the fact that Draco might be affiliated with GloryGore was the fact that his R&D lab had entered a partnership with the GloryGore Labs and began producing and distributing Virtua Helmets. Since only Draco had achieved such a level of partnership with GloryGore across the entire world, it was obvious enough that his relationship was extraordinary.

The Cartel was a global organization that ruled in the dark, but it also had its affiliations to the light. Through Maria, they had a connection to the Fifth Councilor. Through others, they had other connections to various Councilors.

It was through this that the entire situation had occurred. She had been reached out to by her close friend, Lolo, the personal secretary of the Third Councilor. If Maria could link Draco to the GloryGore group, so too could anyone else.

It wasn't like Draco or the AI were particularly trying hard to cover it anyway.

Maria had reluctantly agreed to help and had used one of the forces beneath Old Master Rothschild to put some pressure on the company. The game company was the source of funds and its operation was clean.

The R&D department had been their true target, but they couldn't go for it directly and alarm the enemy.

As such, they had targeted the more obscure security company that was just a front for training members of Supernatural. Once they applied pressure from there, then they could perform a bait and switch, then make an attempt on the R&D department.

What Maria had never even dreamed off was such a brutal and vicious response to their actions. As such, she paced around, dreading the call from Old Master Rothschild and how she would explain herself.

Oh… you thought she was worried about the retaliation of Draco and his gang?

Not even for a second. Even if she was aware of the power needed to wipe out the Elemental Group, Maria had her own elite protection group from both the Cartel and from Old Master Rothschild. If those fellows even dared to come, she would be excited, for if she could slaughter them all, it would be perfect. That way she could offer partial compensation for old master Rothschild's losses.

However, that was wishful thinking. How the fuck would they find her if they didn't even know she was the mastermind? The Elemental Group didn't know she had been the one to pass down the order, so interrogating them was useless.

Only someone who knew all Maria's secrets could deduce that it was her. And well, she had never opened up to anybody before.

As such, it was natural that when Maria felt the ground tremble greatly, and her mansion's gate explode, she was dumbfounded. In fact, the gate flew towards her, crashing through the walls of the mansion so fast that it almost cut through like butter.

Maria was frozen in place, and it seemed as if time had slowed down. Just when she envisioned a gory death, the piece of metal was sliced in half by a figure that suddenly appeared before her.

Maria regained her senses and fell to her extremely fat bum, her thick legs shaking with fear. That quick encounter with death had woken her up from her arrogance and reminded her that no matter how much influence she might hold, she was still mortal.

The only thing that made her special was that the shape of her body was shaped to perfection, to the point where it was almost impossible to believe.

The man standing before her sheathed his katana and raised his head. He was dressed strangely, wearing full black ninja robes with a samurai hat on his head. His face was covered with a ninja mask and his head was covered well, leaving only his bright scarlet eyes showing.

Apart from sandals and his katana's sheathe that hung at his side, he wore nothing else. In a bizarre way, he looked just like Shuro the Shopkeeper, only much younger…

From the dust at the entrance, 8 figures entered the courtyard slowly and stately, seemingly unbothered by the hundreds of defenses that activated in the manor, from machine guns to SAM rockets. They didn't even spare a look for the other defenders posted to protect Maria from the various forces.

The only one they spared a glance for was the man wielding the katana, and their faces were solemn.

"How is this possible…?" Shadowheart muttered darkly while looking at him.

The man in the ninja outfit spoke in a deep voice with a Japanese accent. "Anything is possible with my sword."

The 8 God Serpents were silent for a while before Nightwalker gloomily asked. "Who are you?"

The man in the ninja outfit lowered his head and concealed his scarlet eyes. "In my previous world I was known as the Sword God. Here, I am called Sengo Muramasa."

The fellow entered an Iai stance and drew a deep breath while placing his right hand on the hilt of his sheathed blade.

"My task is to protect this maiden and eliminate all trespassers. Ready yourself!"

Suddenly, he roared and charged forward like a lightning bolt, he speed faster than anything anyone else could follow. He struck towards Shadowheart who seemed to be frozen in place, staring calmly.

"Iai First Stance: Behead!"

The blade swished through the air, only leaving afterimages as it struck towards Shadowheart's throat. Before it could reach its goal though, a hand reached out and clasped the sword with ease.

Sengo Muramasa turned his scarlet eyes to gaze at Hades who was grinning darkly. "Before you attack our leader, why not fight the generals first?"