*Bam*

Hal had just landed another punch on one of the others while the rest tried to band together before going after him.

Clearly, he was picking them off one by one and therein lay his advantage. Once that was taken away, he would become useless.

That was what they thought.

There were only six still conscious and among them was the one who instigated the whole thing; Arlet.

He also happened to be the farthest away from the action.

Not out of cowardice or fear.

It was so far he could study Hal and map patterns in his attacks before striking when his guard was down.

Another carriage pulled outside of the building and out if it came Penelope who frowned lightly at the convergence of a few dignitaries outside of the building.

Something had clearly gotten their attention.

She moved closer and beheld the sight of Hal battling against six or more accurately five experts whose green robes signaled them as Runemasters.

She sighed and shook her head.

This was Hal's second battle or at the very least if last night's spar does not count as a battle, conflict in the last two days.

It was like he was a magnet for such situations.

Then she raked her eyes over and saw a silver-haired young man watching the battle with a grin and her eyes widened as she could very easily recognize him.

She had no recollection of him being at the Baron's residence for last night's party despite him obviously having being in the city.

The Silva scion must have had no interest in attending.

"Look at him go" he said to his guard who nodded with a neutral expression.

The guard was impressed by Hal's display so far as well, but just had no intentions of letting his interest show so glaringly.

"Who do you think he is?" Asked Pierre while the guard frowned,

"He does not seem to have any features of an important family in the Silva Duchy capital. He might, however, be from one of the other cities." The guard said.

Pierre nodded in agreement, his sword still by his side.

Hal had already knocked three more unconscious while the others, excluding Arlet was now attempting to gang up on him.

At first, it worked, as when Hal made to punch one, another would duck under and hit him in the ribs.

The hit might have been painful to others but it was not to Hal whose body was sturdy enough to withstand it.

Then he noticed Arlet was no longer where he used to be and by the time he located him, the runemaster had already placed a Binding Rune (Readily drawn on a Rune sheet) on his back which forced him to freeze in place.

Arlet grinned and so did the other two we they moved closer and charged their first with Cosmic Attack infused with a Phenomenon to end it all in one go.

Hal chuckled lightly as there came the flaw in the little sneak attack which was the amount of Astral energy the Rune Sheet could hold before imploding.

He passed Astral energy, a large amount of it, into the Rune sheet on his back, and by the time they there were closer to him, he was already free and punching two of them deep in the stomach.

They doubled up over his hands which he pulled back and...

*Bam* *Bam*

...ended the whole affair with solid punches to their faces.

Arlet looked around and suddenly came to the realization that he was alone. Alone to face a very angry Hal who struck at numerous parts of his body and cracked many of his bones.

Arlet groaned at the feel of his injuries before falling unconscious shortly after.

Runemaster Giller was quick to call for assistance who took the unconscious eight away to be treated.

Hal watched the eight get taken away and frowned lightly knowing that had it not being something that would be deemed as overboard in front of the large crowd, he would probably have killed Arlet right there and then.

Still, poison by Astral energy was not half bad.

You see, Hal's extra vindictive strikes at Arlet were not just to cause him pain but to distract him from his pain of his body getting flooded with astral energy.

Astral energy that would remain dormant until he was well again, at which point it would react with the cosmic energy in Arket's body and kill him in quite a gruesome manner.

Hal had never thought to do such before and should it work which he would know through his connection, albeit faint, with the Astral energy that had poisoned Arlet's system, it would serve as a stealthy way of killing.

*Clap* *Clap* *Clap*

"Marvelous!" Pierre praised and seeing as he was clapping, the spectators joined in as well.

Hal on the other hand quickly retrieved the blue gems he needed from a Spatial pouch, an attempt to keep his inventory a secret until he could fake things with a spatial ring.

He paid the Ten percent to Giller and quickly fitted the gems where they needed to go before Pierre saw it fit to delay him any further.

Penelope watched him get ready to depart and wondered if she should approach him but eventually thought better of it.

They had already said goodbye. It was best to leave it at that.

Pierre noticed the coordinates Hal was imputing into the circle and he smiled,

"It seems we will meet again soon. You seem like a pretty hardcore guy. Come find me at Silva Palace, we will hunt miscreants together." He said as ebb though he now saw Hal as a friend.

'Don't hold your breath' was what Hal thought to say but he found it unnecessary,

"Sure why not" was what he actually said before stepping on the circle.

However, just before he activated it, he called,

"Hey Giller!" The attending Runemaster looked up to see Hal grin and project a Rune at him.

The rune only created fancy sparks but Giller's eyes widened,

"Rank 4 Rune... You Bas..."

That was the last thing Hal heard as he chuckled and was sucked into the void.

The journey was quite swift to him and he would have said it did not take up to a minute before he was opening his eyes to a building of luxurious designs.

This was a building that looked beautiful enough to be the home of a wealthy merchant in Sapphire city and hereit it was only used for transportation.

He stepped off the circle and a middle-aged man was quickly in front of him,

"State your name" he said and had a scroll open for documentation.

Hal shrugged, well aware that a name was not compulsory to be stated and fakes could very well be given,

"I don't want to" he said.

The man nodded,

"Only description then" he said and there was a flash before a painting of Hal appeared on top of Man's scroll.

The scroll was then rolled over and given a number for filing and stored away.

This was the Nexus world's version of a photograph which was just to use runes to draw painting at an incredibly fast pace.

This was a measure taken to keep the Duke and other notable members of the capital safe from assassination and other malicious plots.

Of course, this was not foolproof security and there were means to circumvent it.

Not to mention that only those who use Public transport such as this one were subjected to such practices.

All notable families and organizations in the Duchy capital had private Teleportation circles where such practices don't occur for the sake of security.

As Hal walked out of the building g onto the street, he felt the pressure coming off the bodies of many random passersby and a lot of them were at the Cosmic Armament and Phenomenon realm.

It was as though the capital was screaming that he let go of erroneous notions and open his eyes to the reality of the strong.