A man was lying on the ground, covered in grime and blood, clothes had been tattered and hair ragged. His face was pale and his body twisted and turned on the ground from this way and that. Over ten men were standing in front of him as he laid on the ground, kicking and cursing and spitting on him continuously.

At every knock and thump, the man let out a hair-prickling screech that would send a chill through anyone's spine.

"Have you decided yet?" a middle-aged man said with a cold voice.

"I-I don't have the thi-thing you-you want." The man spoke, and with every word the blood gushed out of his mouth, his lips twitched and his body shivered, maybe in fear, or maybe in pain.

"Heh?" the middle-aged man chuckled at his reply. "I wonder how long you will be able to endure the torture." He waddled down and held his face in his right hand and then jerked it away. "Bring it out." He spat towards one of the men behind him.

"Here it is, second lord," said the man with a respectful tone and passed a large wooden box. The middle-aged man nodded and said to him, "You have worked hard, Ish."

The man or more precisely the boy who brought the box to the middle-aged man was none other than Ish from the House Wynner. "Thank you, second lord. It is what I should do." Though he said that, a smile never left the corner of his mouth.

The second lord(the middle-aged man) nodded at him and turned towards the man on the ground. Then opened the wooden box and brought a small hammer and nails from it. "Do you know what it is?" he asked with a grin — the man eyed the second lord with eyes full of hatred, however, there was fear as well. As he knew what the middle-aged man was going to do with him.

"There was a man," the second lord began. "Very tough. Very strong. And definitely very arrogant. But he had something that House Wynner wanted, but he refused, and that was his greatest mistake. At that time the house leader gave me the task to break the man." He smiled harmlessly as he reached there. But the man on the ground felt as if hundreds of vipers were crawling over his skin.

"Do you know how I broke that man?" he held the hammer and nails in his hand and continued. "With these — when the first nail went into his skull, he screamed and cursed and moaned and cried, but did not break.

"When the second nail was inside his skull, he turned and twisted on the ground and begged for mercy. He cried but tears refused to come out from his eyes. But he still refused to cooperate." At this moment he stopped and grinned at the man on the ground. "Do you know what happened when the third nail went into his skull?"

The man looked at the middle-aged man with horror and could not produce any sound, his face had been turned completely pale.

The second lord chuckled and shook his head. "The third nail never went into his skull, because he pissed himself in terror, and it didn't take long before he gave the thing that we wanted." He peered at the man and smirked. "I wonder how many nails you can take. One? Two? Three? I would really like to know. Hold his hands and legs!"

Four men rushed to pin the man down on the ground. The man tried to struggle but to no avail. He struggled and cried and screamed and again cried and screamed and struggled and begged. The second lord placed the nail over his skull and aimed slowly with a hammer. "Don't do this. Please, don't do this. You can take the cauldron!" in the end, the man gave up on any hope.

"See," the middle-aged man chuckled. "It isn't that hard, is it? You should have done this a long time ago." The man pulled his hand away and grinned at the trembling man on the ground. "Now, where is the Cauldron?"

The man gritted his teeth and then extended his hand. Over his hand, there was a thumb-sized cauldron. He said. "This is the cauldron you are after."

"Are you playing with us?!" said the second lord, his tone turning chilling again.

"This is a Rank 3 cauldron, a high-level artefact. It could change its size. Let me show you." As he said the cauldron changed its size, becoming eight feet tall, and eight feet wide. It was like a round ball, all kinds of runes had been carved over its surface, dragon, tiger, moon and stars — it had a golden surface. A work of a master.

"So that's how it works, hahaha," the second lord laughed out loud at this display. He peered at the cauldron with greed, but as he was about to take the cauldron, he stopped.

"Long time no see, Ironclad." At this moment, a distant voice came, freezing the second lord's expression. He turned around and saw a group walking towards him from the shop.

All this time he was lost in his work and didn't care about his surroundings. Furthermore, he didn't think that anyone would dare to interfere in his matter. After all, the leader of their house was a Rank 2 mage. Only the king himself was above him, Rank 3.

"Who are you?" asked the middle-aged aka second lord. "How dare you interfere in the matter of House Wynner?"

"Sorry man, I don't have any intention to interfere in your matter," Kadyn chuckled, but his face was cold as ice, "but you see, this guy, whom you have beaten worse than a dog is my friend, so I would suggest you give up on snatching anything from him."

Ironclad's face twitched as he heard Kadyn's words. Are you trying to rescue me or insult me? He thought, but remained on the ground, feeling grateful in his heart. After all he wasn't close to Kadyn, as for friendship, that was just a load of bulshit, they had just talked once — they could hardly be considered acquaintances. Much less friend.

The second lord's face turned cold as soon as he heard his words and took a step forward. However, from behind Kadyn Barret and Hot Rod walked out and blocked his path. "I would suggest you to against doing anything stupid, Mr. Llyris," Barret said as he flicked the Magic Association's badge in his hand.

The middle-aged man stopped. He eyed the badge in his hand and then glared at Barret. "You know who I am, and still dare to go against me. Do you know the consequences of your stupidity?"

"Well, why don't we find out?" Barret scowled and a rune appeared on his forehead. Hot Rod also did the same and on his forehead also appeared a rune. Llyris Wynner turned somewhat pale. He thought that these two were ordinary Rank 1 magus, but they seemed as strong as him. Someone like Ironclad was far too weak as compared to them.

"I can let the man go, but I'll take the cauldron with me," Llyris said.

"I don't think you have a clear understanding about your situation — if you want to know, why don't you fight with these two men here? And then, I think, you'll have a more evident view of the situation." Kadyn stared at the man. "What do you say?"

Llyris peered at Kadyn and Kadyn returned his gaze with the same intensity, refusing to back down in the face of threat; in the end, Llyris gritted his teeth and eyed the cauldron reluctantly in front of him. Then said, "I hope you won't regret it in the future."

"Never heard the word. Do you know what it means?" he asked Barret.

"Maybe some kind of new word." The man replied.

Llyris' face flushed red and his eyes turned colder and colder. "Let's go!" and he scrambled away with others.

Ish, who was standing behind the man, was utterly shocked, and couldn't believe that Kadyn, whom he didn't put in his eyes last time, was able to make Llyris, the second lord of House Wynner, retreat. A little fear appeared in his eyes, and he hurriedly dashed behind everyone else.

Kadyn remained standing until Llyris' group faded from view. Then he turned towards the man on the ground, twitching from time to time in pain. "I thought you died when Zephyr destroyed Zhodon. How did you end up here?"

"Help me first. I'm not in the shape of walking by myself."

Khrom supported the man and helped him to stand. Ironclad gasped for a breath and said. "Fuck, they had beaten me too much. One day I'm going to crack their skulls, aiiii. Do it gently, man. Or, my body is going to split into hundreds of different parts."

"Ahh, sorry about that," Khrom said embarrassedly. He had squeezed his hand rather forcefully, making Ironclad jump in shock. "I'll be more careful next time." He put his hand over his shoulder, holding the man.

"Let's go inside the shop," Kadyn said. "We'll talk there. I can sense lots of eyes here."

Everyone nodded in agreement and entered the shop. Though none of them revealed themselves, people were eyeing them like a hungry wolf, or more precisely at the cauldron that was lying on the ground.

"Wait a sec," Ironclad said and extended his hand towards the cauldron and it again became the size of a thumb and fell into his hand. "Let's go." So the group vanished into the shop.