-=[Gaika Bell, 77-Star Hunter]=-

Gaika Bell was one of the first high-star ranked Hunters who signed up at the Hunter’s Guild to end the life of a target named Ash Sparks. She memorised the portrait of the blue-eyed, silver-blue haired girl and the Dantian imprint associated with it. The huntress was eager to pursue a new target. She could really use the five hundred gold reward to buy more high-grade cultivation pills as the low-grade trash wasn’t cutting it for her anymore.

Gaika was in possession of a very unique servitor that she had captured and killed in the deep catacombs by setting up a very elaborate trap. The soul of the squirrel-like creature which she had consumed had not only blessed her with the power of flight, it also gave Gaika an ability to become completely invisible to both people and servitors.

She had scouted the entire city from the rooftops, searching for the Qi-imprint provided by the client and had not found it. The trail of Ash Sparks simply disappeared at the wreckage of the Whale’s Song restaurant. The huntress searched the smouldering wreckage and the catacombs beneath it to no avail for hours, until she overheard the conversation of the Builders. Two construction workers were discussing that Ash Sparks was getting married to Arianna Manning. The huntress deduced that Sparks was being hidden in the Magistrate’s castle. She swung the ghostly wings of her servitor open and took off into the sky.

The clattering of five hundred gold sang in her ears, urging her to fly faster and faster with the heart-thumping eagerness of a high caliber huntress like her.

. . .

With sharp Qi-enhanced vision, Gaika observed from the distance as the garrison of the Magistrate’s estate attacked and demolished the Guilders. She enjoyed observing the trap set by the castle. Foolish, overconfident Guilders didn’t even realise that the wards were flipped to full Deathstorm setting and were utterly decimated with a beast core explosion and celesteel weapons.

It looked like the Magisterium was finally making a move against the Guilds. Interesting. Once the Guilders were cut down and taken into the castle, Gaika leapt down from the mountaintop tree that she was occupying, gliding around the mountain. The Magistrate’s castle glowed in her eyes with innumerable wards. Thankfully, the unique art she possessed allowed her to stay completely invisible to all wards as well.

You’re not going to get away easily, Ash Sparks. Gaika smirked.

She passed through the wards with ease, flying to the biggest tower. Once she was there, she clung to the stone parapets with her beastly claws, waiting for a chance. It presented itself to her as soon as a myriad of ghosts departed from an open window. Gaika slid inside, expecting to find the Magistrate or his guests in the highest tower. Strangely enough, the highest office was occupied by chefs!

Gaika instantly recognized Chef Sylver Kenn of the destroyed Whale’s Song restaurant, the famed Head of the Chefs Guild. Who couldn’t? The man was large and struck an imposing, muscular figure. He was as great a merchant hawking his deep sea dragon-dishes as he was a chef. Maybe she might dine at his new restaurant once he got around to rebuilding after the Convergence ⁠— after she received her payday from killing Ash Sparks.

“Whom shall we notify next?” One of Sylver’s men that was writing out the letters inquired.

“Make a letter of invitation to all of the members from Scriveners Guild,” Sylver tapped his chin. “Baroness said we’re going to need as many people who can read and write as possible.”

“Why would she need so many Scriveners?”

“The new Barony requires people of intelligence, my friend. She understands that better than anyone!”

Gaika slowly and quietly crawled along the wall, the light-bending scales all over her body making her completely invisible to the Chefs. Their words made no sense to her.

She? Baroness? Barony?! Where was the Magistrate? What in the hells was going on here? Did Gale Manning overthrow her father and declare herself a Baroness?

That was the only reasonable explanation that made any sense in Gaika’s mind.

She decided not to dwell on it. Her job wasn’t learning highborn secrets - she only had to kill one teenager and bring back a slice of her brain. Yes, Ash Sparks was probably well-guarded now that she was engaged to Arianna Manning but it shouldn't matter that much to someone as talented as Gaika at the art of concealment.

The huntress scouted the tower room by room, hallway by hallway and found no trace of her target or her fiancee. Gaika started to become irate. She had been in this castle before on a job - she had to kill the Magistrate thirty three years ago. Now that was a well-paid job!

The damn castle had far too many disused rooms. A lot of them were open too, filled with elaborate, overpriced furniture and fanciful art.

The only people that almost bumped into her a few times were the castle garrison soldiers that were running around and madly ransacking the place. She observed with mild concern as the castle garrison stole old celesteel trophy-style swords from the wall, dismantled armour that was priorly standing around for centuries, cut servitor lanterns down from their chains and raided old artifacts from chests and shelves, carrying them all somewhere. Gaika could find no explanation for this odd behavior - some of these old trophies were practically useless!

Did Gale decide to clean up the place or something? Surely it would make more sense to do this slowly and by using the castle’s servants or servitors, not the garrison’s men. If the old artifacts were to be resold, then why were they carelessly being chucked together into bags with no regard for damage?!

Gaika winced as a beautiful snow globe smashed into a lamp inside one of the bags with a shatter of broken glass. A small metal figurine with glowing eyes went after, pulverising the glass artifacts further. This was senseless destruction, madness!

The huntress discovered why the servants weren’t helping with the castle’s deconstruction. She found one of the servants quarters. An old butler was inside, snoring on his bed. Gaika gasped when she saw the man’s dantian. It was gray and riddled with holes, as if this wasn’t a respectable, old butler of the Manning family, but some homeless urchin!

Level by level, floor by floor Gaika was reaching an inescapable conclusion. Things were wrong here. VERY wrong. She encountered a few more servants with gray, damaged Dantians - a chef that was preparing a meal for a hundred men and a girl passed out in her room. How could this have occurred? What sort of vile power could drain dantians, sucking the Qi from them like slurping flesh from an oyster?

The huntress knew that she would run out of Qi soon. She needed to find her target pronto or risk being discovered by the castle-raiding garrison. Perhaps the warriors would lead her to the target? She followed one of the celesteel-covered men who was carrying a huge sack full of artifacts down numerous stairwells into the catacombs.

Gaika had never been to this part of the Winter palace. She discovered herself in an enormous cavern beneath the castle. She gawked for a bit at the inexplicable tents set up all over the cavern, not understanding their purpose.

A circle of warriors dressed in random armour were standing around Arianna Manning and a very tall man wearing a long, gold-plated coat and an elaborate gold mask. A few of the armoured warriors had their swords pointed at the neck of a very fat Guilder who stood on his knees on the floor. When she came closer she instantly recognized the pale, fat, blond man. It was the Head of the Merchants, Jovius Macaria!

“I… I refuse to become a slave!” Jovius whimpered, tears running down his eyes. He was wearing an old pink cloak and he was bandaged across the chest.

“Then General Alexander will have your neck cut off, disobedient knave,” Arianna Manning said with an icy voice, glancing at the tall, masked man.

“Then so be it!” Jovius lamented. “I would rather die than be bound with a mercantile heart-stopping contract!”

Gaika glanced at the tall stranger. She didn’t know of such a General. Generals weren’t even a thing! For five centuries the Gold city enjoyed relative stability. The strange man looked wrong in her Qi-vision. His Dantian didn’t have any chakras and looked like it was made up entirely from two silver-blue servitors. Gaika gulped - this was a dangerous individual if he could completely conceal his own Dantian like that, only showing off his servitors to the world.

“The time for games is over, Jovius. Consider the rule of the Guilds at an end.” Arianna hissed like a viper. “We will seize all of your warehouses, execute all of your employees and cull your entire family five generations down! Baroness Sparks-Manning isn’t like my grandfather!”

Baroness… Sparks? The eyes of the huntress grew wide. What?!

“You… you cannot do this. You are monsters!” The fat man gasped.

“We are the monsters that eat monsters like you, Jovius,” princess Arianna declared, her cold, echoing laughter resonating through the cavern.

Gaika retreated from the scene, sweating profusely. Her target wasn’t here. She looked inside one of the tents and nearly choked. It was filled with beds occupied by injured Guilders bound in celesteel chains. Dummies armed with celesteel knives stood over the men and women. Magistrate Tratorius stood over one of the men, a trembling arm hovering over the body. He was using some sort of art on the injured Guilder. The Magistrate’s Dantian looked dim and torn just like the servants.

How the mighty have fallen!

The huntress retreated from the tent. There was only one other tent left and it was surrounded by hundreds of rapidly moving dummies that were smashing old artifacts and pulling out their controlling beast cores. The beast cores were being brought into the big tent in the deepest part of the cavern.

Gaika entered the tent after one of the core-carrying dummies. She saw Ash Sparks therein. Finally! The girl was asleep on a couch and a geisha was in the process of healing her. A pile of beast cores was growing in a small chest next to the pair. Whatever madness was taking place in the Magistrate’s Castle, this was its heart, the cause of it all.

This job has to be worth way more than a mere 500 gold! Whatever, maybe the Dantian eating monsters that were using Ash Sparks in their game wouldn't immediately let the world know that she was dead and then the contract amount would grow...

The huntress paused, growing a long, thin needle-like protrusion woven from a hundred interlaced scales atop one of her fingers. She stepped closer to her target and lifted her arm, aiming for the eye of the girl. One strike would do it, stab through the brain of Ash Sparks and end her life. After it was done, she considered rewarding herself with a few beast cores from the pile.

No. I’ll take as many as I can hide on my person! That’ll be my reward! Yes.

Gaika pushed Qi into the muscles of her arm, reinforcing the swiftness of her strike. She aimed the deadly, invisible needle at her target. The death of Ash Sparks would be quick and painless.

This girl would sleep forevermore, just like Magistrate Calypso.