“I would just like to note I was always in favor of killing Jackson. What did I say, he’s a complete slimeball, asshole, douchebag, am I missing any more descriptors?” Alexandra said, giving her best effort to not outright say, “I told you so.” They found themselves on a familiar path down to the campus, hopefully to where Jackson would be.

“First off, we don’t even know if he sent those people. I’ll have to use [Eyes of Truth] to know for certain.”

“I would say there’s a 99.999 percent chance Jackson was responsible. Did you forget he framed me just to gain more authority? Knowing that Donna and Tamia would be alone, he definitely sent those guys to take them hostage. That’s the scumbag move I would do if I were a villain,” Oliver added.

“We’ll see when we get there,” Alistair said. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do. If Jackson was guilty, could Alistair really end his life? He was sure he could do it in self-defense or self-defense of another, but an execution felt different from just killing monsters. Alexandra and Oliver would probably do it in a heartbeat, but that felt like delegating the problem.

“Did you get any new information?” Alexandra asked. She turned to Oliver and pointed her index finger at Alistair. “He promised to buy all the System info so we don’t need to spend our Upgrade Points.”

“Oh really? I’ll keep that in mind. It didn’t seem worth it to me to buy it so I put my Upgrade points for getting to level 19 into Body Cultivation and the Death’s Kiss Tree,” Oliver nodded.

“I definitely did not promise to do anything like that. I’m not going to be your lab rat,” Alistair said, putting a metaphorical foot down.

“But?” Alexandra could be supremely annoying when she wanted to be.

“I did purchase a missive, on Wisdom this time. Besides affecting Mana pool, it shores up the mind’s defenses from psychic attacks and the soul from spiritual attacks. And it makes your own attacks of those types stronger. But it didn’t explain what psychic or spiritual attacks are,” Alistair explained.

“Hmm,” Alexandra contemplated. “Maybe we should put more points into Wisdom then. Both of our bodies are strong, but I don’t know if we have any defenses for those types of attacks, whatever they might be.”

“I think I have the opposite problem; Necromancer’s primary attribute is Wisdom. And the description of one of my Skills mentions affecting people’s souls? So that might be a spiritual attack,” Oliver said.

Alexandra gave him a suspicious look.

“I don’t think it’s permanent or anything, lemme read it,” he said, opening up his status screen, which was invisible to the others. “Spiritually attack an enemy by draining their life force. If they die under the effect, gain temporary possession of their soul. See? It’s temporary.”

Alistair was more interested in the description seemingly confirming the existence of souls. With Mana, Karma, and everything else going on, he wasn’t surprised, but the ramifications were mind-blowing.

He was about to reply when a loud boom and sudden burst of energy washed over him. In an instant, he felt a bone-chilling cold as hoarfrost started forming around his fingers.

“Damn it!” Alexandra exclaimed, running toward the source of the energy. “I’m guessing that’s George.”

“Who?” Oliver said, joining Alistair in chasing after her.

“Her ex-companion, it’s complicated,” Alistair said. Thinking back to what Alexandra told him about George reaching level 15 so quickly, he only hoped that he hadn’t kept pace with his old leveling.

Despite her outward bravado, Alexandra wasn’t stupid. As they approached the entrance to the recreation center, which was the epicenter of the noise and energy, she slowed down. They had agreed that it was too dangerous for Donna and Tamia to enter, so the two of them waited close by. At level 7, Donna was no longer completely defenseless, on par with most people who hadn’t killed a ton of monsters. On top of that, Alistair splurged 5,000 drachma on a protective amulet from the System Store that would teleport her and Tamia to his location, if he was within a five-mile radius.

“Brief rundown of George’ abilities, he has two offensive Skills last time I saw him, one lets him fire bolts of ice from a distance, and the other creates an explosion of cold energy that freezes everything in sight. That’s probably what caused the noise. He also has a tracking Skill, just in case that’s relevant. You guys ready?”

Alistair and Oliver nodded, and they burst into the recreation center, ready for anything.

The gymnasium was full of frozen people. Not frozen like frozen in fear, but literally frozen. Hoarfrost covered hundreds of people, just like Alistair’s fingers had been, except all over their bodies. He wasn’t even sure if they were alive or dead.

In the center of the gymnasium, right where Jackson had almost executed Oliver nearly a day ago, the state senator was battling for his life. In more accurate terms, he mostly was hiding behind two people Alistair had never met before. The newcomers doing Jackson’s fighting for him both emanated imposing auras, despite the vast difference in their appearances. One was a powerfully built older man wearing a white tank top, and the other a petite woman.

The blonde man whom Alistair assumed was George relentlessly fired bolts of ice from a massive bow and arrow. Each bolt burst upon hitting any solid object, creating an explosion of ice shrapnel and a wave of cold aura that made Alistair shiver, even from over a hundred feet away.

Now that Alistair thought about it — tall, blonde, using a bow and arrow — George must have been the killer of the two people Jackson sent after Donna and her daughter.

While Jackson cowered, his new companions made their move. The man wearing a tank top opened his palm and released two blossoms made of fire. The spectral flowers floated in the air for a split second before zooming toward George. At the same time, the woman ran toward the ice-based cultivator with a shocking amount of speed. She was faster than Alistair’s normal top speed, though still slower than him using [Dash].

George nocked another meter-long bolt of ice, firing it straight at the blossoms of fire. The bolt exploded upon reaching the flaming attack, creating an inundation of steam and chaotic waves of heat and cold that washed over everyone in the nearby vicinity.

“Uh, are we going to join in?” Alistair asked. “I’m not sure I want to be fighting for either side.”

“HEY! You over there! Help us take out this lunatic! He’s number 72 on the leaderboard and killed dozens of people. We’re just here looking for allies!”

It was impossible to see the origin of the voice through the steam, but based on its feminine quality, Alistair assumed it was the woman.

“George is the bigger problem,” Alistair reasoned. “We can always deal with Jackson later, he’s not that much of a fighter.”

The air screeched around Oliver as he opened cracks in reality with [Dimensional Storage]. Out of the gates marched a proper battalion of thirty orc zombies, headed by an undead version of Prince Kalgur. It was creepy looking at the enemy that he had spent most of the past two days working up to kill, his eyes replaced by pools of darkness. Oliver was turning into a true menace, growing stronger with every dead enemy that joined his army of the night. Even if they weren’t as strong as they were when they were alive, three Bloodsun orc bodyguards weren’t anything to scoff at.

Alexandra took out her signature black knife, enlarging it to comical proportions. With her latest Upgrade Points she had taken a leaf in the Barbarian Toughness Branch, on top of improving her Nature’s Fury Branch. When she activated [Barbarian’s Rage], her effective Strength exceeded 180. Even among the top 100, Alistair couldn’t imagine too many had reached that mark. With a single cleave of the air, Alexandra dispersed the strange hot-and-cold steam that impeded their visibility.

George was nowhere to be seen. In fact, Jackson was missing as well. The only people that Alistair saw in the gymnasium were the frozen people and the two strangers.

Oliver went up to a person covered in hoarfrost, tapping on a shoulder encased in ice. “He’s alive. I think most of them are cause I can feel their life aura. We just need to defrost them.”

“I can handle that,” a booming voice said. The muscular older man opened his hand and hundreds of tiny fire blossoms flew out, attaching themselves to the chilled people. As soon as the flower made contact, the frost began melting.

He walked toward the trio, each step carrying him meters at a time. Alistair thought it was one of the strangest things he had ever seen; it was like the man was redefining the distance in between them to be shorter, rather than each of his steps being longer. The younger woman, who clearly had an Agility-based build like Alistair, accompanied him.

Activating [Eyes of Truth] revealed more information about the duo.

Name: John Desmond

Species: Superhuman I (Partially Evolved)

Level: 20

Class: Flamesmith (Uncommon) [Primary Attribute(s): Intelligence]

Name: Lily Baruch

Species: Superhuman I (Partially Evolved)

Level: 19

Class: Rogue (Common) [Primary Attribute(s): Agility]

“You let them go?” Alexandra questioned. She still kept her [Barbarian’s Rage] active and her knife ready for use.

“If you’re referring to George Moulin, we honestly weren’t expecting to find him here. But I can assure you that we would never take the man’s side. We’ve been searching for him as a secondary priority,” Lily said.

“And who are you?” Alistair asked.

“You haven’t heard? I would have thought you would have seen the postings in the Soulnet for our area. There are around 10 other subregions in the Boston area, and we’ve already gathered most of the highest-level people for a meeting. You guys were the last ones. Our actual goal in coming here was to find the big shots of this subregion, we didn’t expect to see Iceman here.”

Seeing the looks on their faces, Lily added, “Almost everyone calls him that now. Except for the boss, he’s the only known person from Greater Boston in the top 1000, and he’s in the top 100. He’s been going around killing monsters and people in each subregion, gaining more and more levels each time. He has so much Intelligence, [Inspect] only reveals his name. But our best guess is that he’s level 26 or 27. If you didn’t get here just in time, he might have killed us both.”

“The name’s John Desmond and my partner here is Lily Baruch, but you probably already know that,” the man said.

“What about Jackson Morley? The guy who was using you two as human shields? He was using a Skill to mind control everyone,” Alexandra asked.

“Oh, that guy?” Lily tossed a marble into the air, flicking it a hundred feet in less than a second. Near the main exit, a man dropped to the ground, having appeared out of thin air. “Looks like he bought an invisibility cloak. We’ll take him in if you don’t mind. You’re welcome to join us.”

Alistair turned to Alexandra and Oliver. He couldn’t just let these people take Jackson, not knowing what they were going to do with him. And he already was planning on leaving the subregion’s borders, now that they had completed the monster wave Quest prematurely. He was dreading and looking forward to seeing what changes had happened to the world outside their small bubble. Alistair felt like he was going down the right path, aligning what kind of person he wanted to be with an increase in power. Finding danger, saving innocent lives — his “Deliverance of Justice” and “Good Samaritan” Badges wouldn’t mind that at all.

Seeing the assent on their faces, he looked back at John and Lily. “I think we’ll take that offer.”

It turned out transport was much easier when people could run as fast as cars. John had asked them if they had a Teleportation Circle, which was available for purchase for 30,000 drachma. The item looked like a giant mirror with a radius of a meter and offered a basic range of 200 kilometers, with upgrades available at a cost. The owner of the Teleportation Circle received a small mark on their soul that could be connected with other people's marks in the Soulnet. After touching marks, the two circles could open bridges connecting two disparate points in space. The basic option offered five location slots, with more available for purchase.

Alistair considered it, but 30k was a sizeable portion of the group’s total drachma, which came out to a little under 100k Gold drachma. Luckily, most of them had superhuman speed that could take them to the center of Boston in just twenty minutes. The rest had to take a different approach.

“I really need better physical stats,” Oliver said, trying to recover some dignity as he leaped off John’s back as soon as they arrived at the Boston City Hall, where their new acquaintances’ group had set up shop.

“I don’t know, I think it might not be worth it, just for moments like these.” Alexandra gracefully let Donna dismount her.

“As a group, we should probably all specialize in different things,” Alistair said, putting down Tamia gently. He had been careful to hold her in place, swearing to her mother that everything would be fine. For Tamia’s part, she was squealing in delight the entire time, telling him to go faster.

Lily carried the former state senator in a fireman’s carry, his arms and legs restrained by flaming bonds that John fashioned. Alistair promised to alert them if the conman tried any funny Karmic business.

The city hall was unlike any Alistair had seen before; it was brutalist in style, with the top half having dozens of standardized windows separated by concrete fins. The entrance was on the right side, past parallel walls of concrete.

“They’re right ahead in the meeting room,” Lily said, guiding them inside of the building.

After a short walk up a spiraling staircase, they arrived at the entrance to the city council chambers. As someone who had never been in any government situation, Alistair almost felt like a big shot walking into a Congressional hearing.

He could feel the auras of the people inside of the room even from outside the chamber doors. There was even one stronger than him or Alexandra, though not quite as strong as the Iceman. It had a different timbre and quality of it as well. George’s aura felt like the cold of the deepest part of winter, whereas the aura he felt inside the chamber felt sharp and deadly, like a razor blade a centimeter away from his throat.

As they walked in, he immediately felt all eyes swivel at their group. There were around twenty people in the room in total situated around the central area. The sharp aura came from the woman at the head desk with two others, while the rest sat in the chairs on the side desks, or stood next to those seated.

“We got them from the final subregion. My guy is another potential criminal,” Lily said, gesturing to their ragtag group. “Also encountered Iceman on the way. We’re very lucky he retreated instead of engaging.”

Alistair guessed the woman was about to respond, but before she could, a gasp came from his companion. Donna pointed at one of the men at the side desks, a young man with dark skin wearing a tailored white jacket. Her finger was trembling, and she choked out her next words.

“Marcus?”