Later in the evening, Isaac had gathered the core of the Duma guild in a large conference hall.

The executives and elite members who had plenty of experience in the hidden side of the world were now quiet as they sensed the urgency and unease from Isaac’s summons.

Few of the young rising stars soon grew impatient and restless as everyone was waiting for Isaac to arrive.

‘’What is this bullshit? Ever since my debut in the world of Metas I have not received such a welcome.’’ One of the prominent youths who was treated as a future grandmaster broke the silence.

This sentence from an ignorant youth was like a ripple that spread throughout the conference hall: The privileged members were used to the best of treatments and thus were displeased at the sudden summon without an option to refuse.

Isaac’s left hand executive Jan frowned at the unsightly behavior. You disgraceful swines. All that you have was given by Duma and yet you harbor such bone deep arrogance towards the master.

Jan coldly observed the main culprits of this commotion and silently memorized the faces.

He could forcefully suppress the rowdiness, but he deemed it would be best for Isaac to directly snuff out the rebellious attitudes from the useful.

The fate of the useless on the other hand would not be as pleasant as cannon fodder tonight.

Minutes passed silently, and the atmosphere in the simplistic but elegant hall was getting rowdier.

One could see the sun setting behind the horizon from the large windows and few of the arrogant elites already threatened to leave.

‘Creak’

The sound of the door being opened sank the hall in complete silence.

The familiar face of Isaac entered their view with his combat suit on, accompanied by an aura of dignity and cruelty fitting for a strict leader followed by a masked man.

Isaac turned his sights upon Jan and saw him nodding slightly. Good. It would seem that we have our candidates for team 1.

Sweeping the hall with his gaze, no-one said or gave any indication of displeasure. After all, who would be stupid enough to provoke their boss.

Isaac walked slowly towards the slightly elevated podium, and maintained his silence.

An oppressive atmosphere spread throughout the conference hall and finally Isaac opened his mouth.

‘’Fellow Duma members. The reason you are here, I am sure you must be curious?’’ With his mouth curling up, he built up the tenseness of the situation.

Isaac motioned Jan to stand beside him, and after Jan whispered a few names in Isaac’s ear he continued. ‘’Tonight, we have our most dangerous task yet. The SDU.’’

At the moment Isaac announced the reason for the urgent summons, the crowd of hundred or so could not believe their ears.

Breaking the law every once in a while was one thing, but to go against the special department units? That was both social, financial and personal suicide.

Even the executives of Duma were now frowning and thinking why would Isaac make such a drastic decision.

‘’SILENCE.’’ Jan shouted with his enigmatic voice.

Only a few of the executives with master strength could resist the shock in their eardrums and sighed with frustration: Even after all their hard work, it would seem that they still overestimated their standing in the guild.

Isaac saw Jan suppressing the crowd neatly and nodded in satisfaction.

‘’There is a tome in the vault of SDU that we must get, and rescue a person from the research ward in the hospital. If we don’t do this there is no place in Runa or even the whole country of Astrax after tomorrow.’’

Letting his words sink in, Isaac motioned the masked man who came with him to explain further.

‘’You may not know me, but we most likely have worked together before. I will get you inside the SDU without triggering alarms, but the operation has to be quick.’’

Isaac nodded with a smile on his face, thinking that all those bribes were not for nothing.

‘’You will be split into three teams. Alfa, Bravo and Omega. Do your absolute best, or you will not see the sun tomorrow.’’ Isaac grinned with his teeth showing while fishing a cigar from his suit.

Unaware of the impending assault, the mood was jubilant in the SDU.

Erikson was ready to go celebrate his first day off from work in two weeks and Larsson had prepared a bottle of sparkling wine to share with his colleagues.

‘’I can’t fuckin believe it! Today is the day I finally can go out for a drink AND we saw Cap smiling.’’ Erikson exclaimed while having a foolish grin on his face.

Yes indeed. Today was the day Captain Murray was actually smiling and gave a few of the members a day off on a whim.

Truly, miracles happen sometimes.

The dashing members of the SDU were now looking like figurative zombies: Black circles under their eyes, sickly complexion on their faces and general tiredness oozing from their outlook.

As soon as Erikson got the news from Murray about his brief vacation, he directly went into a shop and bought a bottle of wine and reserved a table in his favorite restaurant.

Maybe he could get a proper rest tonight without having nightmares of an ever increasing stack of papers and being startled awake in the middle of his office.

Nicole and Larsson were among the people that Murray generously gave the day off, and were ready to pop up the sparkling wine in the break room.

‘’Nicole, what are you going to do during your day off?’’ Larsson curiously asked.

Wrinkling her brows, she had a thoughtful expression on her tired face.

‘’I guess nothing special. At first I planned to ask my previous date if he wanted to continue where we left off before all this shit started, but when I called some woman answered the phone so I hung up.’’ With a dejected look, Nicole hung her head low, covering her face with her silky brown hair.

‘’Oof, that’s a lotta damage. Byron, if you really want to date someone, how about me?’’ Larsson semi-sarcastically wiggled his eyebrows.

‘’Get lost creep.’’ Nicole spat out with disgust and turned her back against Larsson.

Seeing this, Erikson chuckled and felt that if only life was so simple. ‘’Now now kids, how about you pop up this badboy and just enjoy the brief freedom amidst the chaos?’’

Hearing no objections, Larsson picked up the sparkling wine and carefully opened it.

With a ‘Plop’, the wine started to overflow slightly, creating some commotion and Erikson lamented about wasting ‘’perfectly good alcohol’’ in a quiet tone.

The cheerful atmosphere was quickly created as the squad members picked up their mugs and quickly filled them to the brim. No etiquette required.

Nicole saw that Larsson was about to hold a small speech, so she decisively cut him off and called out. ‘’DOWN THE HATCH, CHEERS MY DUDES!’’

Larsson raised his right hand perpendicular to his face, opening and closing his mouth, but a bitter taste entered his mouth.

For a telepathic communication master like Larsson, it was embarrassing that he could not even get his turn for a small speech before being interrupted.

Clinking their slightly crude coffee mugs with anti-work slogans imprinted on them, they were just about to get their first sip in until they felt an unusual tremor.

‘’What the fuck? Earthquake? Erikson, you have lived in this city before the assignment so are earthquakes common here?’’ Nicole wrinkled her brows and asked Erikson in a quiet tone.

Erikson was quiet for a moment before a serious look surfaced in his face. ‘’No earthquakes in Runa. I think it’s time to get back to work…’’

‘’Work work. Yes milord.’’ Larsson said in a gruff comedic tone and downed the sparkling wine in his hand with one sip.

In their line of duty coincidences do sometimes happen, but usually it was not so. The trio strapped the protective vests they had hanged in the break room and armed themselves.

Erikson, as the oldest member among them, naturally took the lead and smoothly picked up his trusty machete.

After telling the others to arm themselves, Erikson spoke out with a grim voice.

‘’I hope that we are wrong, but if there are intruders: My Trejo kills.’’ Sliding his hand across the magisteel forged machete, Erikson’s atmosphere changed abruptly from the cheerful and joking man to a cold, expressionless killer.

Leading the trio, Erikson carefully advanced to the hallway. The unnatural silence was unnerving.

Usually the night shift rats would be bumbling around the hallways around this time and silent curses ‘’I can’t take even one more graveyard shift or I’ll lose it’’ would be heard, but now there were none.

Gesturing lightly, Erikson carefully opened a nearby office.

He peeked inside for a few seconds before closing the door with a serious expression.

‘’Don’t make noise, hostiles and multiple people dead.’’ After calling this out, he took out his phone and sounded the silent alarm.

Byron and Larsson understood that this was not a drill.

Advancing in full combat readiness along the hallways with Erikson in the lead, Byron in the middle and Larsson as rearguard their primary objective was to secure the premises and search for survivors.

A loud crashing sound was coming from the other side of the hall, so they had no choice but to investigate.

Erikson opened the door carefully and saw one of his squad members fighting against two men fully in black. Motioning the duo behind him to follow his lead, he quickly confirmed that there were only two hostiles.

Byron quickly nodded her head and unstrapped her favorite weapon from her back. Battleaxe, smooth blade on one side, serrated on the other.

One might think the sight of a petite and cute young woman carrying such a weapon as comical, but the truth was that Nicole was a hardened, coldblooded battle maniac striving to be the best.

Just as Eriksson gave the order to charge in, the rush of adrenaline hit Nicole.

With a leap that would leave olympic gold winners speechless, she performed a leap attack that one might say stylish.

The two black men noticed the intruding party as soon as Nicole jumped, but was already a bit late.

Exchanging a knowing look, one of them decided that he could block the attack, and another would try to finish the SDU member as soon as possible.

The smooth blade of the ax cut through the air in vertical motion and the man in black raised his sword to block, but severely underestimated the momentum behind Nicole’s leap attack.

Neatly cleaving through both the sword and the man, Nicole focused her attention to the next foe.

The other man in black was slightly dumbfounded and shaken when he took a look from the corner of his eyes while fighting the member of SDU.

His friend, his colleague standing there dumbly with a sword in hand raised to block before collapsing on the floor in two halves.

‘’Oi! Cunt! Do you really have time to worry about others?’’ The voice of Erikson clearly resounded in the man’s ears from the side.

Severing the man in black’s lower body in one swoop, Erikson flicked the blood off his machete and stuffed an old rag he picked up from the floor in his mouth.

‘’Can’t have you screaming and don’t think of doing anything stupid. I have some questions and they better satisfy me or you hope you were…Over there.’’ Erikson squatted in front of the disabled man and nodded towards the two halves- one man lying in a growing crimson puddle.