“So what now?” Winoa said as she stared at the wad of posters. “It's pretty obvious that the group behind what happened to us are hunting for Golden Children. I mean look at the other posters. All around the same age as us, all with the definitive characteristics of the clans, there’s even one for that monster, Peter in here”.
“Seriously? Peter?” Cleo frowned. It had been a long time since she had heard the name of the boy from the Mephisto clan who had cause her so much trouble during her journey.
“Well, I guess he's making a less corpse-ridden journey this time around. He must have been thoroughly reprimanded for his actions”.
“Only because he got caught by outsiders”. Cleo grabbed the bag and began looking through the various pictures upon the wanted posters. “It seems like the entirety of our year are being hunted by these guys”. As she saw faces she recognised, she quickly began coming to a conclusion on what her direction should be. She had long been pathless without Law, but now she had one. She would find the person who was targeting her friends and peers and make them pay for their crimes. Now she even had a target, the pug-faced fool who had been carrying so many posters with him.
“So what now?” Cleo looked up as Winoa echoed herself. The words had shaken her out of her revenge fueled reverie, but for the first time in months she did not feel sad. Instead she simply felt angry.
“Simple. We find the owner of the bag, then we get the name of his boss out of him”. She stopped as she put the paper in the bag and then into her storage ring. As she thought about the faceless figure behind pug-face she touched a delicate crystal ring on her left ring finger. “If he won't tell us the name, then I will burn it out of him”.
Walking out of the inn, she winced at the bright sun once more. Her headache was long gone, but the pain she had put herself through over the months prior were still lingering upon her. She glanced around and looked at Winoa as she joined in hunting. “Have you got any ideas on how to find him?” she asked.
“One,” Winoa replied. “I think I could follow his steps by following his scent. That is as long as his scent is the same as the scent of his bag”.
“You can do that?” Cleo gaped. She was proficient with wind, but that was likely all she would ever be in the element. Her elemental affinity was built into her from birth, and no amount of work would change that. It was just a case of having all the information but not having every tool required to use it efficiently. It was the same for every Clan of Chaos, and every cultivator in general. There were occasions where a true master of two elements would show up, but affinity with more elements simply made the path of Chaos far too difficult to traverse, and those who were of more were often considered disabled because of it. It was almost as great a mark of shame to have a child of four elements as it was to be the fourth child, however being born unlucky was not a crime. Disobeying the Clan was.
“Yeah. It's how I avoid so much trouble. I can literally smell it coming”.
“Gross”.
Winoa grabbed the bag and held it up for a moment before walking down the street, with Cleo hot on her heels. The journey was long, and from the path they had to follow both girls could clearly see that their prey was without a doubt paranoid. It was just unfortunate for him that he had a hunter equal to a hound on his trail. Midday became afternoon and Winoa assured Cleo they were getting close, but the fact that they had not yet found the irritating man worried her. She need to find him. It was a necessity, but the increased time it took was making her feel like she would snap and break the man before either of them actually had any chance to get anything useful out of him. She was becoming skittish and she did not like it one bit.
As they approached the early evening Winoa stopped Cleo at the entrance of a small building. She looked around before whispering in Cleo’s ear, “I think this is the place”.
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, I would assume that he entered here about five minutes ago with someone who has been walking with him for the last half hour or so. This was their target”.
“So how should we proceed?” She was itching to get inside, but Cleo still had enough sense about her to know that the best course of action was prudence. They were not overly domineering in this region of the tower, and while they could presumably defeat any single grand knight, if more showed up and caused them trouble then they would just end up dead.
“We need to be careful. This is revenge, not a suicide mission, so we need to think clearly about what is going to happen when we go through that door”.
“I don’t care too much, just... If there are overwhelming odds we can run. We just need to grab the guy and get out so it does not matter about our decorum”.
Winoa sighed and shook her head. “If that’s as much of a concession you’re willing to give on being careful then I guess it will do. Just, let’s be careful and make sure that Law’s next incarnation will hear of the steps that you took to avenge him”.
Cleo smiled and nodded at her friend before pushing open the door beyond and revealing a dingy, near-empty room. A table and chair was against one wall, with thick blanket covering the only window into the building, leaving the only source of light in the room as the door Cleo and Winoa were standing at, and another door on the far side of the room. As they walked across the room both girls realised they could hear someone talking behind the door. They approached the door and soon enough they could clearly hear the words from the room beyond.
“You’ve got to do something about my hand, Erik,” the first voice said. It was a voice Cleo recognised as the pug-faced man.
“I never told you to try and hit on the girl! You’re the fool for trying to proposition someone who you should have realised was far stronger than you. Look, I can talk to the boss, but he may make you keep your hand like that for potentially ruining the mission. If the clans find out what we are doing then you losing some fingers will be the least of your worries”. The other figure talking seemed to be older, a little gruffer, and had a domineering air about him. He was someone with at least a little power, but Cleo could not help but stir at the sound of their boss. The leader of the group would have to be a Heaven ranked individual, and at this point only Yun would be able to fight with them. It was way too dangerous for Cleo to go further than the two men in the next room.
“You asked me to look into her, to see if the information was real, and I did. It's true, she's there. Now give me my pay and I will leave, you can contact me when you get something to fix my hand”.
One of them sighed. It was hard to tell which, but soon after the older man spoke. “Fine. Here, two gold shards. Now get out”.
“The Wolf fell to the morning,” the pug-faced man uttered as he picked up something and walked towards both girls.
“And the Tower will soon follow,” the older man replied.
As they heard the odd last words of the two men, they shrank back into the corner of the room and watched as the pug-faced man walked away. Now they knew that he was a small fry, Cleo had changed her target for revenge. The first body would be the man within the other room. They crept closer to the door once more and began hearing the man talk once more. It was obvious from his tone that he was talking to someone who far outranked him.
“Yes, there is no problems. We are on track and may have just found the next set of targets”. He paused, as if waiting for something. “I know sir,” he continued. “That will not be happening. The only reason the trap against the last group failed was because of the unforeseen Heaven ranked Challenger within the group. I will make sure my leader waits for reinforcement before setting off, as he cannot lose any more men”.
Cleo and Winoa looked at each other in disbelief as the man spoke. There had to be another conclusion but the facts seemed too good to be true for them. If this was the group that had attacked them back in the garden valley then they would be far closer than either could believe.
“Yes sir. I know it was a failure like the one from a few months back, but my group only lost two men on this witch-hunt. We are far better than the... yessir. I'll get to the fifteenth floor. It should only take a year from here, especially with the help from the Heaven ranker. I'll be there, do not worry”. The man fell silent again as whoever he was talking to responded, but finally he said “The Wolf fell to the morning” before walking towards the door and opening it before either Cleo or Winoa could react.
The two sides stared at one another in shock for a moment before the man, who was dressed in some sort of ceremonial garb, yelled out “It's you!”
Cleo grinned and immediately flicked out her salamandrite knife and plunged it into his midriff. “Tell us who you were talking to and I will immolate you. You'll die quickly. If you don't tell us, then I will melt you from the inside out oh so slowly”.
The man screamed out as he felt his intestines heat up but he gritted his teeth together and tried to pull out the sword attached to his waist only to find that his hand attached to his sword was stuck in place by air as solid as concrete. He screamed out louder as he felt the heat spreading from his gut to his lower ribs and his hips as his bones begin to melt. “Puh... please... please... I'll... talk...” he begged and the heat cooled down, but now he found that his body was locked in by solid air all around him. He could not move at all. “They are followers of him, they want to destabilise the tower and remake it in their image. They claim they can start in the Valley of Kings on the fifth floor. Please... let me go. I have a family... my son...” As he began to beg for his life, Cleo's eyes turned red.
“So did he. So do we,” she said, before letting the flames erupt through him and turn his body onto ash. Sinking to the ground she began shaking and held the knife close to her heart. “It's all for you,” she whispered. “It's all for you...”
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