"Yeah. Grimaldus is the hero of Helsreach, the Reclusiarch of the Black Templars s.p.a.ce Marine Chapter. Basically the head Chaplain. He is a veteran of the Third War of Armageddon, having defended Helsreach from the Orks…"

"What are you talking about?!" Zhao Yan snapped at me, irritated. "Are you confusing Grimaldus for something else?"

"No. I'm just p.i.s.sed off that they decided to steal the name of one of the most bada.s.s characters in Warhammer 40,000 and name their pathetic guild after him. They have no right to sully his name. For Grimaldus represents the righteous fury of the Imperium of Man and…"

"Enough." Zhao Yan rolled her eyes. "They are a group of terrorists who work in the underworld of Flandor, taking on criminal jobs such as abductions, organ harvesting, demonic rituals, a.s.sa.s.sinations, and intimidation. They are part of the major blocs that rule the underworld of the Federation, striking from the shadows and committing atrocities – basically doing the dirty jobs for politicians and other high-ranking n.o.bles who cannot be seen publically engaging in such acts with their formal guilds and the Federation military."

"They're one of the oldest secret societies out there, and are pretty malevolent," I added with a shudder. "They are sort of like the Hong Kong triads or j.a.panese yakuza or Italian mafia…what?"

The rest were staring at me blankly, and I suddenly remembered that I was in a very different time. Maybe these underground organizations had ceased to exist sometime during the thousand years that had pa.s.sed before I got reincarnated here.

"What did they want with you?" Zhao Yan asked. Melina tensed up, and then looked down.

"They said…this was a request from a client." Her voice was almost breaking as she clutched Adrian's sleeve, and I could tell that she was on the verge of breaking down. Adrian placed his hands on her shoulders, trying to comfort her. "Though he didn't specify who, he confirmed that this was a request sent from the Franklin family."

"Don't worry. He confirmed that it wasn't your father," Adrian reminded her. I nodded and smiled.

"That's right. Lady Melina, before the Weaver's Festival tonight, I was instructed by somebody to keep watch over you, to prevent this from happening. Who do you think gave me that order?"

"Eh…?" Melina looked up and from my smile, she suddenly understood. I nodded.

"It was Duke Fergus Franklin. Your father. He has already mobilized the authorities to look for you when I told him you were missing."

Melina sighed a breath of relief, tears of joy streaming from her eyes. I could hear a whisper escaping her lips.

"Thank you, Father."

"Yeah, I called the police too. They will be swarming over this place in an instant." Zhao Yan folded her arms and shook her head. "But your Sensei here couldn't wait for them and decided to recklessly charge in to save you guys."

"Just as well," Adrian admitted. "If the both of you didn't turn up when you did, they would have sacrificed us both for some ritual."

"What ritual?" Zhao Yan demanded, her eyes narrowed. There was a slight anger in her voice and I briefly wondered if she had faced such things in the past before.

"I have no idea, other than he needed to keep us alive to sacrifice us for a ritual."

"Neither do I," Melina agreed. "The leader of the kidnappers, the one with the whip…he didn't specify what the goal of the ritual was. But I don't understand. If their goal was to eliminate me, to prevent me from threatening Cousin Kureha's position, wouldn't it be easier to just kill me off immediately? Why go through the trouble of sacrificing me and Adrian to a ritual? What sort of purpose does the ritual serve for their client?"

"Most rituals involve the summoning of a demon," I explained as I pushed my gla.s.ses up my nose. "Basically trying to emulate the Emergence events, to open a hole through reality and allow monsters from the other dimension to crawl through."

I still remembered the blood G.o.d at the temple. It was almost identical to an Emergence event, calling upon an extremely powerful monster into our world to…wreak destruction and cause chaos. Why would anyone want that, I had no idea. Perhaps they didn't need a reason – that was why we diagnosed them as psychopaths or lunactics.

Some men just wanted to watch the world burn. Maybe as revenge against the society that had ostracized them or something. I honestly didn't know and didn't want to understand their insane motives.

Rising to my feet, I turned toward the doors leading toward the interior of the museum.

"Zhao Yan, do you mind watching over Adrian and Melina?" I placed a hand on the hilt of one of my swords. "I don't know if those guys will return, but if they do, please beat them up, and prevent them from abducting the two of them again."

"Sure. But what about you?" Zhao Yan looked at me inquisitively.

"The leader that Melina mentioned earlier – the one with the whip…his body isn't here. That means he escaped. Given how he's the strongest among the group here and that he's in charge, if I capture him and hand him over to the authorities, we might be able to flush out Grimaldus. If I kill him in combat, then we've eliminated a ma.s.sive threat to the safety of the Federation. Either way, we can't let him go. Especially if he's returning to the ritual site…there's no telling if he has a couple of extra sacrifices in reserve as insurance. I must disrupt the ritual at all cost, or the consequences will be catastrophic. We cannot allow them to summon a monster in the middle of Flandor City."

"That's dangerous!" Zhao Yan snapped. "I'll go with you!"

"Then who's going to protect Adrian and Melina?" I replied sternly. "We can't leave them alone. They might return and grab them again. I doubt they're going to give up in their ritual so easily. There must be a reason why they are targeting the two children from the Ten Great Families."

Zhao Yan was unable to refute that and she lowered her head. "Be careful," she said instead.

"Don't worry, I'll be all right." I turned back to smile rea.s.suringly at her. "A summoner is never alone."

At my words, my Constellation spirits gathered around me, preparing for combat. Zhao Yan watched them, and then nodded with a smile.

"True. I'll leave this to you then."

"Sensei!" Melina still sounded worried.

"Don't worry, Lady Melina." I grinned at her and raised an arm. "Let your sensei show off once in a while."

"Heh. You can do it, Brother Richie!" Adrian, in contrast, was br.i.m.m.i.n.g with confidence. "Go kick their a.s.ses!"

"Yup, I will."

And with that, I was gone, rus.h.i.+ng into the depths of the dark museum while Zhao Yan helped me watch over my charges.

It wasn't hard to find Henry James and the rest of his cronies. I just headed toward the area of the museum where a potent aura of demonic bloodl.u.s.t emanated. It seemed that my suspicions were correct. They were really trying to summon something.

"Taurus!"

At my order, my gigantic bull smashed the securely locked doors open, crus.h.i.+ng the metal and blowing them out of their hinges. Along with Aries and Capricorn, I burst into the hall, just in time to see all the esoteric symbols and eerie altars set up. Demonic runes, daubed in blood, had been drawn all over the floor, and hundreds of candles flickered, their tiny flames casting a creepy glow over the hall.

In the center of it all was Henry James. He had abandoned his now useless whip – which had been cut apart by my swords – and was now holding a ceremonial dagger instead.

"Ah, you're the Sensei, right? You're just in time."

"You…"

The words died in my mouth when I saw the corpes littered all over the makes.h.i.+ft altars. Hooded and masked human bodies lay sprawled about, their throats slit and their blood leaking out to join with the glowing demonic runes already drawn on the floor. To my shock, the runes didn't get erased or flooded away, but seemingly absorbed the new blood, flaring even brighter.

"What have you done?"

"What have I done?" James laughed. "Don't you put the blame on me. This is your fault, you know? You were the one who deprived us of our sacrifices. If you would just let me use your students – high quality sacrifices with n.o.ble lineage – just two of them would be enough. But because of your needless meddling, I had to sacrifice all my men to complete this ritual. It's too bad they aren't n.o.bles, so their blood is of a much lower quality. But quant.i.ty has a quality of its own, and we all have to learn to improvise in order to survive, do we not?"

"You…"

I swallowed as I struggled to comprehend the implications of this. I wasn't feeling sorry for the madman's subordinates, and while I felt disgusted at his cavalier att.i.tude toward the lives of his own men, I didn't expect anything less from criminal sc.u.m like him. However, there was something about this whole affair that struck me as odd.

"Wasn't your goal…the mission you received from your client to eliminate Lady Melina? Why bother with this whole ritual thing in the first place? It's almost as if…"

"Yes, you are right." James threw his head back and laughed. "The killing of Lady Melina was only a secondary goal, but it wasn't the main thing, you know? The primary objective has always been the completion of the ritual…to summon a demon that would destroy Flandor City."

"Is that your client's wishes too?"

"In a twisted fas.h.i.+on, yes. He/she was the one who proposed it after all. After the demon emerges and rampages across Flandor City, the Sword Saint – Kureha Franklin – would appear and slay the monstrous creature responsible for so many deaths and the destruction of much of the city. A very fitting tale of heroism, is it not? It is sure to elevate her status further in the eyes of the Federation, and cement her position as the next head of the Franklin family. As promising as Melina was – even if she somehow survived this – her achievements would never be able to match that of Kureha's."

What f.u.c.king bulls.h.i.+t. Just to preserve Kureha's status as the Sword Saint and ensure that she succeeded as the next leader of the Franklin family, this client was willing to sacrifice the lives of civilians in Flandor City. He or she couldn't care less about the wellbeing or safety of innocent civilians, and was willing to condemn to death for political ascension.

Unforgiveable.

"I'm sure you rushed here to stop me, but it's too late. The sacifices have already been made. And I'm sure you already know that you can't destroy these runes, even with your spells. The Emergence event is already happening."

James was right. I could see a tear in the fabric of reality, the churning chaos as two dimensions that should never meet collided, turning into a portal. Even if I tried nuking it with my arrows or Scorpio's Antares, it wouldn't destroy it – that Emergence portal was not something that was bound by the laws of physics or reality. It wasn't…anything material or solid. It just was a rip in s.p.a.ce, a…conceptual ent.i.ty. There was no magic spell that could destroy it.

"I've heard rumors that you're stronger and more skilled than the Sword Saint, but I doubt it. Unlike Kureha Franklin, who will arrive with her cousin Eliza and an all-star party a.s.sembled for an event just like this, you are completely alone. Plus…you were just lucky that time in the national tournament. There's no way you're more powerful than the Sword Saint."

James chuckled and shook his head.

"You'll die here, the first victim of the Chaos Chimera."

A thunderous roar erupted from behind the tear in the fabric of reality, and an enormous skull-like head thrust through the maelstrom of broken immateriality of time-s.p.a.ce. Fangs the size of swords clattered against each other, and the dragon-like creature turned its empty eye sockets to stare at me. Even without actual eyes, it could still see me. Ethereal green flames flickered to life within those empty black holes, almost reflecting me within its depths.

"Oho! Seems like its hungry. You'll get the honor of being its first meal in this reality!"

James's laughter was drowned out by another b.e.s.t.i.a.l bellow. The Chaos Chimera ripped its way out of its original dimension and lunged toward me ravenously, its jaws opened to swallow my body whole.

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