Zane entered the guildhall which stood with all its magnificence and grandeur. The hall was clean and impeccable. It was more majestic than any place Zane had ever been to. It was more majestic than the Aetherial Haven.
The guildhall was surprisingly busy, there were many gentlets currently inside standing in a queue waiting for service. There was a velvet rope held by waist-height brass poles.
The velvet ropes separated the queues heading to the counters at the far right side. The counter was high, wide and made of polished dark brown wood. Behind the counters were elegantly dressed clerks.
The clerks were dressed glamorously and properly. For the first time in Eryndor, Zane saw gentlets that were dressed properly as befitted their profession. Zane could only see their upper body.
The clerks were both male and female gentlets. The male clerks wore crisp white shirts with high starched collars, black bow ties, and dark navy waistcoats with polished brass buttons. Their sleeves were protected by black arm garters, and they moved with the practiced efficiency of seasoned professionals.
There was a broad staircase winding to the floor above.
At Zane's left there was what appeared to be a reception desk. It looked very much like the one at the inn but grander. It had a polished wooden surface that looked expensive.
Zane walked up to the desk. The receptionist was female and wore similar clothing to the clerks, her crystalline blue hair pinned back in a neat chignon that spoke of meticulous professionalism.
"Welcome to the merchant's guildhall. How can I help you?"
The receptionist said as soon as Zane approached the counter. She didn't look at Zane weirdly or in awe. She looked like she had seen all kinds of gentlets and Zane was but one among many strange-looking gentlets she'd encountered. Her voice carried the practiced warmth of someone who dealt with merchants from every corner of Eryndor.
"Thank you. I would like to book a licence and a market stall."
The receptionist opened her mouth to speak then closed it. Her eyes widened slightly, and she diverted her gaze to the entrance, her hand instinctively reaching for something beneath the counter.
Clink-clank clink-clung
The sound of metal hitting marble echoed through the hall like a death knell. The mild noisy sounds from the gentlets in the queues immediately subsided as they all diverted their gazes towards the entrance. Conversations died mid-sentence. The hall fell silent and desolate with nothing but the rhythmic metallic footsteps growing closer.
Zane turned, and his blood chilled. Knights clad in heavy iron armor moved across the hall towards the reception area with predatory grace. Armor covered their entire bodies up to their heads. They had their swords drawn and gleaming, walking slowly and cautiously towards Zane like hunters approaching cornered prey.
Their armor emitted pulses of dream-like aura that made the air itself seem to shimmer. Zane could feel the pressure from 50 meters away as they approached, making his skin prickle with unease. There was a multicolored crystal that seemed to power the armor, embedded on the chests of the suits, pulsing with an otherworldly light.
One of the four knights—the one at the front—had silver armor, different from the three others who stood behind forming a diamond formation. Even among the intimidating group, this one commanded attention.
The silver armored knight emitted a much more powerful aura than the rest. Shadows seemed to dance at his feet like living things, and light bent slightly when it came into contact with his suit, creating an almost ethereal distortion. He moved with more refinement and carried herself with more decorum than the others.
The knights surrounded Zane and just stood there studying him, swords pointing at his throat. The silence stretched thin in the air as all eyes in the room focused on the tableau. Zane could hear his own heartbeat thundering in his ears.
After observing that Zane didn't pose immediate danger, the leader stepped forward and stood directly before him. He then pulled up the visor covering his face with a fluid motion. The reveal struck Zane like a physical blow—she wasn't male but rather female.
Zane had always thought no one could rival Mia's beauty. But this blue-headed gentlet knight made him completely breathless. Time seemed to slow as he took in her features. Zane was awe-struck, his body freezing as he looked into blue eyes with deep purple pupils that seemed to hold the depth of winter storms. He couldn't see much of the face hidden within the helmet's frame, but what he saw burned itself into his memory, haunting his thoughts even as the decorated knight began to speak.
There was something otherworldly about her—the way her skin had that translucent blue quality that made her seem more like a living sculpture than flesh and blood.
"An order has been given by the council for your summon. You are required to attend the chamber now."
Her voice was crisp and authoritative, cutting through the silence like her blade might cut through silk. But Zane's mind wasn't processing her words. Instead, his gaze was inexorably drawn to her lips as she spoke, mesmerized by their movement.
She surely has beautiful lips. They're like carved sapphires. I'd love to touch them, see how they feel.
Zane thought, completely entranced as he stared at the lips which had a darker shade of blue than the rest of her face. He then found himself studying her crystalline lashes that were midnight blue, long and elegant. Every time she blinked they fluttered like butterfly wings, making something in Zane's chest flutter in response, his heart growing lighter and warmer despite the dangerous situation. Then there was her face itself, blue and translucent like living crystal. Zane wanted to cup it gently in his palms, to see if it felt as smooth as it looked.
"Can you hear me? I said the council has summoned you. You need to come with us now. You can either come willingly, or force will have to be used on you. There can be no refusal... council's orders."
The words entered Zane's ear and seemed to drift through his consciousness like smoke, barely registering. To him, her voice was just beautiful sound, nothing urgent to pay attention to. What mattered was this angel standing before him, this impossible creature who made his world narrow to just her presence.
Then a gauntleted hand swept across his vision in a sharp arc, and suddenly Zane was airborne before crashing to the marble floor. The knight was tired of speaking to what might as well have been stone.
Thud
Zane landed hard on the polished marble, his backside erupting in sharp pain as he hit the ground. The impact jarred his brain back into his skull, and his face flushed deep red with embarrassment and the sudden return of awareness.
"Be careful, my lady! He's using a memory enchantment!"
The knight beside her shouted when he saw the telltale red flush spreading across Zane's face. His sword arm tensed as he prepared to lunge forward and end what he perceived as a magical threat, but the lady knight held up one graceful hand. The gesture was small, almost casual, but carried absolute authority.
The knight froze mid-motion as if turned to stone himself.
The lady knight stepped forward with fluid grace and, almost gently, tapped Zane at the back of the head with the pommel of her sword. It was precise—enough to render him unconscious but not to cause lasting harm.
As darkness crept in from the edges of his vision, Zane managed one last look at her beautiful face. In that fading moment, he decided with bitter irony that he hated beautiful women. How could someone so lovely be so quick to violence against an innocent person?
The last thing he saw was those purple-flecked blue eyes looking down at him with what might have been mild regret.
***
Wei Jun's life wasn't any different from before. After assigning all his work to his newly appointed vice captain and banning everybody else from disturbing him, his life returned to normal. Actually, it was better now since he no longer needed to go solve issues in the realms anymore. He now had enforcers that he could send.
Apart from Ashley's daily reports on the station, Wei Jun never saw anyone really.
Wei Jun never cared about anyone in his life. He was what people called a fighting maniac whose heart had long been tamed by the thrills of battle. Not in his previous life, not now.
But lately, Wei Jun found himself missing the simpler days when it was just Ashley and him. Not because managing the station was tiresome, but because of what he was seeing happen to Ashley.
Wei Jun noticed how Ashley appeared drained nowadays. She had slumped posture, dark circles under her eyes like bruises, and disheveled hair whenever she came to give him reports. She now moved slower, seemed irritable and detached, struggling to focus on even simple tasks. Her usual spark—that quick wit and bright energy that had made their early days bearable—dimmed a little more with each passing day, ground down by relentless fatigue.
Wei Jun didn't understand why he felt sorry for her. There was also a strange sensation of being wounded, like invisible swords cutting into his chest. He felt as if his heart was bleeding from the inside every time he saw Ashley entering his lounge with those tired, hollow eyes that used to sparkle with intelligence and humor.
Wei Jun had killed countless people in his previous life. He'd tortured innocent mortals to within an inch of their pathetic lives for scraps of information. By any measure, Wei Jun couldn't be called a caring person. But why did he have this terrible, gnawing feeling whenever he saw her struggling?
Wei Jun could only convince himself that it was guilt—he had dumped all his responsibilities on her shoulders. Though deep down, Wei Jun knew it wasn't just guilt. It was something else, something that he was terrified of admitting to himself. He wasn't the kind of person who felt pity for others, so why did his heart ache whenever he thought about her struggling to manage tasks she was never trained for? Ashley was never meant to be a vice captain of an interdimensional station; she was a programmer, brilliant with code but not prepared for the crushing weight of command.
Wei Jun didn't even know why he'd assigned her the role in the first place. Was it because she was the only person he trusted in this world? Though he refused to admit it to himself, deep down he knew that was exactly why. He disguised this truth with rational thoughts—that he'd known her longer than the others, that she understood the systems better.
It was nearly time for Ashley to give him the daily report. Just as Wei Jun acknowledged this thought, a soft beep came from the door as Ashley entered.
Her hair was messy, hastily pinned back like she'd barely had time for even basic grooming. There were new lines of stress around her eyes that hadn't been there a month ago.
The only problem with her is that she overworks herself trying to please me.
Wei Jun thought subconsciously as he studied her face. He didn't want to notice her exhaustion, but somehow his eyes were drawn to every sign of it, and his mind catalogued each detail without his permission. A hundred years of cultivating emotional detachment meant nothing when it came to her. His brain—or perhaps his heart—simply chose to care, despite his best efforts to remain indifferent.
Wei Jun had even wondered, in his darker moments, if he was punishing her for caring about him. Deep down, he knew she cared for him more than duty required, more than anyone else ever had. But he pushed these thoughts away, telling himself she was just doing her job, nothing more. He had simply assigned her work, and she was completing it.
Ashley carried a stack of papers in her hands. Even though the captain could access all the same information through the panels in his lounge, Wei Jun had never bothered to learn how to operate the computers properly. He understood the basics but had never cared to master them.
Recently, though, he'd been trying to learn the systems in his spare time. The sooner he became proficient, the less trouble Ashley would have compiling daily reports for him. He told himself it was about efficiency, but his heart whispered a different truth. The legendary heavenly sword demon Tai Lao was beginning to care for a mortal girl, and that terrified him more than any enemy he'd ever faced.
Wei Jun rose from his carbon chair and moved with practiced grace toward Ashley. He gently took the stack of papers from her hands, noting how her fingers trembled slightly from exhaustion.
As Wei Jun scanned the report contents with supernatural speed, he noticed that their mysterious perpetrator had left another breadcrumb.
The report detailed new spatial energy traces detected at a city called Nexus City. The location was approximately 500 kilometers from Ashburn—the town where the perpetrator had opened the pocketed realm. There was a high probability these incidents were connected, but this time there was no pocketed realm at the site. The spatial energy was merely a trace, more like an accidental signature than an intentional opening.
Wei Jun also learned that the fingerprints on the strange coin belonged to a 20-year-old boy from Ashburn Town. The young man had allegedly been kidnapped by the perpetrator, vanishing at the same time as their suspect.
The boy had a hospitalized father who was unresponsive to treatment. The son had been working multiple jobs to pay for his father's medical care. Now that he was missing, there was no one left to handle the expenses or make medical decisions.
The IPA didn't just regulate interdimensional travel—they also handled casualty management from dimensional incidents. The enforcers had transported the kidnapped boy's father to the station for nano-healing treatment, in an hour the boy's father would be completely healed and back in top form.
There were other routine reports about station operations, but Wei Jun barely glanced at them. As long as the facility remained functional, the administrative details held no interest for him.
What truly puzzled Wei Jun was the kidnapping itself. Why would a perpetrator powerful enough to tear holes between dimensions bother kidnapping an ordinary mortal? The logic escaped him entirely.
Wei Jun could only wait to see what response headquarters would provide. Perhaps they had encountered similar cases before.
"File the report about the incident and transmit it to headquarters."
Even as he spoke the words, Wei Jun felt that familiar sensation of his heart being slowly torn apart. Adding to her workload felt like cruelty, but he told himself she could delegate the task to other staff members. She didn't have to shoulder every responsibility personally. Until she learned to properly utilize her authority as vice captain, she would continue exhausting herself with unnecessary overtime.
"Yes, Captain Wei. I will personally file the report and transmit it to headquarters."
Ashley nodded as she met his gaze, and despite the dark circles beneath her eyes, Wei Jun caught a glimpse of something that looked like joy. She seemed genuinely pleased to receive orders directly from him.
Is she happy because the request came from me personally?
Wei Jun wondered as he watched Ashley head toward the exit, the doors sliding shut behind her with a soft hiss. His chest tightened with an emotion he refused to name, watching her walk away to add yet another task to her endless list, all because he was too proud—or too afraid—to admit he might actually care about her wellbeing.