Normally, when a human receives a mark of invitation to the Astral Shadow plain, the mark is shapeless, resembling a scar.
It is an ugly-looking, twisted thing that appears on their left shoulder.
The marks vary in color—some red, others brown, a few with an orange marking.
When the marked individual visits the Astral Shadow plain to make a contract with his familiar and succeeds, the previously shapeless mark mostly ends up as a more distinctive pattern.
The symbol is lost if one's familiar dies. This simple fact, taught to novices at various summoning institutions and guilds, carries with it caution.
The permanence of the marks is something that can be bragged about among guild members, who often compare marks during celebration feasts, boasting of their familiars' strength while displaying their marking patterns etched into their skin.
The loss isn't just of the mark itself but everything it represents—power, status, and so much more.
"It's like losing a limb, except the torment never stops." a summoner named Cho Lee had once explained to him during his early age of summoning "You'll reach for power that's no longer there until the day you die, except that you are one among the one in a million lucky ones who receive a second invitation."
Second chances are as rare as seeing a dolphin playing peekaboo at midnight. Impossible right... Maybe.
For some reason, all these memories were flooding into Tang Fan's head.
Tang Fan's had been a red.
He'd spent years proudly displaying it at every chance he found, watching others' eyes widen with recognition or narrow with jealousy.
But now, with no mark, he has no use for the Red-Eastern guild.
—Calm down
—It's all right
The members of the FSG medical team tried to console him and calm him down, but their words carried zero weight.
He was throwing a tantrum, hitting everybody and wailing, so crazily they had to restrain him by force.
Six guild members pinned his thrashing limbs while a seventh injected a sedative into him, to calm him down since words didn't work.
As the drug began to take effect, Tang Fan's struggles weakened, and his screams lowered drastically into mumbles.
"Bring my lava mantis back," he mumbled, tears streaming down his face, knowing his wish was impossible to be fulfilled. "Please, bring it back."
Not far from this scene, Hwang Fan was conducting a headcount of the fellow victims of the incident, including himself in the count.
"One, two, three..." Hwang Fan counted aloud, pointing at each survivor with a finger that refused to stay completely steady, reflecting his worries.
That's not supposed to be all. He realized with mounting horror. All I could count was 16, when we are 15 men and two ladies.
The math refused to add up properly, and he had to start over twice before he was certain he wasn't miscalculating.
Back then, in the room, he could recall that there were 16 people: 15 men and one lady.
The other lady, Xao Fan, had gone out to attend to a customer, a stroke of luck that might have saved her life, though her absence now added to the fear of a worse-case scenario.
Had she been in the area at that time to be caught in the catastrophe? Or had she somehow noticed the fight and run away?
"I'm sorry, but this is all we could find," one of the FSG rescue team members spoke in a carefully professional tone despite the rubble of the disaster surrounding them.
"And these are all the bodies our search team familiars could detect, all alive, there couldn't be anything else."
The FSG member gestured to his companion, a chubby woman whose familiar—a translucent, jellyfish-like creature—hovered above her right shoulder, its tentacles constantly brushing against her cheek as if giving a comforting gesture.
"We have faith in our familiars," she added with firm resolve.
Hwang Fan was quite worried, but not overly so about Xao Fan, after all, she wasn't in the room when the battle began, so there is a good chance she's fine.
And also, the fight was a wide-scale battle in the busy town. Entire buildings had been reduced to rubble, streets torn up as if a meteor had descended upon them, and scorching charcoal marks were everywhere.
Surprisingly, no random individual was caught up in the disaster from what they had observed.
This was perhaps the most shocking aspect of the entire catastrophic incident—how could such destruction occur without a single civilian being caught up in it as a victim?
Everyone suddenly relocated so fast that no one could understand. One moment, the street had been bustling with merchants, customers, and afternoon strollers enjoying their activities, and then, the next, it was strangely deserted, as if the people had received some silent evacuation order that never reached the guild members.
The people will surely be questioned afterward, Hwang Fan knew this fact for sure. The guild had procedures for such situations, but when the leader figured it out, the priority was taking care of their own members caught up in it.
Ding Ding
Lucian's communication device rang with an incoming message, the screen lighting up with a notification from an unregistered, unknown contact.
Lucian frowned—their communications were supposed to be on an encrypted network, accessible only to authorized and important people. An unknown contact breaching those protocols was either a serious security failure or...
"It's me, Xao Fan. I am with Master Sung, and he wishes to hear from you about the whereabouts of his guild members at Ludlow."
"Huh? Xao Fan?" Lucian was puzzled by the name, scanning his mental roster of people he might have known bearing that name.
The name didn't sound familiar, and that's for sure. This person clearly isn't a powerful or popular summoner, but when his eyes fell to master Sung, he finally understood.
Seeing Lucian's expression, Hwang Fan poked his head into the device screen and read the message and his eyes widened.
"I guess she truly is safe," Hwang Fan spoke, with slight relief in his tone. "That's her, the remaining Red-Eastern member."
Lucian nodded and replied on the device: "All clear. We will be coming to the Red-Eastern guild base in this country now."
The response was immediate, just three words: "Master Sung awaits."
"Well," Lucian said, pocketing the device, "we'd better not keep him waiting. Master Sung doesn't normally shows patience in a matter involving his guild members."
"Gather the wounded," Lucian ordered the recovery team, then turned to the medical team. "Let's be cooperative. We move in five minutes so heal anyone who can't walk now."
It took a brief whole for everything to finally be in order.
***
They arrived at the guild's makeshift base in the country and reported to Dwang Sung.
Silently unmoving right from the start of the narration till the end.
Although, Xao Fan had already reported to him her side, he still had to hear the entire event from the witnesses.
Then after, Master Sung gave the order and the survivors filed in uniformly into the room. By now, their wounds had mostly healed.
Tang Fan was wheeled in on a medical stretcher with wheels, still unconscious but now restrained with thin straps rather than human hands.
He twitched occasionally, mumbling something in his slumber that sounded like: "Bring my lava mantis back."
Lucian and the other members of the FSG were excused before the narration began, after the order of Master Sung.
Guild business was guild business, and outsiders—even the FSG —were not excluded from internal matters rule.
And after all the reports, Dwang Sung remained unmoving. No one could read him until, until after a while, when ge clenched his fist so hard that his veins bulged and trembled.
Everyone gulped and lowered their head. They couldn't tell what emotion is was and they really didn't felt like knowing.
They screwed up big time, every single one of them.
Starting with Tang Fan, who lost his familiar, Mo Fan, who was trashed by the mysterious figure, and the others, who were defeated faster than they could summon their beast, his gaze swept through them.
"That is an insult to the dignity of the guild, but..."
Everyone gulped again.
For the next few seconds, nothing happened, so they decided to take a peek. It was at that moment they all received their greatest shock.
Dwang Sung was smiling!
Of all the emotions Dwang Sung could show right now, he never expected amusement to be one of them.
"You mentioned that Lucian had his suspicions about the name of the person responsible, didn't you?" Dwang Sung directed the question to Hwang Fan.
"Yes," Hwang replied hesitantly, "I overheard him mentioning the name once."
A low chuckle escaped Dwang Sung's lips, which surprised everyone present. Some exchanged confused glances, wondering if perhaps the guild master had suffered some kind of mental break due to the shocking events.
But that wasn't the case.
Turning to his personal assistant, Ming Fan, he ordered, "Tell the FSG members to come in."
Ming Fan gave a short bow and left.
Moments later, he came back alongside the current members of the FSG, who numbered thirteen, including Elena, Lucian, and his squad that accompanied him during the observation of the Ludlow incident.
"So, what do you say about the entire event, Master Sung?"
Dwang Sung replied with an extended grin that revealed his white teeth. "About the person responsible, is he the black marked summoner from before."
A smile spread across everyone's face upon hearing this.
'Now this is the Dwang Sung we know.' A grin extended on all their faces as the thought in sync. 'He wants to get involved and reclaim the pride of this guild! We might be seeing him in action very soon.'
Lucian nodded with a cold gaze as he remembered Ryder's face. "Yes."
"You should go have some rest. Tomorrow, we'll begin an intense training season to help you dive deep into the harnessing of more of your summoning potential so this wouldn't repeat, you punishment will be arranged later."
"Tang Fan, you have lost your beast, so we won't have any use for you from here on out."
Tang Fan rushed out of the stretcher and fell to the ground on his knees.
His face was drained of any positive emotion, his eyes filling with tears of despair.
"Please, Master Sung," he began crying, his voice cracking. "I'll do anything—"
"But we won't be disposing of you," Dwang Sung added, cutting through Tang Fan's plea.
Upon hearing this, Tang Fan's eyes lit up with hope.
"You lost your familiar while fighting to protect the dignity of the Red-Eastern guild and maintain our value, so for that, we will find a new use for you. You deserve a spot here, however, you will still be punished for your behavior."
"You summoned a powerful familiar in the middle of the city, that cannot be overlooked."
Tears streamed down Tang Fan's face, upon hearing this. Tears of joy.
Dwang Sung stood up from his throne-like chair and ended the session.
"Everyone, dismiss."