Chapter 47: The Silent Witness
The Guild Tower was in a state of suppressed panic. The disappearance of a Diamond-rank hero and ten elite assassins was a catastrophe that should have triggered a global state of emergency. But at the head of the Council table, Arthur, the Rank 1 Player of Earth, remained unnervingly still. He stared at his private monitors, watching the silver tracking thread on Damon's card pulse with a steady, rhythmic beat.
Arthur knew exactly where Ryker had gone that night. He had seen the greed in Ryker's eyes when the S-rank loot was exchanged. As the Council demanded a full-scale raid on the "Epsilon's" mansion, Arthur raised a hand, silencing the room with his sheer presence. "There will be no raid," he said, his voice cold. "Ryker acted outside of Guild law. He sought to rob a carrier. If he has vanished, it is his own shame. We will list him as 'Missing in Action' and move on."
The Council was stunned, but they didn't dare argue with the World's Strongest. Arthur looked back at the screen, his mind churning. He knew Ryker deserved his fate, but that wasn't what kept him silent. It was the fact that the signals of the assassins hadn't just gone dark—they had changed into something that didn't register as human. He zoomed in on the satellite footage of the estate, seeing the "Epsilon" standing in the garden, looking directly at the lens. The man didn't look like a player; he looked like the sky itself—vast, empty, and terrifying.
To be continued...