Chapter 311: How to Revenge (3) [Bonus Chapter PS]

Solomon stood in front of the wooden doors leading to the Guild Master’s executive office.

His gray hoodie was completely soaked in dark crimson blood, and his bare fists were coated in a gruesome mixture of blood and bruised flesh. Even the gas mask he had stolen earlier was no longer providing any clean air, the filters clogged with dust and gore.

Solomon waited for a few seconds, listening for any movement on the other side of the wood. Hearing nothing, he pushed the doors open. They swung inward smoothly. The entrance wasn’t locked or guarded, which immediately raised Solomon’s suspicions.

"I do not know who you are, or who hired you," a calm voice echoed from inside the room. "But let us just talk this out."

Solomon let out a chuckle. "After sending your entire guild roster to die in the stairwells, you finally want to talk it out?"

He stepped fully into the luxurious office. The moment his boots crossed the threshold, the wooden doors slammed shut behind him. A thick, impenetrable layer of reinforced enchanted metal rapidly slid down over the exit, completely sealing the room with a metallic thud.

Solomon didn’t seem to care in the slightest. He wasn’t the one who was trapped, but they were the ones who were trapped with him.

He walked straight past the shattered glass partition and approached the desk. A high-backed leather chair was turned around, facing the panoramic windows.

Solomon reached out and spun the chair around, fully expecting to find the Guild Master cowering on the cushions.

However, the chair was completely empty.

The voice scoffed loudly, the sound crackling through hidden surround-sound speakers mounted in the ceiling.

"You really are just a pathetic muscle-brain!" the Guild Master mocked, hurling a string of degrading insults. "You have absolutely no brain at all! You got arrogant, you got overconfident, and you walked blindly straight into my trap like a rabid dog!"

Just then, the ceiling tiles above the desk burst open. Almost a dozen masked figures dropped silently into the office, landing gracefully on the plush carpet to completely surround Solomon.

There was still no sign of the Guild Master. He was clearly speaking through a remote microphone, hiding safely in another sector of the building.

"Did you honestly think that while you were busy slaughtering my men downstairs, I would just sit patiently in my office and wait for you to come execute me?" the Guild Master’s voice laughed through the speakers.

He continued to hurl insults, thoroughly enjoying his perceived tactical victory. "These men surrounding you are the absolute best, most elite fighters this guild has to offer. They are my personal executioners. I carefully hand-picked every single one of them. All of their awakened talents are specifically tailored for high-speed assassination and close-quarters combat. You are going to die by their hands right now."

The masked assassins drew their respective weapons—curved daggers, serrated shortswords, and poisoned karambits—and seamlessly dropped into coordinated combat stances.

While the Guild Master continued boasting about his elite executioners, Solomon casually walked over to a weapons display mounted on the far wall. He grabbed a polished broadsword from the rack, testing its weight.

"This looks decent enough," Solomon muttered to himself, gripping the leather hilt. "It should be able to endure a burst of my aura."

"They do all the dirty work for this guild!" the Guild Master’s voice bragged from the speakers. "If a rival executive gets in my way, they deal with them. If a new, upstart guild tries to act tough in our district, they butcher their leadership in the dark. If local officials or dungeon regulators try to intimidate us with audits, they deal with them. We have silenced countless problems, and we will silence countless more! And you are just the next piece of trash they will dispose of!"

Suddenly, Solomon coated the borrowed broadsword in a blinding layer of dense silver aura. He anchored his boots against the carpet and seamlessly executed the second form of the Eden Imperial Sword Arts.

He snapped his hips forward and unleashed a horizontal sweep.

The strike was so impossibly fast and instantaneous that neither the Guild Master watching through the security cameras nor the elite assassins surrounding him even realized what had just happened.

For a fraction of a second, the room was perfectly still.

Then, the top halves of all eleven assassins smoothly slid off their lower torsos, their bodies cleanly bisected by the sweeping wave of silver energy. They collapsed onto the ruined carpet simultaneously. A split second later a geyser of blood sprayed from their severed halves, painting the luxurious office in a gruesome coat of crimson.

The absolute most elite executioners of The BlueYorker’s Shield guild were entirely defeated by a single, casual strike.

Solomon lowered the broadsword and inspected the steel blade. A network of deep cracks had already formed along the metal, spiderwebbing from the hilt to the tip.

He let out a tired sigh. ’No ordinary sword can endure the density of my aura, and absolutely none can survive the output of the Imperial Sword Arts,’ Solomon thought, tossing the ruined weapon onto the desk.

A suffocating silence filled the office, yet it was incredibly loud.

The Guild Master had completely stopped speaking, but Solomon could clearly hear the man’s panicked breathing echoing through the hidden speakers.

Solomon slowly looked up at the ceiling. He noticed a faint shifting shadow hiding in the rafters directly above him. There was one remaining assassin clinging to the ceiling tiles, having avoided the horizontal sweep by staying airborne.

"You must be the squad leader," Solomon muttered, staring up at the trembling shadow. "If you tell me where your Guild Master is hiding right now, I will spare you and let you walk out of this building alive."

The Guild Master’s voice immediately crackled through the speakers, screaming frantic threats. "Do not say a single word! I will have your entire family gutted if you betray me! Keep your mouth shut!"

The assassin clinging to the ceiling looked down at the pile of bisected bodies littering the floor, and then looked at the silver-haired boy covered in blood. The assassin was more terrified of Solomon than he was of his boss’s empty threats.

"He is hiding in the secure panic room on the third sub-basement level!" the assassin yelled down, desperately selling out his employer to save his own life.

"YoU SoN OF A BITCH!" The Guild Master began spouting a furious string of loud, desperate curses through the speakers, realizing his location was compromised.

Solomon smiled warmly at the assassin clinging to the ceiling. "Thank you."

Solomon raised the cracked sword, quickly coating it in a silver aura. He dropped his center of gravity, compressing his momentum, and executed the fourth form of the Eden Imperial Sword Arts.

He drove the broken sword straight upward.

The strike detonated with a massive sonic boom. The explosive force obliterated the assassin, completely vaporizing the ceiling tiles, the rafters, and the concrete floor of the level above them. The sheer power of the strike tore a hole straight through the roof of the skyscraper.

Solomon lowered his hand as the sword turned into silver ash and scattered away. He then looked at the hidden speakers mounted on the wall.

"You can run and hide wherever you want," Solomon announced to the empty, ruined office. "I will come down there and find you."