Chapter 313: How to Revenge (5)

The Guild Master let out a loud, mocking scoff, lowering his mace slightly. "Are you seriously doing all of this for some kind of petty, pathetic revenge? What is even the point of all this bloodshed? They are already dead! Nothing you do here tonight will magically bring them back to life! And why the hell are you blaming me for their deaths?!"

He pointed the mace at Solomon. "I was not the one who ordered them to go into that unstable dungeon to clear it! They marched in there entirely on their own accord! They knew exactly what the risks were! If anything, they brought that tragedy upon themselves!"

Solomon sighed heavily. "You are absolutely right. They should not have entered that dungeon."

Solomon reached up and finally pulled his hood back, revealing his face, his striking silver hair, and his piercing silver eyes, completely uncaring about the blood smeared across his cheek.

The Guild Master raised a thick brow, recognizing the boy’s distinct features from old news reports. "Are you that kid who awakened the SSS-rank talent but could not figure out how to use it? The Strongest Loser? The fuck? So you finally learned to use your talent and now you want to be some kind vigilante?"

The Guild Master let out a tense breath, realizing he might be able to negotiate his way out of this. "Listen, what do you want, kid? Let us just forget all of this. I will let everything that happened here tonight slide. I will not report a single thing to the Awakened authorities, and you can walk out of here completely clean. I have the money. I will just recruit new members to replace the ones you killed."

He offered a strained, diplomatic smile. "Just like your guild members died in that dungeon, you killed my guild members tonight. Although my guild members were significantly more powerful, highly skilled, and vastly greater in numbers... I am willing to consider us completely even."

Solomon clicked his tongue against his teeth, the sharp sound echoing in the silent bunker. "We are not even close to being even."

The Guild Master furrowed his brow, gripping the iron mace tighter. "What the hell are you talking about? I am literally the one standing here offering you forgiveness! I am letting you walk away from a massacre!"

Solomon stared dead into the Guild Master’s eyes. "How exactly do you value a human life? On what arbitrary basis do you calculate the worth of the people you sent to die? For me, the math is entirely different. A hundred of your corrupt, bloodthirsty thugs do not equal the life of a single, honest adventurer who just wanted to protect their city."

The Guild Master’s expression hardened into a deep, ugly scowl. He was completely unimpressed by the moral lecture. "You are testing my patience right now, kid. You should not mistake my goodwill and my generous mercy for weakness."

"You reek of weakness," Solomon replied bluntly.

The Guild Master took a threatening step forward, his massive frame casting a long shadow over the glass table. "I possess an S-rank innate talent! I have superhuman strength! I can literally kill a low-tier boss monster in a single shot! No matter how incredibly powerful you think you are, or how many of my grunts you managed to cut down, it only takes one solid hit from me, and you will be turned into a bloody paste on this floor!"

Solomon rolled his eyes and let out a dry chuckle. "If you are truly as impossibly strong as you claim to be, then why didn’t you just clear that dungeon yourself years ago? If your ultimate goal was simply to make this guild the biggest and the wealthiest in the district, you should have just trained harder, hired better adventurers, and cleared more high-rank dungeons. You would have naturally become the best guild through actual merit."

Solomon leaned forward, resting his chin on his bloody hands. "And if you are so incredibly powerful, why are you currently hiding down here in a fortified basement like a terrified rat? Actually, let me correct myself. Even a rat knows when and where to run. You just locked yourself inside a steel box."

The Guild Master frowned deeply, a smug, desperate confidence returning to his features. "You are severely misunderstanding the situation here, kid. If you attempt to do anything to harm me, you will die right alongside me."

Solomon slowly raised his head, looking at the Guild Master with mild curiosity as the man continued speaking.

The Guild Master tapped a metallic device strapped securely to his left wrist. "This entire skyscraper is riddled with high-yield magical explosives. They are wired directly into the structural support columns. This building will completely self-destruct on my command."

Solomon widened his eyes slightly, but not out of shock or panic. His expression was one of profound, utter disappointment.

"This system constantly tracks my heartbeat," the Guild Master bragged, misinterpreting the boy’s reaction as fear. "The second this monitor registers that I no longer have a pulse, the automated self-destruct sequence will initiate. The entire building will explode within three minutes. The only possible way to abort the detonation sequence is to manually insert an encrypted override code into the main terminal. And that specific code changes every single hour, following a complex mathematical pattern that only I know. There is no biometric bypass or fingerprint scanner you can hack."

He then pointed toward a glaringly obvious red button mounted on the far wall behind his desk. "That is the manual override switch for the immediate self-destruct sequence. So, if anything unfortunate were to happen to me tonight, you would die right here with me. It would be in your best interest not to do anything stupid."

The Guild Master offered a strained, arrogant smile. "So, my generous offer from before is still—"

"I know," Solomon interrupted flatly.

The Guild Master blinked, entirely confused by the interruption. "What?"

"I knew all about the explosives," Solomon clarified, his voice devoid of any surprise.