Chapter 96: Bounty Collected

"Stop it! Don’t let it reach me!"

Sterling’s voice cracked as Thunder Roc dropped out of the clouds, a golden streak with its talons already open. His officers had never seen him move so fast.

He knew the rules of a return scroll better than anyone alive. Five seconds of channeling, and any hit that landed inside that window shattered the spell and left you standing right where you started.

Five seconds was all he needed, and the sky was trying to steal them.The men around him were Ironclad’s hardened core, and they didn’t hesitate.

A volley of control skills rose to meet the diving bird. Thunder Roc’s attributes were monstrous, but it had none of Kael’s immunity.

The first snare caught a wing. The second landed before it could recover. The great eagle shuddered in midair, dazed, and tumbled off its line.

Sterling had barely drawn breath to laugh.

A dozen yards away, the Void Colossus threw back its head and roared.

Voidspike Barrage.

The earth ruptured. Black spikes lanced up through the dirt in a bristling field and flung the officers skyward like leaves in a gale. The pale light spiraling around Sterling flickered and died.

He stared at the empty air where his escape had been. Then he ripped another scroll from his belt and crushed it.

Five seconds. The Colossus roared, and the ground erupted. The light collapsed.

A third scroll. A fourth. Each time the glow gathered around him, something broke it before it could finish.

Kael wasn’t trying to kill him yet. He was simply refusing to let him leave, the way a cat refuses to let a mouse reach the wall.

Minutes dragged past, and the rest of Ironclad’s two thousand were cut down or scattered in the same grinding slaughter, until the wasteland fell quiet.

Damian Sterling stood alone.

The dust settled around him. The dead had long since dissolved into white light. Somewhere in the distance, a dropped shield rocked on the stones.

Across the broken ground, Kael walked toward him, unhurried, the lash trailing in the dirt, his eyes as cold as winter iron.

Sterling’s face went the color of ash.

But he wasn’t truly afraid. This was a game. The worst Kael could do was kill him, and a death cost a level, nothing more. He glared up at the man and bared his teeth.

"Mercer! You’ve got nerve, I’ll give you that. Enjoy the win."His voice rose, ragged and defiant.

"So you’re the best in the game. So what? All you’ll cost me is a level! I’ve got money and manpower to burn, and this barely scratched it. One day I’ll get my hands on you!"

He spat into the dust.

"You’re not even in my league. Go to hell, you jumped-up nobody!"

Kael didn’t answer. He closed the last few steps and slapped him.

It was a flat, open-handed blow with his whole weight behind it, and it spun Sterling a full half turn on his heels.

Before he could find his balance, a boot swept his legs out from under him and drove him face-first into the dirt. Kael planted a foot on the back of his head and ground it down.

"You think I can’t find you out there," he said quietly. "That’s what makes you feel invincible, isn’t it? That nobody can touch the man behind the screen."

He leaned a little harder.

"Some people don’t learn until they see the coffin."He raised his right hand and leveled two fingers at the back of Sterling’s skull.

Warden’s Mandate.

Sterling had been several levels below him to begin with, and the kicks had left him with a sliver of health. He had no way to resist what came next.

A golden rune took shape between his brows, glowing like a brand.

A crisp chime rang in Kael’s ear.

[System Notice: Warden’s Mandate successfully activated on player Goldmark.] Congratulations! You have obtained the Gold-tier companion [Goldmark]!"

Sterling went rigid. The blood drained from his face all at once, and a tremor started in his hands and climbed to his shoulders.

"What..." His voice cracked. "What did you do to me?"

Kael lifted his foot and stepped back. He glanced once at the riders circling the edge of the wasteland with their streams still running, and then spoke softly enough that only Sterling could hear.

"Go back to Westfall. Wait for me at the tavern beside East Gate Square. Speak to no one."

Everything in Sterling screamed against it. His eyes were wild, his jaw locked, and the cords of his neck stood out like rope. None of it mattered.

The Mandate left no room for refusal, and he found his hand already reaching for the scroll at his belt, shaking, obedient.

He crushed it.

This time, nothing stopped the light. Five seconds later, it carried him away, and the wasteland was empty.

Kael turned to the field behind him.

Nearly two thousand Ironclad players had died here, and the Ring of Infinite Fortune had been working the whole time. Every body had shed at least four or five pieces of gear.

Ironclad had recruited only the best the server had to offer, and these were no ordinary players. Most carried finely crafted sets, and a good number had worn full suits of gold-grade armor.

Now it all lay scattered across the cracked earth, thick as fallen leaves, glittering in the afternoon sun.

It was a fortune.

Kael had burned through millions of gold the night before, pulling the Lord’s Hall out of Ebonreach and into the real world, and he didn’t have much to spare.

He wasn’t about to leave so much as a buckle behind.It took a few minutes to sweep up every piece.

When the last item had vanished into his inventory, he crushed a return scroll of his own and left the Scarred Waste to the wind.

Behind him, the wasteland went still, exactly as it had been that morning.

The quiet didn’t last

By then, the first videos were already online, and the forums were boiling.

Dozens of viewers had cut clips from the fight and posted them within minutes, under headlines that read like movie posters:

UNRIVALED UNLEASHED: THE BATTLE THAT BROKE THE SERVER

ONE MAN. ONE GUILD. ZERO SURVIVORS.

THE IRONCLAD MASSACRE: THE FIRST GREAT TRAGEDY OF THE SERVER

They shot to the top of the front page in minutes.

Players who had missed the live stream clicked in, watched, and sat back with their mouths hanging open. Gasps went up from one end of the server to the other.

>"Holy crap. Are these clips real?"

>"Are you sure he isn’t cheating? One guy just flattened an entire guild. How is anyone supposed to compete with that?!"

>"He’s a demon. Do not poke the demon."

The clips kept spreading. They tore across the server like a storm nobody had seen coming, and the arguments spread with them, in guild halls and tavern corners and private chats across the whole map.

None of it reached Kael.

Sterling had already told him everything. The address of his hidden residence, and the homes of every officer and core player in Ironclad. 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ

Kael’s eyes glinted, cold and bright. He logged out, and the world went dark around him.