Chapter 97: A Massacre in Broad Daylight

Kael’s eyes snapped open the instant his consciousness resurfaced, something cold and absolute already settled behind them.

Warden’s Mandate didn’t just bind a companion’s will. It stripped away every secret they’d ever thought to keep.

He’d spent the last several minutes of that session walking Sterling through exactly that real-world address, confirmed.

Every ranking officer and core player in Ironclad’s structure, confirmed along with it. Some of them Sterling’s own trusted circle.

A few, going by names Kael recognized from a life already lived once, people who’d crossed him long before this one ever started.

Some lived together under one roof at the club’s old headquarters. Others, like Sterling himself, had scattered into private hideouts, confident that distance alone kept them safe.

Under ordinary circumstances, tracking down that many separate locations would have taken real time and real resources.

Kael didn’t need either. Walk up to the door, force the bond, extract whatever answer was needed. As long as a target logged in and Kael knew roughly where to look, nothing stayed hidden for long.

No secrets left in this world. Not from me.

He rose from the Lord’s Hall’s throne and stepped out into the afternoon light, sun bright enough overhead to sting.Kael felt no particular need to wait for one.

Broad daylight works just fine.

He pulled up the territory panel on a whim, set the Lord’s Hall’s veil active, and sent the whole structure drifting silently toward the heart of Ironport City.

Five freshly summoned Starborn Assassins joined the five already standing ready, bringing the total to ten every one of them cloaked in the same dark, hooded gear, twin daggers at their hips catching the light in a cold, thin gleam.

Kael pulled target photos and screenshots straight off Ironclad’s own official channels, projecting them into the air in front of the assembled ten.

He split them into five pairs, assigned each team a target, a location, and a clear extraction route home.

Once every team had its orders, the Lord’s Hall drifted on toward a quiet stretch of villas on the city’s outer edge.

At his signal, all ten bowed as one, vanished into stealth, and dropped from the hovering hall in five diverging arcs every pair breaking for its own target.

Level 40, every one of them, carrying stats that matched the role completely. Sterling, under Kael’s earlier order, had already pushed every Ironclad member back online to recover the ground they’d lost which meant every target sat exactly where the strike teams needed them to be, unaware and exposed.

Kael dropped from the Lord’s Hall himself a moment later, three Starborn Warriors and two Archers landing with him in the courtyard of Sterling’s villa.

He pushed the door open and stepped inside.

A figure huddled in the corner of the living room caught his eye immediately bound, clearly held against her will for some time, the kind of fear in her posture that didn’t come from a single bad night.

Ashley.

Her head snapped up the moment she registered him, disbelief breaking fast into something closer to desperate hope. She scrambled toward him, voice cracking.

"Kael you came. Please get me out of here."

"I know I messed everything up. I’ll do whatever you want, just please."

Kael looked down at her without a flicker of warmth. Whatever she’d done to land herself here, nothing about watching her beg changed what he actually thought of her.

He didn’t answer. He turned to the nearest Starborn instead."Cut her loose. Get her somewhere safe, away from this house. She’s not part of what happens here."

Not mercy. He simply had no interest in leaving a hostage situation unresolved on his way through loose ends weren’t worth the risk, whatever his personal feelings about the person attached to them.

One of Sterling’s remaining men came to investigate the noise a moment later. Kael’s Warriors ended that problem before it finished forming a question.

He moved on toward the back of the house, where Sterling already knelt, face pale with terror, surrounded by the last of his composure draining out in real time.

"Mercer." Sterling forced steadiness into his voice that didn’t remotely reach his eyes. "Think carefully before you do something you can’t walk back."

"I’ve got assets. Real money call it five billion, straight to whatever account you want. Just let this go."Kael’s hand connected before Sterling finished the sentence, the force of it spinning him half around, one side of his face swelling dark and immediate.

"Money doesn’t buy you out of this." Kael’s voice stayed level, almost bored. "You sent people to kill me in my sleep.

You’ve spent days hunting my real-world address like it was a prize. None of that gets erased with a wire transfer."

Sterling’s breath came ragged, fear finally outpacing whatever defiance he’d been running on.Kael crouched, meeting his eyes directly. "Here’s what actually happens now."

"You keep breathing. You keep your guild’s name, for whatever that’s worth after today.

And every single day from here forward, you answer to me the instant I ask something of you no delay, no negotiation, no version of this where you ever get to say no again."

"Watch everything you built come apart around you. Slowly, if it has to. That’s the whole sentence."

He straightened, turned to the Starborn flanking the doorway. "Keep him in line. He doesn’t leave this district without my say-so."

Without another glance back, Kael walked out of the villa and returned to the Lord’s Hall, still hanging silent and invisible above the rooftops.

He settled onto the throne, closed his eyes, and let his consciousness sink back into the game.

Across the city, five separate strike teams were already closing in on five separate doors, each one carrying out the same quiet, methodical business Kael had just finished here.

By the time any of Ironclad’s remaining leadership thought to check in with each other, there wouldn’t be much of a chain of command left to check in with.

The real-world business, for now, was handled.Time to see exactly what the Astral Spire had waiting for him the map that had broken more players than anyone could properly count, in a life that no longer mattered to anyone but him.