Chapter 119: Top Seed

Silence filled the Grand Colosseum, quietening the sixty thousand spectators.

Down on the arena sand, the enchanted monolith had a big crack right down the middle. Blue sparks shot out from its broken gauge as Silas Drake stared at it in complete shock.

Evren walked back up the stone stairs toward Sovereign Box Four, completely calm and unbothered.

Up at the central rostrum, Grand Arbiter Kincaid stepped forward. He raised his golden gauntlet, and the chamber’s acoustic dampeners hummed to life.

"The Guild Strength Evaluations are officially concluded," Kincaid announced, his deep voice carrying clearly to every corner of the stadium.

He tapped a sequence of keys on the console.

Above the arena sands, the giant holographic leaderboard flashed to life, glowing in towering golden letters for all to see.

-

ALL-EMPIRE GUILD EVALUATION FINAL STANDINGS:

APEX GUILD — RANK: TOP SEED

Pillar One (Resonance): Mid S-Rank (14,800 Units)

Pillar Two (Speed): 29.42 Seconds (All-Empire Record)

Pillar Three (Kinetic Force): SS-Rank (35,000+ Tons)

-

SOLAR CROWN GUILD — RANK: FIRST RUNNER-UP

Pillar One (Resonance): Low S-Rank (10,200 Units)

Pillar Two (Speed): 38.10 Seconds

Pillar Three (Kinetic Force): High S-Rank (18,500 Tons)

-

A massive roar of murmurs and gasps swept through the provincial benches.

For the first time in seven years, Solar Crown had been knocked off the top pedestal. A newly registered guild from Veridia had swept every single testing array.

Up in Sovereign Box One, Silas Drake climbed back up the stairs, his knuckles white and his teeth gritted so hard his jaw ached.

Beside him, Elder Brandon Caldwell didn’t look angry. Instead, a cold, calculating smile spread across the councilman’s face.

"Calm yourself, Silas," Caldwell whispered, leaning toward Drake. "Let the boy celebrate his numbers. He just handed us the perfect legal justification."

Drake looked at him, furrowing his brow. "What do you mean?"

"Section Four of the Imperial Defense Charter," Caldwell murmured with venomous amusement. "The highest-ranked guild must be deployed to the sector of greatest strategic peril. He just earned himself an express ticket to his grave."

Down at the rostrum, Grand Arbiter Kincaid activated the realm projection. The holographic map of the twelve concentric defense rings appeared in the center of the stadium.

"Under the Imperial Defense Charter," Kincaid boomed, "the premier combat unit is assigned to the frontline epicenter."

He pointed his golden gauntlet toward the outermost circle, which pulsed with dark, jagged crimson energy.

"Apex Guild is hereby deployed to Zone One: The Outer Void Perimeter," Kincaid declared. "You will hold the primary breach front against the expanding dimensional tear."

A heavy gasp rippled through the spectators. Everyone knew Zone One was the most hostile battleground in the realm, where unstable spatial rifts appeared without warning.

Evren stood at the brass railing of Sovereign Box Four, his expression completely relaxed. Beside him, Amber and Zephyra didn’t flinch.

"Zone One," Amber murmured quietly. "Right where the real battle will be."

"Good," Evren replied softly. "No interference from Capital politics. Just open space to operate."

Across the arena, Caldwell stepped forward to the front of Sovereign Box One, tapping away on a glowing crystal tablet in his hands.

He turned on his broadcast microphone, speaking in a smooth, benevolent tone.

"Grand Arbiter Kincaid!" Caldwell called out. "In accordance with yesterday’s assembly decree, the Deployment Oversight Committee is ready to execute the Joint Pairing Mandate."

Kincaid turned his stern gaze toward Caldwell. "Proceed, Elder Caldwell. Initiate the draft."

Caldwell swiped his fingers across the tablet, and the massive stadium screens shifted to display the Imperial Pairing Registry.

For the next few minutes, the pairing draft proceeded in standard order. Several premier Capital guilds were matched with capable, well-equipped regional units to nods of approval from the stands. Solar Crown was paired with the elite Silver-Shield Guild, securing strong, reliable defensive support.

Then, Caldwell paused.

He looked down at his screen, his fingers quietly tinkering with the tablet’s input arrays for a few seconds before looking up with an air of profound statesmanship.

"To ensure that our realm’s most desperate provincial sectors receive the greatest possible protection," Caldwell declared, projecting his voice across the sixty thousand spectators, "the committee has applied an urgent strategic balancing protocol for our Sovereign Top Seed."

He tapped a final confirmation key on his slate.

Above the arena, the leaderboard updated, and a faded silver crest depicting a thorned vine flashed beside the Apex insignia.

"Apex Guild is formally paired with the Iron-Thistle Guild!" Caldwell announced.

Instant chuckles and snickers broke out among the Capital delegates.

"Iron-Thistle?" a noble in the third row laughed. "Are they serious?"

"That guild is completely ruined," another guild master whispered with a smirk. "Half their hunters are crippled from necrotic rot, their treasury is empty, and they owe millions to the pharmaceutical cartels."

"Caldwell just strapped an anchor to the delivery boy’s neck," a Capital merchant chuckled. "Let’s see him survive Zone One while carrying a pack of starving cripples."

Up in Sovereign Box One, Silas Drake smiled for the first time all morning, looking across the open floor with malicious satisfaction.

Everyone in the stadium looked toward Sovereign Box Four, expecting Evren to explode in anger, lodge a formal protest, or refuse the assignment.

Instead, Evren leaned comfortably against the railing.

"Apex Guild accepts the pairing," Evren said into his microphone with a calm, unbothered voice. "We look forward to working with Guild Master Walter."

Caldwell’s smile stiffened slightly. He had expected outrage, not casual acceptance.

"The pairings are sealed!" Grand Arbiter Kincaid struck his golden gavel against the podium. "All guilds have forty-eight hours to muster their forces at the northern deployment transit gates!"

With the session adjourned, delegates began filing out of the stands, buzzing with excitement over the upcoming frontline deployments.

Twenty minutes later, Evren, Amber, and Zephyra walked through the stone corridors beneath the Colosseum toward the lower staging depot.

Waiting near the heavy iron exit doors was a small, ragged group.

At the front stood Guild Master Walter, wearing his patched leather armor and carrying his dented iron-studded shield. His gray hair was matted with sweat, and his deep-set eyes were red with exhaustion.

Behind him, six junior hunters sat on wooden crates. Their legs and arms were wrapped in grimy, yellowish bandages that gave off a faint, sickening stench of decayed mana.

As Evren approached, Walter’s hands trembled. He dropped to one knee, lowering his head in deep shame.

"Lord Evren... Lady Amber..." Walter’s voice broke with emotion. "Please forgive us."

"We know what the High Council did," he added, his weathered face filled with grief. "They used our ruined state as a weapon to drag you down."

"Stand up, Walter," Evren said gently, stepping forward and placing a firm hand on the old man’s shoulder to lift him to his feet.

"My lord, you don’t understand," Walter pleaded, tears welling in his eyes. "Our guild treasury is empty, our fighters are poisoned with necrotic rot, and we can barely afford bread."

"If you take us into Zone One," the old man choked out, "we will only be dead weight."

"Apex doesn’t abandon allies, and we don’t treat honest fighters as dead weight," Evren said calmly.

"Now tell me the truth," Evren continued. "Why are your men in this condition? Rift wounds can be healed with standard restoration salves."

Walter clenched his fists, his expression twisting with bitter anguish.

"It’s the Aethelgard Pharmaceutical Cartel," Walter said through gritted teeth. "They control the potion distribution across the entire eastern province."

"What did they do?" Amber asked, her sharp brow furrowing with concern.

"They dilute their healing salves with toxic binding agents to maximize profits," Walter explained, his voice shaking with fury. "When our hunters used them, the wounds seemed to close on the surface, but the toxins seeped into their mana conduits, rotting the marrow from within."

"To buy more medicine to keep our men alive," Walter continued, "we had to take high-interest loans directly from Aethelgard’s finance branch. They charge five hundred times the normal rate for impure medicine. They’re bleeding us dry on purpose."

Evren’s eyes narrowed. "A deliberate medical monopoly."

"There was one person who tried to stop them," Walter whispered, looking around the hallway as if afraid the walls had ears.

"A brilliant young alchemist named Calista Vesper," Walter said softly. "She was the cartel’s chief researcher, a prodigy with rare celestial mana affinity. She discovered the adulterated formulas and refused to sign off on them."

"What happened to her?" Zephyra asked, her cold eyes sharpening.

"When Calista tried to smuggle pure healing tinctures to our wounded hunters, the cartel director framed her for corporate espionage," Walter replied. "They shattered her mana channels, threw her into a subterranean dungeon beneath Aethelgard Tower, and chained her to a forge to steal her life’s work."

"She’s dying in their cells right now," Walter said, trembling. "And without her pure medicine, my boys will lose their limbs within a week."

A deep, chilling silence settled over the corridor.

"How many men do you have with you in the Capital, Walter?" Evren asked.

Walter swallowed hard, wiping cold sweat from his brow.

"Our guild only has about forty hunters left in total, my lord," he replied quietly. "Most are back home in the eastern valleys. I brought fourteen of my boys to the Capital, hoping to plead for an imperial relief grant."

He gestured toward the six men on the crates. "These six could still hobble on crutches. The other eight are bedridden in a damp storage locker we rented near the southern rail yards. They can’t even stand."

Evren looked at the battered hunters, then glanced at Amber and Zephyra.

A discarded, crippled genius alchemist. A corrupt corporate monopoly rotting honest fighters for profit.

Evren’s lips curved into a cold, dangerous smile. He pulled his Black Card from his pocket and handed it directly to Amber.

"Nobody under Apex’s banner rots in a storage locker," Evren said calmly. "Amber, let’s get them settled in."