Chapter 682: Visitors

Their escort eventually led them into a private hall that looked less like a room and more like a luxury suite suspended inside an enormous bubble. Plush seating curved around the edges, tables had already been covered with enough food to feed a small army, and beyond the transparent walls the entire auction platform stretched out far below them while distant stars filled everything beyond it.

Grey walked toward the edge and looked down, his eyes easily picking out the stage despite the distance separating them from it. After a moment, he glanced back toward Sabrina, Lilac, James and Duke.

"Can you guys actually see from up here?"

They all moved closer to the glass and tried.

Duke eventually shrugged. "Not really, but it’s not like I’m buying anything anyway."

His attention shifted almost immediately toward the nearest table, where meats, fruits and several things Grey couldn’t identify had been arranged in elaborate displays. Duke stared at them for a few seconds before looking back over his shoulder.

"More important question, is this shit gonna make me explode?"

Grey laughed. "Maybe. I actually have no idea."

"Fuck."

Duke took one cautious step away from the food, then looked around the hall as though trying to find some other use for the place.

"Can I at least get some sexy aliens to dance for me?"

Almost as if the room had been waiting for him to ask, a side entrance opened and several women stepped through wearing layers of mesh and nearly transparent silk. Their skin ranged from deep violet to soft pink, and one of them crossed the room without hesitation before slipping an arm around Duke’s and beginning to lead him away.

Duke looked completely stunned for a second, then snapped his head toward Grey.

"Grey, I’ve never asked you for anything in my life, but if you don’t give me some cheat code to becoming strong, I swear I’m gonna tell everybody what happened in the locker room that day."

Grey’s expression changed instantly. "You wouldn’t fucking dare."

"Try me!"

Duke yelled it while the woman continued dragging him away, and his laughter disappeared behind one of the curtains before Grey could threaten him again. Grey’s lip twitched as he slowly turned back, only to find Sabrina and Amunet staring holes through him.

"Don’t look at me like that. I’m innocent of all charges."

Neither of them looked even slightly convinced, but before Grey could begin defending himself, another attendant stepped through the main entrance. This one was tall and narrow, with three eyes spread across a face covered in reflective scales that shifted between silver, green and blue whenever the light struck them.

"Grey Temolt, a guest has requested access to your private domicile."

Grey raised an eyebrow. "Can they attack to kill in here?"

"They cannot."

"And how do you make certain of that?"

The attendant gestured toward the walls surrounding them. "Each private domicile is protected by Paragon Class formations designed to prevent lethal force from being expressed against registered occupants or guests, and anything capable of bypassing those restrictions would first have to overcome the formation itself."

Grey’s eyes narrowed at that.

Paragon.

He looked upward and spread his perception through the room, trying to trace the formation hidden within the walls. The structure repeatedly slipped away from his senses whenever he thought he had found one of its edges, but after struggling with it for a while, Grey finally caught enough of the pattern to understand that the attendant wasn’t exaggerating.

"Alright. Let them in."

The attendant bowed and stepped aside, and not long after, something mechanical entered through the doorway.

Grey had never seen anything quite like it. A dark metallic core hung at the center of several rotating rings while articulated limbs shifted around the body in a way that made its shape seem almost temporary, and smaller mechanical pieces floated near the main frame as though constantly reorganizing themselves around whatever task came next.

Grey had expected an Elemental, but this was definitely not that.

The machine towered over him as it approached, but Grey merely folded his arms and looked ahead without changing his posture.

"So you are Grey Temolt."

"In the flesh."

Axion-9 studied him for a few seconds.

"I expected more."

Grey yawned and rubbed at one eye.

It probably would have annoyed Axion-9 less if Grey had been doing it on purpose, but the truth was that Grey really was exhausted. He had spent most of the previous day trying to calculate the formation parameters himself just in case something went wrong with the auction, and all he’d really succeeded in doing was proving that Prometheus had not been joking about how impossible the workload was without those Blue Cyber Cores.

Axion-9 chuckled instead of taking offense.

"I came to see the Mech Tech valuable enough to take the headliner position from me. I’m not ashamed to admit that your listing displaced one of my completed mechs, and Great Udon seems convinced that you possess enough talent to challenge the Para Bot Race in crafting."

Grey gave him a tired look. "Okay."

Axion-9 paused for half a second before continuing. "Would you—"

The door opened again before he could finish, and the same scaled attendant stepped inside.

"Grey Temolt, another guest is requesting entry."

Grey groaned and dragged a hand down his face.

Sabrina looked over at him. "What? Weren’t you very happy about being popular five minutes ago?"

"That’s only when I’m showing off for pretty ladies. This is just annoying."

Grey was about to tell the attendant no when he remembered the other half of the reason he had put those blueprints up for auction in the first place. After a moment, he sighed and nodded.

"Fine. Let them in."

The attendant bowed again, and almost immediately the temperature in the room began to rise.

James and Lilac tensed as heat rolled through the private hall, while the decorative silks near the entrance lifted beneath the pressure following whoever was approaching. Grey’s aura spread through the room before anyone else needed to react, covering his people and keeping the air around them comfortably cool even as the doorway seemed to glow.

Then the newcomer stepped inside wearing a perfectly tailored tuxedo.

Grey’s eyes narrowed.

He highly doubted Fire Elementals had independently arrived at the exact same formalwear as Earth, which meant the outfit was a message in itself. Whoever had come here wanted Grey to notice that he understood the customs being used tonight, or at the very least wanted him to know that the effort had been made.

The figure stood even taller than Axion-9, his humanoid shape formed from tightly controlled red-gold flame that gave off surprisingly little wasted heat considering the pressure rolling from him. Thin bands of metal rested around his wrists and neck, and his burning features had been compressed into something close enough to a human face that the black tuxedo somehow looked natural.

Aelthar Infernis.

Among the Fire Elementals, his position stood above even the Four Infernal Princes, the inheritor whose claim had become strong enough that those beneath him were treated more like supporting contenders than true rivals. He was also one of the Seven Betting Favorites, one of the handful of Candidates the largest powers in Genesis had been willing to place serious expectations on long before Grey Temolt started ruining everyone’s predictions.

Axion-9 turned toward him, but Aelthar barely acknowledged the movement.

His attention settled directly on Grey.

Grey slipped both hands into his pockets while the heat continued building around them, his posture remaining loose as his own aura quietly stopped it from reaching anyone behind him. The motion pushed his black suit jacket back slightly and exposed the edge of his white cuff, along with a small portion of the bracelet resting beneath it.

Aelthar’s eyes dropped and the Infernal Temper Band gave the faintest pulse.

Grey’ grin slowly widened.