Chapter 570: Information Broker In The Tournament Of Succession [Bonus - ]

Chapter 570: Information Broker In The Tournament Of Succession [Bonus Chapter]

The quartz hands he had just formed started to groan with the artificial joints fusing together into brittle useless lumps under the ungodly temperature!

’Move!’ Tariq’s mind screamed through the panic but he didn’t run as there was nowhere left to run.

Tariq roared, throwing his remaining soul-power into his quartz forearms.

"Wrath of the Thousand Scorpions!"

BOOM-BOOM-BOOM!

Thirty massive barbed tendrils of compressed quartz and bedrock erupted from the surrounding dunes, screaming through the air like ballista bolts, aiming straight for her throat, her chest, and her limbs from every conceivable angle.

He flipped backward off the glass rim with his feet touching the earth as he channeled every remaining grain of sand into a continuous, rolling barrage of razor-sharp projectiles... however Seraphina didn’t even draw a blade.

She blinked.

FSSSSSSSSSH!

Sera simply waved her right hand outward and a single rippling wave of silver-white fire washed through the airspace!

The thirty quartz tendrils instantly liquefied into glowing glass syrup, redirected mid-flight and splashing harmlessly across the ground like molten paint.

Seraphina ran downward.

Her boots hit the vitrified slope with the glass cracking beneath her accelerated momentum with sharp musical pings as she closed the distance in a fraction of a second!

She raised her right palm, a tennis-ball-sized orb of compressed silver-white solar fire condensing between her fingers.

"Die properly this time," she whispered.

She hurled the orb.

WHOOSH!

The white fireball tore through the sound barrier, dragging a vacuum funnel of superheated air behind it.

Tariq Al-Mansur saw the white light rushing toward his face.

’I’m done...’

He saw the outline of death itself looking cold and unavoidable.

’I tried my best...’

Tariq did the only thing he could do... He closed his eyes, bracing for the total erasure of his soul—

DING!

A fraction of a microsecond before the solar fire could vaporize his skull, the emergency transponder pinned to his lapel detonated with blinding light.

The spatial fabric warped with authoritative force.

Tariq’s physical body, along with the scattered glass shards of Safira’s frozen corpse across the dunes, dissolved simultaneously into millions of shimmering ethereal white particles, surging upward into the clouds as the World Council’s emergency extraction protocol ripped them clean out of the realm.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

The silver-white fireball detonated against empty dirt, tearing a hundred-yard crater into the desert floor that sent shockwaves rolling for miles.

Seraphina skidded to a halt on the edge of the blast zone with the silver-white flames slowly receding from her hair and the runic mark fading back into her porcelain skin as her locks returned to their natural deep crimson.

BZZZZZZZZT.

From the purple sky above, the flat broadcast chime echoed across Sector Forty-Four.

"Notice of Official Withdrawal."

"The representatives of the Khemet have suffered critical combat casualties and have been extracted from the field... Khemet is eliminated from the tournament bracket."

Seraphina stood in the smoking crater, blinking once and then twice.

"Cowards," she spat, her hands dropping to her hips with a loud disgusted huff. "Such cowards... Making me drop into Spirit fusion just to tap an emergency extraction button! What a waste of good mana."

She rolled her shoulders, shaking the heat haze from her leather bracers, feeling the familiar hollow fatigue that always followed a brief Spirit merge.

She needed to clear the taste of sulfur from her mouth.

Looking across the jagged salt flats toward the western foothills, something caught her eye.

Two miles away, nestled at the base of a jagged sandstone ridge where the badlands bled into the river basin, a massive cylindrical pillar of pale-blue energy was humming against the sky.

...A Safe Zone.

Seraphina scoffed as she had zero interest in cowering inside an administrative resting dome since the ten-minute timers were traps for wounded dogs.

Yet as she narrowed her ruby eyes, peering through the shimmering heat distortion at the center of the blue dome...

Her jaw dropped.

"No way," Seraphina muttered, her eyebrows shooting up into her hairline. "Are you kidding me?"

She kicked off the dirt, striding toward the blue beacon with quick angry steps.

...

Inside the perimeter of the Safe Zone, the atmosphere was offensively peaceful.

The cerulean barrier did not just suppress external mana, it completely neutralized environmental heat, dropping the temperature down to a cool breezy twenty-two degrees.

A tiny, crystal-clear spring bubbled up from a crack in the sandstone, feeding a small lush grove of dwarf date palms that rustled softly in the artificial breeze.

Sitting cross-legged on a smooth, flat boulder beside the water, completely bare-chested, was Valerius Sterling.

The young heir of House Sterling wore only a pair of lightweight canvas combat trousers rolled up to his calves, his pale, lean torso showing several old dueling scars.

In his right hand, he held a freshly cleaved coconut, sipping casually from a hollow reed straw while humming a jaunty off-key tune from a movie he had seen recently.

’How do I get Silas’s number...?’ Valerius mused, staring lazily at the rippling surface of the spring.

It was a serious dilemma.

They were friends.

They had shared food, survived in a secret realm, and Silas also took most of his treasure. What kind of respectable friend didn’t have his comrade’s direct comm-line?

It wasn’t like Valerius had a massive circle of confidants to lean on.

Despite his noble title, most high scions avoided him because of his family’s chaotic history.

The only person who consistently tolerated his presence was Seraphina and when he had cornered Sera in the staging pavilion this morning, politely asking for Silas’s contact information, she had immediately bristled, bared her teeth like a feral badger, and threatened to singe his eyebrows off if he ever asked again.

’She’s guarding that comm-code like it’s an ancient relic,’ Valerius thought with a quiet rueful sigh, taking another sip of coconut water. ’She probably keeps it locked in an adamantine vault inside her vanity table. What a ridiculous wo—’

WHOOSH... SLAM!

The cerulean barrier rippled violently as a figure tore through the threshold, landing heavily on the grass three paces from his boulder.

Seraphina Bloom stood there, covered in soot, her leather armor radiating residual furnace heat and her ruby eyes blazing with fury.

"Valerius!" she roared, her voice echoing off the palm fronds. "What in the seven hells are you doing in here?!"

Valerius didn’t even drop his coconut. He slowly lifted his head, blinking through his messy dark hair, offering her a lazy lopsided grin.

"Oh. Hey, Sera," Valerius greeted her pleasantly, taking a slow sip through his reed straw. "You look warm. Want some coconut? The water in here is actually shockingly sweet. I think the administrative staff seeded the aquifer with glucose filters."

"Are you out of your mind?!" Seraphina snapped, storming toward him, her combat boots tearing up the manicured grass. "People are tearing each other to pieces across this sector! Kara White just vaporized a mountain peak and I just slaughtered the Khemet people... Then you are sitting here half-naked, drinking fruit juice like you’re on a holiday in the southern archipelago?!"

’Oh so she was the one that did that? It’s not surprising though.’

Sera was really strong.

"Well, yeah," Valerius said, shrugging with shameless ease. "Who wants to fight in this heat? Fighting is sweaty. It’s loud... People keep shouting ridiculous technique names before they swing so I decided about four minutes after landfall that this whole tournament was an administrative disaster."

"I am going to incinerate your stupid face," Seraphina growled, rearing her right fist back with her jaw clenching as she prepared to unleash a point-blank blast of solar flame.

CLICK!

Nothing happened.

Seraphina froze, staring down at her unblemished inert knuckles in wide-eyed bewilderment.

Valerius pointed his reed straw at the glowing blue ceiling above them.

"Safe Zone, Sera," Valerius reminded her gently, shaking his head. "This is a non-combat zone and all internal offensive mana pathways are artificially dampened by the field spell... You couldn’t light a candle in here if you had a box of matches."

Seraphina’s teeth ground together with a harsh scrape with her fingers curled into tight fists as the veins stood out along her forearms.

"I don’t need magic to break your jaw," she hissed, taking a heavy step forward.

"Don’t shoot the messenger!" Valerius yelped, leaning backward on his boulder and holding the coconut up like a shield. "I’m running an essential public utility here!"

Before Seraphina could close the distance, the cerulean barrier flickered once more.

THUD!

A second figure dropped into the oasis, landing cleanly on the grass beside the spring.

It was Rook Sterling, Valerius’s first cousin and the second representative of House Sterling.

Rook wore full matte-black reconnaissance gear, three optical scopes strapped across his chest harness, and a thick leather courier pouch slung over his shoulder.

He looked exhausted, covered in a fine layer of gray dust with his knuckles scraped raw from climbing the rocky escarpments.

"Val," Rook grunted, unzipping the pouch and pulling out a thick sheaf of high-resolution photographic plates. "I swept the northern rim and the lower caldera corridors... Got the full spread."

"Beautiful work, cousin," Valerius said, setting his coconut down and taking the stack of images with a bright smile. "See? Professionalism."

Seraphina looked between the two cousins, her brow furrowing in deep, profound confusion.

"What is this? What are you doing with optical prints?"

Valerius flipped through the top three photographs, nodding approvingly before glancing up at her.

"Look, Sera, let’s be realistic," Valerius said, his tone turning surprisingly grounded. "Rook and I are solid casters, but we aren’t equipped to box with the apex freaks in this bracket... You’ve got Kara White throwing attacks around, Alexander running loose with his royal ego, and you running around turning people into chandeliers. If Rook and I try to play the hero, we’re leaving this arena in pine boxes."

Seraphina crossed her arms with her ruby eyes narrowing.

’Bullshit,’ she thought immediately.

Valerius was strong.

He was significantly stronger than he ever gave himself credit for.

He possessed a dense Second Stage core and an extraordinarily rare wind affinity that also let him redirect impacts with terrifying precision.

During their childhood sparring matches, he had deflected her fireballs more times than she cared to remember.

The only real issue with Valerius was his head.

Ever since they were seven years old, he had suffered from a pathological urge to downplay his own capabilities and Seraphina knew exactly whose fault that was... His mother.

That wretched venomous woman had spent a decade constantly telling Valerius he was an unremarkable, second-rate spare before she eventually packed her bags, emptied half the family’s western bank vaults, and ran off with an Albion guild merchant.

The emotional rot had set deep into his bones so Seraphina had sworn years ago that if she ever crossed paths with the woman in an open street, she would crush her skull against the curb without asking for a name first.

Unfortunately, the woman had vanished into the unregulated border territories, leaving Valerius with this pathetic self-deprecating complex.

"So," Valerius continued, fanning the photographs out across the flat surface of the rock. "We adapted... We’re providing an essential market service which is tactical intelligence. We’ve mapped the coordinates, defensive formations, and lingering mana signatures of every major fighter left on the board. You looking for someone specific?"

Seraphina paused.

Her initial instinct was to tell him to choke on his coconut, but practical reality asserted itself.

Sector Forty-Four covered thousands of square miles of fractured badlands, underground aqueducts, and shifting dunes.

Combing the entire zone on foot while burning her core to run down signatures would take hours.

"Alexander," Seraphina said. "Where is the Crown Prince?"

Valerius’s eyebrows twitched as a slow knowing smirk spread across his face.

"Ah," he murmured. "Going for the big fish."

He shuffled through the stack of photographs, his fingers sliding two plates aside before pulling out a crisp aerial print taken from the high crags above the western mesa.

He held it out...

Seraphina stepped forward, snatching the photograph from his fingers.

The image was sharp as it showed a desolate, shadow-draped ravine nestled deep within the jagged basalt towers of the western rim.

Leaning against a massive, cracked granite monolith in the center of the clearing was Crown Prince Alexander.

Even in the still print, his arrogant blue-haired silhouette was unmistakable.

Seraphina flipped the paper over.

Written across the back in Rook’s precise, military shorthand were six lines of dense topographical coordinates, elevation markers, and wind-shear vectors.

One needed an advanced comprehension of military cartography to decipher the route, but Seraphina had been drilled in terrain navigation since she was six.

She understood the map instantly.

’Well good work, not like I’ll ever tell him that...’

She moved to tuck the photograph into the inner pocket of her strike cuirass—

SWOOSH!

Valerius’s fingers snapped forward, catching the corner of the print and pulling it back out of her reach.

Seraphina’s ruby eyes flared with dangerous heat. "What do you think you’re doing?"

"Business is business, Sera," Valerius said smoothly, tapping the edge of the print against his knee. "Information has value... You want the coordinates, you have to pay the toll."

"With what?" Seraphina snapped, crossing her arms. "Do you see a phone on my hip? What am I supposed to pay you with, desert rocks?"

"Non-aggression," Valerius answered immediately. "A formal verbal covenant. You agree that House Bloom will not target, engage, or eliminate the representatives of House Sterling for the remainder of this tournament. We stay in our little oasis, you go hunt the royal family, and nobody gets burned..."