Chapter 151: The Dead Citadel

Vane leaned back against his leather sofa, tapping his long fingers against the armrest. His sharp eyes locked onto me, scanning my clothes and the lunch bag mask before drifting over to Carmilla’s calm, silent figure.

"Fair enough is right," Vane said, his voice dropping into a low, smooth tone that somehow carried over the hum of the crowd. "Most rookies who walk out of the Pit take their badges and run straight to the lower-tier job board to hunt goblin dens for pocket change. But you two... you move like professionals who aren’t interested in pocket change."

I closed my palm around the iron badge, feeling the cold metal dig into my skin. "We came here for serious contracts, Manager Vane. If you have high-value work, we have the blades."

Vane chuckled. One of the heavily armed guards standing behind his sofa shifted his weight, his hand resting tightly on the hilt of a sword.

"Having speed inside an iron cage is one thing, kid," Vane said, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees. His gaze sharpened, piercing straight through the holes of my mask. "Down here, you fought three druggies with clubs. In the real gray zones, the ruins don’t have rules, and the beasts don’t wait for a gong to ring. You claim you want high-tier work, but I don’t even know what rank your mana rests at."

"We get the job done," I replied plainly, keeping my posture entirely relaxed. "That’s the only stat that matters in an underground syndicate, isn’t it?"

"It is," Vane acknowledged, a faint, cold smile touching his lips. "Which is why I’m going to test that confidence right now. If you pass, I’ll personally unlock the central guild registry for you. If you fail... well, nobody in the eastern district will ever hear your aliases again."

Vane reached inside his black suit jacket and pulled out a thick, leather-bound dossier sealed with a red wax stamp. He tossed it onto the low glass table sitting between us.

"Three months ago, a Class-3 Dimensional Gate collapsed on the far eastern border," Vane began, his tone turning serious and businesslike. "The Hunter Association cleared the main horde, tagged the area as Sector B-4, and cordoned it off. It’s a post-apocalyptic wasteland now—burning stone ruins, collapsed skyscrapers, and ash-covered streets. Nothing but dead mana and leftover scavenger beasts."

I stepped forward, picking up the heavy dossier from the table. "What’s the contract?"

"Before the gate collapsed, an old high-ranking noble family owned a private vault inside a stone fortress at the center of that realm," Vane explained, tapping the glass table. "Our scouts confirmed that a specific relic was left behind during the collapse. It’s called the Crimson Heart—a blood-red mana crystal embedded in an antique silver casing. It’s worth over fifty million credits on the black market."

Carmilla stood quietly beside me, her hands tucked deep into her hoodie pockets. Under her dark sunglasses, I could tell her attention had sharpened slightly at the mention of a stone fortress and a noble vault, but she kept her mana suppressed so thoroughly that she seemed like a ghost.

"Why hasn’t your guild retrieved it already?" I asked, flipping open the dossier to view the blurred satellite maps of Sector B-4.

"Because Sector B-4 is a dead zone," Vane said, his eyes narrowing. "The air is poisoned with residual gate dust. Electronics fried, spatial compasses spin in circles, and the ruins are infested with C-rank Ash Stalkers—monsters that hunt in packs and hide inside the grey dust clouds. I sent a four-man party of B-rank mercenaries in there last week. Only one came back, and he lost both his arms."

Vane stood up from the leather sofa, adjusting his black suit sleeves. He walked up until he was standing just three feet away from us, his tall frame casting a dark shadow over the concrete floor.

"I am questioning your abilities, Ghost," Vane spoke directly to my face, his voice cold as ice. "You look like a low-rank scout who got lucky with a dagger, and your friend back there hasn’t even taken her hands out of her pockets. I don’t send valuable contract maps to corpses. Prove to me that you can survive Sector B-4 and bring back the Crimson Heart by midnight."

"And what’s our cut?" I asked smoothly, closing the dossier with a sharp snap.

"Forty percent of the black-market payout," Vane replied. "Plus full access to my private enforcer boards. Do we have a deal?"

"We have a deal," I said.

Without another word, I turned on my heel and walked away from the pillar. Carmilla fell into step right beside me, her heavy boots clicking rhythmically against the floorboards as the surrounding crowd of rough hunters cleared a wide path for us once again.

We walked up the concrete tunnel, past the heavy steel door, and stepped back out into the bright sunlight of the industrial district.

The fresh, cool air hit my face as I pulled off my mask, taking a deep breath to clear my lungs of the stale underground smell.

"Sector B-4..." I muttered, pulling out my phone to cross-reference the coordinates written inside the dossier.

"Woo Jin," Carmilla spoke softly, her voice low as she adjusted her dark beanie. "A dead stone citadel filled with ash... that realm sounds like one of the outer border territories of my home world before everything fully collapsed."

I looked at her, surprised. "Really?"

"Yes," Carmilla nodded, her red eyes visible behind her tinted sunglasses. "

’So Sector B-4 is another piece of the interconnected web of worlds,’ I thought to myself, remembering how gates connected different locations and times. ’A ruined piece of Carmilla’s former realm that bled into Earth months ago.’

"Can you handle going back into a place like that?" I asked gently, looking into her face. "If it brings back bad memories—"

"I am fine, Woo Jin," Carmilla interrupted with a small, reassuring smile. "I am not a fragile child anymore. Beside, we are doing this for your mission. Let us go retrieve this silver casing."

We hailed a private black-market transport van near the edge of the industrial district. The driver—a quiet, scarred old man paid directly by The Black Faction—didn’t ask a single question as we climbed into the back seat.

For an hour, the van drove far beyond the city limits, passing through abandoned highway checkpoints and rusted warning signs put up by the Hunter Association. The bright green trees and paved roads slowly disappeared, replaced by cracked earth, withered grey grass, and a thick, foggy mist that hung heavy in the air.

By 12:30 PM, the van screeched to a halt at the edge of a massive, rusted perimeter fence.

"This is as far as I go, kids," the driver grunted through the front partition, keeping his engine idling. "Sector B-4 is right past that broken gate. I’ll wait here until midnight. If you’re not back by then, I’m driving home without you."

"Fair enough," I said.

Carmilla and I stepped out of the van into the chilly, silent air of Sector B-4.

The sight before us was haunting. The sky above was a dull, bruised shade of purple and grey, completely blocking out the sun.

As far as the eye could see, the remains of an ancient alien city were merged messily with ruined modern human buildings.

Crumbling stone pillars stood side-by-side with shattered glass skyscrapers. The ground was covered in a thick layer of fine, silver-grey ash that swirled softly whenever the cold wind blew.

Silence hung over the wasteland like a heavy blanket. There were no birds, no city noises, and no signs of life—only the distant, low whistle of the wind blowing through hollow stone arches.

"It really is a dead world," I murmured, pulling my leather jacket tighter around my chest as I looked out over the ash-covered ruins.

Carmilla took a step forward, her leather boots sinking slightly into the soft grey ash. She pulled down her sunglasses, letting her dark red eyes take in the ruined landscape.

"This was the Eastern Citadel of the Blood Crest Province," Carmilla whispered, her voice carrying a quiet, tragic weight. "My mother used to send grain shipments through these roads. Now... it is just dust."

"We’ll get the relic and get out quickly," I said softly, placing a hand on her shoulder. "Which way is the central vault?"

Carmilla raised her hand, pointing her slender finger toward the center of the ruined city, where a massive, half-collapsed stone fortress loomed against the dark sky like a giant broken crown.

"The main keep is two miles ahead," Carmilla said, her tone turning focused and sharp. "The royal vault lies beneath the main throne room. But Woo Jin... look at the ash near the base of those ruined walls."

I narrowed my eyes, focusing my vision on the grey dust fifty yards ahead.

Scattered across the ash were dozens of deep, three-clawed footprints. Beside the footprints were the picked-clean bones of large animals and the shattered pieces of human tactical armor left behind by previous hunter parties.

SKRRRRITCH...

A low, grating sound echoed from the shadows of a nearby collapsed stone building.

From the thick grey mist, three creatures slowly slithered out onto the ash-covered street. They were Ash Stalkers—horrifying, four-legged beasts about the size of a wolf, but their bodies were completely skinless, made of hardened, obsidian-like rock and burning grey embers. Their eyes glowed with an eerie, hungry red light, and long, jagged bone blades protruded from their shoulders.

GRRRRRRRR...