The first Guild fighter shifted his weight onto his right leg.
I had not been arrested yet. No one had touched me. The titanic beast's core was in the hands of Kane's bodyguard, and Styx sat by my shoulder.
That was enough.
The fighter extended a hand. A blue seal flared on his glove, and an invisible wave swept through the hall. The hunters' beasts flattened themselves against the floor. Some lost their mental bond; others fell to their knees beside their beasts.
The Guild was prepared to suppress beast tamers inside its own building.
Styx vanished.
The seal passed through her spectral body without resistance. The violet spark reappeared behind the fighter, and the thunder stinger touched his neck. I stopped the venom before it reached his heart. The fighter collapsed, but kept breathing.
Kane raised a hand, and four bodyguards spread out in a semicircle to block the exits. Metal posts topped with red crystals rose from the floor, a trembling net stretching between them.
I felt the swarm outside. After the Wildlands, most of it had remained beyond the city wall, but I had hidden several hundred soldiers in the Guild's ventilation shafts while the assessor sorted through the spoils. Now they were trying to enter the hall and breaking against the field.
"Do not resist," Kane said. "The suppression seals are designed for B-rank beasts. Your mosquito will not survive a second pulse."
He spoke calmly because he did not want Styx dead. He wanted her intact.
The bodyguard holding the core stood behind the others. His right hand gripped the black case, while his left rested on the hilt of a short sword.
I looked at Styx.
"New ability. Puppet Parasite."
She understood whom I had chosen. The violet point slipped into spectral flight and passed through the edge of the defensive net. The bodyguard felt a sting behind his ear, slapped the skin and found nothing.
The next second, his fingers opened by themselves and the case containing the core fell. The man tried to bend down, but his body no longer obeyed him. His right leg stepped forwards. His hand picked up the case and threw it over the fighters' heads.
I caught the core.
Along with the bodyguard's movements, someone else's memories burst into my mind.
Kane had been waiting for me. Before I even arrived at the Guild, a queen's cage had been placed by the rear entrance and a clerk had prepared a confiscation order with the owner's name left blank. All they had to do was fill in the name of whoever brought in the thunder core.
I saw a room on the second floor. Kane was telling the bodyguard that Leon had found the host of a forbidden swarm. He ordered him to seize the core, provoke resistance and link the boy to the Demon Cult. If I accepted the hundred credits, they would let me go and find me later. If I refused, they would have legal grounds to detain me.
Someone else's fear followed the memory. With it came a name: the bodyguard was called Arden.
Arden felt everything. He saw through his own eyes, heard the hall around him and could not stop his hand. His terror was so intense that for a moment I forgot where Arden ended and I began.
Styx emerged from his neck. The man fell and scrabbled desperately away from me.
"So the order was prepared in advance," I said.
Kane did not answer. He merely turned his wrist, the movement almost imperceptible.
The red crystals flared a second time.
This time Styx did not manage to become fully spectral. The field struck our bond. My vision went dark, and she fell onto the counter.
The core in my hand answered with lightning.
The glass on the counter burst. A blue discharge leapt to the nearest post, overloaded the crystal and tore open one side of the net.
Hundreds of soldiers poured from the ventilation shafts.
The hunters in the hall screamed. Some summoned their beasts; others ran for the walls. The Guild fighters covered their faces, expecting venom.
I could have killed them all. All I had to do was order the swarm into their eyes and throats. The System was already marking the people as hostile targets and promising evolution points.
But dozens of bodies would turn Kane's lie into a convenient truth.
"Paralyse. Do not feed."
The soldiers attacked exposed skin and injected small doses of venom. The fighters fell one after another, still conscious. The swarm did not touch the onlookers.
The assessor who had held my core a minute earlier saw everything. He saw the waiting cage, the seals and my refusal to slaughter anyone.
Kane retreated towards the stairs. Behind him, the outline of his own beast appeared for the first time: a long body covered in white plates and a serpent's head with a golden ring around its eyes.
An A-rank chain basilisk.
It did not attack. Kane could not unleash enough force to destroy half the Guild while hunters and witnesses surrounded him.
I picked Styx up from the counter. She spread her wings again, but one moved more slowly than the others.
"Tell Leon," I said to Kane, "that he is not getting the core."
The swarm struck the ceiling windows. Glass showered outwards, and I left through the opening with the dark torrent.
Behind me, Kane gave the order to seal the city.
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