The Martial Unity

Rui was right.

Rui and Kane retreated from the fourteenth floor, leaving the Shionel Dungeon after Rui confirmed the extent of the damage from the mini-fiasco that the operation had turned out to be. They returned to back to their inn undetected via Void Step, before spending the rest of the day taking a break.

Rui completed his chores such as writing a letter informing Guildmaster Bradt of the location of the latest supplies of esoteric ore deposits, while including an updated three-dimensional map of the Shionel Dungeon as per their agreement.

On the other hand, Chairman Deacon was not having such a chill day.

In fact, any semblance of peace he was having that day had been upended when he read through the report submitted by the captain of the expedition team on the fourteenth floor.

"WHAT?!"

His bellow was loud enough to echo through the main branch of Deacon Industries, making all of his employees wonder what lit his fuse this time.

For the next few hours, Chairman Deacon poured over every word in the report one by one, digesting all the information before he finally put away the documents, before frowning.

His eyes wandered around as he clasped his hands hands together.

"Sir, the Chairman of Carlun Manufacturers has requested a meeting with you," His chief of staff informed him, breaking the silence.

replied absentmindedly. "Have Vice-Chairman Dellia

her, wanting

as he parsed through all the information that the report from the

considered everything that he had just learned. He began with what he considered to be the

disappearing,') He considered what it meant. ('It's almost certainly not literally the case that they appeared and disappeared out of existence. No Martial Arti technique in the lower Realms should be capable of such

it literally being a case of something like teleportation or something of the sort. There

inferred some basic facts. ('It's not implausible that they just temporarily entered his sensory

did not take the ambiguous report of a single patrol guard as absolute fact and was open to the idea that the report was not reflective

guard was certain that their direction of travel was towards the tunnel, not away from him. Meaning they appeared and disappeared while the distance between them was more

happened within a

His eyes

answer, of course,

team. To prevent them from witnessing something.') His eyes narrowed. ('Their goal had nothing to do with the expedition team. They didn't mount an attack on the expedition team, they did not harm them anyway. Any damage that was done to

('Was that part of the plan? Is Squire Harens

to him when he considered the

the operation didn't make sense if the attack from Squire Harens was the end objective. Such an objective was worthless by any means of

could that possibly achieve in the big

eyes narrowed. ('Thus, it can be concluded, that regardless of whether Squire Harens is a colluder or not, that attack could not have been the main objective.