With the annoying young masters shut up and left behind they slowly and leasurely moved on to their next destination, which just so happened to be the gate district. Any large city that was considered important enough by their countries had one, that connected to a certain number of other cities that either shared the general purpose or was some sort of an ally or a backer. Rex, noticing her unease, understood what was causing her to worry, so he created a barrier around them that was quite small in scope but very potent, then he started the conversation

"I have deployed a barrier, so no one should be able to eavesdrop. What is it that you want to ask me? I can see you are quite anxious."

"Even I could see their lust and greed filled eyes as they approached, and I have a suspicion that they might try something shady to retaliate for the humiliation they suffered. And while I doubt they have the means to trully harm us, whatever they use against us should at the very least be a nuisance, if not more."

"Yes Vivian, I could sense quit large amount of anger and indignation in their eyes and that would surely draw some sort of a retaliation, but that is exactly what we want. The bigger the offense , the better we can fleece their houses. Or am I mistaken in my assesment?" Understanding dawned on her face to the true target of his actions.

"So thats why you added fuel to the fire by doubling down on my harsh judgement about their trashy skills when compared to sect disciples. It draws an almost guaranteed retaliation towards us, since if I was alone, they would probably not have the balls to do so fearing the revenge from my sect. But with you there, they have an unafiliated outlet of their rage that at the same time also serves as a revenge towards me since my attempts to recruit you would fail after their actions. And if it was important enough, I could even be punished by the sect. Quite devious of you, master."

Rex smiled at her analysis, and noded affirming her guesses, and chuckling at the flirtatious way she spoke the last word, that was coupled with her playfully biting her lower lip.

"Come now Vivian, keep yourself together while we are in public, you still have an image to keep, and a role to play in this little game of ours." She quickly calmed her expression and returned to her fully serious and calm demeanor, and a slight smile appeared on her lips as she heard his whisper her ear

"Later in the evening you will get your reward. I am disspelling the barrier, so spies will hear us again from now on."

With that said he proceeded and disspelled his barrier, while maintaing silence for the most part, and only sometimes would he ask a question or two regarding the place they would be passing by at the given moment. They also stopped at a few other small street pedler stalls, with Rex sometimes asking a thing or two about something in said vendors stall. But despite his interest he actually very rarely bought the item that had peaked his interest.

And so in a rather relaxed manner they had spent almost an hour in their leasurely walk towards the gate district, and Rex believed it was enough time granted for the three fools to set up their plans, so now all he needed was for their hired hands to act, then extract as much info as possible, and if the trio were dumb enough to act on their own and without properly masking their own trail he would be even more thankfull to the three fat lambs that stepped up for the chopping block.

As they approached the gate district he could feel more and more of the curious eyes on his back, almost all of them with less than stellar intent. Rex had to admit, the sheer quantity of the mercs the trio had asambled had surpassed any of his previous expectations, but it was nowhere near enough to even make him warm up, let alone be hurt or killed. Rex was slightly worried that if he were to murder indiscriminately, and someone speaks, he would be annoyed about the fast spereading legend in of another monster surfacing and anihilating the group. Besides he was in no mood right now to sack a city and indulge in the pleasure of rending and tearing flesh, even if his dragon blood called otherwise.

When Rex and Vivian noticed the gate district as they took another turn around yet another corner, finaly their pursuers took action, and a single rather well dresed man approached the duo walking calmly and exuding an air of nobility.

"My apologies for the sudden intrusion, but my conscience does not allow me to ignore his sight before me. This humble mans name is Reigen, and I happen to run a rather traditional jewelery shop nearby." He fished out a few jeweleries from his pockets and showed them to the duo. "There is this one piece that this humble merchant believes would suit the young lady perfectly, and I would be more than willing to part with it for a heavily reduced price. I would give it up for free if it was not so valuable, and I was not in such a desperate need for the funds to keep the establishement open."

Rex lightly chuckled, then spoke "Well, might as well have a look at that jewelery of yours. I might just be able to score with it." then Rex chuckled once more when he felt a sharp killing intent dirrected towards him from a few places where their stalkers were. 'Hmm, Vivian sure has some admirers' Rex thought to himself as he followed Reigen and Vivian did the same. A couple of minutes later they entered a nicely decorated building that indeed housed a jewelery shop, and for the shortest moment Rex had a thought that the man might be unrelated to the thugs following them, but said though quickly dissapeared as he felt dozens of people with a rather foul energies swirling around them hiding in the corners and behind certain few curtains. Sure they had some talismans that were meant to hide their presence, but Rex could easily see through them all, since said talismans unnaturaly disturbed the energy where they were deployed.

"So, where is this perfect jewelery fit for Vivian?" Rex asked, seemingly quite imatient to impress the girl who was acompanying him. That caused Reigen to furrow his brows, then turn aroudn and speak in less polite and friendly manner

"I am sorry to inform you that there is no such thing. I just needed to lure you here. You have offended the wrong people, and for that, you will pay dearly." then he turned to Vivian "Miss Vivian, would you be so kind as to leave this place. We would rather not hurt you, since it would be quite detrimental for every party involved. What is about to happen should not be witnesed by someone as beautifull both in looks and spirit."

"Yes Vivian," Rex added "I would prefer you dont see what is about to happen, since this exelency finds being lied to quite the offence, and punishable quite severely." He then grinned sinisterily, causing the man to once again frown. Where does the youngster in fron of him draw his confidence from? He should be only A class entity with the aura he was releasing. Then when he sensed a slight stirr in the air as a pulse of mana passed through him, Reigen screamed as he catapulted himself back, widening the range between himself and Rex

"HE'S A MAGE! TAKE HIM DOWN!" Immediatly afterwards the people in hiding shot towards Rex, trying to take the youngster down as fast as possible to ensure no shenanigans from the mage could come through. And while Reigan was innitially one of teh closest people to Rex, he have had his fair share of experiences with mages where he learned an important truth- nerver ever rush at the mage without knowing what you are dealing with, since that could be even more dangerous than runing away more often than not. So he had developed a strategy were he would just trow some stupid or expendable front line newbies at the mage untill he had learned everything he needed to extrapulate a safe strategy to take the mage down, if he is not neutralized by the rushing meat shields due to some lucky strike.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Unfortunately for him, and his compatriots, nothing else happened related to the magical arts, since Rex used superior movement speed, reflexes and precise strikes to permanently put to sleep all the assailants. Vivian had jumped back away from Rex the moment Reigen screamed out teh order to attack, and she was standing in one of teh now vacant corners as she was spectating the one sided masacre. Rex masterfully and with minimalistic movements either dodged the strikes, that followed with a single yet efficient and brutal counterattack that killed said attacker, ussualy by either caving in their skull due to the power and speed of the strike, or by piercing attackers heart as his strike shattered assailants ribs, which then punctured said mans blood pumping organ.

Reigen watched in shock and horror at the smailing youth who seemed to enjoy snuffing out the lives of those poor bastards that desperatly tried to end the life of this mage before he would start casting, and during this moment of horror, a terrifying idea surfaced in the masn brain 'what if the youth is a warrior who has enough tallent to produce such a mana pulse to make the enemy panic and attack him with reckless abandon, where he could employ his full capabilities as a front line fighter?' said thought scared Reigen even more, because then the youth would not only have monstrous tallent but a sharp mind as well, and that would make him a true monster. Monster of the unique kind that reigen simply refused to engage in any entanglement with.

"FUCK! THOSE DAMN IDIOTS!" he cursed, turned around bolted for the hidden back door of the building. He was not going to stay here and die for the stupidity of those three brats who hired him, totaly diseragarding his own part of the blame for not evaluating his oponent properly during the time he staked him. In Reigens defence, Rex was aware of his stalkers all along so played along and ensured that he did not seem anywhere near as dangerous as he would ussually appear. He even fakeda few airheaded adn clumsy moments to lull Reigen in a false security, so the mercenary would act.

In less than a minute Reigen had dashed from the room, then leaped through the buildings window, and rused away to the nearest back alley, and as he was closing to the corner, he suddenly struck some invisible object and bounced a bit back, stumbling to the ground. "ARGHHH" he grunted heavily adn clucked his head, then stod up and extended his hand untill it touched a transparent object of some sort. His eyes widened in terror for a moment and he quickly used both hands to push against teh object as he moved to one side, then to the other, feeling out the obsruction. And then the realization struck him like a truck, causing the man to slump to the ground.

"A fucking barrier." he muttered "HOW??? WHY?? WHEN??" three desperate screams escaped his mouth, and then a silence descended. untill a minute or two later the despondent man heard a creak of the door behind him, and two voices followed soon after.

"So, he is the last one?" the female voice asked, audibly a bit shaken.

"Yup. I told you not to watch. Should have listened." the man, no, youngster spoke.

"And miss what I saw? Never. While disturbing, I had a glimpse of the extent of your power." girl spoke again

"Bitch please, there was not a slingle S, let alone SS class attacker, I barely broke any sweat. Once I have some proper guards to ensure your safety in the deep floors I might consider bringing my girls- that includes you too by the way, to the fun I am having in the deep floors. That would show you more of my limits. Besides, I did not even use Limitless."

"The sword that I saw you cleaning yesterday?" she asked

"Yup, Got that one of floor thirty one I think. There was this big badass vyvern guarding a cave. Now that was a fun battle." the youngster spoke with a fondness in his voice, reminiscing over good times.

"Better than your time with your girls?" she asked, no longer shaken voice, but pouting now.

"Nope, I would say the girls are slightly better. But they are different thrills, so it is not quite right to compare them." he responded to the woman. Reigen slowly turned his head towards the youngster and saw a slightly bloody attire of the man first, then as he raised his head he was those monstrous eyes of his. They did not look as dangerous and scarry from teh distance, the kneeling man reasoned, and with a trembling voice he asked

"What will you do with me?"

"Well, we have a few options ahead of us. So lest explore a bit, shall we?" the young archon answered and a spine chilling smile bloomed on his face.

"First things first," Rex spoke "do you have any physical or reliable proof of who hired you and what was paid for said mission, plus a proper and precise explanation of what did you have to achieve?"

"Y- yes" Reigen stuttered a bit, but responded nevertheless. While the probability of him surviving after providing said archon with what he desired was small, from how the man had acted up until now, the chances were not zero, plus Reigen had this feeling that warned him against angering his capturer. For whatever reaseon Reigen felt teh man woudl not only have no issues with torturing him for the answers but he might even enjoy the act.

"As any self respecting and a few times doublecrossed high class mercenary, I record the conversations whn I am hired."

"Nice, now who hired you? Was it the, aaaaaaaaa," Rex stretched teh letter for a while untill he found what he was looing for in his now near perfect memory "Feng, Yang or long family?"

"Neither, and all sir." Reigen answered, quickly elaborating "Feng Zhu, Yang Rong and long Ren. The trio seemed to have come to an unbelieveable alliance, as they pooled the money to hire me, and since that was the case, I believe the families must not be aware of their actions. From what I understood, they cannot dirrectly take any action, and miss Vivian is off limits due to her backing. You sir have somehow offended them without showing your actual power, otherwise they would not have tried anyhing, nor would I have taken the job, were I to know you are above the S rank."

"Were they present themselves then you were hired or did they use a middle man?" Rex asked next.

"All three of them were present, and they even spoke at different points during teh negotiation. My job was to either kill or cripple you sir. They hoped that the loss of you would also damage miss Vivians standing in teh sect adn maybee earn you some punishment or better yet you would be relegated to a convenient marriage tool for the sect, sine they have some connection in that branch of the sect."

Rex playfully and softly slapped Vivians but and half laughingly spoke

"Sheesh, your booty is trully lusted after, but I damn well know why." Vivian slightly blused at his words, but raised her chin upwards, pride aparent in her posture

"Of course, Arent you happy that it is exclusively yours?"

"And you better remember that . Mine forever." Rex added, then turned back to Reigen, who now had his jaw hanging and eyes wide.

"So, the second thing we need to figure out is also quite simple. Early or middle stage S class?" Rex asked "Cant figure out since you are just that weak." His words caused Reigen to let out a self mocking light laugh, and a pout from Vivian.

"Are you saying im also just that weak?" she asked indignanty.

"Nope, you are mine, so that cattegory does not apply. In your case, you are still growing, and just need some additional help for further growth. Besides, its the beauty not strenght that is your main weapon in our house." REx was doubling down on his statement, but it was phrased in a way that did not make Vivian feel not apreciated. On the contrary, she was valued more.

"So?" Rex asked as he looked at Reigen

"Middle S class. I advanced a few years back and have solidified my power."

"That sounds barely adequate. Now, how good are you at guard duty?" Rex asked.

"Beg your pardon sir?" Reigen confusedly repolied. He had no idea wthat was now happening.

"Right, I will need a proper few guards for an establishement tha tI am going to create, and since you are barely strong enough, and would die otherwise due to your recent decisions, fit the job just well enough."

"And you would trust such a person with guarding duties?" Reigen asked, suspicion filling his voice.

"Lords no!" Rex lightly laughed "You would be branded. And no, myslaves are being treated quite well. So well in fact many nobles would cry in envy if they knew teh living standarts of my slaves." And to his words Vivian could only nod, since she and her five sect sisters had been recieveing unreasonably great treatment so far, and sicne they were all branded already, Rex did not have to do any of that.

"And what would I be guarding sir?" Reigen now asked slightly intrigued.

"The Holy whores of course!"

"What now??" both Reigen and Vivian asked in confusion, not understanding Rex.

"Right, you are both new. DUUH!" Rex spoke to himself loud enough for the other two to hear, then he returned to the conversation "Teh echlisiarchy have done a few unprovoked attacks on me outside their territories, so I believe it is only fair for me to retaliate, so, I will raid their temples, enslave quite a few of their sainteses adn orackles and then build a brothel were anyone could have a taste of their divine holes, provided they can afford them- The Holy Whores. And you would be one of the guards of the establishement. The non whoring staff would consist of quite a few Veran ladies."