All over the globe, nine silver devices ping simultaneously.

Some are locked away in item boxes and magical storage vaults, while others are worn around strong hunters' wrists and necks like ornaments.

Every one of them sends the same signal: a flashing yellow light among nine other lights that glow brightly.

Some of the lights are a dim yellow, just like the one that is blinking, while others vary in brightness. Some are so bright they almost shimmer white.

The dull yellow light that blinks flickers and fades away, signifying that one of the ten members of this mysterious group of leaders has perished from this world.

The first leader to witness this phenomenon is a woman with long black hair, flying high over a dangerous volcanic region on the back of a monstrous earth dragon.

She looks down at the small device, rubbing her pointer finger over the dull, clear crystal that once glowed with yellow luminosity, and curses under her breath.

"That idiot... Picking a fight with an opponent he clearly couldn't defeat..."

She presses one of the strongest glowing crystals on the device next. It glows bright yellow-white, matching the color of her core and the dragon she flies on, and she speaks again.

"It seems the old man, Mr. Freeman, met his end. I take it none of you were incompetent enough to break our ceasefire pact?"

She clicks her tongue and takes her finger off the glowing crystals as her dragon flaps its wings, and they soar further throughout the volcanic lands.

Everything is silent for a few seconds, other than the flow of lava and eruptions a few kilometers below her.

However, this moment of silence is broken by a yell back through the device as one of the other strongly lit lights shimmers and projects the clear audio of a grumpy man.

"Raven? Is that you? Who are you calling old? He was hardly a day past seventy; I'm almost twice his age and have more fight in me than he ever did. He must have died in a desperate attempt to ascend to a True Core before his body failed him."

The voice stops coming through, and the woman stares down at the device with a grin on her face, amused that the old man took offense to her words.

She's about to press her own button to respond, but one of the other strong yellow-white crystals flickers, signifying that its recipient has pressed it on the other end.

She waits patiently for five seconds, but no voice comes out, and the crystal returns to its resting state, implying the person on the other end decided not to say a word.

Raven presses her button and speaks back to the man who actually answered her call with a snarky tone, ignoring the lurker that didn't speak.

"Nice to hear your voice too, Mr. Redgrave. I hope Central Headquarters is treating you well. Your guess on how the Eight Great Regions' branch leader died would have been my assumption too. However, there is a growing power in the Dark Continent that I presume ended the Director. All my sources tell me he goes by the title of The Flame Emperor."

She chuckles to herself while keeping her finger on the crystal for a few extra seconds for all to hear, then changes her direction in the air, slowly starting to turn toward the north, anticipating the angry yell back through the silver device from the man on the other side.

"Well... Then this changes everything. Mr. Freeman may have been stubborn and suffering from a slower cultivation rate, but he wasn't weak. Whoever this rogue force is, they must be taken out. While we have no rules stating that a fallen council member of The Order must be avenged, I would hate to let a force like this continue to grow and potentially harm one of our remaining nine members before the fight for the throne."

He is silent for a few seconds but adds a remark.

"You are the closest True Core to the Eight Great Regions, so I hope you will get it done. If not, I will make sure this is dealt with myself in due time. After all, if he is not slain, many may question my title as the Strongest Fire Wielder in the world."

His crystal reverts back to its natural state again, and Raven keeps flying through the sky on her dragon in silence, thinking over the man's words.

What he says is true. The council members of The Order all signed a pact to never kill or cripple each other until the throne to claim this world awakened.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Rogue forces are no one's responsibility to take care of, but over the decades, they have been silently given the unspoken task to the Nation Leader closest to the threat.

It isn't frowned upon to ignore growing powers, but if that power were to attack another member of The Order when they could have been nipped in the bud, beings in this world that seek immortality are not ones to forget and often hold a grudge.

These thoughts race through the black-haired woman's mind as the same crystal that entered the conversation and silently eavesdropped shimmers again, showing that they're ready to speak.

The same silence comes out for ten full seconds before the faint sound of a heavy breath transmits through.

Raven soars through the air and activates her stealth ability, making herself and her dragon disappear in the sky as she rockets over black military base buildings.

Over a full minute passes with a few more heavy breaths before the person on the other end of the line finally speaks in an eccentric style. His words are offbeat and go up and down in varying tones, making it hard to understand what the voice is really thinking.

"Oh please don't kill him. I want you to capture him alive and bring him to me. He will be the muse I need to finally complete my collection. -And bring me back my white dragon while you're in the Apex Region. There's no reason for a dead man to keep such fine art. Two hundred yellow fragments, that is what I'll pay for your help."

The crystal clicks off, and Raven rolls her eyes while pressing her crystal and letting out a sigh for everyone on the line to hear.

"Don't get your hopes up. I'm on my way over to survey the area now. Until I find out what really happened, I'm not promising anything to either of you. If anyone else is still listening, don't bother contacting me, I'm going dark. I'll only open up this line again if I have something important to share once my survey is complete."

She lifts her finger from the device and throws it away into an item box on her waist, then her speed to the north increases.

—

Meanwhile, underground in the Apex Region, I power down my greater form and stop my True Core's full aura from fully activating and shattering all of the shielding in this base to bits.

My blades have already cut through a portion of the black walls, releasing large amounts of mana. If I cut just five meters deeper, there would be a crack that shatters all the way through, and my aura would most likely accidentally kill everyone in this entire city.

I power down and let all the remains and shattered gear from the deceased Director's body fall into my item storage, then put away my swords into the white spatial magic too.

The heat and pressure in the room cool down as I retract my aura back into my purple limiter, but that doesn't cancel out the fact that new divine energy is rushing through my core.

Whenever I killed yellow-cored lizards inside the construct, their energy was never instantly consumed like this. It's unclear to me if this is normal for True Cores or a unique property of mine alone.

Either way, everything about this situation excites me and floods my senses with endorphins. I let out a long exhale of satisfaction and happiness as the reality of what just happened rushes through me.

The fact that really sinks in is that I just killed the strongest man in all of the Eight Great Regions and Dark Continent combined.

There is no one who can stop me from taking over all of the trade routes and Association-run businesses right now.

I activate my mythic-grade concealment, new superior light magic, and new buff master of illusion all together to pulse outward with a very strange aura.

Nothing physically changes, but the light particles in the air are altered and twisted, making for an interesting display of power.

It feels and looks very similar to Bri's ranked-up buff, allowing her to create a small pocket of space that looks and feels like any illusion she desires.

However, I'm far more powerful than that and have even more skills and buffs at my disposal. I bend the perception of myself to look, sound, and feel just like the man I killed.

An aura matching his confidence, greed, and selfishness permeates from me, and if I walked up to myself just minutes ago with this same disguise on, I'm unsure if I could tell the difference...

I smile wide beneath my disguise of golden glowing eyes, unnaturally tall stature, and dark shadowy robes as I walk toward the green spinning labyrinth portal that still emanates mana after this violent exchange.

The shielding near the labyrinth portal bends under its weight, and my curiosity for how high this labyrinth's floors climb simmer in the back of my mind.

However, once I step through and make sure my dungeon walker skill logs and saves the location of the first floor, I turn back around and leave.

A body double can do that work once I return with good news, for right in this moment, I still have lots of work to do in the Apex Region before I can leave.

I flash step across the room and enter the elevator, pressing the 18th floor button to bring myself to the A-Class training rooms next.

It's been less than a minute since the Director died, but his slaves that have been chained down with golden collars for years must finally be realizing their thoughts have not been their own.

As the door opens with a ding, and I peer into the two training rooms with my Sun God Disguise fully activated, I see many eyes turn toward me.

Flashbacks of the golden-collared prisoners crying and screaming with mixed emotions once I freed them back in the Dark Continent repeat in my mind as I take in the scene before me.

The newest three A-Class hunters that greeted me today at the Apex Region are very confused, standing in a triangle in the middle of their training room.

At the opposite side of the floor, the woman healer who always looked uninterested in everything around her, dead tired and bored of the world, is crying with joy on the mana-shielded ground.

The wind and fire users who are A-Class hunters both stare at me with angry stances, their red cores fully activated, making the high A-Grade mana shielding in the room quiver.

However, I'm not worried or necessarily interested in any of them.

My gaze locks onto Rodrigo's as he feels his neck and looks toward me, coming to the realization that maybe the man behind these golden eyes isn't the same one that left this room moments ago.