“I hereby banish you from this land,” Andrea said, waving her hand at the man. Her domineering voice spread out through the street, culling every and any other noise down. 

For a second, everyone froze. Not because something more happened. They all did solely because of the weight of those words. 

Arganar’s face tensed up, even more than before, proving that there was some meaning to those words instead of them being just a threat. Yet, he refused to buckle, standing his ground just like he did when Ackhart pulled his own golden token before. 

The one thing that he did was moving his eyes to a small, golden bead that the woman held in the hand that she just waved. 

It was smaller than the golden token that Akchart used to threaten the man before. But when Arganar noticed it, his face tensed up completely. 

“You won’t dare to dip it,” Arganar claimed in a guttural tone, squinting his eyes as he looked at the woman and Mia behind her. 

Andrea smiled gently. She didn’t seem to mind Arganar’s words at all. And rather than allowing his words to influence her in any way or form, she simply rubbed her thumb against the token, leaving a small smudge of red on it. 

“You…” Arganar muttered, his eyes opening wide when he noticed the detail. 

“I just did,” Andrea said in a calm voice, raising the token high above her head. 

The bottom of her thumb was cut open, allowing a single droplet of blood to ooze through her skin, only for the woman to smear it on the surface of her token.

Arganar clenched his fists. And then, he turned around on his feet and started to run.

‘Wha…’ Mia shrugged when the man suddenly disappeared from her view. 

“Guard!” Ackhart shouted, raising yet another set of his formations.

BOOM!

The shockwave caused by Arganar’s rapid escape clashed with the protective formation. 

Thanks to Ackhart’s timely reaction, Mia managed to stand on her feet when the blast of the wave reached her position. 

The world around her appeared to explode when the condensed air blasted the buildings to her sides into smithereens. 

‘Huh?’ Mia shook her head when the danger passed, looking around to assess the damage. 

The buildings to her side still stood. The chaos and devastation that she saw for a single instance were caused by all sorts of rubbish, dust, and paint that the shockwave tore apart from the buildings… but their very structure managed to hold. 

‘Is this…’ Mia mused when her eyes were drawn towards a golden shine that pierced through the cloud of dust kicked up by Arganar’s escape. 

And then it happened. 

The golden token in Andrea’s hand exploded with the golden shine, making it grow more and more with each passing second. 

Soon, instead of just being a shiny object in the auction-hall clerk’s hand, the shine turned bigger than Andrea herself, only to form into the shape of a door. 

A door that then opened up, allowing a dark silhouette to pass through. 

It was a man covered in tight, dark clothes from head to toe. Only a thin line over his face remained free from the cover of the black cloth, allowing Mia to see his dark, cold eyes. 

The man took a quick look around himself, scanning the situation. He then turned his head down the road, clearly locking in on something. 

A cold glint flashed in the man’s eye as he reached underneath his robes and pulled out a golden-adorned scroll. 

He then reached out with his hand, snapping the seal of the rolled piece of paper, allowing it to roll itself down. 

The paper extended towards the ground, showcasing whatever was written on it to the world. 

‘What is happening?’ Mia thought, shocked by the developments. It appeared as if she stepped into the area where miracles were happening. 

‘Those people are not only my level at all,’ Mia thought, gritting her teeth, only able to watch how the situation develops, unable to contribute whatsoever. 

The scroll in the man’s hand suddenly flashed up with the same golden light that announced the man’s appearance before. 

And then, just like that, it simply disintegrated in the very shine that surrounded it, turning into a set of particles that rapidly rushed forward. 

‘Woah,’ Mia thought with amazement when the floating light suddenly exploded down the street like the claws of some kind of mythic monster. 

And then, several protrusions of light suddenly converged in a single point far away from where Mia’s group stood. 

Snap. 

A single instant later, Arganar was back standing where he was before his attempted escape. His body was bound with the chains made out of the golden light, stopping him from moving as he wished. 

Then, the light suddenly lost its cohesiveness, freeing Arganar from its chains… Only to turn into a massive array of orb-like particles of light that attached themselves all over the man’s body. 

“By the Royal decree,” the cold voice of the dark-clad man finally made its appearance on the street, sending a chill down Mia’s spine. 

It felt as if even a single word of this man had the absolute power to influence anything that happened. 

“By the authority bestowed upon me,” the man added. 

The orbs of light suddenly bloated, covering Arganar’s entire body in their shapely shine, making it hard to even notice the man’s presence. 

Mia looked right through this light, strangely fixated on the man’s presence within the intense light. 

But the only thing she could notice was how tense the man’s face turned. 

And then, for the shortest of moments, she managed to lock stares with the man that almost managed to take her by force just a few moments before. 

‘Gulp.’ Mia swallowed her saliva, frozen in terror, when the influence of this man somehow reached her mind just from his stare alone.

And then, this strange force of influence vanished when the light fully enveloped Arganar, cutting him away from the rest of the world with that barrier of golden light. 

“I banish you,” the dark-clad man finally finished his order. He brought his arm up while keeping his hand completely loose. And then, he slowly brought his hand in line with his arm, only to end up pointing his finger at Arganar’s face. 

Then, the light simply disappeared from the street.

‘Huh?’ Mia shrugged, hardly capable of reacting in any other way when she realized that the man was nowhere to be seen. 

He seemingly disappeared from the street along with that golden light, just as if he was never there, to begin with. 

Yet, the dark-robbed man remained, proving that it wasn’t all but a stupid hallucination. 

Then, he turned his head to the back, sending Andrea a curious yet cold look. 

“I hope it was well worth it,” he said in an extremely monotone voice. 

He spelled out his words in a strange manner, spending exactly the same amount of time to utter the shortest word that he did to spell the longest possible word out. 

‘With how weird his manner of speech is, how can it be infused with so much terror?’ Mia thought, gulping down her saliva when the man’s words caused her body to freeze in place. 

“It was,” Andrea replied, standing her ground as she stared directly into the man’s cold eyes. 

‘Isn’t she just pretending?’ Mia thought, noticing the slight shaking of the woman’s legs, something she was only able to see thanks to the cut in the side of the woman’s robe. 

For the dark-clad man in front of the auction hall clerk, the woman’s robes perfectly concealed the proof of her terror from his eyes. 

“Excuse me…” Mia attempted to say something, as terrified as she was curious about what the hell just did happen. 

Yet, before she could as much as take a step forward, Andrea raised her hand, clearly giving her the order to stop in her tracks. 

The dark-robbed man turned his cold eyes to Mia’s face, staring right in her eyes for a short moment. And then, he just turned around, walking off down the street. 

‘Huh…?’ Mia didn’t dare to move a muscle, forced to watch how the man’s body suddenly turned into just a congregation of light only to disperse into nothingness a moment later. 

It was as if all the light that made up his body before turned darker and darker, all the way to the point when it had no shine whatsoever. 

And what was light itself if it had no brightness whatsoever?

The golden bead in Andrea’s hand crumbled, turned into dust, and slithered down to the ground. 

“Ano…”(*) Mia muttered, angling her eyes to look at the back of Andrea’s head. “If I may…” she attempted to get Andrea’s attention, Ackhart’s attention, or actually anyone’s attention. 

“Not now,” the woman shook her head only to put the finger on her lips, ordering Mia to stay silent. “For now, follow me,” she ordered, turning around on her heel and moving down the street, back towards the auction hall from where Mia brought her here. 

“Thanks,” Ackhart added after he gathered himself up and followed after Andrea, right as he passed by Mia. “I didn’t expect you to be so quick-witted,” he added, reaching out with his arm. 

For a second, Mia’s body froze. 

She could still remember the pain and terror that Arganar’s hand caused her. And it all started when he reached out with his hands just like Ackhart did right now. 

Pat. 

Ackhart’s hand fell down on Mia’s hand, only to raise up and fall gently down two more times. Then, he picked up the pace as he followed after Andrea’s back. 

“Come,” he muttered, his cheeks brightening up a little after the uncalled-for act of reassurance. “You want to know what the fuck just happened, don’t you?”