The Adventurers around the hall tensed up.

“Hunters, this is Ash Sparks!” The treacherous Adventurers Guild Secretary in front of me pointed at my head.

Ah. The men and women in the evaluation hall weren’t Adventurers. They were Hunters! This was a cleverly designed trap just for me. I glanced at the large portrait that promised a thousand gold for my head.

“She doesn’t look like Sparks,” one of the Hunters noted, also glancing at the portrait and then looking at me with orange, Qi-infused eyes. “Wrong hair color, freckles, plus the Dantian imprint is way wrong.”

“Yeah, look at my Adventurers plate!” I waved my ID plate at the nearest hunter. “Look what it says! Alexa Storm!”

“I assure you this is Ash Sparks,” the desk-manning Emerald said. "She got engaged to change her Dantian."

"That would only fool a servitor, not a professional human Hunter," one of the Hunters commented. "Her Dantian is not even close to the imprint gem on the poster!"

I glared at Emerald. Gods damned traitor. I think she had underestimated human stupidity or perhaps cautiousness, because the Hunters weren’t actively trying to murder me yet.

“What the Hells is this? Why are you setting me up, Emerald?” I growled at the Secretary. “You can’t just tell people that I’m Sparks. Why are you doing this?”

“Just business.” Emerald shrugged. “You’re too dangerous to let live.”

Hunter Tasman Hastiglia stepped forward as did a few others.

“You heard her - I’m extremely dangerous,” I scowled at the approaching hunters. “First person who tries to kill me will suffer horribly, I guarantee it.”

Tasman Hastiglia took another step forward, a celesteel sphere hovering beside him, held up by a thin servitor arm. “The facial structure is… similar. Plus Emerald is telling the truth. If nobody else wants her I’ll take her… alive.”

“Go ahead, try to take me, Inquisitor Hastiglia. I dare you.” I raised an eyebrow at him.

Tasman paused. He didn’t like how confident I sounded.

“She might be wearing a concealment artifact or using a servitor,” one of the hunters commented.

"No. She got engaged to two hundred people," Emerald insisted.

A few of the Hunters laughed.

“Or I might be an incredibly powerful cultivator and I’ll smear all of you on these walls if you screw with me,” I said. “I came here to get my Adventurer plate. I got it. Good day.”

“You don’t smell like a high-cultivator,” Tasman commented, stepping in front of me. “You are a sixteen-year-old girl.”

“Suspend the room when I use the ring,” I whispered to Celes, grabbing her hand. She nodded, inhaling sharply.

Tasman laughed. “I am able to smell the truth in your words, girl. Answer me - are you Ash Sparks?”

I pulled myself into oblivion and pushed the Pharmacist to the front of my mind, letting the ancient ghost talk with my lips. “No.”

“You’re not Ash Sparks.” The Hunter inhaled. “Damnation. What’s going on, Emerald?”

“She is Ash Sparks!” Emerald barked.

Tasman blinked in confusion. “You’re both telling the truth. I don’t get it. Something very Qi-ssy is going on here. One of you has to be lying."

“I said - good day." I lifted my hand to his face. “Get out of my way, Hunter. I’m counting down from ten heartbeats and then I’m going to walk through you.”

“I’d like to see you try, girl.” Hastiglia scoffed. A servitor spirit intersected his body, silver, diamond-shaped scales spouting all over him.

I didn’t let him finish armoring himself up. Didn’t bother counting down. I was done talking. I pulled on two hundred humans’ worth of Dantians, burning through several beast cores and aimed my Manning repulsor ring at his face. His eyebrows went up and then he exploded, silver scales and armor bits flying all over the place.

The Hunter’s body smashed against the wall, his servitor sheared away. His empty boots remained on the floor. Arbalest strings thrummed. Celes sang a divine tone.

A dome of steel arrows surrounded us, the projectiles suspended in the air.

The other Hunters in the large room looked at the empty boots and at the arrows floating in the air and deflated. A few of the lower level ones sat back down onto couches. Others dropped their weapons and stepped back. Only about eleven looked at our trio, trying to evaluate whether a thousand gold was worth getting pulverised for.

I aimed my ring at Emerald. “What the fuck are you?”

“I’m the Adventurers Guild Secretary.” She smiled, tilting her head.

“I don’t think so.” I shook my head. “There is no Lord Agatius. You aren’t even human! You’re some kind of a nest!”

“What? Emerald is human!” One of the hunters yelled.

“Why are you trying to kill me?” I demanded of the simulacrum.

“Your presence rapidly disrupts the balance of the city’s ecosystem. Your… hive grows far too fast for our liking. You wish to take what is ours.” Emerald shook her head. Her copies dropped the useless arbalests, pulling out steel daggers and short swords.

“Ludj, destroy them all!” I yelped.

The long servitor folded out of my pocket. The old Gardener could somehow tell that Emerald wasn’t human. He acted without hesitation. He leapt forward, enormous mouth opening up and closing over the desk and its inhabitant with a satisfying crunch. Emerald’s feet remained on the floor, revealing that her insides were not made of flesh and blood but instead consisted of mostly hollow, white spiderwebs. Hundreds of white, fluffy caterpillars scattered from her insides. A few female Adventurers screeched upon seeing what Emerald was really made from.

The rest of the Hunters backed away from us in sheer terror, as my ghostly pal went through the gathering of Emeralds as if they were made from paper mache. White webs and caterpillars flew as Emeralds tried to hack away at my servitor with their steel knives. Their weapons were completely useless against the powerful phantom.

Crunch, crunch, crunch.

Arianna clung to me as we stepped out of the way of the arrows. Celes slowly wound down the time-halting note and the arrows slammed into the floor where we stood priorly.

More duplicates entered into the fray. Ludj got bored of simply pulverizing them. He grabbed arrows out of the floor and started to fling them at the copies, pinning Emeralds to the walls. I whistled encouragingly. The Hunters tried to pretend they didn’t exist. It was over in a few minutes. The evaluation hall looked like a warzone. Fragments of hollow bodies littered the floor.

“I stand correct,” I addressed the Hunters as I picked up one of the white caterpillars and showed it to the crowd of people around me. “Human, my ass. All of you have been deceived by a lying monster from the deep. She tried to kill me because I saw her for what she is - a nest of these things. They weaved copies of Emerald Glimmer with their silk! Perhaps the real Emerald is a prisoner somewhere. Maybe she died a long time ago. I am here to find out the truth!”

Hunter Hastiglia rose from the puddle of his blood with a cough. He raised his empty hands into the air. “My apologies, Lady Storm. I was wrong. You are a worthy Adventurer.”

“You’ve climbed up the wrong tree, Hunter.” I said. “I’m the acting field General of Baroness Arianna Manning.”

“Baroness Manning?” Hastiglia blinked.

I pointed my finger at Arianna, who had finally gained her wits.

“I’m Baroness Arianna Manning,” she declared with her noble voice. The slightly cracked emerald ring flashed on her finger.

“You’re all hereby conscripted by her excellency into our Radiant Legion. We are taking control of the Adventurers Guild from these treacherous bugs formerly known as Emerald Glimmer. You will all swear Dantian oaths to the Baroness.”

“...and if we don’t?” one of the higher-level hunters muttered.

“Allegiance with monsters that infest this Guild is akin to treason against the Magisterium,” Arianna’s icy voice resonated across the room. “You’re employed by the Inquisition, Hastiglia - do tell what the punishment for treason is to these peons.”

“Death,” Hunter Hastiglia uttered.

I looked at the man with orange eyes and dark violet hair.

[Kino Pandora] [Adventurer LV 44] [Hunter LV 39]

[Human adult male] [Age - 21.87 years old]

[Servitor Phantom Levikz LV 31]

“Kino Pandora?”

He nodded at me, eyes wide. He didn’t expect me to know his name.

“Your servitor, Levikz, is rated at thirty one stars,” I asserted and waved my hand at Ludj as my long Gardener stepped closer to me, chewing on a webmesh arm. “Mine is two hundred and five stars. Did you see how quickly he disposed of the mesh-simulacrums? How long do you think you will last if I ask him to bite your arms off?”

Hunter Pandora paled.

“My apologies, General Storm. I didn’t mean to offer you disrespect!” He bowed deeply. “I will say whatever oath the Baroness requires of me to help end this Guild infestation!”

I smiled.

-=[Clint Potatius, Head of the Surgeon Barbers Guild]=-

Clint was feeling quite bothered as he sat in his Guild’s office reading the pile of reports from his Hidden Hands. Things had not turned out as he had expected them to. Magistrate Manning was still alive and the Winter Palace flared with the brilliant shields of the full Deathstorm Convergence ward. Clint had no idea what was going on inside and no clue whatsoever how Lord Manning had survived the night.

The Magisterium was packed with Clint’s agents! How in the hells had the entire garrison, Coperpenny and all of the servants failed at their jobs? The situation had rapidly escalated and not in Clint’s favor. He had ordered the deaths of the families of the failed killers, only to find out that all of them had fled during the night! Their Qi trails led to the Winter Palace.

Assaulting the Magistrate’s castle when it was set to Deathstorm Ward was tantamount to suicide, so Clint sat at his desk and waited. He knew that the Wards would fall today. All he had to do was wait. Once the wards fell, he would send a servitor with the biggest beast core bomb he had to target the castle. He would level the entire mountain if that’s what it took to kill the girl and the suddenly zestful Magistrate.

Potatius no longer feared the wrath of the compound. His agents had brought him extremely concerning news - the Inquisition squadrons had been attacked by the Guilds during the night. The High-Inquisitor had vanished too. His office had no idea where he went. Clint suspected that Rhondarius was somehow permanently incapacitated or dead. The Magistrate likely planned this attack on the Temple of Inquiry for a while. The Head of the Barbers had only one suspect now responsible for Ash Sparks - Lord Manning. All of the threads pointed to the Magistrate.

Potatius did not like being outplayed. He sat in his office and waited to make his move against the heretics. In a few HC-beats the Deathstorm ward would fall and then he would bomb the castle. Clint had spent the entire morning coordinating his Order for the next step of his plan.

The Hidden Hands had already prepared the ascension of Gale Manning to the throne in the South Palace as the new Magistrate of the Gold city. Even if Lord Manning somehow survived the bombardment, he would soon be declared as a heretic by the cult for supporting a fake messiah. Clint had pulled on all of the strings at his disposal to make this happen.

The steel door of his office opened. One of his partners stepped inside. Clint knew that she was coming, since she sent a servitor to warn him of her arrival.

“Emerald? What news do you have for me?” Potatius inquired looking up at the green-haired Secretary of the Adventurer’s Guild.

“Ash Sparks, Arianna Manning and Geisha Rada are in my Guild,” Emerald answered as she sat down in front of Potatius.

“I see,” Potatius nodded.

“I want one million in gold,” Emerald said.

“What? This is a ridiculously high price for three weaklings,” Potatius tapped his steel desk. “Especially when the Magistrate is being a thorn in my side.”

“They are weaklings no longer.” Emerald shook her head. “The Magistrate is less important than you think.”

“Whatever do you mean, my dear?” Clint inquired.

Emerald slid a black plate across his desk. “I’ve just scanned her. These are her stats.”

Clint read the words on the plate and paled.

[Ash Sparks-Manning-Rada] [Baroness LV 17]

[206 drones] [2 mates]

[Observer LV 40]

[Dantian Devourer LV 21]

[Human female spawn] - [Age - 16.48 years old]

[Ocular Scanning LV 26]

[Death Filter LV 11]

[Servitor Phantom Alex Pharmacist LV 33]

“This is impossible,” he finally said. “Baroness?!! Drones?! How?!”

“Ash Sparks had perverted the engagement ritual. She tied two hundred and six humans to herself. Magistrate Traetorius is one of her pawns.”

The hair on the back of Clint’s neck stood up.

“One million gold, Potatius," Emerald repeated. “For the life of Baroness Ash Sparks.”

“Ugh…” Clint rubbed his face in irritation. “This will bankrupt my Guild! You can’t be serious, Glimmer!”

“It will not. Sell off some of your properties and beast cores.” Emerald shook her head. “I’m very serious. Feel free to punch this copy of me in the face if you are frustrated.”

Clint scowled. He knew that he couldn't just murder Emerald to get his money back. The damned woman had copies everywhere and he had no idea where the original was even hiding.

“I cannot delay the Baroness and her partners forever, Potatius,” Emerald noted idly. “Transfer the funds now or… else.”

“Or else what?” Clint sputtered.

“Or else I won't detonate the Beast Cores beneath my Guild. You have a big problem - I am able to solve it, so pay up. We’ve been partners for a long time my dear,” the Secretary spoke dispassionately. “I believe that the cost is quite fair. Blades and arrows have just failed against her. There is but one option left. I will have to destroy my property to kill her.”

“Fine,” Clint gritted his teeth as Emerald slid a new plate with a beast core gemstone in its heart over to him. “If this is the price to end this cursed girl, so be it!”

“Agent Madurav Kublitz. Please transfer one million gold from the Barbers Guild account to the Adventurers Guild account,” Clint pushed his Qi into the gemstone and spoke, focusing on mentally confirming the passwords.

“Thank you for your patronage.” Emerald Glimmer smiled. “I hope that you are sending the right codes. One of my copies is currently inside the Kublitz Bank confirming the transaction. As soon as the funds are transferred by your banking agent, Baroness Sparks will die.”