The first thing that went through my head as I tried to catch sight of ANYTHING in the darkness around us was 'why are there no WINDOWS in this building?' It was pitch black in the auction house, and not even my Perception was helping. Which...on second thought, seemed wrong. How was it possible nothing in here was giving off the slightest bit of light? Considering how much random Ascendant shit tended to glow, there was no feasible way someone managed to shut off ALL the lights through normal means.

Which meant someone had used abnormal means. Probably some kind of darkness artifact or ability. "Everybody SHUT UP!" Bellowed a powerful voice. Specifically, a powerful voice nearby. Abel. Shockingly, everyone did. "Alright, now, I am almost positive we are currently under attack. So why doesn't whatever wise-ass did this speak up and turn the damn lights back on, since you probably have us all surrounded at this point anyway."

There was a soft click, which took me a second to place as someone clicking their tongue, before the lights came back on to reveal...corpses. Kind of. Some of them were pure meat, some had metal parts, and interspersed in between them were figures in dark clothes holding wicked looking weapons. From among the corpses stepped, of course, Mordaunt. "Did you have to ruin my fun?" She pouted. "I was enjoying the panic. Oh well, pleasure is over, time for business I suppose. Oh, Solomon?" She singsonged, eyes scanning over the crowd. "Where are you?"

Apparently she'd momentarily lost track of me when I moved to talk to Cark. I don't know why that made me feel better, but it really did. When her eyes landed on me her smug grin got even wider. "There you are!" Without looking away, she turned her head slightly and called out. "I found him your excellency." As she spoke, she stepped obsequiously to the side, sweeping it a wide bow as literally the smarmiest looking human being I had ever seen stepped out of the crowd.

I'd seen people with faces I'd wanted to punch before. In fact, it was becoming increasingly common as I got higher up the ranks. This guy though, this guy took obnoxious to an almost conceptual level. Just standing there I wanted to punch him. I wouldn't have been shocked if he was a Master Candidate in the Pissing People Off Skill. When his amethyst eyes stopped on me, his thin lips quirked into a sneer and I realized that somehow, the effect got WORSE.

The pale, almost emaciated teenager with the greasy black hair strode out among the corpses with the air of someone who was positive he was better than everyone in the room. When he got clear of the crowd completely, he stopped about halfway to me. "Well." He said in oily voice. "If it isn't the little pissant who killed one of my heartrippers."

I froze. That was...actually not bad. If he was here about that, he didn't know about my mom. Apparently Aiden really had died before reporting in. Still, he said MY heartrippers, which meant not only was this guy from the Black Sorrow Cult, he was high up in their pecking order. I wasn't sure if the cult had some kind of royal family, but I suspected there were descendants of Black Sorrow herself among the upper echelons, with an inherited ability every bit as broken as mine. I just really hoped this guy wasn't one of those.

On the upside, if he had been I doubted he would be here. As far as I knew the Cult wasn't like the WCP, which dispersed its upper echelon kids to grind up their power on their own. The five factions were much more insular, and chances were good any real descendant of Black Sorrow with the corresponding power wouldn't touch a shitty backwater like Callus with a ten million foot pole.

Still, judging by how cocky this guy was he was probably someone important, and I wasn't thrilled at having to deal with him. Which didn't affect how I responded at all. "Nah, that guy isn't here. I heard he went home to hide in his shower because he heard you were coming. I assume based on how greasy your hair is that you don't know what one of those looks like?"

The smarmy dick's mouth fell open, and his teeth clicked shut as he growled. "Peasant, what did you just say to me?" He was thankfully only G-ranked, so I wasn't too worried about him crushing me, but then again, I'd already seen proof that there were many different levels of G-ranker. It was probably better to shut up at this point.

My mouth, unfortunately, did not get that memo. "Oh, I'm sorry, are your ears clogged with grease? I said you look like an oily dirtball who never bathes. Is your ability some kind of filth embodiment? Maybe you wrap yourself in a protective layer of grime? Or are you just trying to make yourself so disgusting your enemies won't hit you?"

Smarmy started laughing, but based on his eyes he wasn't amused, he was so fucking furious he didn't know how to process it. "Wow, so some jumped up little space peasant thinks he talk down to me? Do you know who I am boy?" I could see his hands clenching and unclenching, but he didn't actually attack. He probably suspected I was baiting him into launching an attack on me so I could counted. Joke was on him, I didn't have a plan. I just really didn't like him and wanted to piss him off.

On the upside, I was now ninety percent sure he wasn't a descendant of a god. There was no way anyone with a power on the level of mine that wasn't support based would have hesitated to attack me. Still, that left plenty of room for other inherited powers. There was no way a force on the level of the Black Sorrow Cult didn't have more than a few S-rankers, and probably not just those that were descended from their goddess.

"Let me guess." I said scathingly. "Your mommy or daddy told you that you were a very special boy, way more special than all the other kids." I wasn't scared of anyone who wasn't another member of a god clan, or possibly one of those freaks able to reach mastery at G-rank. Considering I'd have been swatted like a fly if that had been the case there was no reason to worry, army or not.

The sneer got more pronounced. "My name." He said with derision. "Is Pietro Verralan. My father is Sellfren Verralan, a High Priest of the Black Sorrow Cult."I blinked. That actually was kind of impressive. If the Cult used the same Job rankings as the church that meant his dad was a D-ranker, and had already accomplished Mastery, possibly even Grandmastery.

I still shrugged. My parents were A-rankers, and my Uncle was at B-rank. Not to mention my S-ranked Grandpa, and my ancestor the god. If we were having a 'whose family members are scariest' competition I was going to win. It also made me aware that this guy definitely didn't know who I was, or he wouldn't have bothered with the flex. "So, what, you found out I killed Aiden and decided to come to this backwater to kill me?"

Pietro laughed derisively (I'm not entirely sure he could do things any other way, he seemed just be naturally dickish). "Fool. I came for the tournament. I'm simply taking care of some business while I'm here. If you're waiting for reinforcements by the way, don't. My own entourage of E-rankers are holding back the others, and all these corpses are G-ranked, just to prevent the detection enchantments from picking them up."

"You...you're doing all this because I killed some random ass cult member? That's insane. You're declaring war on the WCP, literally invading sovereign territory. You'll drag the whole Cult into it." There was no way anyone was actually this petty.

"Hardly." He said with a snort. "As long as things don't escalate beyond the level of this planet the Unity and the Wish Curse Palace won't make trouble. These kinds of squabbles on a D-ranked planet are far beneath the notice of the true powers of the universe. At worst the Unity will demand I kill some of the E-rankers who participated, and they're expendable anyway."

I suspected he was underestimating how much he was biting off, but I had zero hope of convincing him of that. At least he hadn't brought any F-rankers. Or many of them. I could only assume whatever means the WCP had of detecting them was too nebulous for him to be sure he wouldn't trip the security. Oh well, I slid out my cane, spinning it up between my fingers as I imbued it with poisonfire.

"I'll teach you that the Black Sorrow Cult's prestige is not to be challenged." Pietro grinned, his eyes beginning to fill with black mist. The others got into place. I was annoyed. This asshole just stumbled on me by accident, and I was probably going to end up having to kill him. If the Cult wasn't after me hard before they would be this time, and all because some smarmy stuck up prick wanted to get bragging rights while he was out on a trip.

Despite his old man only being D-rank, he might still have an inherited ability from an S-rank grandpa or something. No one would be this cocky based on nothing but rep. Still, D-ranker or not, I had the protection of the WCP when it came to anyone E-rank or above. At G-rank I was confident not even these weird science experiments could stop Callie and I so what was there to be afraid of.

It was weird that I was so easily considering killing this guy though. I'd killed people before of course, but it had been a hard thing to come to terms with. I wasn't some bloodthirsty psycho who just murdered anyone who pissed me off. It took me a bit to pin down why the idea didn't bother me, but I finally landed on the fact that this guy was an embodiment of the Black Sorrow Cult itself to me. I'd seen them do terrible things to people for no reason. Sacrifice innocents for power just because, and I'd subconsciously started to hate them for it.

You could tell me that cultivation was brutal, that people trying to gain power was normal, that recursion was partly to blame, but I didnt care about any of that. I didn't even care that I was trying to be more heroic. I just hated them. Maybe not all of them, there were trillions of people in the Cult. But this guy personified the worst traits of that place, and thinking back to poor little Cass, who was still recovering from the things they did to her head, I wanted him to die.

I looked over at Callie. "I want to kill him." I didn't mince words or beat around the bush. I just came out and said it. She would agree or not, and if she didn't I'd let it go. She was the leader, and her morality was more developed than mine anyway. I wasn't willing to fuck up my relationship for this idiot no matter how much of an asshole he was.

To my surprise though, she just grinned. "Better get to work then." She looked at Abel and Lament. "He has a pair of early F-rank guards with him. Can the two of you take them on?" That wasn't a shock. Since his old man doted on him enough to arrange for him to cross to another star cluster to fight for a chance to get into this dungeon he was probably under serious protection. Not just F-rankers, the E-rankers he mentioned were probably his guards too. Luckily we didn't have to deal with them. Sure enough, two guys stepped out from behind him, emerging from the crowd. F-rank. Callie had noticed then before I had. Her Perception was better. Scary or not, I had to admit. This was definitely going to be an exciting fight.