Chapter 123: The Plot Against Acheron Deep

Chapter 123: Chapter 123: The Plot Against Acheron Deep

The top-floor office of Director Corvin Draeger was dead quiet.

Tucked away in the executive tower of the Continental Association, it was worlds away from the noisy dispatch centers and triage bays below.

Up here, everything was polished dark wood, thick bulletproof glass, and soft carpets. Outside the massive window, the city lights stretched to the horizon. Mounted behind the desk was the silver crest of the Hero Association.

Beneath that emblem sat two men who had spent decades pulling strings from the shadows: Director Corvin Draeger and Director Vance.

Neither looked happy. Across the desk, a junior intelligence aide stood trembling, clutching a digital tablet to his chest.

"Keep reading," Vance ordered, his fingers tapping the leather armrest.

The aide swallowed hard. "The rehabilitation program at Acheron Deep is still showing steady progress, sir."

"Be specific," Vance said coldly.

"Seraphina Veyr hasn’t had a single mana surge in months," the aide stammered. "She talks with the guards now, her mood is stable, and her combat focus is sharper than ever. Her relationship with Doctor Felix Valerius is... extremely positive. She follows his directions without resistance."

"And the little one?" Corvin asked, his voice low.

"Liora Morven. Her integration is moving even faster. She’s actively running missions with Captain Aria’s S-rank squad. Since her core breakthrough, her combat rating has reached standard A-rank. More importantly, her emotional state has completely stabilized."

"Because of Felix," Vance muttered, his jaw tightening.

The aide didn’t dare answer that. "Her fear of her own darkness is gone. She has developed a strong emotional attachment to Felix, which our analysts say is acting as an anchor. It’s keeping her calm instead of making her dangerous."

Vance let out a dry, bitter laugh. "How convenient. A killer dog gets a pet doctor."

"What about Vesper Cruz?" Corvin interrupted, his voice turning icy.

The temperature in the room plummeted at the sound of the name. Vesper Cruz: the assassin who had murdered Corvin’s father.

"Her progress is slower, Director," the aide said carefully.

"Obviously," Corvin sneered.

"However, Doctor Valerius recently started cognitive therapy sessions with her. Specifically... chess."

Corvin stared at the aide in total disbelief.

"Chess? The woman who butchered Association director and broke out of Acheron Deep is playing board games?"

"It’s approved under the rehabilitation protocol, sir," the aide mumbled, keeping his eyes glued to the floor.

"Approved," Vance mocked, shaking his head.

"Of course it is. Voss approves whatever that boy asks for."

Corvin leaned forward. "What about his rank and duties?"

"Doctor Valerius’s authority has been expanded. Director Voss granted him full discretion over prisoner interactions, yard time, and field deployments. On top of that, he is now permanently assigned as the vice-captain of the primary S-rank strike team."

"After yesterday’s gate?" Vance asked.

"Yes, sir. His performance in the alternate world was decisive. Field reports confirm he kept the entire squad alive against two artificially boosted SS-rank beasts. His public reputation is skyrocketing."

Corvin stared at the desktop. Then he asked the question both directors had been dreading: "How close is he to becoming untouchable?"

The aide hesitated. "...Very close, sir."

Silence settled over the office.

Vance stared out the high window at the glowing capital below. Hundreds of thousands of people were going about their evening: eating dinner, driving home, feeling safe because they believed the Association was watching over them.

Corvin waved a dismissive hand. "Get out."

"Sir?"

"Leave. Now."

"Yes, sir." The aide bowed hurriedly and practically sprinted out the door, letting the heavy latch click shut behind him.

Vance watched the door close, then turned to Corvin. "I knew this would happen the second I heard the name Valerius."

"You knew his father?" Corvin asked.

Vance let out a harsh, mocking chuckle. "Knew him? Cassius and I graduated from the same hero academy forty years ago. Cassius Valerius was born a Tier 2 talent. I was a Tier 3."

Corvin listened in silence.

"We took the same exams, hunted the same beasts, and climbed the same ranks," Vance said, pure venom lacing his words. "Tier 3 caps out at S-rank. That was my ceiling. But Cassius... his core kept growing. He broke straight through to SS-rank. He made it look effortless."

Corvin understood completely. In the awakened world, the cruelest wall wasn’t hard work or bravery. It was born talent.

Most of the world’s top heroes are Tier 2. A few of them push into SS-rank. But above that, Tier 1. Those are natural-born monsters. Freaks who have the potential to reach SSS-rank.

"Potential isn’t reality," Corvin pointed out.

"Of course not," Vance agreed. "Only five people in the entire world have ever actually reached SSS-rank, and every single one of them is over a century old."

They don’t do daily gate clears. They don’t save kittens. They only takes action when an SSS-rank rift threatens to wipe out an entire continent.

Vance shook his head. "Cassius can never reach SSS. But he stood right on the edge of it. For thirty years, I lived in that man’s shadow. So when he suddenly resigned five years ago and vanished into the countryside... I popped open a bottle of champagne."

That sudden resignation had opened up a seat on the executive council. Vance had grabbed it, teaming up with Corvin’s father, Alaric Draeger.

Alaric was smart, ruthless, and understood how the real world worked. Together, they built an invisible empire behind the Association’s clean public face.

They buried internal investigations, pushed loyal cronies into directorships, sold seized rift materials on the black market, and partnered with the city’s largest criminal syndicates.

"For ten years, everything ran smoothly," Vance murmured.

"Until Silver Needle," Corvin said coldly.

"Yes. Vesper Cruz."

The assassin had taken a contract, slipped past elite security, and driven a poisoned needle straight through Alaric Draeger’s heart. Then, when she she gets surrounded, she had quietly laid down her weapons and surrendered to Association enforcers.

That single arrest had unraveled their entire network. Investigators dug into Alaric’s private files. Syndicates were raided, bank accounts were frozen, corrupt officials were thrown in prison, and Vance’s influence was shredded to pieces.

Vance hissed. "They gutted our life’s work."

"And she killed my father," Corvin said, his voice trembling with rage.

Corvin stood up, pacing behind the desk. "And right now, the woman who murdered him is sitting in Acheron Deep. She has a bed. She gets three meals a day. She reads books and plays chess with Felix Valerius!"

His fists slammed onto the polished wood.

"She is going to walk free, Vance! First it’s yard time. Then it’s supervised work release. In two years, the Association will give her a fresh badge and an apartment, and everyone will pretend she’s a hero! I will not allow that woman to live."

Vance looked at him steadily. "Neither will I."

Corvin stopped pacing. "Then what do you propose?"

"We eliminate the problem at the root," Vance said, leaning forward. "All three of them. Vesper, Seraphina, and Liora."

Corvin raised an eyebrow. "All three?"

"All three are Tier 1 talents. If they stay under Felix’s thumb, they become his personal army. If they die inside the prison, we control the story. We report it as an escape attempt. Vesper starts a riot, Seraphina and Liora join in, guards respond with lethal force, and all three are put down."

Corvin sat back down, considering the plan.

"And what about the obstacles? What about Elena Voss?"

"She has political immunity, and she runs the rehab division," Vance said. "We have no power over her, so we make sure she isn’t in the building. We arrange for her to take administrative leave."

"Gideon Rask?"

"He’s an SS-rank brute," Vance muttered.

"So we forge an intelligence alert. A high-priority mana spike near the northern border that demands an SS-rank specialist. He’ll deploy immediately."

"And Felix Valerius?"

Vance’s face darkened. "He’s the real problem. If we try to push his strike team into a rift, Seraphina and Liora will stick to him like glue.

Those three together are an absolute nightmare to touch. We can’t let them fight as a unit."

?Corvin paused, pen hovering over his blank notepad. "Then how do you isolate him?"

?"His obsession," Vance said, a cold smirk breaking across his features. "He’s an S-rank healer who can’t stomach watching hunters bleed out. All we need is a mass-casualty disaster in an adjacent district. A containment breach, dozens of critical injuries, local medical facilities overwhelmed. We use our dispatch contacts to flag it as a Priority-Zero medical emergency."

?Corvin’s eyes lit up with malicious clarity. "A pure medical dispatch requires the healer, not the combat squad."

?"Exactly," Vance said, tapping the desk. "He’ll be forced to fly out alone under emergency medical protocol while Seraphina and Liora remain locked down without their healer watching their backs."

?Corvin leaned forward, his pen scratching against the paper.

?"Voss on leave. Gideon deployed north. Felix isolated out of district." Corvin reviewed, looking up with a chilling smile. "All three targets divided and ripe for the slaughter."

"That leaves Acheron Deep wide open."

"Exactly," Vance said. "With the warden and top brass gone, emergency protocol transfers command directly to the senior directors. That means us."

"And who pulls the trigger on the girls?" Corvin asked. "Ordinary guards won’t stand a chance against Seraphina or Liora, even without their mana."

Vance smiled, a cold, vicious smirk.

"We do it ourselves."

Corvin looked up, his eyes widening slightly.

"We don’t fight them in a fair duel," Vance sneered. "They are prisoners. They wear mana-dampening collars. Their cells have suppressors built into the walls. We trigger the facility lockdown, pump neurotoxin through the ventilation shafts, and activate the heavy containment. By the time we walk into those cells, they won’t even have the strength to lift their heads."

Corvin stared at the paper in front of him. The plan was clean, ruthless, and left zero loose ends.

"What about Felix when he comes back?"

Corvin asked. "He won’t accept an official report. He’ll know something was wrong."

"Let him investigate," Vance said, waving a hand dismissively. "Suspicion isn’t proof. The Mad Healer is powerful, but he is just one man. Without his three pet monsters, he has no leverage. He’ll be angry, but he won’t be able to touch us."

Corvin picked up his pen and wrote three names at the top of the sheet:

Vesper Cruz.

Seraphina Veyr.

Liora Morven.

He drew a clean, sharp line through all three.

"One night," Corvin said softly. "One clean sweep."

"One night," Vance echoed, raising his glass of water in a mocking toast. "And the Association goes back to the way it was."

Both men smiled, convinced they had outsmarted the entire board.

---