Chapter 196: The Bell Toll and the Kennel

Chapter 196: Chapter 196: The Bell Toll and the Kennel

On the outskirts of the city stood a Holy Mountain, perpetually wreathed in a thick sea of magical clouds.

And above that churning sea of clouds...

...floated huge, inverted cone-shaped islands, as if by a miracle.

The climate on the islands was like spring all year round, and wide, silvery waterfalls poured down from the islands’ edges.

The water plunged into the clouds below, its spray forever catching the sunlight to form a brilliant, seven-hued rainbow.

The streets of the city of Elcardia were all meticulously planned and orderly.

Exquisite Magical Rail Cars could be seen everywhere, quickly weaving along laid tracks through the gaps in the dense clusters of buildings.

In the distant deep-water port, Magic Energy Cargo Ships, like giant beasts of the sea, were moored.

At this very moment,

a melodious and deep bell toll suddenly rang out over the city.

The sound was incredibly piercing, instantly spreading to every corner of the City of Radiance.

Whether they were busy merchants in the exchange or Guards patrolling the streets, everyone tacitly stopped what they were doing.

As one, they all raised their heads and cast their gazes toward the summit of the Holy Mountain.

Whenever this special bell tolled, it meant that somewhere on this vast continent, someone had accomplished a great deed worthy of being recorded in the annals of history.

Because many years had passed since the last great deed was achieved,

upon hearing the bell, looks of surprise appeared on everyone’s faces.

Soon,

the Clergy on the Holy Mountain had already spread the news of the world-shaking great deed.

In the streets and alleys, people whispered to each other, scrambling to pass on the hair-raising news.

Before long, every resident in Elcardia knew.

Just moments ago, a mere mortal, in the Star Realm, had defeated Divine Chaos—the deity who represented rebellion!

And this explosive news was spreading like wildfire across the entire continent at a terrifying speed, through the Adventurer’s Guild, merchant guilds, and various other secret channels.

...

「At the same time.」

In the Iris Kingdom, deep underground somewhere in the bustling Royal Capital.

The Black Iron Command Bureau’s secret base, codenamed "the Dog Kennel."

This was the Command Bureau’s bloody cradle, used exclusively to train its reserve "Puppies." It was also a brutal gladiatorial arena, completely beyond the jurisdiction of the Kingdom’s laws.

This clandestine department, hidden from the light of day, would annually sift through orphanages, slums, and even death row camps for high-risk prisoners across the nation. They carefully selected young prospects who possessed superb combat Intuition and sufficiently resilient minds.

Then, they would be forcibly brought back here.

Their past identities and names would be completely erased.

Through round after round of bloody combat, they were forged into the sharpest and most obedient blades in the hands of the Command Bureau.

At this moment, in the observation room on the second floor of the training ground,

two high-ranking, powerful officials were watching impassively through the railing, observing the graduation and Profession ceremony for the batch of Puppies below.

One of them was Grailheid Cromwell, the commander of [Tusk], the Command Bureau’s department in charge of all operational deployments and assassinations.

He was an old man with a body as burly as an iron tower.

He wore a gray, standard-issue Command Bureau long coat and exuded a thick stench of blood.

Right now, Grailheid’s expression was grim, his brows knitted tightly together.

Because among the batch of Puppies completing the ceremony in the center of the square below, not a single one had been fortunate enough to receive a boon from Chaos and become the "alpha wolf" of the new recruits.

This meant...

...this group of rookies could only determine the strongest among them through the most primitive method: killing each other.

Grailheid’s gaze passed over the chaotic crowd, locking onto a young man with short, grayish-white hair in a corner.

The young man looked very thin, even malnourished. His skin had a sickly, grayish-white pallor, the kind that comes from never seeing the sun.

But at this moment,

he was fighting three against one. With both hands, he held one of his opponents’ heads, and like a madman, slammed it repeatedly against the hard stone wall, unleashing a terrifying display of Power.

His name was Yasa Scamander.

He was originally from the family of a minor Baron, one that had long since fallen into decline.

At the age of twelve,

this seemingly frail young noble suddenly awakened a rare and exceptionally violent and aberrant Talent.

On a dark and stormy night, without any outside help,

he single-handedly slaughtered every last servant in the Baron’s manor.

After the incident, he was quickly apprehended by the local Patrol Bureau and mercilessly sentenced to death by the local court.

However, just as this sharp "killing blade" was about to be sent to the guillotine, the Command Bureau’s intelligence network happened to discover him on the list of condemned prisoners on death row.

So Grailheid used his authority to personally intervene.

He snatched this "uncut gem," stained with the blood of innocents, and brought him back to the Dog Kennel.

In the five years of inhuman torture and hellish training that followed,

the taciturn boy displayed an astonishing talent for killing.

He had actually trained in all five of the Command Bureau’s exclusive Skills—acknowledged as having the highest mortality rates—to the terrifying point of manifesting them as physical Specialties.

[Blood Trace Tracking], [Magic Burst Vision], [Corpse of Deathly Silence], [Living Poison Quenching], [Inner Bone Armor].

An Ordinary Puppy, even if they spent their entire youth, would be considered elite within their squad if they managed to master just two of them.

But Yasa, by himself, had brutally mastered them all.

Furthermore, he had successfully acquired one of the Rare Professions, and had polished nearly all his personal Attributes to the absolute upper limit of the Attribute Lock for his level.

Yet even a performance as perfect as this was still not enough to earn an extra boon from Chaos.

"Have you confirmed this carefully?"

Grailheid asked without turning his head.

"The personnel who know the core of the Chaos Profession ceremony—are all of them still under the control of your Dog Chain?"

Standing beside him was Sith Valentine, one of the leaders of the intelligence department, [Dog Chain], who had been urgently summoned to handle the situation.

He was a slender middle-aged man with a gold-rimmed monocle perched on the bridge of his nose and a faint smile playing on his lips.

Hearing Grailheid’s question, Sith gave a slight bow.

His position within the Command Bureau was one level lower than the other man’s.

Moreover, he had been promoted through Grailheid’s faction.

Although his control over the intelligence network granted him special professional immunities, he had no desire to offend a powerful, hot-tempered old man over something like this.

"Rest assured, Commander. All personnel who know the core of the ritual are under 24/7 surveillance by our highest-level ’Wind Media’."

"There is absolutely no chance that any internal personnel could have leaked the secrets of the ritual."