BOOM!
The entire Ivory Haven trembled.
Mark's strike had not only split the wooden table in half; it had pierced through the structure and struck the foundation at that point. The impact generated a shockwave of pure mana that spread like a violent earthquake.
Down below, in the main hall, priceless bottles of wine exploded on the shelves and crystal chandeliers swayed frantically.
Guests screamed, some falling from their chairs as the stone floor vibrated at a frequency that made their teeth ache.
Higher-Rank adventurers froze instantly, their hands flying to the hilts of their swords, their faces pale.
They hadn't just felt a tremor; they felt a killing intent so vast and heavy that the air seemed to vanish from everyone's lungs inside the building.
It was as if a god had just stomped down on the inn's roof.
***
Back in the room.
Mark remained silent for a second, but in his mind, a storm of thoughts collided like waves.
He was not a killer.
At least, he didn't want to be.
In his previous life, death was a statistic on a screen or an abstract concept; here, every body Hermos mentioned so casually was a real human life that he had erased through negligence by delegating the task to his servants.
If the Solis Empire was looking for a reason to advance into the desert, he had just handed them one on a silver platter.
"Consequences of injuries" was just an excuse for the fact that his orders had failed.
He had been clear.
He had been specific.
Mark thought, and the realization that his authority had been interpreted loosely hit him like an insult.
He knew he shouldn't have reacted that way. But the combination of moral guilt and the implicit insubordination of his servants acted like a fuse.
If he allowed "directly" to become a loophole for collateral massacres, what was the value of his authority?
One side of him, the one that still remembered being an ordinary human, was horrified by the weight of real blood. But the other side — the Sovereign — felt something more visceral.
The fury of someone whose absolute will had been neglected.
If they couldn't follow his orders to contain humans without causing a massacre, then he didn't have servants—Mark had unlocked nuclear weapons.
And weapons without a safety could destroy their own master.
[ "I-I... M-My Lord...!" ]
Hermos's voice, coming from Pippin, was a hiss of pure terror. The small servant was flattened against the floor, his eyes rolled back, nearly losing consciousness from the mere proximity of Mark's aura.
Hermos's fear was palpable; he felt that, if Mark wished, he could extinguish his soul through that connection with a single thought.
"Inevitable, Hermos?" Mark's voice came out low, but laden with a weight that seemed to bend the air. "I gave a direct order. It wasn't a suggestion. It wasn't a request to 'try your best'. It was an order of containment."
Mark took a step forward, the floor beneath his boot cracking.
If he allowed them to decide who lived and who died "by accident," Mark would lose control over what remained of his humanity.
And if the Solis Empire came in full force because of those deaths, their blood would be on Mark's hands because he failed to control his own servants.
[ "S-Sovereign... please..." ] Hermos tried to form a defense, his voice breaking into short sobs through Pippin.
[ "T-their power... humans are too fragile... the Sanguine Knight only tried to deflect the blows, but the pressure... the Dragonfly only dropped them, she didn't think the fall would..."]
Mark let out a long sigh, the air leaving his lungs as if it carried part of the atmospheric pressure he himself had created.
He brought a hand to his face, covering his eyes, and felt around for what remained of his chair to sit down again.
Who was he trying to fool?
"It's my fault too." He admitted, his voice low, almost a whisper that made Hermos shudder on the other side.
[ "Sovereign..." ] Hermos murmured, stunned.
The silence that followed was heavy, broken only by the creaking of wood still settling and the distant sounds of shouts and hurried footsteps from below.
Internally, Mark felt the weight of his mistake.
'I was an idiot.'
He knew that the original plan of repelling the troop would already bring consequences. He was prepared for survivors to return and report powerful monsters in the desert.
But there was an abyssal difference between "soldiers repelled by a superior force" and "soldiers massacred."
Now he had prisoners of war and fugitives.
The vice-commander was out there, running back into the heart of the Empire with terror etched into his soul. Mark knew that no matter what he did now with those who remained, the story already had a narrator.
'If I release them now, they'll join the fleeing vice-commander and the Empire will mobilize more soldiers within weeks.'
Reports of deaths by "friendly fire" or "falls" wouldn't matter at that point.
They would only see the corpses of their men and monsters.
If he released the prisoners immediately, they would only confirm the horror.
If he killed them, he would confirm the threat.
Mark weighed the options. Keeping the prisoners was a risk, but releasing them at the height of the problem would hand total control of the narrative to the enemy.
'I need time for the shock to pass. If I keep them detained, I can try to use the captured General to understand what the Empire really wants with the desert before deciding how to return them safely.'
If he bought a few days, he could observe how the Empire reacted to the disappearance of the forces and the report from the fleeing vice-commander.
Would they send an immediate rescue force or pull back to reassess?
Moreover, if he released them now, wounded and disoriented in the middle of the Ashen Desert, they would likely die to the local fauna before reaching the border, and the blame would once again fall on him.
Keeping them, ironically, was the only way to ensure they stayed alive and fed until he decided how to return them without it looking like a declaration of war.
The decision formed.
"Keep them detained," Mark ordered, his voice regaining firmness, though devoid of his earlier fury.
"Do not release them. Treat the wounded and ensure the General remains alive and lucid."
He looked at Pippin, whose eyes were beginning to refocus, though the servant was still trembling.
"Hermos, listen carefully. Since containment failed, your new priority is intelligence. Use the Cindralisks to secretly watch the perimeter; if the vice-commander escaped, the Empire will come after what's left of the troop or send scouts to confirm the deaths. And as for those who died..."
Mark paused, his jaw tight. "Give them a proper burial."
[ "Y-yes, Sovereign! Understood! Your orders will be followed to the letter!" ] Hermos replied, his voice filled with servile relief and desperation to redeem himself.
Despite not knowing what a proper burial would be, he could always ask the other commanders how to proceed.
Asking the Sovereign now might not be a good idea.
Not after his outburst...
"Dismissed." Mark ended the connection with a wave of his hand. He leaned back on what remained of the chair and looked at the disaster around him.
He had no idea Ivory Haven was in chaos and that he was the epicenter.
'I wanted to avoid trouble, and now this happened...'
***
Downstairs, the Ivory Haven lobby had turned into an anthill of panic and indignation.
Nobles who paid fortunes for peaceful nights, influential merchants, and powerful figures of the city surrounded the reception, voices overlapping in a clamor for answers.
Elias's expression was pale, cold sweat running down his temples as he was pressured from all sides.
"Everyone, please! It could have been a tremor, a natural phenomenon of the city's foundations..." he tried to explain, his voice faltering before the crowd.
"An earthquake?! Don't be ridiculous!" a middle-aged noble roared, pointing at the ceiling. "One of my personal guards is a peak Silver-Rank adventurer, and he guaranteed that this was nothing natural! That was a release of killing intent, a pulse of raw mana! If Ivory Haven hosts powerful guests, the bare minimum is that you contain them so they don't cause problems for others!"
"He's right!" exclaimed a woman adorned with heavy jewelry, pressing a handkerchief to her pale face. "My genuine Orizon crystal glasses were reduced to dust! The air became so heavy I thought I would suffocate! This isn't nature, it's negligence!"
"We pay for the safety and peace of Ivory Haven!" a silk merchant shouted from behind, slamming his fist against the marble counter.
"If there's a monster or an uncontrolled mage up there, we want them removed now! The guild should be called! Where is the city patrol?"
The uproar grew, with more voices agreeing and demanding that the rooms be inspected, turning the luxurious lobby into an arena of accusations.
The situation threatened to spiral out of control until an old man with white hair and impeccable posture emerged from one of the inner rooms with a calm that sharply contrasted the chaos.
He walked to the counter and, with a firm but gentle gesture, placed a hand on Elias's shoulder, who was visibly trembling.
"Leave it to me, Elias. Go organize the damage reports." the old man said in a low, reassuring tone before turning to the enraged crowd.
"Ladies and gentlemen... please. I understand everyone's fear." he said, opening his arms in a welcoming gesture. "What we have just witnessed was, in fact, a singular and unfortunate event. Ivory Haven values the discretion and safety of its patrons above all else."
"Discretion?! We were almost crushed!" the middle-aged noble shot back, but the manager merely nodded with a slight inclination of his head.
"Precisely why we will spare no effort to remedy this disturbance. We have already dispatched our own specialists for a thorough investigation of every inch of this foundation and every guest record. If there was an external fluctuation or an isolated incident, we will reach the root."
The old man continued, maintaining eye contact with the most agitated. "As proof of our good faith and commitment to your well-being, Ivory Haven declares full exemption from fees for all those affected by this incident for the next forty-eight hours. In addition, all present will receive a generous discount credit for their next stays, and material losses, such as the lady's Orizon crystals, will be fully reimbursed after a brief evaluation."
A murmur of surprise spread.
The cost of that move would be astronomical, but the old man knew the establishment's reputation was worth far more.
"I ask that you return to your rooms or the dining hall, where we will serve our finest wine on the house while our technical team works. Ivory Haven remains the safe haven you know. Please, allow us to handle the details so your evening is not further disrupted."
Slowly, the tension began to dissipate.
The promise of money and reimbursements, combined with the manager's unwavering posture, was enough to turn indignation into hushed conversations as the crowd dispersed with curiosity.
The old manager remained still as he watched the guests withdraw.
As soon as the last of them turned the corner toward the dining hall, his polished expression collapsed into a frown.
He tilted his head slightly back, looking at the carved oak ceiling, directly toward the upper floors.
Unlike the nobles and merchants, he didn't need a Silver-Rank guard to tell him what had happened.
That tremor didn't come from the foundations; it came from above.
And it wasn't a natural phenomenon.
'That kind of pressure... without any prior sign of casting.' the old man thought, his narrow eyes fixed on the ceiling.
'That was pure mana. Whoever did that wasn't trying to attack the building. It was as if...'
The thought made him shudder internally.
Hosting someone capable of shaking a structure reinforced with containment arrays was like housing a sleeping dragon in a nest of straw.
He looked at Elias, who was still trying to steady his breathing behind the counter.
"Elias." the old man called in a low, imperative whisper. "Do not go upstairs. Do not send anyone upstairs. If the guest needs anything, he will come to us. And for the love of all the gods, do not tell anyone that we know which room that came from."
The old manager shifted his gaze to a small bronze panel hidden behind the counter.
There, embedded in the wood, resonance arrays pulsed in a dull, unstable red.
They were used to monitor skill usage and mana fluctuations in each room, acting as a silent security system to contain problematic guests.
But the panel now displayed an overload the old man had never seen in decades; the alert hadn't been a soft glow, but a sharp snap that had nearly fried the reception's connections.
He knew that if the inn's security system had barely managed to contain the residual shock, confronting whoever was upstairs would be a fatal mistake.
"Yes!" Elias nodded quickly.
***
Upstairs.
Mark remained in his room until the end of the night, avoiding any contact.
Information about the incident spread through Luminaris like wildfire; rumors claimed that a powerful adventurer was staying at Ivory Haven and that the building had nearly collapsed due to an indiscriminate attack.
When he finally went down for his meal, Mark found furtive glances and a tense silence that followed him like a shadow.
The guests seemed alert, searching for clues as to who could be responsible for the earlier commotion.
Mark ate in silence, his mood still sour, feeling the weight of the information reported by Hermos bittering his taste.
The pieces of monster meat he couldn't swallow were passed to Pippin, who accepted them with silent gratitude beneath the cloak.
Back in the room, Mark did not call the staff to clean the mess he had made.
The remains of the table and the scattered books stayed piled in one corner.
And so, he spent the night in a state of lethargic waiting, expecting any signal from Hermos. But the silence of the desert was absolute, and without new crises, Mark eventually fell asleep.
The next morning, he was still deeply immersed in a dreamless sleep when a sharp sound woke him.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
Someone was knocking on his door.
Mark remained still for a few seconds, the knocks still echoing faintly against the room's walls. He frowned, the remnants of sleep vanishing instantly to make way for silent confusion.
Who was bothering him this early?
Curiosity made him get out of bed with a low grumble.
At that moment, Mark was wearing only dark linen pants and a long, heavy gray silk robe, open at the chest, giving him a relaxed look he rarely allowed himself.
These were clothes provided by Ivory Haven.
They were comfortable, even though he preferred his own.
When Mark was about to reach the door, he stopped and turned back, picking up his [Threat Dissipation Cloak] from the bed, almost forgetting to put it on.
On the floor, near the entrance, Pippin was already acting.
The small servant had his body pressed flat against the wooden floor, his pointed ears stuck to the gap, trying to peek or listen to whoever was on the other side.
Mark walked silently to the entrance and, with a subtle movement of his foot, nudged Pippin aside.
The small servant understood instantly; he leapt away and ran into the shadows beneath the dresser, disappearing completely.
Mark brought his hand to the handle.
With a calm motion, he pulled the door open.
"Good morning, Mr. Vaelin."
His eyes met those of a familiar figure waiting in the silent corridor.
'Oh...'