Earth's territory; Etching Metal Organization;
The situation in the Etching Metal Organization had been tense several days ago until the return of Emna; whereupon a shocking change took place; However; after this change settled down; the tension returned;
This matter was inevitable; Emna, who had a high position in the hearts of the Etching Metal Organization, had placed her life on the line to give them a chance at the information they were seeking out, but even after returning in success, she had nothing to show for it;
According to Emna. the impetus for the creation of their Organization. a certain Leonel Morales that most of them had never even met before. took the spoils of Emna's successful assassination to analyze himself; It was then said that he was meant to return to them in a few days. but even after that time period had passed. he had still not returned;
Days ago. after Emna's return. many had already been dissatisfied with this; They didn't even know this Leonel. what right did he have to take their spoils? And now that he truly hadn't appeared after all this time. their dissatisfaction was only raised to an entirely new level; Could it be that he had simply lied and never planned to return at all;
Everything came to a head and the commotion was raised to a large enough level that a meeting was forced to convene;
At that moment. in an unknown location on an equally as unknown planet. this meeting had begun;
The Etching Metal Organization had just one leader. Raylion; However. the power was dispersed across many heads. all of whom had their own thoughts; While there were some heads that Raylion could trust to be on his side like Aphestus. Emna. and the most powerful among them. Sael;
When Leonel last met Sael. he had lamented that her mentality wasn't strong enough to make use of her talent; Despite being more talented than even Raylion. during their time in Valiant Heart Mountain. she had been constantly suppressed by him. and after Valiant Heart Mountain fell. while Raylion was able to forge ahead. she found herself broken and weak;
Since then. however. Sael had managed to pick herself up. becoming a backbone of the organization and a large reason why the original foundation of the Etching Metal organization hadn't lost sight of their original purpose;
Sael was precisely the very woman that had introduced Leonel and Aina to Valiant Heart Mountain in the first place; She had been born with a unique Ability Index that had never been encoded before that gave her body a great mutation that amplified her battle prowess; It also happened to give her quite some control over plants and vegetation;
Raylion had started the Etching Metal Organization with Aphestus many years ago, but it wasn't until quite some time after that that Sael managed to find her way back to them; And finally, many years after that, she and Raylion finally knocked down the last barriers separating the two and became husband and wife, solidifying their control over the organization;
pαпᵈα-noνɐ1.сoМ [Author's Note: it's been a while so I know the nuances of this relationship are probably hard to remember; If it matters to you to remember and not just have it retold to you, I would suggest reading the last few chapters before the fall of Valiant Heart Mountain again as these details will be more important than they seem (chap 915-19); Anyhoo, back to the story]
Still, over the years, in order to expand the power of the Etching Metal Organization, Raylion had no choice but to recruit and delegate power;
For an organization that lingered in the shadows and collected information while working in the morally grey hues of the world, being able to form numerous limbs that could work independently of one another while maintaining a certain level of strength and quality was greatly important;
However, in order to accomplish this, one also had to accept working with a double edged sword;
In releasing some of the absolute control he had, Raylion had to swallow a lot more pushback and dissenting opinions, especially in recent days. It was to the point where many were questioning the original reason the organization was formed in the first place!
Due to this, the room was split down the middle in two; On one side, there was Raylion, Sael, Aphestus and Emna, but on the other, there were four other individuals;
Crafter Bitner; This old man was the best Crafter among their numbers, being at the Silver Grade; He was very much responsible for outfitting a large number of their assassins, warriors and operatives with the tools and treasures they needed, especially at the highest levels;
Treasurer Jemsy. He was a savant when it came to not only accounting, but also in money laundering and moving around dark money. Without him, their growth would have been bottlenecked over a decade ago. How could an organization grow without money? But this was an especially tall task to fulfill for an organization that functioned in the dark like theirs, especially when Raylion refused to take on casual assassination missions that would have been the most lucrative.
Then there was Robin and Tiny, the former being a woman and the latter being a man that was, quite frankly, tiny. Robin was a tall and muscular woman whose neck was swallowed up by her traps, while Tiny was a man of not even five feet tall who had irises so large and black that the whites of his eyes almost vanished entirely.
However, their combat prowess was exceptional and they were the pillars of strength of their organization outside of Raylion, Sael, Aphestus and Emna.
At this moment, Crafter Bitner, Treasurer Jemsy, Robin and Tiny sat across from the four somewhat founding members of the organization, questioning the recent happenings quite fiercely.
"… This old narrative is getting tiring," Tiny spoke in a voice several octaves too deep given his size, "it has been over 20 years since the organization was founded and we've been waiting for this so-called Leonel to appear for all this time, and once he finally does, he screws us over? Is this what you've had us waiting all this time for?
"You refuse to expand beyond Earth's territory even though this is by far the most dangerous region to do business in the Human Domain currently. You refuse to accept assassination missions that aren't hand picked and curated even though Jemsy is barely keeping us afloat money-wise. And now our apparent savior is some Tier 1 Sixth Dimensional brat?"
Emna's expression darkened. "Tier 1 of the Sixth Dimension is too weak for you? Am I too weak for you too?"
"We've already had this conversation, Emna. You dealt the man a fatal blow and he was already greatly weakened. He just swooped in after you had already done all the work and you went googly eyed, even giving him our spoils of war. Shouldn't you be answering for that?!"
"I put my life on the line to complete that mission, but you want me to give you an answer for it?!" Emna's gaze danced with flickering blade lights.
"Haha!" Tiny roared with laughter. "You might have completed the mission, but who gave you the information on where that convenience station was? Who got the information of what that man's status was and what his goals were? How many of our brothers and sisters died before we could gather up that information?!
"We've been in business for more than 20 years but we've only unearthed three of those locations, and yet you pissed it all away the moment you saw that incompetent fool! Now there's only two left and they'll probably be on guard, there's no telling if the information would remain the same, and even if it did, there's no telling if you'll succeed this time!
"If you can't see the problem with that, you don't deserve your position!"
"YOU!" Emna's hair stood on end, blade edges dancing within it. It seemed as though her individual strands had become Blade Force.
Just as the atmosphere was about to boil over, there was a rushed knocking and an attendant stumbled in.
"Big news! Big news! Our informants just reported that the Adurna, Brazinger, Laevis and Crudus families have all been destroyed!"
Through their huffing and puffing, the attendant managed to breathe these words out.
The eight heads were left stunned.
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