The Cabal

#Somewhere in Ayodale City

It was well past midnight. Except for the street lights and some random bright windows, the whole city was sleeping. There was no sight of the moon in the cloudy sky; no star blinked.

Ayodale City was divided into poor, middle-class, and elite-class areas. The parts where comparatively poor people live were very densely populated. Working-class people of low income lived in these areas.

There were some parts of the city where middle-class people lived. You would see many massive, new, and high-rise condominiums. Some people owned apartments, and some people rented.

The filthy rich people lived in the glittering, bright, and shining part of the city, Balgeun Myeon. This part of the city was the most lawless, although it was called 'Balgeun Myeon, or the bright side'.

Why? Because every other individual was either a millionaire or even richer. One would find all kinds of heinous and dangerous crimes happening here, and perpetrators went unpunished because they were the law themselves.

Owners of large corporations changed overnight. People became richer at the cost of someone else's misfortune. Although it was the most brightly lit part of the city, BM harbored a darkness that even the most disgusting crimes could not compare to.

In BM, there were particular and weird clubs for the elites among the elites. Money could not buy you a membership in these clubs. You could only get in with your family connections or political influence.

'Peer 666' was one of them. Rumors said that this was the most elite of all the elite clubs. The club was home to members of some powerful families who were among the founders of this nation. Except for the members, no one knows what exactly went in here. Whatever happened happened in the utmost secrecy.

The people who worked there were all part of the members' households. So, even if you were eligible, you could not enter unless you worked for the family of one of the club members. In short, it was an impregnable fortress.

You could not just say 'police or have a search warrant' or 'have an appointment' or 'I know someone inside' or anything as an excuse to venture inside the club. It was sealed.

If you could pass the retinal scanner, then correctly enter the password that changes every hour, fingerprint, voice and face recognition, and DNA test, then you would be able to enter. The measures taken to secure the club entrance proved how secretive and private the club members were.

A few members were present in a very lovely and cozy room full of modern furniture, sparkling even in the dimly lit room. The light was really comfortable on the eyes.

Centering a table sat three people. They had an overwhelmingly dark aura about them. They were sipping from their wine glasses. One lady and two gentlemen

Haneul Cayman, one of the gentlemen in his mid-thirties, sitting there sipping wine from his glass, was a man of short stature but with blue eyes as cold and lifeless as a snake. Long black hair, dyed partially in a blondish shade, neatly brushed backward Nicely styled stubble.

He was well known in this circle for his cunning cruelty. He was wearing a casual dress—white pants and a full-sleeve striped shirt—of course from a very expensive brand. You would not find them in any shopping malls.

Cayman's dresses came directly from the designers, whom he ordered personally, and he did not like it if there was a second piece of the same dress on anyone else. The owner of the second piece would not live to see the dawn of the next day.

Cayman had a piercing in his right ear. The fingers on his left hand were populated with beautiful platinum rings. He was wearing a pair of black loafers. Suddenly, 'ting', a notification. There was a message with a picture.

The message said, "Wearing the same shirt."

Haneul immediately called the sender and whispered when the other party answered, "Hey! you with him now?"

"Yes...following him...sir"

His face changed from unperturbed to extremely excited, and his face flushed red. "Get him. We'll need to have some heart-to-heart talk."

"Should we prep him for the talk, sir?"

"Of course! He should be quite physically prepared."

"Yes..sir! We will do it right away!"

Haneul ended the call with, "Poor bastard! From all the shirts in the world to buy, he had to choose that."

The other two were looking at him intently, amused.

"What! It's not a big deal. First, he will tell me who gave him that shirt! Then I get the designer and buy his or her company. Then burn them to the ground," Haneul said as if it wasn't much to do all that!

The lady, Dabria Fu, chuckled. "That'll be a waste! Why even bother? Just burn your shirt! You will save a lot of effort and time!"

Dabria Fu was quite young, barely stepping into her twenties, a strikingly sharp beauty in black business attire. She was the CEO candidate for a very big company and the heir to a very powerful family.

Her pride and command came from the power of the connections and wealth she and her family had. She got to this position not because she was the heir; it was because she was extraordinary.

Once she put her mind to something, she could master it and make it her own in a very short time. She graduated from a famous university with a business major at the age of only nineteen—an exceptional feat indeed.

She had pale skin, dark hair, brown eyes with long eyelashes, an egg-shaped face, and a lean but strong figure—a perfect shape considered beauty in the eyes of many. Her diamond-like white teeth complemented her beautiful face.

"Well, it's a matter of prestige!" Haneul said.

"Mmm...! This...! It's nice!" Dabria Fu was enjoying a sip of wine. "So! We are here!"

She looked at the man sitting across her and said, "Let's hear it!" Nicolau Salazar, a man in his early forties with gray eyes, pale skin tone, blonde hair with an Ivy League haircut, chevron mustache, and a light stubble.

He had textbook-perfect elegance and was wearing a very expensive shawl-lapel-style black suit. He was a man of very few words but more actions. He appeared more experienced and mature than the other two in the room.

"Our target is to find the probable heir to the mystics. Those bastards are very hard to find. They hid themselves so deep inside the jungle that it took us many years to track them down. Anyway, they are history now. I wanted to check if the young boy was the one we had been looking for. So, I put him through some tests before finishing him off. He sure was a dangerous individual. With the power he possessed at such a young age, no one could tell what he would be capable of when he reached adulthood," Salazar spoke as he sipped from his glass. "When we were conducting our operation, the girl was not in the vicinity; otherwise, we would have taken care of her as well. That was a mistake. The girl could have witnessed everything!" He was composed, although his mission was only half done.

"We need the girl gone." Haneul put his glass down, stood up, and walked to the one-way ballistic glass window. He could see everything beyond the glass, but no one could see through from the opposite side. Heavily fortified windows. "If she saw you, she knows your face and knows what you did! We need her gone!"

"Why is she still alive? She was not guarded! Salazar used a protective spell! But why is the girl alive when there were no survivors?" Dabria Fu sipped from her glass again. "Shouldn't we look into her and try to figure out how she survived? She could have an even deeper connection to our interests!"

"What should be our next step, then?" Dabria Fu looked at Haneul. He was the brain of this project.

"We can't leave the project half-done like this!"

"First thing first! We need to get a hold of the girl! We can't expose our existence to the outside world. Police, military, and foreign spies—all are watching the girl! They all want to get inside the girl's head. We can do the same."

Haneul suddenly looked at Dabria. "Why don't you take care of the girl?"

"Oh! Okay!," Dabria said, still sipping from her glass.

"I want her alive for now. It's very suspicious how she survived the fire! We will need her if the boy is still alive. And if the boy is dead, then we can find many other ways to make good use of her." Dabria sipped from her glass.

"Then that's settled!" Salazar spoke quickly before Dabria changed her mind. "She's the right person for this! She is not the witch for nothing!" He thought.

Everyone knew only Salazar could appease the high priest! The three were all knights of various ranks in the Order of the Dark Cross. Haneul was a Knight Lieutenant, Dabria Fu was of the same rank, and only Salazar here held a Knight Grand Commander. Years ago, the High Priest knighted him. He was still in his mid-twenties then.

"I'll have someone monitor the borders of Akunomori. If anything comes out, we'll know immediately," Salazar dialed and gave someone instructions.

"We're talking about the bloodline mystics, the pure blood! You guys should have ensured his death with your own eyes; it's not easy to kill them." Dabria was still whining.

Dabria continued, "Haven't you guys learned anything from the centuries-old history between the Order and the wandering mystics? Anyway, if he is dead, then that's the end; if he is still alive, then I want to know him and win him over. He could be an asset. But do you have any pictures of the boy?"

Nicolau shook his head. "Why bother taking pictures when he must die?"

"Hmm...That's true!" Dabria nodded, but she gave out a vibe of uncertainty. As if she were thinking if it was so terribly necessary to kill the boy. She murmured, "I wish I could have the boy as one of my toys. It would be nice to have something like that in your possession. A nice puppet. Don't you think, guys?"

"And don't! I'm telling you, Dabria, if you try to save the boy, we will report this to the high priest. Keep that in mind."

Dabria nodded. "Well, he must die if the order wants him gone, right?"

Both of his male colleagues felt uneasy. They felt Dabria was not too committed to the cause of the order, all of a sudden.

"Everything alright, Witch Princess?" Asked Haneul.

Dabria did not answer. She kept sipping from the glass, unmindful.