Deal

On the other side, near the place where Maximus and the group had attempted to scout, a middle aged man sat with tens of mana crystals lying around him. A pained look etched across his face as he watched them turn into powder, blowing away into winds.

He had lost more than he thought. Even his strongest blow which consumed all his mana only left a deep gash on that person's chest.

Contrary to what Adrian and Maximus had thought about the strike simply being a warning, it was an entirely different matter. The assaulter merely had no mana left to initiate another strike. As for the strike which co-incidentally landed on Adrian, that was intentional indeed.

His young master had decreed that at least that person needs to go. Die. The leader of the Gardeners had given them what little information they had on the group, out of which Adrian stood out the most with his formidable physique, which he first hand experienced. The other three didn't have much presence except them being proficient in various tasks which allowed them to not get caught.

Getting up, he kept the remaining mana crystals in various pockets of his clothes. He counted their total number and once again felt pained for a moment. He walked deeper into the forest, navigating through the clearing through a map on his phone. It was approximately 5 minutes later that he reached a small clearing where several people were gathered.

He walked over to one person and quietly stood beside him. If Maximus and his group were here they would've definitely been surprised. It was the platinum haired young man! The one who almost tied for their first position in the field trip! He was the young master that the middle aged man took orders from.

The young man turned around and asked, "Has the task been completed Joseph?"

The middle aged man bowed subserviently and replied, "No young master. That person's physique was strong enough to take the blow head-on and still run away."

"So you mean they escaped? Without a single casualty?"

"Y-Yes, but the person has been heavily injured. I reckon checking keeping a lookout on every hospital out there, it is extremely likely we could find him at one of these places."

"You don't need to tell me that. You failed, that's it."

The young man narrowed his eyes and approached a figure in the distance with a steady gait. It was the familiar fatty, Sebastian. He remarked lightly, "The vigilantes of your area seem strong and well fed, I wonder if you know about it Sebastian."

The fatty, who was conversing with his soldiers, looked at the platinum haired young man who had approached him. He smiled, unfazed about his remark and replied,

"We wouldn't be troubled otherwise, right? Someone clearly wants them to go against us and cause trouble."

"Is that so? Joseph here could easily injure one of them. Is your Gardeners so worthless and weak as to not be able to handle them?"

Sebastian spread his hands and replied in a helpless tone, "Your person could only injure one of them because we already had an idea where they would be. It has never been such a case with their previous operations. They are extremely slippery and know how to keep themselves hidden extremely well."

"You can have your men keep a check on every hospital for a few days, chances are you will be able to catch the injured one."

Chuckling slightly, Sebastian's tone changed a little, the playful intent in it fading away completely. He asked with an edge to his voice, "Are you telling me how to rule a city, Xander?"

Xander mimicked Sebastian's action of spreading his hands and said, "I just thought you'd need help you see, I am concerned about my territory after all."

Tilting his head to the side, Sebastian corrected him, "Your territory? San francisco is already under me, are you perhaps reneging on the deal after getting the benefits?"

Xander exaggeratedly shook his hands using large motions and playfully replied, "I am a man of principles Sebastian. I was just saying the territory still remains under my name, not reneging on the deal. I still want to continue cooperating with you guys. You guys also wouldn't want to lose me now, right?"

Sebastian replied with a simple "heh" as he himself didn't know what was going on in his brother's head. He was simply here to help him manage the territory. Xander replied, "By the way, me and my people are preparing to enter this spacial rift, anything we need to know?"

Sebastian repeated his previous "heh", not bothering to reply to Xander. Seeing this the latter motioned one of his men nearby to take out a file. Taking it, he passed it on to Sebastian, "Here, some information on the Skylance family. It should be alright for now right?"

Sebastian lightly skimmed over the file, comprehending the few key details and smiled, "Now we are talking. Why couldn't you be this sensible from the beginning?", waving his hand, he continued, "Men, give him the information. I am off to work."

Xander took the file and returned to his camp, where he handed it over to a group of people who were studying something using exquisite high end equipment.

One could see that the camps were set in a way that completely avoided the middle area. Because there was a space rift in the middle, instead of calling it space rift though, space crack would be a more apt description.

At the heart of the clearing, a network of menacing fractures stretched, reminiscent of shattered glass strewn carelessly. These rifts seemed to mirror the shattered reality itself, amplified by the eerie glow at their edges, aiding scientists in defining their boundaries.

Amid this intricate lattice, lay more cracks, eliciting a pointy prickly feeling in the heart of every viewer, where sight couldn't bridge the expanse. Along the edges, vision distorted but offered a glimpse of the clearing and camps beyond. The very expanse of space appeared rent asunder, as if the weight of countless ages had finally sundered its fabric.

Xander sat in his tent, looking at the space cracks in the middle of clearing and muttered, "When will it open again? I can't wait to go in."