Chapter 450

"They cleverly hide their extortion behind the cover of a recognized religious order," Marthas explained, his jaw tightening as he kept his hand lightly resting on the wooden box. "The Ashen Choir is not just a group of street thugs, Nicholas. They are a radical splinter sect of Sashara’s own faith. Worse, my informants say they receive quiet financial backing from several northern noble houses.”Nick leaned back on his cushion, his brow furrowing as he grasped the implications. "Those nobles must want to destabilize Floria, then. If you were to march into their den to purge your own splinter sect, they would cry religious persecution, and given how tense things have been since the events in Alluria, that has to be avoided at all costs.”

"Precisely," Marthas agreed. "However, if the ruling secular authority of Floria—a member of House Crowley—were to investigate this group under the pretext of public safety and arrest them for running an extortion racket... it is simply the law maintaining order. The Temple would remain entirely uninvolved, and while I’m sure there’d be some fuss, it’d die down. Everyone knows that the frontier is a rough sort of place, after all.”

Essentially, Marthas wanted to use Nick as a scalpel to remove a political tumor without dirtying the Temple’s hands. In return, Nick would get the exact catalyst he needed to perfect his elemental arsenal before marching into a real warzone.

Nick had many questions he wanted to ask, but a quick look at his interlocutor’s emotions was enough to tell him he wouldn’t get any answers, at least not right now.

In the end, there was only one possible answer.

"Public safety is my family's highest priority," Nick said smoothly, though his eyes briefly dropped to the wooden box. "Where does this Choir congregate?”

Marthas offered a thin smile. "They operate out of an abandoned warehouse in the southeastern refugee camps. Handle the matter quietly, and the core is yours. An acolyte will deliver it to you as soon as the arrests are made.”

Nick stood up, inclining his head respectfully. "I will have to discuss the matter with my mother, but if things are as you say they are, you can expect results tonight, or tomorrow morning at the latest, Prelate.”

"May the flames guide your path," Marthas replied softly, lifting his teacup once again.

Leaving the warm pressure of the temple garden behind, Nick headed directly back to Crowley Manor.

He found his mother in her study, going over a stack of trade ledgers, with Devon sitting nearby reviewing guard patrol schedules.

Both looked up at his entrance and put their papers aside, recognizing his serious expression.

Nick closed the door behind him, sealing the room with a quick wind manipulation, then swiftly outlined the situation. He explained Marthas’s request, the nature of the Ashen Choir, the northern noble support, and the priceless fire core offered as payment.

Elena listened silently, her expression growing colder over time. After he finished, she folded her hands on the desk, considering the matter.

“I knew of their presence, but so far, no report of disturbance has reached me, which makes me think something is happening," Elena deduced, her eyes narrowing in thought. “If the Prelate believes they have the backing of northern houses, then this is them testing the waters, seeing if the religious angle makes us hesitant to enforce our own borders. If we show weakness now, right after bringing the fight to the Valerius Consortium, we’ll invite more incursions.”

“We’ll look like small dogs barking loudly," Devon hummed. “Also, while the refugees technically aren’t our citizens yet, we cannot excuse robbery. We have a duty to protect the people living in those camps, regardless of where they came from.”

"I agree," Nick said, drumming his fingers on his arm. "And hitting the Choir actually works in our favor. Dealing with a rogue religious sect with the same vehemence we used against arrogant merchants allows us to claim true neutrality. It makes it clear that we’ll punish anyone who breaks the law, equally and without exception.”

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Elena nodded slowly, reaching the same conclusion. "It should establish House Crowley as the neutral arbiter of Floria once and for all. Very well. You have my permission to proceed, but you must be swift and highly public about their crimes. Make sure the refugees understand these people are being arrested for theft and assault, not heresy.”

“I’ll take Devon and some guards with me," Nick said. “If this is to be an official operation of House Crowley, it should look like one, and I want our men to see us in action.”

Devon met his eye and gave a smirk.

"Do be sure not to burn the slums down in the process," Elena warned gently, picking her papers back up. "Those people have suffered enough.”

"We will be careful," Nick promised.

Hours later, the sun fully set, plunging Floria into darkness. Nick, Devon, and seven guards moved silently through the unpaved streets outside the town walls. Behind them, keeping a safe distance, Rhea and Gaelen skulked in the dark, having agreed to act as lookouts in case of an ambush.

The environment here was quite different from the inner districts, and the smell of unwashed bodies reminded Nick that these people had probably been on the run for months.

Row after row of canvas tents and hastily built timber shanties sheltered the hundreds, if not thousands, of displaced northerners who had fled the war.

They moved through the tents smoothly, hidden from the few people still wandering around by Nick’s .

His brother alone knew what it was, while the soldiers thought it was just a simple stealth spell.

In a way, it was true, and Nick didn’t feel like explaining. Luckily, the chance to finally do something about the troublemakers that had troubled Floria for so long was enough to distract them.

They eventually paused behind a row of tenements, peering across a muddy street at a large, sagging wooden warehouse. Two men stood by the front doors, dressed in dark robes streaked with gray ash. They carried iron cudgels and watched the street with clear hostility, making sure no one considered approaching.

"That's the place," Ruth, a scout from the town militia, murmured, crouching low. "Two guards at the door, and two more inside. Should we go in? I don’t think they’ll change their positions anytime soon.”

"Wait," Nick whispered. "We need confirmation of their crimes before we make it a public arrest.”

Activating , the physical world faded away, replaced by the brilliant, shifting currents of the ether. His soul sight sliced through the wooden walls, allowing him to see the spiritual signatures of everyone inside.

What he discovered shattered any notion of this being undeserved.

Kneeling in the center of the room were four weary souls, a family of refugees, radiating exhaustion and despair. Around them were a dozen brighter, stronger presences.

But the cultists' mana was greasy, stained with a cloying ash that spoke of aggressive manipulation and greed.

Nick sharpened his senses even more, filtering out the surrounding noise until he could hear the muffled voices echoing inside the building.

"—the tithe is mandatory," a raspy voice was saying. "The Burning Path demands sacrifice. If you cannot offer coin to purify your sins, you must offer flesh.”

"Please," a woman’s voice sobbed, thick with panic. "We gave you everything we had last week. My husband and I haven't eaten in a day. Have mercy.”

"The flame knows no mercy, only purification," the voice retorted. "Take the boy. The brand will mark his debt to the Choir.”

A child screamed in sudden terror, then the sound of a scuffle and clanking of an iron brazier followed.

Nick snapped his eyes open as cold fury coursed through him. There was a reason he hated cults so much, and this looked a lot like those from his old world.

“They are preparing to brand a child,” he said out loud, for the benefit of the others.

The guards cursed in disgust, while Devon’s jaw clenched, and he drew his broadsword. “Let’s go.”

They burst out of the alley, rushing across the muddy street in a flash of movement.

The two guards at the door barely had time to raise their cudgels before Nick and Devon struck them. Devon drove a gauntleted fist into the first man’s stomach, folding him in half, while Nick delivered a precise hit with the butt of his staff to the second guard’s temple. Both cultists silently collapsed into the mud, their voices muffled by wind magic.

Not bothering to check for traps, Devon lifted his boot and kicked the wooden doors. The iron hinges shrieked and ripped free from the wood, and the planks crashed inward, splintering violently against the floorboards.

The interior of the warehouse was lit by several roaring iron braziers. A dozen cultists in ash-smeared robes turned in shock. In the center of the room, a tall, gaunt man holding a glowing hot iron brand stood over a terrified family huddled on the floor. Two thugs were actively trying to pull a young boy from his mother's desperate grip.

"By the authority of House Crowley," Devon’s voice boomed through the warehouse, carrying the absolute, uncompromising weight of the law. "Drop your weapons. You are under arrest for extortion and armed assault.”

The gaunt leader sneered, quickly regaining his composure. He tossed the branding iron aside and raised both hands, his aura blazing with heat.

"Heretics!" he shrieked, and though Nick could tell this man was not necessarily a true believer, he had delved deeply enough into divine magic for his mind to be addled. "Smother them in the holy ash!”

“There will be no reasoning with them,” Nick warned the soldiers.

The cultists drew hidden blades and charged forward, while the leader began casting. Thick, billowing clouds of dark gray smoke and burning ash erupted from the braziers, filling the warehouse in seconds, stripping the air of oxygen, and threatening to sear the lungs of anyone caught within them—except for the other cultists, who had some sort of breathing skill to filter it out.

The soldiers charged ahead, unaware of the danger they faced, but Nick didn’t bother to warn them.

Pressure crashed down on the entire warehouse, causing the cultists to stumble as the invisible weight pressed against their shoulders. But Nick didn't stop there. He extended his wind affinity, taking control of the air currents in the confined space, and clenched his fist tightly.

The expanding clouds of choking ash instantly stopped as the wind inside the warehouse reversed direction, violently pulling inward. Nick compressed the entire volume of smoke and ash, pushing it away from his team and the terrified family.

Not satisfied, he compressed the magical smog into a tight sphere of swirling soot around the cult leader's head.

The gaunt man gasped, his eyes wide with sudden terror. He frantically clawed at his own throat as the dense ash pushed into his mouth and nose, cutting off his air supply. His spell collapsed soon after, its stability broken under Nick's control.

With the magical cover removed, the soldiers and Devon could begin their work.