By now, the figure with the crimson greatsword, that cold-faced “Ember,” was long gone. She’d headed for another part of the battlefield, a different sector where a ritual node was humming.

  After winning the east wing, the Echo Quarry crew didn’t slow down for a second. No time to celebrate. No time to rest.

  They moved with a quick, practiced efficiency that showed their training.

  Some of them dug into packs or pouches, pulling out all kinds of weird-shaped alchemy tools—metal probes carved with runes, resonators that put out specific sound pulses, rune-cutting knives made just for slicing energy lines…

  They had jobs split up clean.

  One team was clearing the battlefield edges, hacking back the wild growth and vines that could mess up their next moves, using special cutters to clear space fast.

  The other team worked like careful treasure hunters, probing the ground for the glowing ghost-blue ritual lines Ascension Road had buried. Their moves were cautious but quick. The second they found a key node or a spot where energy pooled, they’d use their tools to mess it up with precise, technical cuts.

  Really, this was the whole point of Echo Quarry’s counterattack tonight.

  If they didn’t wreck or sabotage these key ritual nodes Ascension Road had set up in the garden, making the whole complex array fail or go haywire… then even winning a small fight wouldn’t mean a thing. Ascension Road could still use the array’s power to defend, hit back, or even spring a trap. A small victory would be useless, maybe even a trick to wear them out.

  So this job now was more important than the bloody fight that just happened. Everyone knew it. They just wanted it done, fast.

  Of course, breaking ritual nodes wasn’t a smash-and-grab job. It needed a controlled, technical touch. They had to wreck the array near the node and even use the energy shockwave from the break to backlash into the core area. So only the members with special training, the ones who knew a thing or two about arrays, could do this delicate, dangerous work.

  The others got the “simple” jobs. Like looting the field.

  The most valuable stuff on the battlefield wasn’t the broken gear. It was the little palm-sized bags woven from dark gold thread, stripped from the Ascension Road corpses. The bags gave off a faint feel of supernatural life.

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  They were gathered up and finally handed by a sharp-eyed apprentice to the bookish second-ranker acting as commander.

  “Sir,” the apprentice said, voice low, a flicker of excitement in his eyes. “This… is everything we collected.”

  The bookish second-ranker took the bundle, made from several small bags lumped together. It felt heavy. Like something alive was squirming and struggling inside. He could even barely hear a tiny sound coming from it—a sound like someone crying. Not a man, not a woman, just sad and resentful enough to make your skin crawl.

  He knew what was inside. The most valuable thing this garden produced, the thing Ascension Road had fought so hard to keep: the core material for the third-rank potion, Wormblood Brew.

  The Blood-Weep Worm.

  “Excellent…” The bookish second-ranker nodded, a look of satisfaction on his face.

  But then his brows pinched a little. He hefted the bundle in his hand, then scanned the battlefield where bodies were being stacked.

  “Wait…” he muttered to himself, doubt crossing his eyes. “The number… feels a bit short of the estimate.”

  Normally, based on the intel, the Ascension Road crew guarding this area should’ve been carrying more worms than this. But with him watching, who’d be stupid enough to skim loot at a time like this?

  Unless…

  The image of that mysterious “Ember” with the crimson greatsword, cutting through lives like a harvester, popped into his head.

  That mysterious Ember? But why would she take the worms? Wasn’t she one of theirs? With skills like that, if she wanted the stuff, she could just wait for a proper share or trade after the fight. And without swapping them for other useful gear or info, what good were the worms to her alone? Quarry people weren’t potion-obsessed like the Ascension Road crowd…

  He couldn’t puzzle it out. He shook his head, pushing the small doubt aside for now to think of other reasons.

  He didn’t know that, right at that moment, on the other side of the garden, a scarlet figure was moving like an agile cat—silent and swift through the maze of overgrown woodland, closing fast on the area where another ritual node lay.

  Pandora was pretty happy with her “side profit” this time.

  Sure, in front of all those people, she couldn’t openly strip bodies or do any refining—that would be way too obvious and risk showing the System. But… she had helped them crush the east wing enemies and took out three tricky second-rankers. That was a big help.

  So for her, the helpful stranger, to “collect” a little “advance payment” that was hers anyway from one or two of the fallen on the way… wasn’t too much to ask, right?

  Pandora felt the faint, squirming life of the worms in the few small dark gold bags tucked against her chest. She did the math in her head.

  “Good. With this unexpected haul, I don’t need to go pay through the nose at Eden. The core, hardest-to-get piece for the Wormblood Brew is already mine.”

  “The other ingredients left are nothing too rare or pricey. I can get those through Nicole or a couple of other reliable traders.”

  “Also, I promised The Snow the ‘Bastion’ potion before, but those materials are tough now… swapping it for Wormblood Brew, which works better and costs more, she shouldn’t say no, right?”

  “Mm. And since I’ve pissed off Aldrich, selling potions on the Ascension Road side might be tricky for a while. That messes with my regular income.”

  “But having a rare third-rank potion like Wormblood Brew, basically priceless on the market, as a high-end trade chip… that should cover things just fine.”