Chapter 121: Foreign Race Hunting Merchants, Street Fighting

While Wang Yu was busy agreeing to Sieg’s request, a desperate chase was unfolding within the Shadow of the Royal City, deep beneath the capital. A group of orcs and a night elf were fleeing in a panic, led by a young night elf who navigated the labyrinthine architecture of the underground city with practiced ease. This youth was Hormien, the eldest son of Holo.

At their heels, a pack of men clad in gang uniforms—each bearing a crimson spider emblem on their pitch-black chests—pursued them with relentless tenacity.

These men, adorned in spider-themed regalia, were no friendly neighborhood heroes. They were alien-hunting merchants from the Web, the very same organization that had first hunted Holo.

Trade in non-human races was strictly prohibited in the Royal City above, but in the Shadow, it was a common and obscenely profitable industry. Most of these captives were funneled into the underground through secret tunnels, sold in this lawless void that the royal family seemed to deliberately ignore. From there, they were resold multiple times, their prices doubling, until they reached the hands of well-connected merchants and nobles in the "law-abiding" city above.

The Web was the quintessential organization for such hunters, notorious for their intricate intelligence networks. Once marked by them, even a lucky escape was temporary; one only had to brush against their pervasive threads to trigger a vibration that would draw the hunters back, trapping the prey in a cycle of endless pursuit.

Clearly, the non-humans who hadn't lived long in the underground were unaware of the Web’s terror. Hormien, having been hunted alongside his father, had long been marked. Today, while procuring supplies for the church with a group of orcs—the most numerous race in their congregation—they had been spotted by the Web’s informants the moment they stepped out of the Black Street.

Had it not been for one of the orcs, a veteran of the front lines, sensing something amiss, they would have been surrounded and captured before they even realized the hunters were there.

The orcs and Hormien sprinted through the narrow alleys, attempting to lose their pursuers in the chaotic crowds. But the residents of the underground city, recognizing the Web’s insignia, vanished instantly. None dared risk the wrath of those cutthroats, who would just as soon slit a bystander’s throat to clear a path.

Unable to use the crowd as cover, the situation grew dire. Thanks to their superior physiology, the orcs and Hormien initially held their ground, but as time wore on, the orcs—lacking the agility and stamina of the elf—began to falter. Only Hormien, built for speed and grace, maintained his pace.

Worse still, the Web knew the city far better than they did. Time and again, hunters seemed to materialize from nowhere to cut them off. Were it not for the city’s chaotic, three-dimensional layout—with its uneven, stacked buildings, makeshift walkways, and endless pipes—they would have been caught long ago.

"Hormien, run! Take the news back. Our church is compromised. Tell the Saintess and Mr. Holo to prepare!" the one-eyed orc, his chest scarred by a massive blade, shouted as they ran.

"What? No! Wait, why do you say the church is exposed?" Hormien instinctively resisted, failing to grasp the gravity of the situation. He had assumed they were merely being hunted because these merchants attacked any non-human they saw.

"You haven't noticed? Those bastards haven't used any lethal weapons this entire time. They’re just driving us. They want us alive." The orc’s voice was thick with rage, yet he remained rational—a testament to his iron will.

"Could it be that our gathering has been leaked? Archbishop Wang Yu said we were registered as a simple human faith..." Hormien’s mind raced. The hunters clearly wanted to capture members of the Night Church to find their base.

"Unlikely. There are many non-humans here; we are but a small fraction. They must have received information from somewhere else."

"But who? Who would betray us? The human converts?"

"Calm yourself, Hormien. They are believers just like us. Don't let your malice spread to an entire race; how would that make you any different from those who hate us?"

Hormien struggled to maintain his composure, his breath coming in ragged gasps of exertion and fury. He eventually relented, his heart heavy with the weight of the orc’s wisdom.

"Hormien, no one can stop an orc who chooses to die. We won't let them get a word out. Run! You're the fastest. Tell Lady Darkness and Mr. Holo. We’ll hold them here."

The orc flashed a cruel, savage grin and shoved Hormien forward. Before the elf could protest, he stumbled, and by the time he regained his balance and looked back, the orcs were gone. A series of bestial, primal roars echoed through the tunnels. The orcs’ green skin flushed crimson as their muscles swelled and their frames expanded.

"Damn it!" Hormien cursed, but he did not look back. *Berserk*—the orcish racial trait. Once triggered, they would lose all reason, tearing apart anyone who wasn't kin. It was why they were often used as war slaves; they were the perfect, fearless weapons.

Hormien ran with everything he had, the world blurring into a smear of gray. He pushed his druidic powers to the limit, drawing on the grace of the hawk and the speed of the panther. He lacked the mastery to shift into animal form, but he moved with a desperate, frantic speed. He knew the orcs wouldn't last long; the hunters were clever and would toy with them until the berserker rage faded.

"Huff... huff..." As he neared the district protected by the Lady of the Night, he sensed a presence. A figure in a dark gray cloak moved through the architecture with a speed that rivaled his own—a Ranger.

A spinning metallic object whistled through the air—a weighted bola. Hormien leaped, kicking off a wall to dodge, then swung from a pipe to the roof of a nearby structure. He moved with the fluid grace of his kind, but the Ranger was relentless. Attacks rained down from every angle, forcing Hormien to weave and dodge.

He found a rhythm, but it was a trap. A bola struck a pipe near his feet, rupturing it. A jet of scalding steam blasted him, followed by boiling water. The pain was searing, and though the damage was superficial, it slowed his momentum. The Ranger closed the distance, ready to strike.

"Next corner, crouch."

The voice echoed in Hormien’s mind—the Archbishop’s. He obeyed without question. As he rounded the corner, he dropped into a crouch, his momentum sending him tumbling along the ground.

The Ranger, caught off guard by the sudden movement, didn't slow down. It was a fatal mistake. A hand shot out from the corner, catching the Ranger squarely in the face.

"Fireball!"

A surge of mana ignited the air. A searing sphere of flame erupted in the Ranger’s mouth, obliterating his head in a spray of charred gore. The headless corpse collapsed.

The Ranger, a professional of the knightly tier, had been slain instantly by a single, calculated ambush.

As the smoke cleared, Wang Yu, Archbishop of the Night Church, stood at the corner, his Weaver’s Tome at his waist and a shimmering barrier of protective energy fading from his skin.