Chapter 228: Imminent War

Bartholomew sat in the meeting room, and the news was grim. A squad had returned from an expedition near the barrier, shaken, injured, and visibly rattled. But the damage hadn’t been caused by some powerful beast. It had been the work of a single person.

“That’s the report. Everything I needed to deliver,” Ronan told the room. “This individual is extremely dangerous.”

He had returned a day after the attack, bringing a handful of soldiers with him. Most of the wounded had stayed behind for treatment. Mangled limbs weren’t something healers could fix quickly. Ronan himself had come back blind in one eye, something Bartholomew had personally healed. He couldn’t let anyone see his commander in that state.

“How does he compare to the Renegades’ last assault?” someone asked.

“Worse,” answered a woman, an archer, by the sound of her voice. From what Bartholomew knew, she had saved Ronan’s life.

“The Renegades were strong because they were an army,” Ronan said. “But this Luke… he’s just one man, and he has the strength of an army.”

Bartholomew clenched his teeth. He’d gotten what he wanted, a new enemy, a new challenge, a new Marshall. Yet the thought of this man unsettled him. If Luke had survived all this time beyond the barrier, it meant he’d grown strong enough to face the horrors that lived there.

And Bartholomew knew the truth: reaching the peak of a Rank made someone far too powerful. Crossing level 50 in any class or profession came with a staggering boost to attributes. Going from level 50 to 60 was a far greater leap in strength than the entire climb from 1 to 50. It was a one-way path to overwhelming power, and the awakening of epic-level skills.

“We need to stop Luke. Immediately,” Bartholomew said, his voice sharp.

Eight damn years to reach my level of power… There’s no way he hit the same tier in just four months. Right?

A headache throbbed behind his eyes. He’d been using Death Painting through the entire meeting.

[Death Painting (Rank-F)]: Born from a deep-rooted fear of death and an obsessive desire for control, this ability grants a fragmented glimpse of your own end. Not a literal vision, but a cryptic, symbolic painting, an abstract portrait of your final moment. Understanding it requires intuition, interpretation, and a willingness to face truths hidden in metaphor. Deciphering the work may offer a chance to rewrite fate and avoid the inevitable.

The image hadn’t changed. It was always the same: an endless, oppressive darkness… and within it, a black panther, staring at him like a true predator.

“Teamwork is everything,” Ronan said. “At least we know the enemy’s still alive. We find him, use the right plan, and he can be killed. No one’s invincible.”

The soldiers nodded, and reports continued until the meeting wound down. When it ended, Bartholomew dismissed everyone except Ronan and Kruger. Now wasn’t the time to keep up the facade of being untouchable. He needed to truly understand the threat Luke posed. Ronan hadn’t said much upon returning, too injured, too many ears around. But now, it was just them, the strongest in Bastion alongside Erza Grimhart, who, while not present in the room, was still very much part of that elite group.

The four of Bastion were deadly: Bartholomew himself, the Plague Doctor and healer; Kruger and Erza, both assassins with vastly different fighting styles, Erza with her doll; and Ronan, a brawler through and through. Together, they had the power of an army. The strongest the tutorial had to offer.

“Ronan,” Bartholomew said. “Be honest… can we kill him?”

“Kill him?” Kruger snorted. “Oh, no. When I find that little bastard, I’m not killing him. I’m going to torture him. Ever since he challenged me in the past, I’ve wanted that. And now he comes back and slaughters my soldiers?”

“Kruger,” Bartholomew cut in, shutting him down. Time mattered. He needed every scrap of information, fighting style, weapons, skills. If there was one thing Bartholomew prided himself on, it was his mind. He would craft the perfect plan to kill Luke, just like he had for Marshall.

“You want to know his weapons?” Ronan asked, voice heavy. Now that the others were gone, the confident mask had slipped, leaving only the truth.

“Every detail counts,” Bartholomew pressed.

Jonathan had vanished the moment Luke’s return was confirmed, which made him useless. Bartholomew wanted intel on the man’s fighting style badly, but he wasn’t about to bet on Jonathan’s loyalty.

“I saw him use two kukris, a bow, and he fought barehanded, hands, feet, didn’t matter,” Ronan said. “He was flawless in everything.”

Kruger clicked his tongue in annoyance.

“And skills?” Bartholomew asked.

“Only what we already knew. A black fog, and something like a shadow double that mimicked his movements. Just two visible ones. If he used anything else, body enhancements, reflex boosts, I couldn’t tell.”

Bartholomew felt a headache blooming. “You’re telling me he fought thirty of your soldiers without some over-the-top power that blows everything to hell?” The laugh that escaped his mind was sharp, humorless. “He fought them using only the basics?”

It was absurd. Bartholomew had taken on the best of the Renegades using his ultra-rare plague cloud and his epic-rank profession skill.

“You fought him,” Kruger said. “How’d you get your ass handed to you? Didn’t you have your epic Iron Skin? Or were you just caught off guard?”

That had to be it. A man like Ronan, with an epic skill, shouldn’t go down easily.

“I used Iron Skin in the fight,” Ronan said quietly, staring down at the floor. “And it didn’t work.”

The silence that followed was heavy.

“What do you mean?” Bartholomew asked.

“That Luke didn’t flinch at my power. He didn’t run, didn’t hesitate, didn’t fear. If anything… he pressed harder. I thought I had the advantage, for about five seconds.”

“Five seconds?” Bartholomew repeated.

“That’s how long it took him to figure out how my power worked… and then knock me out. In five seconds of real fighting, I lost.”

Kruger let out a mocking laugh. “Pathetic.”

But Bartholomew felt a chill crawl down his spine.

Five seconds? Just five?

“And the man took an arrow to the heart,” Ronan continued, “and didn’t even slow down. Minutes later, he killed the assassins. The truth is, I’m only alive because he let me live… just so he could send you this ‘message’. I fear facing this guy alone will be harder than dealing with all the renegades combined.”

“What?” Kruger barked. “Because you took a knife to the eye? We have an army. We’re the strongest here.”

“You don’t understand!” Ronan snapped, cutting him off. “You weren’t there. You didn’t see the men afterward. He took legs in seconds, shot arrows, stabbed, sliced off fingers, and didn’t kill a single one. Do you get what he was telling us? That he could’ve… but didn’t. Because we weren’t even worth it.”

“Bullshit,” Kruger muttered.

Bartholomew stayed quiet.

“If you’d been there, you’d get it,” Ronan said. “Looking at Luke was like… staring down a big cat.”

Bartholomew shivered.

“Put everyone on alert,” he ordered, standing from his chair. “Post wanted notices. Put up bounties. Mobilize everyone. Every soldier is to be warned immediately. Luke is to be killed on sight!”

***

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Two days had passed since Luke left the capital. He roamed the Wild Zone, drifting through places he normally wouldn’t bother with. His path was bending toward the Safe Zone, but instead of heading straight for it, he was skirting the Wild Zone’s edges.

He hadn’t gone back to check on the group camped outside the capital’s gate, but he suspected the Midnight Wardens wouldn’t venture too close to the barrier. That made a small forward camp likely. It made sense, there were no Midnight Wardens stationed in the capital itself.

Now he stood high in the branches of an old tree, eyes fixed on the Safe Zone.

“Things… changed fast in the last four months.”

Part of him wanted to walk straight to the hotel that housed the Haven, but it wasn’t the right moment to see Allison again.

What’s it been? Eight months since Earth?

His thoughts drifted to the Baumann family, but he buried them quickly. If he let those feelings out, the despair would follow.