[900 GTs bonus]

Sylas shook his head and put the other two Beast Ward necklaces away. He was already used to being screwed over by these things, so it was fine even if he didn't gain such a benefit.

Luckily, they had knocked down the house while still having them on, so the noise still hadn't attracted many beasts over. But it was a matter of time before they started roaming in this area.

Sylas crouched down and looked them all in the eye.

"I know that you can move now, but I would advise that you don't," he spoke casually to Christina and Sean. He didn't bother with Lucius because he knew that he was the most injured of them. Even if Sylas paid him, Lucius would be unwilling to make a move right now.

As for Christina and Sean, they were a bit injured from his attack to get them out of range, but not to the point of not being able to do anything.

However, when two kunai appeared at their necks, they didn't dare to move so casually anymore. They had no idea how Sylas had done it, but he destroyed that battering ram with a single touch. How could they know about the Curse of the Scorned Wraps? To them, Sylas was just a monster.

With Sylas' words, the last thoughts they had of rebellion flew out of their minds.

"Now. Are you from Legacy or the government?"

They froze, but eventually, piece by piece, and even with some Madness coercion, they were forced to answer.

Soon, Sylas got a picture of what was happening here.

He hadn't saved two of them out of the kindness of his heart. He only needed several to corroborate what was happening.

He was educated enough to know that torture wasn't the best method of getting information out of people. Often, it could breed false confessions, or someone with just enough presence of mind could lie to you under duress and then you would be screwed to act properly.

Instead, Sylas found that the best way was to force them to tell the same story, separating them so that they couldn't communicate. That way, they wouldn't dare to lie because it would mean their lives. If their companions didn't lie the same exact way, then wouldn't they be exposing themselves?

This aside, it turned out that Sylas was correct. There was a clash planned here between the government and Legacy. However, things went awry because there seemed to also be a third party involved.

These three didn't know who the third party was, but the government ended up evacuating this area over half a month ago, before this portal even appeared. In the end, this region became a stalemated one, while the real battlegrounds were in the shadows of York City.

While things seemed peaceful over there, there were many undercurrents that took place in the depths of the night and away from the public eye.

This left one question, though. If so much was triggered by the appearance of this Portal, then why were they so free to act here alone without anything else happening?

The answer to that was pretty simple: more Portals had appeared.

There was one that appeared in the heart of York City, and the government had obviously been ready for this because they immediately sealed it.

There was a second one that appeared in the heart of Veridian, and that was immediately taken over by Legacy, leading to a stalemate in the region as both had control over valuable resources in the region.

But as though that wasn't enough chaos, there was a third Portal that appeared aside from this one. It was said, though, that this portal wasn't opened naturally, but was rather the effect of a City Lord establishing a connection with the Aether Plane.

What was troublesome about this Portal was that it was on an island, so it was difficult to get to, and there was too much going on for others to pay attention to it.

But then, yet another Portal appeared in the water itself. This led to an odd phenomenon that caused the waters to be especially turbid. Even if the most modern of boats was used, the death rate would be over 70%, and that wasn't considering the beasts that were flooding the region.

Then, one also had to consider the fact that modern boats no longer worked normally. The only way to cross the ocean now was by either using an oaring boat or finding two portals that were nearby.

And in this case, it was precisely because there were so many portals around that their usual boats didn't work.

This inevitably led to chaos. Now, there was an island in the heart of York City that was being controlled by an unknown City Lord that no one could get to, a portal in another borough of York City that was under the control of the government, a third portal in Veridian under the control of Legacy, and in the end, the Portal in this small town was practically forgotten.

There were no resources in this portal, just an endless tundra. On top of that, the beasts were far too powerful and dangerous, whether it were the mammoths or the Arctic King Cobras.

It was only natural that this was the one portal that had ended up being neglected. There were far too many Portals popping up everywhere on Earth, and it could be said that the vast majority of them ended up abandoned and ignored. The end of the Trial had simply come too soon for everyone to be prepared.

In the end, Legacy just ended up sending some of their weaker lackeys over to see if they could form a basic perimeter. It was a casual effort on their part and they didn't even really expect to get much out of it.

If they succeeded, then good. If they failed, they didn't care much either.

All of this said, Sylas couldn't help but worry.

A City Lord had forcefully opened a connection to the Aether Plane… was it a coincidence that this was also the region Cassarae called home?