Defeated

After saying these words, Malcolm wanted to see Fran's expression. He often did this before, teasing the Spirit Realm Traveler he had his eye on and then enjoying their interesting reactions.

But this time, when he saw Fran's expression, he was somewhat surprised. He actually saw that the corners of Fran's mouth were slightly upturned, and her body was extremely relaxed.

"Something's not right." This thought flashed through Malcolm's mind, but before he could take any action, he heard a voice.

"Make way, everyone! We're Security Team!"

"So that's how it is. You knew all along that the Security Team would arrive at this time, and thought they could save you, right?"

Malcolm believed he had seen through Fran's scheme.

"I'm telling you, you're right here now, and I can easily kill you in just a few seconds..."

Despite Malcolm's continued talking, all he received in return was Fran's smile, which gave him a bad feeling.

"Alright, you guys go ahead, hurry up, we still have to deal with the Security Team."

Malcolm had also lost all patience. In his view, Fran had no chance of escaping death from their grasp, so he stopped trying to decipher the meaning behind Fran's smile.

Whether the other side was bluffing or truly confident, he didn't care and directly ordered his men to attack.

Upon receiving the order, a man in a yellow robe strode forward and slashed down at Fran with his sword. Fran remained motionless even at this moment.

"Die!" The man in the yellow robe brought down his sword, but just when he thought it was about to strike Fran, it struck nothing at all.

"Strange, what happened? Why didn't it hit? I chose a distance that was exactly halfway across the blade. Logically, it should have definitely hit." The man in the yellow robe wondered.

But when his gaze fell more closely on the longsword, he saw an unbelievable scene: his longsword had indeed lost half its original length.

Now, his longsword no longer resembled a sword at all. It wasn't even shortened into a dagger; instead, the front parts collapsed backward, and the entire blade of the longsword became a square lump.

He only realized now that he was completely unable to move; his gaze could only follow the metal of the longsword as it receded toward him.

First, it swallowed the sword hilt, incorporating the wooden hilt into the lump of metal, allowing him to see the wood-like stripes on the metal.

Then, to his horrified surprise, the solid object hurtled directly toward his hand, and the moment it touched him, he felt an unbearable pain.

His eyes were forced shut due to the pain, and a few tears streamed down his face; the pain felt like needles pricking his eyes.

But after only a short while, he found that the pain had suddenly disappeared. When he opened his eyes, still feeling the lingering pain, he saw a scene that terrified him even more.

And his mouth was able to withstand that immense pressure and slowly open.

Because he saw his numb arm being slowly swallowed by that solid object; he could see the surface of the solid seemed to be flowing, as it devoured him...

As the solid devoured him, it became stained white, yellow, and red, and slowly grew larger.

Malcolm could barely breathe as he looked at the scene before him.

He had never witnessed such a scene before. He had encountered many enemies he was completely unable to deal with, but none of them had ever given him such a sense of fear.

He imagined that when he encountered an enemy, he would be killed instantly or tortured slowly before finally returning to the Material Realm.

Neither of these two methods of death is nearly as shocking as the scene before us.

He saw one of the yellow-robed men shrink into a small ball in an instant, lifeless; two yellow-robed men who were close together stuck together, struggling desperately but to no avail; and another yellow-robed man could only watch as he was swallowed up by a long sword...

During this process, he didn't hear a single sound; the entire scene was eerily quiet.

His pupils contracted to their maximum, his body trembled, and he tried desperately to raise his hand to pick up the weapon, but he couldn't lift it no matter what he did.

Suddenly, a piercing pain shot through his right hand, causing beads of sweat to appear on his forehead. The pain vanished in an instant, followed by the sound of something falling to the ground.

When he glanced at the scene before him out of the corner of his eye, what he saw made his heart tremble.

His right hand had swollen into a ball, showing red color and the texture of bone, completely unrecognizable as his original hand.

Below him was the Spirit Realm Guide to the Sun Domain that he had just been holding in his hand; now that his hand was gone, the Spirit Realm Guide fell to the ground.

Now, how could he not understand who was behind all of this?

Only Fran would need this Spirit Realm Guide, so she deliberately kept it to prevent it from merging with her body.

It seemed the other party didn't want him to have even the slightest chance to destroy this Guide of the Spirit Realm, Malcolm thought to himself.

He saw a hand take the fiery red Spirit Realm Guide into its grasp and then wave it at him.

"Goodbye," he heard the other person say.

In that instant, his body lost its balance and fell backward, almost instantly losing consciousness. But before losing consciousness, he keenly felt his body curling inward.

Fran looked at the mixture of flesh and blood and the yellow robe on the ground and felt a little nauseous. She hadn't expected that these things would look so 'special' when paired with the yellow background.

The scene remained silent for a while, until a footstep was heard, followed by the sound of something being pushed aside, and then a voice rang out.

"Hello, guest, we are the Security Team from Heart Lake Market. Thank you..."

The Security Team glanced at the disgusting mess on the ground, fighting back nausea, and continued:

"Thank you for your help in dealing with these thugs. We will cancel the trading privileges of the thug who traded with you, so you can get your things back."

"Hmm?" Fran, somewhat puzzled. "Didn't I kill him? Those Spirit Crystal should have been taken back to the Material Realm."

The Security Team glanced at the floor to the side, then continued in his reply:

"Logically, that's how it should be, but this is the Spirit Realm Market. We have the blessing of the Spirit Realm, so we can change the status of the transactions."

"With the blessing of the Spirit Realm Spirit Realm, we initiated a protective ritual. Until this ritual concludes, everyone, including the deceased, can only leave through a specific exit."

"Although these thugs are dead, their personal assets will be seized by us..."

Fran understood. The gist of it was that this Spirit Realm Market really did have items that could be traded back, and according to the other party, she would not only receive the Guide of the Spirit Realm, but also get back those Spirit Crystal.

Once she arrived here, how could she not know that the defenses of every Spirit Realm Market were practically impregnable, making it impossible to attack?

Once this protective ritual or other defensive measures are activated, those people will not be able to bring even a milligram of Spirit Crystal back to the Material Realm.

Thinking about it this way, the Lord of Radiance was simply too powerful, directly breaking through the Emerald Market's defenses in one fell swoop.

Moreover, they brought back almost all the Spirit Crystal stored in the Emerald Market, leaving no chance for those inside the Emerald Market who wanted to make a quick buck.

This has led to the Emerald Market still not having a new reopening date, causing some to wonder if it's going to close down.

Those men in yellow robes had obviously heard the news of the horrific looting at the Emerald Market. They quickly realized that if others could do it, why couldn't they?

So greed drove them to try their luck at Heart Lake Market. This time, they weren't actually targeting Heart Lake Market's warehouses, but rather the goods being transported by one of Heart Lake Market's major clients.

The other side originally intended to test the waters, but unexpectedly suffered a complete defeat on their first attempt.

All of these people in yellow robes have now been blacklisted by the Heart Lake Market, and they will no longer be able to enter the Heart Lake Market.

This is the specific information Fran learned from Nora after returning to the Material Realm.

"Why does something bad always happen every time I take you to the Spirit Realm?" Nora was in a bad mood. Anyone would be upset if they encountered something like this twice on their way to the market.

"It's just bad luck. Maybe nothing will happen next time we go up."

Fran defended herself, and then said:

"Anyway, I've already bought the guides to other markets, so even if the Heart Lake Market closes down next time, I don't need you to take me anymore."

Nora glanced at Fran and also felt it wasn't right to blame everything on Fran, since these matters were too big for a mere mage like Fran to handle.

"Okay... did you manage to buy the materials for those magical beasts?"

When Nora asked Fran about her initial purpose for going to the Spirit Realm, Fran chose to tell the truth:

"I've bought all the basic materials, and I've already posted a request for all the materials needed for First Order at the Adventurers Guild, specifically the Tier 2 Murloc I need. The receptionist said they couldn't help with that."

"That's normal. Those Murloc live in the deep sea. Normally, if someone catches one, it will be reserved by someone else before it even reaches the port. If you really want to find one, you almost have to go to the deep sea yourself."

Fran seemed to be deep in thought, then said:

"Let's talk about it later. After all, I haven't learned the basic Transmutation Surgery yet, so I need to practice first."

Hearing this, Nora rolled her eyes at Fran. She hadn't even mastered the basics, so why was she in such a hurry to buy materials?