Otherworldly Invasion (1)

As Mrs. Hilgaf advanced to Formal Rank, her body underwent a transformation. She grew leaner but more powerfully built, her corded muscles hard as steel. The Psychic Energy within her swelled severalfold, spreading through her body to nourish her muscles and strengthen her at every moment.

Her White Bone Battle Armor, shattered in the earlier fight, repaired itself until it looked new. But the bloodstains did not fade. Instead, they sank into the Bone Armor and formed a dark red aura. Even more blood coated her Bone Shield and Bone Warhammer, and the crimson glow around them was almost solid.

After her advancement, Mrs. Hilgaf finally turned her gaze toward Major Descartes and the two snipers...

Twenty minutes later, Colonel Baptiste, director of the Friedenburg City branch of the Anomalies Bureau, arrived at the scene.

Baptiste's face darkened as he looked at the bodies of Major Descartes and the two elite snipers, then at the wreckage nearby and the corpses in Anomalies Bureau uniforms strewn across the ground. He had been a senior professor at Saint Tower Academy. Only after Nikolayevich became director of the Northwest Province Anomalies Bureau had Baptiste gained the chance to take charge of the Friedenburg City branch.

Colonel Baptiste was ambitious. He hoped to make a name for himself here, then move into another government department and become a true noble.

As a Formal-Rank mage, he had both the ability and the qualifications. Sending men to arrest Mrs. Hilgaf had been his own attempt to test the Shadow Trade Association. He had never expected it to end like this: one major, two staff adjutants, two valuable snipers, and four full-strength field teams. Fifty-three people in all, wiped out to the last!

Baptiste could already foresee the irreparable damage this incident would do to him. The