"Report... Tank's corps has engaged the enemy."
Inside the base's war room.
Kuer's expression was as dark as it could get.
Dozens of screens showed Little White Tiger and the others' movements.
They had been under Inverted Cross's surveillance the entire way.
The reason Kuer looked so grim was the battle on the topmost screen.
The force hailed as Inverted Cross's vanguard corps, its invincible, unstoppable mainstay, was actually being routed by eight masked men.
A slaughter.
A one-sided slaughter.
Even against someone at the fifth awakening, a thousand Awakened could wear them down and kill them.
But the Masked Men before them clearly weren't ordinary Awakened.
The man holding a book could summon Myriad Hell Beasts.
The other seven were every bit as vicious as Madman.
Not one Inverted Cross soldier who fought them was left with an intact corpse.
"I... have never seen... Inverted Cross's soldiers in such a sorry state."
Kim Hye-ji stood beside Kuer, trembling uncontrollably.
Just watching the battlefield made their skin crawl.
The other Inverted Cross leaders all wore grim expressions.
The sight of eight masked men chasing down and hacking at over a thousand men completely overturned their view of the world.
"Who the hell are they?"
Kuer practically roared the words.
"We're looking... found it."
The staff member responsible for data analysis stood and sent the information to the screen.
"These people should be Black Maitreya."
"A rising force in the Dragon Kingdom, and Chun Prefecture's allies."
"Its members are all prisoners classified at the Dragon Kingdom's highest danger level."
"Their greatest feat was slaughtering an Anti-Dragon Kingdom Army thirty thousand strong in three days."
"Their leader is named Wu Yan. He and Little White Tiger are known as Northern Tiger and Western Buddha."
"Strength unknown. Special ability unknown."
"No wonder... no