Her hunt finished, Rae carefully wiped the fresh blood off her forelimbs. That was a high-quality product that she would want to save for later.

The reaction had been everything that she hoped it would be, and she had left the door cracked open when she departed, so that even if the Elder on the wall didn't survive, the children would be able to escape eventually.

Now, she was back on the battlefield, hunting for anyone who was dumb enough to be out alone.

Most of the Templars were in dungeon teams already, three to five members.

Rae suspected that they had all started out as groups of five. But they were being ambushed by Golems all over the city, as their compound was right in the middle of Gralpedrin, and they had spread out during the fight.

Separating them from the civilians wasn't too hard, as most of them were wearing uniforms. But if in doubt, the system would tell you if they were a member.

Rae stopped as a small girl with a ragged cloth blindfold tracked her movement from the safety of a nearby building.

That was curious.

She was clearly blind, and too young to have been trained in anything. She wasn't even properly Immortal Ranked yet. Yet, she could see through Rae's stealth.

It was likely a [Soul Sight] type of ability, but the child didn't appear to be afraid of her, which was either a very good sign, or a very bad sign.

If she didn't even scare children, she was doing something wrong.

Rae tucked the information into the back of her mind as she hunted down the next target, a pair of warriors who were hiding in a bakery.

That was unfortunate.

Cara would be absolutely devastated to find out that her battle had destroyed new types of snacks that could have been given to Lotus as prototypes for new menu items.

The warriors turned the instant that Rae appeared inside, despite her being incorporeal.

They were better than most, but as the flurry of attacks came at them, the two Spirit Immortals were instantly on the defensive, losing ground to Rac as she pushed them out into the street.

The interior of the shop was already demolished, shattered by attack skills, before the battle moved on, and the few remaining civilians in the area redoubled their efforts to escape the city before the destruction of the Templars got them involved.

They weren't powerful, many of them didn't even have a System, being essentially the same as the Mythic Slaves that Karl had rescued. Just broke common folk who couldn't fight back at any point in their very long lives.

That was a difference between Gralpedrin and New Home Merchant Clan. The Clan was built as a separate port, not built on the outskirts of a much larger city.

Most of the group wasn't out in the city, though. Only Rae and Hawk were hunting the Templars that were trying to flee from the destruction. That was Hawk's understanding of the rule.

Just like in Drodh, he could attack them, and their houses, but he couldn't attack the buildings around them.

That got him yelled at last time.

Hawk harassed and targeted the Templars fleeing through the city, to the point that they were beginning to realize that their membership made them targets.

The Clan was disbanded by the System, but the tags didn't disappear automatically for twenty-four hours.

That gave the other party a whole day to make sure that defeated spies weren't lingering.

But in this case, where they had tried to reform the Clan immediately, it also gave the victors the chance to target them.

"Members of the Gralpedrin Templars, stand down. I am done with your nonsense. If you continue to deny the New Home Merchant's Guild its dues after you declared war on us, I will simply level your city.

Your Clan Leader is dead. Your Elders are dead.

You cannot hold out against us." The Clan Leader shouted from the sky as the last of the Templars' Ascended Immortals fell to the combined efforts of her and Allie.

Those words echoed through Gralpedrin, and after sensing the destruction within the clan compound, the rest of the residents panicked and ran into the streets to beg for mercy.

"Please, Supreme Lady, spare us! We will drag them into the street for you if we must, but spare the city!" An Elderly man who had never managed to reach Immortal Rank power or awaken a System interface pleaded.

Naturally, the Clan Leader didn't take him seriously, but the other residents of the city did.

Anywhere that a Templar was found, they would either be swarmed and dragged out of hiding, or pointed out to the Golems, who were happy to do it for them.

It didn't take long, and the entire Clan's surviving population of Immortals above the early stages of Spirit Immortal had been found and brought out. All that was left were the ones in the safe rooms, and they were

noncombatants.

But they had likely also taken nearly all the Clan's valuables with them, as there was not much left in the buildings. Everything had been destroyed in the attack, there were no more standing buildings within the compound. But Cara had found suspiciously little loot.

Karl checked the entrance to a bunker, where Soul Sight told him that there should be living people, and he could sense active barriers.

"Hello? The battle is over, everyone is being asked to gather in the centre of town," he called.

A small magical device lit up, and a voice came from it. "Did we win? Can the children come out now?"

"The Templars were defeated, but the children can come out. The New Home isn't interested in taking children, or in killing them," Karl insisted.

"We're safe in here. I'm not coming out," the voice insisted.

Karl sighed, and used [Night Haunter]'s ability to move through walls of limited

thickness.

This one actually had an air vent at the top of the wall, which made things easier, and he simply stepped into the bunker, where he found one dragonkin in white robes, along with dozens of children.

"There is no point in refusing, as you can see, I can just come in here and take you out by force if needed.

If the Darklight Host had ill intentions for your bunker, we would have eliminated it already. Now, kindly bring your young charges to the surface. We

have some questions about where the Clan Elders hid the treasury when they realized that they had lost.

It wasn't in their inventories, we had them checked."

The white dragon cleric wasn't sure what to make of that comment, but it strongly implied that the Elders were no longer among the living.

Then she finally noticed Karl's tabard. One blood-red ring, with golden overlay.

He had defeated a Peak Immortal in single combat, and it wasn't his first above rank Guild Challenge victory.

"Yes, Sir. I will bring them out. I... I may have an idea where the treasures were

hidden"

"Thank you. I believe that after we claim our fifth, there will be more than enough for you to establish a new home for the children."

The cleric blinked slowly. "We're not that wealthy of a Clan!"

"By population, you are. At least you are now, when we killed eighty percent of

the members."