The auction ended an hour later.
The rich gangs that lost knew they were going to face the wrath of their arch enemies.
Some lent money to let their young members take refuge in gangs of other cities.
Others planned an escape.
But Shadow Order banned a gang from entering a non-designated city. If found, they'd be exterminated. No questions asked.
Still, some wanted to try.
But even if they weren't spotted entering the city, they'd have to live in incognito forever.
The winners were the potion winners. They now had a much bigger share of their city.
The Siloy potion could also be diluted and given to members of lower levels. So, not just the leader, but the gang as a whole would grow stronger.
The biggest winners, however, were Shadow Order. They gained way more than expected.
"I wish you all good luck," Yufie said in concluding remarks as the auction ended.
The irony was that most of the gangs that were eligible to participate were going to be wiped out.
For them, it was only bad luck.
Yufie didn't care and entered the central room of the auction hall.
Coated with shiny blue alloys, adorned with exquisite paintings, the room screamed richness.
The room was monitored by human, abyssal technology along with two level 9 powerhouses.
Under their scrutiny, three maids meticulously sorted the payments into separate storage rings.
Just in the Uranus cluster, Shadow Order had quite a few secret realms and each of those branches had departments.
The auction items were the collection of all departments from all branches. Now, the revenue is sent back to the respective owners.
Yufie was no longer a little girl who served as a maid in the room. She had come a long way.
But looking at the maids, she felt a sense of revulsion. Once, she too was such a lowly maid.
"Haa~" She used her mental power on herself and forcibly suppressed her emotions.
Even though she was advised against it, she did it anyway. But she was also feeling the consequences. Her emotions were getting chaotic and unnatural.
"Hurry up!" She yelled, causing the maids to bleed from their noses and mouth. But they nodded fervently and sped up the work.
After a few minutes, they were done.
Yufie tapped her alpha orb and four old men appeared in the room.
"Thanks for your cooperation." She bowed and they nodded lightly before taking their respective ring.
Yufie personally held a green ring and handed it to a green-haired old man.
"Sir, thank you very much."
"Hm." The old man didn't say much and left.
Yufie straightened her back and unleashed her mental power on the maids.
"Arggh!"
"Kaah!"
"Pain.."
The three maids clutched their heads and bled from their eyes, nose, ears and mouth.
At the same time, the man overseeing the surveillance also bent down in pain as he bled all over and fainted.
The surveillance video was promptly deleted by a Technocrat in charge.
"Now, it's alright." Yufie nodded lightly.
She just erased the memories of the maids and the security guard.
Reading the memories was a bit difficult since any sentient creature would hold try to protect its memories, but erasing them? It was much easier.
She was a bit rough, so they were injured and might lose additional memories.
But she didn't care.
'What memories do these maids have anyway? It's the same revolting things over and over. I am doing them a favor.'
Yufie shook her head and tapped on a protrusion on the wall.
Shuaa!
The floor started to shrink and the auction hall shook violently.
By the time the maids woke up, they were sprawled on the ground.
They hurriedly stood up and bowed to Yufie. Their heads were still dizzy and they had no idea what just happened, but they knew that it was because of the woman.
"I have important things to do. Useless bumpkins, do your worthless job properly." Yufie snorted and hopped onto a spacecraft.
"…Let's go. There is a meeting in the Lagos district in an hour. We should not be late or that man will kill us."
"Yes."
Two maids whispered to each other and stepped on the road. The road slid forward and the two maids cleaned themselves up.
"Fina, you dumb bitch. We're tired, you have to take more work."
"Yes, we taught you many things in the past few months, didn't we? Repay us."
The third maid, Fina stiffly nodded. "I-I understand."
"Heh."
"That's my bitch."
The two maids started chatting again. Being abused by Yufie did tick them off, so they vented it on Fina.
Fina on the other hand closed her eyes and used her mental power to explore her memories.
If her memories were compared to a library, then a section was shredded apart, the tear crossing into other sections as well.
'It should be here. It should be here.' Fina searched carefully and she found an inconspicuous shelf of the library.
Then with a click, a black sphere appeared.
"Haa~" She sighed inwardly.
It was hard, but she managed to replicate her memory in the room and store it away safely.
Usually, this trick was useless.
Any telepath could do this. But any telepath, if they searched carefully, could also find the replica memory.
If Yufie was even a bit more careful and probed a little, she'd have found this replica.
That'd have meant a painful death for Fina.
But if she didn't, her mission would be completed.
It was a risk Fina was willing to take.
As a spy from Shadow Guardians, she already endured great pains to reach this point.
Contrary to the Order's knowledge, she was not only a water awakener but also a mind awakener.
With her talent, it was impossible to progress to level 4 and be a telepath. But Enigma…she blessed her and gave her a new life.
Using a treasure Enigma gave her, Fina suppressed her mental power and got introduced as a water awakener.
But even with the treasure, she had to endure an unimaginable amount of pain to suppress her mental power to prevent anyone from knowing she's a telepath.
As a result, she didn't progress a bit in her water path and had to endure the pain that almost pushed her to the brink of insanity many times.
She could've just died. To her, death wasn't painful. But death out of cowardice and death by abandoning the mission, by abandoning the trust, and by abandoning the blessing she was given was unacceptable.
In the end, she did it.
Fina glanced at the two maids in front of her and silently pierced her stomach with an ice blade and sent a message from the comm inside her body.
Then, she sealed up the injury and covered it up with her clothes.
'I've done what I was instructed to do. I was called useless my entire life. I hope my pain and suffering can be useful to at least one person.' She prayed silently.
Her hard work did pay off as the Athena agents and Shadow Guardians were on wait for her message.
They already exited the secret realm and were in full stealth mode.
Athena Department, as the highest intelligence department had two space crafts that were as good as custom-made Sovereign ships in terms of stealth.
After countless fierce discussions and table flippings, Violet convinced her superiors to lend her the stealth spacecraft.
Thus, it also allowed them to deploy a few stealthy drones outside the secret realm, enabling a complete monitoring of every space shuttle that exited the secret realm.
"Green-haired old man. Red Dress and a scar on his eyebrow. He has the aura crystals from the potions." Seth read his comm and turned to Violet.
"Alright." She nodded and signaled to her team.
The Athena agents grappled with their comms and using the cutting edge drone technology, they peered through every spacecraft that appeared outside the secret realm.
Seth watched them work in silence.
This mission really needed both of them to come together. Guardians' spy and Athena's technology.
'Hopefully, it's not anything big.' Seth prayed.
"That one!" A short old man from the Athena group yelled and everyone took a deep breath.
Their target was found.
"Finally…"
The trailing began.