Infinite Mana In The Oasis

'Time to leave.'

Eren ordered Ariadne and Lagartha to leave the battlefield just as it was about to get more chaotic than before.

He had done his job by keeping both teams busy. Both teams of Awakened rankers were about to get involved in a fight meant for meta-ranked members. Something he wanted to do from the beginning of the battle.

Eren hadn't planned Bobby's kill. Upon learning of the latter's intention to target him, Eren took this spontaneous action. Eren also realized more about himself that day. That he was a very vengeful person. More than he thought he was.

There was a reason why the battle was being fought at this place.

The place was near one of the Spiders' warehouses. The House of Spiders had a lot of warehouses around the city of Ludan, which they used to keep their resources safe.

These warehouses' locations were a well-kept secret within the upper echelons of the House of Spiders. However, the Stardust guild somehow got wind of this information. Guild management decided to raid these warehouses using force before they were emptied. This was the reason behind the guild war between the two guilds suddenly breaking out.

The number and rankers of people dispatched by the House of Spiders to the location of the warehouse were proportional to the importance of the stored resources they held within them. Hence, one could guess that the warehouse near Eren's battlefield was rich in resources meant for Awakened-rank entities.

Eren wanted Awakened rank members of the House of Spiders involved on the battlefield because it would be less troublesome for him to loot the warehouse. He was doing this behind the Stardust guild's back. During the raid, the Stardust guild members were supposed to locate and charge inside the warehouse together. However, if Eren were to wait for the battle to finish, all he would be left with would be a few souvenirs of the battle.

The battlemage wanted to claim everything the warehouse had in store for him. And he didn't want any shareholders in his claim.

Ariadne had come up with a sound plan to execute Eren's looting scheme. She immediately started working on her illusion spells. She also took significant efforts to learn some of Jilly's moves.

Initially, Ariadne was supposed to lure one of the caretakers of the warehouse by acting as Jilly. She was multi-timing with Bobby and the warehouse caretaker, along with a few others. The illusionist was supposed to use Jilly's connection with the caretaker to launch a raid inside the warehouse.

Ariadne had started using Jilly's identity when she wasn't around to influence a lot of male rankers after finding out the girl had a history of being promiscuous. On her missions, the illusionist would act as Jilly and keep dropping hints at the men she met, making them more interested in her.

Ariadne had to say that she couldn't pull this off without Jilly being Jilly. This girl started flirting back with everybody Ariadne had sent her way, making the illusionist's job easier than ever before.

Furthermore, there was something about Jilly that made men crazy about her after she did the deed with them. Bobby was no exception to this well-established fact.

The girl had her ways to make every man she was involved with feel special. They would start assuming that they were the only person Jilly cared about. The delusion was so strong that they would treat the news about Jilly's supposed affairs as baseless rumors.

At first, Eren had started to use Lagartha's sudden attack as a trigger to involve the Awakened rank entities in the battle and keep them engaged here. There was no plan to attack Bobby at all. However, the man's act of zeroing in on Eren rubbed the battlemage the wrong way.

Jilly was already taken care of by Ariadne before the start of the battle. She was put under an illusion by the illusionist which influenced her to leave the Shaikai kingdom entirely. One had to say that Ariadne had let the girl off easy so she could continue her "recreational activities" elsewhere.

***

House of Spiders' warehouse near the battlefield.

This place was hidden inside a natural cave. There was a secret entrance near the cave's supposed to end. Only a few Spiders of the awakened rank knew about this warehouse and its entrance.

Furthermore, just knowing about the entrance wasn't enough. One had to know the intricate mechanism behind the array entrance to enter the warehouse.

Thanks to Lagartha's involvement in the mission, Eren and Ariadne managed to enter the warehouse with relative ease. They knew that they were short on time. The Stardust guild members had a rough idea about the warehouse even if they didn't know about the array entrance.

Eren had bought himself some time by initiating the battle between Awakened rank entities. He was aware, however, that someone like Kiara would find it easy to find the entrance once she cleared her obstacles. She was a quasi-Arch rank. Someone like her would just blow the array up instead of trying to break the array using the right mechanism.

Eren, Ariadne, and Lagartha started killing the foot soldiers as soon as they entered the warehouse. The illusionist had cast a few illusion spells on both of them. She had made herself as well as the other two invisible to the naked eye. A ranker's mana sense would barely make them aware of their presence. A ranker needed to use their mana sense thoroughly to break Ariadne's illusion.

Eren and the girls with him would take the dead bodies of the rankers they killed into their storage. This way, they avoided making the crime scene obvious to Spiders stationed inside the warehouse.

Eren felt like he was playing one of those assassination-centric games inside Borgys' Oasis when he was very small. He made a lot of mistakes killing the rankers while staying in stealth. But thanks to Ariadne's comprehensive illusion spells that interfered with the perception of all senses, he managed to take care of a lot of Meta rankers with relative ease.

The assassination of the foot soldiers continued for a while. But the trio knew it wouldn't last long as there would be Awakened rank entities waiting further inside the warehouse, which was nothing but a giant cave corridor with small sub-caves present on either side.

The trio killed more than two dozen Meta rankers in a span of a few minutes. Only a few Rank-1 entities remained inside the warehouse. And killing them wasn't worth it for they had been placed at a distance from where ground zero of the incoming warehouse battle was supposed to be.

It was time for Ariadne to assume her Jilly identity once again.

***

A rugged-looking man, who looked to be in his early 40s was stationed deep inside the warehouse, protecting a sub-cave. He was sitting on a chair that had a giant metal door behind its back.

He had his shoulder-length light brown hair tied in a ponytail. He had a goatee and a well-defined beard. He was wearing light metal armor under a long coat. The man had a sword on his right and an ax on the left side of his waist.

This man was about 6'3 in stature with well-defined muscle definitions and Awakened rank status. One could tell that he was a strong ranker just by feeling his aura up close.

The man was practicing his ranking technique like usual while sitting outside the sub-cave. His only job was to prevent unauthorized personnel from entering the sub-cave and looting a portion of the wealth this entire warehouse had to offer. There were other sub-caves like these present inside the warehouse. However, only a few of the sub-caves were as significant as the one he was protecting. The rest of the sub-caves were filled with ordinary resources.

This man's name was Raul. It had been a long time since he was a Spider. As such, his loyalty to the guild was unquestionable. The guild had made sure that the guy got what he wanted when he wanted it.

Raul stopped his ranking technique practice and took a long breath before opening his eyes. He then stared at his uninvited visitor.

"Jilly? What are you doing here?"

Raul asked when he saw Jilly walking towards him. He was puzzled by her appearance at the warehouse because she was supposed to fight the battle.

Raul wasn't surprised by the fact that Jilly had entered the warehouse. He had invited her to the place a few times to have some fun off-duty. But his invitation didn't extend to times like these when the House of Spiders was supposed to be under attack.

Jilly had a few drops of tears rolling down her cheeks when she appeared in front of Raul. The artificial light sources arranged in the form of light-element arrays placed on the ceiling caused her tears to sparkle.

"Raul… my love! Please hold me in your arms. I need your care more than ever."