Time seemed to stand still at this moment.
"Where are my ores?"
He slowly turned around, his voice terrifyingly low.
The fawning smile on the Rat-faced Member's face hadn't fully faded as he stared blankly at the rock wall, then at Fire Ghost, failing to process the situation for a moment.
"My, my lord... I... I don't know either. Everything was fine yesterday..."
"WHERE ARE THE ORES!!!"
A roar that didn't sound human exploded throughout the mountain's interior, shaking the rock walls until dust fell in cascades.
Fire Ghost's sanity snapped completely in that instant. He lunged forward, his hand like an iron pincer, death-gripping the Rat-faced Member's neck and lifting him off the ground.
"Ugh... ugh..."
The Rat-faced Member's feet kicked wildly in the air, his face turning the color of pig liver. His hands desperately clawed at Fire Ghost's wrist, his eyes filled with extreme terror and confusion.
He really didn't know!
He swore he knew nothing!
"My future! My position as an Executive! It's all gone!"
Fire Ghost's eyes were bloodshot, blue veins bulging on his arm, and his knuckles cracked from the excessive force.
"Speak! Did you steal them! Was it you!"
The Rat-faced Member was being choked to the point of nearly passing out, able only to shake his head frantically while wheezing sounds escaped his throat.
"Surveillance! Go check the surveillance!"
A sliver of Fire Ghost's logic returned. He knew that killing this piece of trash now wouldn't help matters.
He hoisted the half-dead Rat-faced Member off the ground and, dragging him like a dead dog, sprinted toward the makeshift surveillance room.
Inside the surveillance room, several crude monitors flickered with static.
Since this was a temporary base, the surveillance equipment was of the lowest quality; the images were blurry and jumped from time to time.
Fire Ghost stared intently at the screen, rapidly playing back the past footage.
Finally, he found it!
On the screen, the Rat-faced Member's nauseating face appeared.
And beside him followed someone also wearing a Team Magma uniform.
That person wore a hat with the brim pulled very low, keeping their head down at all times, making it impossible to see their features.
But the Rat-faced Member's posture made Fire Ghost's pupils shrink suddenly.
He was bowing and scraping the entire time, with a smile a hundred times more fawning than the one he gave Fire Ghost. Like the lowliest servant, he led the mysterious person, swaggering through every checkpoint directly toward the ore storage area at the mountain peak!
"What... what is this?"
The Rat-faced Member saw the footage too. He was completely stunned, pointing at himself on the screen and then at the mysterious person.
"I... I don't know him! I... I remember now! He said he was Lord Tabitha's special commissioner, here to inspect the ores early! He even had an Executive's Warrant!"
The Rat-faced Member was desperate now. Although he didn't know what had happened, in his urgency to save his life, he blurted out whatever came to mind!
"A warrant?"
Fire Ghost's voice was cold and devoid of emotion.
"Yes! Yes! It was a warrant! I checked it, it was real!"
Fire Ghost laughed, a hideous and twisted sound.
Lord Tabitha had just spoken with him. How could he have sent a special commissioner?
And for an early inspection?
Fool! A complete and utter fool!
But in Fire Ghost's brain, which was already consumed by anger and paranoia, he instantly constructed another 'truth.'
This wasn't stupidity at all.
This was an act!
This Rat-faced Member was an undercover agent sent by the Alliance!
He had colluded with outsiders long ago to put on this double act, working from the inside to steal the organization's most important wealth!
That so-called special commissioner must be his accomplice!
The evidence was conclusive!
"Lord Tabitha's special commissioner... what a convincing performance."
Fire Ghost patted the Rat-faced Member's face, his tone becoming eerily gentle.
The Rat-faced Member shuddered, thinking Fire Ghost believed him, and nodded hurriedly: "Yes, yes, my lord, I really..."
Before he could finish, his neck was seized by Fire Ghost once again.
This time, Fire Ghost showed no mercy. He dragged him out of the surveillance room and walked straight toward a nearby deep pit filled with churning, boiling lava.
That was the place for disposing of base trash and... 'trash.'
"My lord! My lord, have mercy! I'm innocent! I'm truly innocent!"
The Rat-faced Member finally realized what Fire Ghost was going to do. He let out a pig-slaughtering howl, struggling with all his limbs.
However, before the enraged Fire Ghost, his struggles were utterly futile.
"Innocent? Go tell it to the volcano!"
With a jerk of his arm, Fire Ghost threw the Rat-faced Member toward the lava pit like a piece of garbage.
"No—!"
Plop.
A dull sound.
The sharp scream lasted less than two seconds before it was replaced by a'sizzling' burning sound and churning bubbles, finally falling into complete silence.
A burnt stench began to permeate the air.
Fire Ghost watched the lava pit expressionlessly until the last bubble disappeared.
He had killed the traitor.
But the towering rage in his heart didn't diminish in the slightest. Instead, because it couldn't find an outlet, it became even more suppressed and manic.
The stepping stone for his future was gone.
Lord Tabitha's promise had also become a pipe dream.
Everything was gone.
He stood by the lava pit, lost in spirit. The scorching heat waves hit his face, yet he couldn't feel a hint of warmth.
His mind was a complete blank.
Just then, a detail he had deliberately ignored surfaced from the depths of his memory like a ghost, without warning.
It was that Trainer he had captured and repeatedly tortured, Ken.
Before he died, he had screamed a name with all his might.
At the time, he had dismissed it as the ramblings of a madman and didn't take it to heart.
That name was... Ariel!
Boom!
The name was like a thunderclap exploding in Fire Ghost's mind.
He snapped his head up, a terrifying light flashing in his bloodshot eyes.
A terrifying deduction began to grow wildly in his heart.
That Ariel... could he... He deduced that this Ariel must possess extremely sophisticated disguise or infiltration techniques!
He might have even been lurking in the base from the moment Ken was captured, like a venomous snake observing everything in the shadows!
The mysterious person with the low hat in the surveillance... the 'Lord Tabitha's special commissioner' that the Rat-faced fool mentioned... So that was it!
So that was it!
There was no undercover agent working from the inside; from start to finish, there was only one person!
A bastard named Ariel!
He disguised himself as a member of the Team Magma, fooled everyone, fooled that idiot, and took the ores!
Fire Ghost didn't know Ariel could Teleport; he only felt that this person's cunning and schemes were unfathomably deep!
He had been played.
From beginning to end, he was led around by the nose by a single person.
He had even personally killed a subordinate who, though stupid, might have been innocent, clearing the final clues for the true culprit.
Pfft—
A metallic sweetness rose in his throat. Overcome by fury, Fire Ghost suddenly spat out a mouthful of fresh blood.
A supreme humiliation!
This was the greatest disgrace he had ever suffered in his life!
"Ariel..."
Fire Ghost slowly walked to the edge of the crater, with thousands of feet of churning, roaring magma beneath his feet.
He looked down at the crimson expanse that could swallow everything, a smile more terrifying than a demon's appearing on his face.
"No matter who you are, no matter who is behind you!"
"You cut off my future, stole my treasures, and played me for a fool!"
"I, Fire Ghost, swear here and now that I will find you! I will crush every bone in your body inch by inch, pull out your soul, and melt it into this volcano, so you may never be reincarnated!"
The shrill oath echoed in the crater, carrying endless malice and madness.
Fire Ghost looked up, his eyes filled with a web of bloodshot veins, looking like a lone wolf driven into a corner and gone completely mad.
From this day on, he had only one goal left in life.
Find Ariel, and then, an unending vendetta!
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