"What happened?" Zarek asked.
Everyone seemed quite concerned, but Zarek himself was practically smiling ear to ear.
As a man who was too used to being a lone wolf, in these last few weeks he had probably already thrust himself into more life-and-death situations than he could count.
Technically, he had had his fun with clearing the Godsfall Tears, but none of them were as stimulating as the D-Grade Tear had been.
Was he a bit of an adrenaline junkie? Sure. But that was also what made him so powerful.
"Nothing. And then everything. And that's the problem," Marx said slowly.
"Oh?" Zarek raised an eyebrow.
"Not long ago, we started a more… forceful approach to things. Our territory has long been cleared, and normally we continue toward the center of the city. But if we continue too far, it'll cause issues."
Zarek nodded. As things were now, the four major powers in the city—though now three—controlled the four main highway entrances into the city itself and the toll booths that came along with them. They were convenient choke points.
Normally speaking, they would keep to themselves, and if there was any territorial expansion, it would be toward the center of the city.
This had happened naturally over the course of the apocalypse because the population density was the highest nearest the center of the city. Because of that, the number of Turned increased exponentially the closer to the city's core you got.
As such, these businesses were the smartest of the lot, deciding to back away and take up shop near the edges; that way, they could slowly adapt to things.
By the same measure, the Turned near the center of the city preferred to stay there as well because the density of Godsfall was much higher.
The system was truly a vindictive mistress. It wouldn't place useful things in regions that were easy to get to. Although there wasn't a 100% hit rate, normally, the more valuable the Godsfall Tear or Hub, the more difficult it was to reach.
But for obvious reasons, continuously expanding toward the center of the city would eventually lead to the collapse of the territory. This wasn't just because the Turned over there were much stronger, but because if the territory was stretched too thin, there would be too many points to attack it from.
Marx thus made the decision to begin expanding laterally, first starting with what remained of Pensare Territory. But… they received hardly any pushback.
Which was more than odd.
Thanks to Zarek and Priya, their rate at clearing Godsfall Tears was ridiculous. And because the two didn't monopolize everything within them, it felt like everyone in their organization was improving by leaps and bounds every day.
Marx and Zade were the fastest, but the other five brothers, and their subordinates under them, were improving at shocking rates as well.
Logically, you would never allow your enemy free rein to improve like this. Although Priya's actions were far more covert, that was only because Zarek was practically blasting his own everywhere.
Even if they were unaware of what Priya was doing, they certainly knew that Zarek was clearing Godsfall Tears at a rate that only seemed to be becoming more ridiculous.
And now, he was clearing D-Class Tears with the same abrupt ease as he had once cleared E-Class and lower ones. Even Marx himself was starting to feel that there was simply no catching up to this man.
The CEO thought himself to be quite exceptional, especially after he began to use the synergy between his Talent and Atom Link. But he still felt like he was falling further and further behind Zarek.
And then the other foot dropped.
There was a sudden attack on their territory last night. It was fast, quick, and all it did was break into their treasure warehouses and expose them to the world. As though a lure had been formed, their territory had been pressured by more Turned now than ever before, and there were too many fires to put out.
Plus, diverting too much of their forces now would leave their warehouses vulnerable again.
It was a clear, tactical approach. They let them stockpile their treasures of Godsfall high, and then when the timing was right, they shattered their protections and made the core of their territory as enticing as a high-level Godsfall Tear.
Their warehouses had been perfectly constructed with Zarek's advice. They had a funnel system to disperse Godsfall, and they were able to make good, temporary use of the Fallen Steel since they wouldn't have the factories to process them for a while.
Yet, in one moment, everything was perfect, and in the next, everything was ruined.
Surgical.
They didn't even steal a single treasure, and it was clear that that was never the point.
After hearing the full story, Zarek couldn't help but chuckle.
When you were dealing with a full organization like this one, the variables were, indeed, great. If he only had himself and Priya to worry about, the odds of anyone catching him off guard were next to zero.
But when it was like this… well, it was inevitable. What was more important when you led an organization like this one was how to read and react to things rather than assuming you would never face any setbacks at all.
"And what would you like to do?" Zarek asked.
"I want your opinion."
"That would depend. How do you see things right now?"
"They're taking advantage of… well, our advantage to force us to face a setback. It will take us at least three days to fix the warehouses, but in that time we'll have to deal with an amplified number of monster attacks. Then, we'll have to divert more manpower on top of that to stop this from happening again.
"They used the minimal amount of effort to deal the harshest blow to us, and I honestly don't see any simple way of dealing them the same blow."
Zarek smiled. "You're just not sinister enough."