130 Pink
"Not here…" Belladoll muttered under her breath, her eyes scanning the region, but the person she was looking for was nowhere to be found.
It wasn't that she was so obsessed with seeing Zarek, but it didn't make sense that he wasn't. And the moment Zarek started acting out of the ordinary, that usually meant problems for everyone else.
Usually.
The issue was that Zarek knew people felt this way about him. There had been more than one time when he did things that didn't make sense on purpose just to throw them off and make them second-guess themselves.
And part of what was so annoying about battling against him was realizing when he was bluffing and when he wasn't. But just the mere fact that you were using up so much brain power on these questions would be exactly why you suffered a loss in the end.
The moment you were trapped in a headspace like that, you had already lost. You were already playing Zarek's game.
The only chance you'd have at that point was to play your own.
This time, Crux seemed to understand the seriousness of the matter as well, because he made no attempts to make fun of Belladoll for her seeming obsession with Zarek.
At that moment, the two were in the midst of a team from the Green Corporation, CEO Green amongst their number, solemn and quiet.
They were already in communication with the Sakks and Dalton Team, but even though they felt it was likely that Zarek had long figured out what was going on, they didn't approach together and had even come from opposite ends of the city.
Their current location was the basement floor of a high-end jewelry shop. As though they were obsessed with vaults and safes, there was another one not far from them right here, but what was interesting about this jewelry shop was that it actually had windows that peeked onto the street level above.
Incredibly short and long bulletproof windows.
This store sold some of the most high-end jewelry pieces in the city, and part of its gimmick was that you could see its vault from the outside—thus, the setup. They called themselves Vault of Hell and marketed themselves more toward male celebrities and athletes.
The reason this was so important now was because this was the perfect lookout region—far enough from the chaos of the Godsfall Tear that it didn't raise too much attention, but close enough to keep tabs. And also…
Belladoll.
Crux was a Fire Mage. Belladoll, however, seemed to control an oddly pink Godsfall that was incredibly strange.
Usually, Godsfall was red. The only time it changed color was when it took the form of a spell or element. However, Belladoll's Godsfall was pink, as though it was more of an aesthetic choice than anything else.
And that was because it was.
Belladoll's Talent was known as Refractive Glint. On the surface, it was capable of changing the refractive index of various materials, playing around with them so that she could toy with light as though it were her own personal puppy.
And when she was bored, she used this ability to trick the world around her, tweaking the speed of Godsfall just the slightest bit so that it would appear more pink than red.
It was a complete play on her vanity, but it also proved one very important thing.
If she could casually control Godsfall like this just for the sake of an aesthetic choice, then what was the true extent of what her Godsfall was capable of?
"I've got it open."
A man from the Green Corporation finally exhaled a breath as they opened up the vault. This got an immediate reaction out of Belladoll, who scurried over like a little girl on Christmas morning, skipping so high she almost hit her head on the ceiling.
Yet, not even a hair grazed one of the tiles.
Belladoll slipped into the blinding vault. Since it was half a marketing gimmick—though it could be used to protect jewelry—it was also a display case of sorts for the most lucrative deals.
Without hesitation, Belladoll went right over to an enormous pink diamond that was half the size of her head. It stood as a centerpiece and was a true rarity among rarities.
It wouldn't be long before many of the materials Earth had once known to be strong were phased out, replaced by Godsfall materials of much better stature and strength.
However, there would be many materials that stood the test of time for a long while before they were replaced by others.
Diamond was certainly one of them.
So hard and sturdy, most B Classes couldn't do much to it—especially if B Class was the limit of their Growth Potential. Only A Classes could just barely start being more consistent in their ability to overwhelm diamond.
And that made it perfect.
Belladoll shook out her pink umbrella, and its form changed, its fabric being shredded away and the wires that had held it together reforming to latch onto the pink diamond.
"My oh my, you are such the little cut—okay, you aren't very cute at all, but you're still my little Suki anyway."
Belladoll only favored Suki like this when he did something incredible—namely, when he did something incredible for her.
Manipulating diamond at this stage should have been impossible even for someone who had stumbled into some sort of lucky S Class craftsman Profession.
But right before all their eyes, the solid diamond morphed and changed around Belladoll's umbrella until it became the new "fabric," giving the umbrella she already loved so much a reflective, pink diamond surface that was somehow still also flexible enough to open and close.
If one looked closely, the diamond had actually been folded into countless tiny triangular and hexagonal pieces that moved in relation to one another when the umbrella moved.
It was a gorgeous piece, and just might be the most powerful treasure on Earth already.
"Now I'm ready," Belladoll said with a cute grin, her worries about Zarek flying away with the wind.