"I never imagined that I will see Tom here," one of the men looked Tommy up and down as if he was inspecting an item.

Another one nodded his head. "How cocky of him, do you think as a member of the strongest group, you can walk around unnoticed?"

Tommy stood up warily. His eyes examined them carefully, and he found out that they were the elites of their clan. His skill should be above them slightly, but he was facing four people. Two of them had skills slightly below his, one far below, and the other one seemed to be on par.

’This is going to be a hard fight.’

His hand gripped his sword tighter. He knew that this was going to be a brutal fight because he couldn’t ensure that he won the fight.

"Clan Head is going to be delighted if we can capture him."

"After that, the Souhon Clan is going to pay the price. Without this brat, they are not as strong as before."

The four of them walked closer to Tommy. They were looking towards him warily as they knew that this fight was not going to be easy. They might even lose their life if they were not careful.

One of them moved towards Tommy at high speed and Tommy unsheathed his sword immediately. The sound of metal clashing could be heard, and Tommy saw that the weakest member took out a gun. He cursed internally as he moved his body sideways and used his feet to kick the person before him in the gun’s direction.

BANG! BANG!

He fired two shots, and one of them hit the man in front of Tommy while the other one missed. This man wailed in pain as his grip on his sword lessened. Tommy pulled in his sword slightly before flicking it into an attack from above, hitting straight to the man’s shoulder.

"You idiot! Use the gun carefully."

The other two moved forward at the same time and surrounded Tommy. They attacked from two sides at the same time, and Tommy used his sword to block one of them. However, he was not fast enough to block the other one as he felt his shoulder get wounded.

"I got you!"

When Tommy’s teammates heard that, their heart turned cold. They knew that this was not going to be easy.

"Oro, Tom’s location!"

"Black Street Block C, on the side corner near the small line of stores."

"Got it," Kanae had changed her clothes back at her house and slipped out without anyone detecting her. She ran in the darkness towards the location Jason pinpointed. She hoped that her friend was going to be alright.

On the other hand, Tommy was doing his best to block the attacks from the two people. He had to be careful of sudden shots too, and he felt his concentration grow thinner as time passed.

"Damn!" he got another wound, this time to his feet, as the sword hit him.

Forcing his feet to hold on, he swept his sword horizontally towards the man beside him, cutting straight deep into his stomach.

BANG!

Tommy felt that his shoulder was going to snap as he fell to the floor. His consciousness started to fade, but he tried his best to look towards the man in front of him.

The other man raised his sword with the intention to kill, but a voice stopped him.

"Don’t kill him," a man appeared.

"Young Master Rick," the weakest man was stunned. "But he killed two of our members."

Rick looked towards the two fallen people on the ground. He was pained, but he knew that he couldn’t kill Tommy right now.

"Bring him back to our place. Let’s use him as a bargaining chip against the Souhon Clan. I’m sure Fiore Group will demand an answer from the Souhon Clan," Rick revealed his general plan.

If they killed Tommy, Fiore Group would never forgive them. On the other hand, if they used Tommy to bargain with the Souhon Clan, it would make things more complicated. If the Souhon Clan chose to leave Tommy alone, the relationship between the two would fall apart and there was nothing wrong with them killing this boy after that. Fiore Group would point their spears at the Souhon Clan rather than them.

"Young Master is a genius."

"Stop his bleeding. He has to be alive for at least one more day."

"We understand, Young Master."

Rick looked towards Tommy for a moment before crouching down and searching his body. He found a small and weird phone on his body.

"What is this?"

"Could it be there’s a GPS in there?" one of the members asked.

"It’s possible," Rick played with the phone as he recalled something. If the other members were to find out right now, they were going to be in big trouble.

"Let’s go."

He threw the phone to the side and hurriedly loaded the unconscious Tommy into his car. Tommy still heard their plan, so he felt slightly disgusted, but he knew that it was indeed possible for things to develop that way. Since his special phone was still on, the others should know Rick’s plan.

"Rei, they’re throwing the special phone away. You have to get there quickly!" Jason warned.

"I’m already sprinting!" Kanae also heard the conversation and her face was black due to anger. She could not believe that they were going to do something so vicious like that. Did the dispute between clans have to involve them?

"Next time Tom does something reckless again, don’t you ever support him. His brain is made of rock."

"I know."

Kanae made another turn as her shadow left afterimages on the street. Her feet hurt from her straining them, but she had to hurry or she would not be able to reach the place in time.

Jason was walking with his laptop and I-Pad towards his car. He knew that they were going to be late as there several seconds already passed. If Kanae continued to run at full speed, she wouldn’t be able to handle the aftereffect as the pain would make her unable to move. After all, a human’s muscles have a limit.

Swish!

Kanae finally arrived at the scene. She looked around, but there was not a single trace of the car. The tracks on the snowy ground have disappeared because of the heavy snow. There was no way they could trace the other party if things were going to be like this.

Her eyes landed on the small phone on top of the snow by the side. She crouched down and stretched out her trembling hand to pick it up. She recognized it. It was Tommy’s special phone.

She was late.

Bang!

Her fist landed on the wall, making numerous cracks on the wall.

"Oro, find out their location," Kanae’s voice was filled with murderous intent. Her eyes were staring straight at the phone as her grip tightened, showing her anger. She would not let them off because they had hurt her friend.

--------------------------------------------------------------

~~~ANNOUNCEMENT~~~

Hey everyone, Thank you for reading up until now and I’m really grateful for all the support you have shown me thro the comments, the votes, and the gifts all these times. \(^_^)/

It has been more or less four months ever since the novel first published until now. When I first try to write this novel, I never expect that I could have a lot of readers. After all, I pick up quite an unusual route of story (which I believe some of you called as guessing game with the mysterious lead). The comment and the constant support shown to this novel keeps me going on because I know there are readers out there waiting for new update of the novel.

Don’t worry, I’m not making an announcement to end the novel (There are still a lot of chapters that I want to write and share). I’m making this announcement to tell you that UTVN will be premium, which meant that the chapters will be locked.

I know that many of you didn’t like the premium, but I have spent hours working to create this novel. As some of you might have known (from the author’s note regarding exams before), I’m still a student and writing is my hobby plus side work, so I also wish to gain some income from it.

I do hope that you can continue to support me in this journey with the characters. Still, if you choose to drop the novel because it becomes premium, I respect your choice since I know that many of you have other novels you would prefer to spend your stones. It has been a pleasure to spend all these times with you.

Once again, I sincerely thank you for supporting me all this time. After all, I can’t get this far without all of your support no matter how insignificant you thought they were.

(As for the price of spirit stone (ss), it’ll depend on the word count. 200 words is 1 ss. With the amount of words that I usually write, the price should be around 6-8 ss per chapter, sometimes might be more or sometimes lesser, but it shouldn’t stray too far)

As the start of premium, which is the next chapter, I will give a mass release. I can’t give you the exact date, yet, but it won’t take too long (~_^)

Hope you will enjoy them~ (And don’t worry, I will keep my usual chapter release of one chapter each day plus some bonuses as I’m still in holiday). You don’t need to give me gifts if you can’t, just use them to unlock the chapter after this if you still choose to continue reading.

Thank you!

With Love <3,

Sorahana