Rachel, who was standing to the side, saw the scene.

She quickly dismissed the others and gently closed the main door,

preventing anyone from barging in and disturbing Gauss.

She knew Gauss was in a rare, deep state of sudden comprehension,

a crucial moment.

Or rather, the reason she had carved out time from her busy schedule to coach Gauss was to help him step into a second professional advancement—

she just hadn’t expected the process to arrive so early.

She had assumed that, at minimum, she would have to coach him several times before he could complete the road’s condensation and pry open the professional wall.

But unexpectedly, a single session had already taken the decisive step.

A twinge of envy involuntarily surfaced in Rachel’s gaze as she looked at Gauss.

No wonder he had caught that lord’s attention.

Gauss, completely immersed in the bodily transformation, could not sense Rachel’s stare.

He felt his blood surge like a roaring tide, wave after wave smashing into every part of his body, heating him to an extreme.

It was like becoming a small boat navigating a furious sea.

That newborn force kept washing through him,

tearing, reforging, burning.

Throughout this process, the once more massive mana did not interfere;

it merely flowed steadily. The two utterly different forces occasionally intertwined but did not affect each other—neither negatively nor positively.

Condensing a second rank was indeed far more difficult than the first.

Rachel watched Gauss’s robe billow and churn.

She inwardly breathed a sigh of relief—fortunately his breakthrough was occurring inside the Adventurers Guild, so there would be no outside interference;

this place was almost one of Sena City’s safest locations.

At least, during her years as guild president, no one had dared to run amok here.

Only in a place like this could Gauss complete his transformation without disturbance,

and right now was that moment.

“Boom!!!”

A heavy, piercing roar suddenly came from outside,

even making the training room walls tremble.

What happened??

Rachel’s expression changed instantly.

She glanced at Gauss, and when she saw he seemed unaffected by the tremor, she finally relaxed.

But the smile usually brightening her face vanished the moment she turned her gaze away from him.

Her eyes sharpened like a hawk’s.

“Who’s creating a ruckus—and at this exact time?”

She looked toward Gauss, then the crystal on the door began to flicker.

It was the guild’s subordinates’ emergency signal to her.

Even though she had clearly ordered that nothing should disturb them, the subordinates still triggered the alarm, and there had been tremors noticeable even inside this sealed training room.

She knew something had to be happening outside!

She glanced at Gauss once more, then resolved to go check it out.

It would be best to contain the problem at its source.

When she stepped outside, the staff waiting there were all aflutter, like ants on a hot pan, their faces anxious.

Only when Rachel emerged did their panic subside, as if they had regained a backbone.

Rachel noticed this and sighed inwardly.

Peace had lasted too long.

Many people had lost their ability to resist or handle crises.

But this was not the time to haggle over such small matters.

Outside, her deputy—a petite, efficient-looking woman—was sweating on her brow.

“President! Something terrible has happened.” The deputy hurriedly reported in a low voice when she saw Rachel.

“We received intelligence: the Upper City and the Reef Prison have experienced large-scale jailbreaks and uprisings! Those imprisoned somehow broke their restraints and are now in fierce firefights with the city guard rushing over.”

“At the same time, several important sites across the city have suffered massive explosions.”

Rachel’s pupils contracted;

her expression grew grim.

She wasn’t overly worried about the jailbreak itself—the Reef Prison had always been a top-guarded location for Sena City, not even within the city but on a perilous island at sea.

What made her frown were the simultaneous explosions happening throughout the city.

It was obvious someone was executing some dark scheme.

“Pass my orders: immediately initiate Level One alert, activate all defensive runes, and seal the main entrances. Contact headquarters and maintain communications.”

She inhaled deeply,

then quickly tapped a few people and followed them down the stairs.

At that moment, adventurers stationed at the guild looked around in confusion, dazed.

They had all clearly heard the massive explosion from the plaza outside.

They were just a little stunned.

This was the Adventurers Guild—the largest human organization in the world—and someone had dared to attack it directly?

Even a hundred lives wouldn’t be enough to cover that offense.

“Thump thump thump!”

While many adventurers were anxiously asking the reception staff for details and the hall filled with uneasy whispers,

a heavy, forceful footstep, timed like a beat on everyone’s heart, came down from the staircase to the upper floors.

Every adventurer turned to look instinctively.

A towering figure, far beyond the size of ordinary humans, was descending from the staircase shadows step by step.

“The president!”

“The president’s here!”

Her unmistakable, burly frame meant some adventurers recognized her at a glance.

But those who saw her instinctively shrank their necks.

She was a different person from the warm, often-smiling president they normally knew.

A crushing weight radiated from her in silence, filling every inch of the hall.

Even though they knew she wasn’t directing her anger at them, the adventurers felt as if an invisible field bound them, breathing became hard, hearts pounded uncontrollably.

No one dared approach.

They watched silently as she strode toward the guild’s front entrance on the first floor.

Everyone knew the people who had caused the explosions and riots outside were in serious trouble.

She pressed her palm to the rune-etched heavy door;

the protective runes trembled and the door opened.

When she stepped out, the door closed behind her.

Outside the building was the vast guild plaza.

Where neat paving stones and statues celebrating adventuring spirit and heroics usually stood and drew crowds, the gigantic plaza was now a ruin.

It looked as if a monstrous beast had just rampaged through.

Near the guild tower stood a shocking charred crater, cracked paving and scattered stone and dirt rolled outward, emitting the sharp stench of sulfur and smoke.

Nearby ornate statues had been destroyed by the blast, fragments littering the ground.

Farther off, panicked civilians and senior guild members like Adelle were treating the wounded and resisting the perpetrators.

Rachel stood quietly in the plaza and scanned the scars with calm eyes.

Her assistant handed her a pair of Mithril gauntlets.

She reached out and put them on.

“No matter who is behind you, this time you went too far.”

She donned the gauntlets.

The ground beneath her suddenly collapsed, exploding outward like a giant spiderweb.

Her body launched forward like a cannonball.

In a blink she broke the sound barrier, covering hundreds of meters to land at the heart of the battlefield.

“Thud!!!”

She grabbed the head of a scale-helmeted warrior man and slammed it down—his skull exploded like a watermelon!

Time seemed to stop.

But Rachel did not stop.

She propelled herself outward again,

closing in on the group wielding some kind of alchemical devices!

She skimmed the ground as if flying, moving at blinding speed.

When she reached her targets, her body instantly transitioned from motion to stillness and assumed a stance that defied reason. Kinetic and potential energy vanished without a trace.

She moved so fast others couldn’t react;

their faces still twisted with feral excitement.

Rachel pointed with one finger;

before it even touched the opponent’s neck, that throat snapped like a broken stalk, and a head flew off.

“Boom boom boom!”

Time seemed to resume.

When everyone turned to look around, they were astonished to find many figures missing from the clearing.

A muscular woman wearing gauntlets stood in the center, blood dripping from her fists and splattering on the ground like blooming roses.

“Battlefield Rose—Empty Fist Rachel!”

In the distance, a man who appeared to be the commander swallowed and broke into a cold sweat.

Even though he had known in advance this area was her territory and had prepared himself, facing this lean killing machine still sent his brain into convulsions.

Worse, the murderous madwoman turned her head and fixed him with a blank stare.

“Who sent you?”

Rachel asked.

Everything about today felt too much like a coincidence.

Her spur-of-the-moment decision to train Gauss today had been made only the day before;

logically, not many people should have known.

That special training room was her private chamber—

a space relatively isolated from the outside;

the advantage being outside interference was hard, the disadvantage being those inside would also find it hard to perceive events outside.

Yet, as if fate were mocking her, the attackers struck the Adventurers Guild while she was coaching Gauss.

From the moment she stepped out, she judged these suicide attackers aimed at the guild building itself;

however, the tower possessed some defensive mechanism that had redirected the blast energy to the plaza.

Was the attack specifically targeting the guild, coordinating with the prison uprising, or… her gaze drifted back toward the training room.

At Rachel’s question, the commander trembled and drained of color.

He tried to craft a menacing reply, but the air stuck in his throat;

under Rachel’s emotionless regard he seemed to lose the ability to speak.

He glanced toward the broad robe covering his chest.

Rachel shook her head.

She vanished from sight in an instant and reappeared right in front of the commander.

Her motion exceeded what the eye could track;

to onlookers it was teleportation.

Her right hand pressed precisely on the wrist that was about to reach somewhere.

Was he about to trigger some device? Not if she could help it.

“Crack!”

A sickening sound of bone breaking.

His wrist was crushed in her grip.

Then his other limbs followed, his jaw was unseated—

in an instant he had lost most of his ability to act.

“Hmm?”

Just as Rachel prepared to subdue him for interrogation,

she suddenly realized the man had already lost all signs of life.

“This is bad. That wasn’t an alchemical bomb!”

Her speed was such that normally no one could react, not even to self-destruct.

Her controlled maneuvers should not have been fatal.

This sudden death had to have been premeditated.

Sure enough, she felt the man’s body begin to radiate light.

Dazzling brilliance expanded outward!

Too late!

The change came so abruptly.

There was no time to analyze or weigh better options.

She could only rely on instinct;

in the next second her right leg, a siege-hammer of a limb, tensed like a steel spring.

The cracked ground beneath her crumbled again.

Her coiled waist and core erupted with terrifying force;

like a taut bow, her straight, rock-solid right leg rose in a devastating kick that concentrated every ounce of her explosive power onto the glowing body.

“Bang!!!”

A heavy cannon-like roar exploded!

The target’s body seemed as if struck not by a kick but by an unseen heavy artillery;

its torso shot vertically at a speed beyond visual tracking, turning into a blurry streak. Rubbing friction set the body on fire before the explosion, leaving a trailing flame.

“Boom! Me—me!”

Rachel’s kick produced a sonic boom.

In an instant the body rose a hundred or two hundred meters into the air.

Before it could rise further,

a massive, searing fireball like a tiny sun detonated at that height!

The deafening blast shook the street.

A spherical shockwave blew outward, whipping robes and sending people reeling;

debris and dust were lifted into the sky.

Burning wreckage and bits of flesh rained down.

Everyone in the plaza was rendered speechless by the sudden spectacle.

Terror, relief, panic, awe, and reverence rippled through the crowd.

Rachel had neutralized a terrifying bombing attack through sheer force.

She scanned the surrounding area.

Her body flashed repeatedly as she coordinated with other professionals to quickly subdue the assailants.

Fortunately, aside from the earlier immense blast, the remaining attackers were low-level brutes who were soon subdued under her lead.

But she felt no satisfaction from these results.

She had already guessed that the attackers who could be so easily subdued were expendable pawns who knew nothing;

the ones with real intelligence had died in the earlier explosion.

Her hawk-like gaze swept the scene.

Seeing the terrified civilians, Rachel lifted her gauntleted right hand and a broad, almost guileless smile reappeared on her face.

“Everyone, disperse—danger’s been neutralized!”

Sunlight struck her Mithril gauntlets, sending out a brilliant glow.

Her steady, anchoring presence instantly restored confidence to the citizens.

“President Rachel forever!”

“President is the strongest!”

The carefully plotted attack had been rolled back.

Soon Adelle and others arrived at the Adventurers Guild plaza.

They all knew Gauss had come here today, so they were worried when they heard the commotion.

Within the crowd, Rachel spotted the three who looked troubled at once.

Of course she recognized them.

She waved at the three in a kindly manner.

“Are you… President Rachel?”

Like Gauss had been earlier, Aria and the others didn’t really know her personally, but Gauss had complained about Rachel’s monster-like physical strength, so at first sight they linked this woman to the creature Gauss had described.

“Yes. You must be Gauss’s teammates?”

“We came to look for Gauss. Is he all right?” Aria scanned the wreckage and saw no sign of Gauss. Remembering he had come to see Rachel today but was not by her side now, she swallowed hard, anxious.

Her heart fluttered.

She hadn’t expected such a battle to erupt in a supposedly safe city, and right near the Adventurers Guild.

“Don’t worry, he’s in my room and safe—currently breaking through. The fighting happened outside.” Rachel bent slightly, placing her right hand, having removed the gauntlet, on Aria’s shoulder.

The size difference between them was enormous.

Aria looked like a small doll beside her.

“That’s a relief.” Aria exhaled.

A huge weight lifted from the three’s hearts.

“If you’re still uneasy, once I finish here I’ll take you up to see him.”

She couldn’t leave immediately;

she had to stay and command things here.

“Thank you.”

Aria still felt a bit unsettled.

Shadow and Serlandul waited not far from her.

The Adventurers Guild was efficient.

The rubble and obstacles from the explosion were soon cleared.

Rachel breathed easier after receiving the order from headquarters that the crisis had been resolved;

other disturbances in the city were also swiftly handled at the same time.

Those who had stirred chaos were still primarily humans of seafolk blood.

In other words, she’d suspected this.

It wasn’t the end, just the beginning.

Ordinary humans’ tolerance for such mixed-blood people would only decrease.

Before long, even benevolent mixed-blood individuals would become targets.

Even though she realized this trend, she couldn’t change it.

Someone was deliberately pushing this situation forward.

Were they trying to create chaos to seize some interest?

With worry coiled inside, Rachel led Aria and the others to the training room where Gauss was.

The outside commotion had not disturbed him.

The room’s isolation worked well.

Or perhaps he was simply in some state of immersion that was very hard to break.

At this moment, a certain sharp energy on him had already risen to its peak.