The gates of Southern Blue were flung open as a motorcade of several trucks drove out. Containing a mere three cargo trucks and four armored-transports, the caravan wasn’t that big. Yet, the Dark Flame insignia on the vehicles was fairly eye-catching.

Dark Flame became a public target after Song Zining’s capture—be it notoriously large mercenary corps or small hunter squads who could only take advantage of the situation, everyone wanted a piece of Dark Flame. Hence, a caravan labeled with their insignia would usually suffer numerous attacks along the way.

This situation lasted until Qianye displayed his might by injuring several opponents outside of Tidehark. Thereafter, the major mercenary corps rarely attacked for fear of Qianye’s potential retaliation, but the lone wolves didn’t care about all that. Since most lone wolves were fairly skilled in sniping, the escort forces would suffer casualties even if they reached their destination. This resulted in fairly steep compensation costs.

Under such circumstances, some major...