God Of Crafting

"It seems that the cavalry has arrived."

I took in a deep breath, held it in my lungs for a while before slowly, slowly letting it out.

'Nothing could ever be simple, huh?' I thought, closing my eyes as I took a moment to compose myself before turning towards Nathan.

"I'm sorry, sir, but if you could go up the stairs over there, and then head to the last room on the left and wait for me there. Just…" I held my voice for a second. "Normally, I would encourage Claire to entertain you as you wait, but this time, I will have to ask that you not disturb her."

"Oh?" Nathan's face first twitched, only for his eyebrows to move up his forehead before a small, weirdly sympathetic smile appeared on his lips. "I will make myself scarce, then," he announced, bowing his head before turning toward the stairs and starting to move.

"I will try to get back as soon as possible, so make sure to get yourself comfortable in the meantime," I called after the man, only to then turn right back toward the factory's main doors.

There, I took just one more moment to calm my thoughts and compose myself, before taking a deep breath and pushing the doors open… only to then stand right in the doorframe, frozen.

When I came out before, I was surprised by how little the outside had changed since the last time I took a look. Right now, however, it was the opposite.

The crowd that paraded all over the main gate had now fully receded far deeper into the street, no longer able to get anywhere near with a line of huge police and anti-terrorist cars blocking their way and police tape securing the few gaps between them.

But the closer to the main entrance I looked, the worse things appeared to be.

The place where the crowd was just a moment ago was now swarming with armed and armored police, with quite a lot of them openly carrying heavy guns and all sorts of storming equipment—from tactical and crowd-control shields to portable barricades and all the way to handheld battering rams!

'What the heck…' I shrieked in my thoughts when I saw some more policemen setting up easily deployable boxes made of a sturdy material with hollow insides. Just a little down the line from where the policemen were setting up those barriers, there was a huge cargo truck pouring sand into the hollow spaces of those boxes, quickly turning the open street into a fortress far sturdier than what Chihiro had turned the factory into with all the guards and the solid-steel fence.

Standing in the doorframe and looking down at this deployment on a scale that turned it from a practical exercise using the materials they had on hand to nothing less than a flex of their ability, I wasn't sure whether I should be worried, amused, or baffled.

'Well, nothing good will come from just standing around, huh?' I thought before forcing my limbs to move ahead.

Once I started to move, I somehow managed to work through the mental blockade caused by the insanity of what I could see just beyond the factory's fence, finally getting my brain to switch from being shocked to actively trying to find a solution to the problem at hand.

"Sir," the leader of the guards called out as soon as I approached the kiosk.

'If he was anxious about his role before, then now…'

Being the socially active introvert I was, I could easily read people's faces. That's why, while merely on the phone, I failed to grasp the scale of the problem from the guard leader's voice alone. But now that I could see his face, the situation became quite obvious.

'There's no way they're getting into a shooting match with the authorities. Not when it's clear there's some higher power moving its pawns.'

This wasn't what Chihiro's rival could do. Those means indicated there was something else at play… or someone abusing their monopoly on the flow of information to paint a picture that warranted the use of such an overwhelming force.

And as I figured it out, I couldn't help but sigh.

'It's those two fuckers, I'm quite sure of it.'

There was one more reason for me to believe that the clan that started this whole mess had absolutely nothing to do with the current situation. And it was how the factory's divinity offered me no prior insight into this trouble, meaning that there likely were no cultivators among the ranks of the police…

The very same police who were now gathering in groups ranging from five to ten men, with each group centered around some sort of cover or obstacle that would prevent any direct line of fire from the factory guards.

"Did they try to make any sort of contact?" I asked, as my mind raced to figure out just what the hell was happening here.

'With this level of force… do they think we have an unauthorized weapon factory in there?' I thought as I stole a glance at the factory's entrance that, in my shock, I'd left half open. Then, as a certain show came to my mind, the corner of my lips twitched into a small smile. 'Or maybe they think we're hiding a high-grade drug lab in the hidden basement or something?'

"So far, they did not," the guard leader shook his head. "All they did was use that obnoxious loudspeaker to demand our surrender, but well…"

At this point, something flashed in the man's eyes, a feeling that suddenly made me doubt my earlier convictions about how our guards wouldn't be willing to actively do their job and fight back against any attempts to attack this place.

"They never came to show us their warrant."

I stared blankly at the man for a moment, only to then start laughing.

"Truer words couldn't be spoken," I claimed through my tears of joy, only to then wipe my tears with the upper side of my hand. "I guess now it's my turn to remind them of that, isn't it?" I asked, only to then turn on my heel and move away from the guard kiosk and toward the main gate.

"Open the gates and surrender the factory, or you will be stormed and arrested by force! Do the smart thing and…" the more active of the two government agents continued to scream into his loudspeaker, while safely hidden behind several barriers the actual police force had set up.

Moving up to the gate, I came as close to its bars as I could without planting my face against the steel, only to then wait for a few moments before one of the policemen came close enough to hear my voice over the noise brought forth by this massive deployment of government forces.

"Excuse me!" I called out, only to receive a baffled stare from the passing, armed policeman in return. "Could I ask for a moment of your time?"

Rather than abiding by the rules of the game and acting like some sort of drug lord that was dead-set on fighting to the last man before going down with his drug-producing factory… I decided to play my own game.

"Do you want to surrender?" Squinting his eyes as he put on a mean face, the policeman asked while shaking the rifle in his hands, as if to show how he was ready to use it at a moment's notice. "If so, just open the gate and we will make sure no harm will come to you."

Hearing this, I fought off the desire to laugh at the policeman's statement.

Still, keeping my face straight proved a bit more challenging than I expected, actively forcing me to dedicate the bulk of my attention just to keeping an empty look on my face.

"Surrender? Oh, so this isn't some sort of artistic performance but an actual deployment?" I asked, raising my eyebrows as far up my forehead as I physically could while doing my best to express my surprise with the rest of my body as well.

"Tsk," hearing my response, the policeman simply clicked his tongue before turning away, as if he was ready to walk away.

"So, since you really are here to bully us, before we start shooting each other, how about you guys present the lawful warrant? Or, could it be…" I held my voice for a moment, just long enough to get the policeman curious about what I had to say. "Could it be, you guys are trying to use force against law-abiding citizens behind this fence without the proper legal padding for it?"

"Listen here, you little shit!" Strangely angered by my question, the policeman turned his face back to me before overcoming some sort of innate hesitation and actually getting closer to the gate behind which I hid. "We have no need for a warrant to raid a terrorist site! So take all of that legal mumbo-jumbo and stuff it where the light doesn't reach!"

Having spoken his piece, the policeman scoffed only to start turning, ready to leave.

"One last question, if I may," I called after the officer.

"The hell do you want?" the man spat back.

"Wouldn't you like for me to just open this gate and let you all in?" I asked, catching not only the policeman but also the factory's guards off guard.

"What?" Shocked by how easily I changed my mind, the policeman turned back to me while sparks of hope appeared in his eyes.

For a moment, he deluded himself into thinking I was actually going to do so.

And how could I ever look at myself in the mirror if I didn't bank on that man's naïve hope?

"It's exactly as you've heard! I'm more than willing to open the gate and let you all in!" I called out with a voice just loud enough not only for the officer I was speaking to in particular, but quite a few others to hear me too. "That is, only as soon as you either produce a warrant, or reveal just what sort of solid evidence you have of any criminal behavior warranting the use of deadly force! And if you fail to do so, then, well…"

I shook my head…

Before breathing out and relaxing the hold over my own aura, revealing, for the very first time, to the whole wide world, my current level of cultivation just through the radiation of my aura alone.

"Well, if you are all going to ignore the law and just use excessive force to do the bidding of the people who consider us rivals, I will have no other choice but to consider this a breach of the non-aggression treaty between the modern and the spiritual world."

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