Gardener of Eden

Chapter 203: Chapter 203: Sovereign Pressure (2)

A high-frequency chime pulsed through Roxie’s encrypted comm-slate, illuminating the darkened hotel suite with a fierce, violet glow.

Her eyes scanned the rapid stream of live telemetry and high-tier biometric signatures stepping through Eden International’s grand foyer. The doors had just ushered in a delegation of global guild commanders, vice-masters of the top three continental raid parties, and senior treasurers from the Merchant Union—the absolute economic and military backbone of the Empire’s awakeners.

”Adam, it is time,” Roxie said, her voice dropping into a razor-sharp whisper as a triumphant smirk curled her lips. ”The next wave of customers are high-profile guild executives. We will inflict maximum damage to the guilds and Eden International all at once.”

Adam’s crimson eyes burned with lethal intensity beneath the shadows of his cloak. He lifted his heavy, matte-black face-guard and locked it over his scarred face with a sharp, pneumatic hiss.

”Signal all squads,” Adam growled, his voice reverberating through his battle-plate. ”Drop the spatial isolation field. Lock down every emergency hatch. Sever their mana cores and paint these marble floors with their high-society blood.”

Down at the flagship store, the ambient temperature in the air dropped bone-chillingly low.

A violent, pitch-black shockwave erupted simultaneously from four subterranean devices buried along the surrounding city blocks. Instantly, an opaque, obsidian dome of dense spatial-suppression energy shot up from the cobblestones, snapping shut over Eden International like a giant iron cage.

Inside the boutique, the warm lighting, cheerful laughter, and chiming sales registers vanished in a fraction of a second.

The enchanted chandeliers flickered out, leaving the floor bathed in an eerie, dark-violet gloom. The store’s automated security wards sputtered, overloaded, and collapsed. Guild executives and noble lords gasped in horror as their internal mana pools were instantly choked off by the oppressive, synthetic anti-mana suppression field. Powerful guild vice-masters reached instinctively for their spells and weapon vaults, only to find their aura abilities locked behind an absolute wall of dead silence.

CRASH!

The grand stained-glass skylights burst inward in a rain of colorful, razor-sharp shards as thirty-six heavily armored figures plummeted straight down into the grand hall.

Clad in matte-black purist plate and wielding cold-iron blades designed to sever life-force networks, Adam’s elite strike team landed with heavy metallic thuds. They instantly formed a tight, lethal perimeter around the main floor, trapping hundreds of terrified nobles, diplomats, and guild executives inside.

Panic surged through the crowd. Guild leaders pulled defenseless patrons behind them, struggling against the heavy lethargy settling over their suppressed bodies.

”Order of Humanity!” a guild vice-master gasped, clutching his chest as the spatial suppressor continuously drained his strength. ”The capital guard... where are Sector 4’s guards?!”

”They aren’t coming,” an elite purist officer sneered, stepping over a fallen mahogany display case with his cold-iron broadsword humming with black, anti-mana energy. ”Your guards sold you out for pocket gold and velvet lounges. And your precious ’Savior of Humanity’ is nothing more than a helpless farmer trapped in a cage.”

High above in the frozen air of the troposphere, Emperor Aurelius hovered silently, his golden eyes burning through the clouds. His hand rested lightly on the hilt of his imperial sword, watching the exact movements inside the store to see if Rowan required the sky to fall.

In the center of the dark, chaotic boutique—surrounded by screaming nobles, panicking guild leaders, and thirty-six S-Rank purists—Rowan Vance didn’t even flinch.

The spatial isolation field hummed viciously around him, attempting to sever his connection to the atmospheric mana. But to the purists’ complete ignorance, Rowan’s power did not rely on the fragile, surface-level atmospheric mana that their artificial devices targeted. His strength was anchored directly into the primordial Fragment of the Origin Earth Pulse deep beneath the continent’s crust—a force far older, heavier, and more absolute than any man-made spatial toy could ever hope to bind.

Rowan casually set down the crate of Sun-Crystalline Eden Apples he had been holding, wiping his hands on his trousers with a slow, unimpressed sigh.

He reached down, his fingers wrapping firmly around the ash-wood handle of the Hoe of the World-Tiller resting at his hip. A faint, microscopic pulse of emerald light rippled outward from his boots, silently shattering the purist suppression field beneath his feet like thin glass.

Rowan looked up at the black-armored purists blocking the main entrance, his eyes calm, cold, and dangerous.

”You know,” Rowan said smoothly, his voice carrying effortlessly through the silent, terrified room, ”I specifically asked my store manager to keep this grand opening peaceful. But I suppose every good garden needs a little pest control.”

***

Adjusting the brim of his signature straw hat with a casual flick of his thumb, Rowan rested the weighted iron end of the Hoe of the World-Tiller against the polished marble floor.

He didn’t draw a blade, nor did he chant a spell. He simply nudged a single strand of raw, primordial vitality into the haft of his tool and tapped it once against the ground.

THUMP.

The entire foundation of the boutique groaned as a blinding, radiant wave of emerald-green mana erupted from the floorboards. The artificial spatial isolation devices buried in the streets screamed under the sudden pressure before exploding into showers of useless sparks.

Before the thirty-six black-armored purists could even raise their cold-iron blades, thick, serpentine vines of pure emerald green burst through the shattered marble tiles. Glowing with the unyielding force of the Fragment of the Origin Earth Pulse, the legendary vines wrapped around the cultists’ boots, slithered up their armor, and coiled tightly around their wrists and throats.

In less than three seconds, all thirty-six S-Rank purists were dragged to their knees, their arms pinned to their sides and their cold-iron weapons crushed into scrap metal under the immense, crushing weight of Rowan’s living greenery.

”What... what kind of monster is he?!” the purist commander choked out, thrashing helplessly as an emerald vine tightened like a vise around his chest plate, completely strangling his internal mana core. ”The spatial inhibitor... it didn’t even slow him down!”

With the synthetic suppression field obliterated, the heavy, suffocating pressure lingering over the room evaporated instantly. Mana flooded back into the boutique like a bursting dam.

The guild executives, raid captains, and high-tier vice-masters who had been forced to their knees instantly broke out of their stupor. The sheer humiliation of being cornered in public by cultists vanished, replaced by an overwhelming, lethal fury.

Spatial rings flashed with brilliant blue light across the hall.

In a fraction of a second, legendary broadswords, elemental archmage staves, and heavy adamantine shields materialized into the hands of the continent’s most powerful awakeners.

”Order scum!” the S-Rank Vice-Master of the Crimson Vanguard roared, his two-handed battleaxe igniting with scorching infernal flames. ”You dare ambush us during Eden’s opening day?!”

”Kill every single one of them!” screamed a senior guild treasurer, summoning three floating arcane turrets out of his dimensional vault. ”Leave none of these purist dogs alive!”

What was supposed to be a carefully orchestrated execution turned into an absolute bloodbath—for the Order of Humanity. Bound completely immobile by Rowan’s unyielding emerald vines, the thirty-six purist elites could do nothing as the enraged guild executives launched a ferocious, synchronized counter-strike. Spells of blinding lightning, holy fire, and razor-sharp aura blades tore through the black-armored ranks, painting the ruined foyer in dark purist blood while Rowan stood calmly in the center of it all, his hand resting on his straw hat to keep it from blowing away in the wind of magic.

Two streets away, high in the Sol Aethel Royal Hotel suite, the scrying projection shattered into dark-violet dust.

Roxie dropped her glass of spiced wine, her face turning chalk-white as she stumbled back against the mahogany desk. ”My spatial inhibitors... his pulse destroyed all four subterranean arrays in a single second! How is his mana reaching into the city grid?!”

Adam stared at the blackened scrying mirror, his crimson eyes wide with disbelief, his jaw clenched so tightly his teeth threatened to grind to dust. ”He didn’t just break the field... he used the continent’s own roots to overpower our anti-mana charges.”

Adam’s hand trembled violently on his sword hilt as he realized the horrific truth: Rowan Vance hadn’t even drawn his tool to fight them. He had done it just to clear weeds from his shop floor.