The Martial Unity

'Judging people by their appearances is generally something to be avoided if possible but...' He glanced around at the various people walking in and around the Derimont Bazaar. 'These are not the kind of people to be interested in buying books.'

Most of them carried visible weapons, and all of them carried concealed weapons. Daggers, swords, muskets, and other dangerous weapons accompanied every single normal human. Most of them had rugged and tattered appearances, torn clothes, bruised flesh, and scarred skin.

They were warriors.

Most of them chose to conceal their appearance in some way or the other. Those that didn't simply draw more attention. Regardless, they were not the type to visit a bookstore.

STEP

Rui paused as he felt a strangely soft sensation beneath his foot. His eyes widened as he realized he was stepping on the corpse of a man submerged in the dirt and grime.

SHOVE

"Move the fuck out of the way." A rough female voice behind him snarled as a woman shoved into him, walking past him. "Fucking tourists."

Nobody noticed that there was a dead body there.

No, that wasn't quite right.

They simply didn't care.

Rui studied the ground and the streets carefully, noticing their faint red hue as he narrowed his eyes as a faint stench tickled his nose.

Blood.

So much blood had been spilled on the soil of the Derimont Bazaar that it had actually changed the color of the soil. If that was the case, then no wonder that a single corpse did not even earn the slightest glance from any of the passersby.

Rui was not squeamish with cadavers or blood, but it was a little disturbing to see so many people in a single area be so apathetic. Regardless, there was nothing that could be done about so he quickly moved on, heading deeper into the Derimont Bazaar.

The market shifted more the deeper he went, and the mist continued thickening as he went deeper. It grew more silent and yet more dense as people flocked to stalls, carts, and spreads, looking to purchase the products at sale.

Weapons, alcohol, narcotic drugs, forbidden substances, even hard copies of pornographic material, funnily enough. Rui had already expected to see such things, yet he wasn't even that deep into the Derimont Sect, and the more controversial stuff had already begun.

"Hey there," A woman called out to him in an alleyway with a seductive smile. She had skimpy clothes, smoking a pot. "Interested in spending time with me?"

"No." Rui continued on his way as he continued gathering information on the town.

He had long begun storing every ounce of information all his senses picked up on in the Mind Palace, including Riemannian Echo. He had already grown accustomed to doing so in the Shionel Dungeon when he was working on the three-dimensional map that he had made for Guildmaster Bradt, thus it wasn't anything new.

He would review the entirety of the footage once he returned if he failed. Suddenly, he paused with narrowed eyes as he glanced at an establishment to his right. It was the only intact multi-storeyed multi-block building that he had come across in the Derimont Bazaar thus far.

It drew his attention because Riemannian Echo picked up hundreds of corpses within the establishment. Most of them were neatly packed in body bags and were isolated in the basement in a cooled unit. Their bodies were dissected and he even managed to pick up that their bodies had been emptied of their contents the deeper he looked.

'Organ trafficking.' Rui noted, furrowing his eyebrows.

Not every ailment problem could be solved with healing potions, most couldn't, in fact. The demand for organ donors was just as high, if not higher due to better esoteric medical technology that made the process more perfect.

And demand would always be met with supply, even if it was illegal and prohibited in most places across the continent. It appeared that the Derimont Bazaar catered to any clientele that wanted to procure an organ transplant even at the cost of innocent lives.

He heaved a deep sigh, before heading on forward, looking for signs of the Beggar's Sect. He did not want to stick around the Derimont Bazaar for long, it was an unpleasant location.

Yet he couldn't help but pause when he came across a district that literally had the words Assassin's Guild carved messily into the buildings around the edge of the district. Apparently, the deputy director of the intelligence department of the Floating Sect was not kidding when he said that one could find just about any and everything in the Derimont Bazaar. Not only could assassins be hired for murder, but there was literally a guild inside the Derimont Bazaar.

He could even sense innumerable Martial Apprentices and Squires within the depth of the district. He wasn't even surprised that this district was one of the most crowded districts that he had come across in the Derimont Bazaar. He knew that these services were quite epidemic across the entire world, there was nothing he could do aside from walking deeper.

The mist grew denser.

As did the crowd. Many people accumulated around a particular stall, bustling with energy. He actually needed to push through to see what it was.

Yet Riemannian Echo had already given him a good idea of what it was. A grim expression appeared on his face as his body stiffened.

A man heralding a group of children in shackles smiled as he displayed them.

"Three hundred on the blond cutie-Can I get a three-twenty? Three-twenty? Three-twenty for this little cute boy-Oh and we have a three-twenty-Can I get a three-fifty? Three-fifty anybody? No? Three-twenty going once. Going twice. Going thrice. And sold! To the elder gentleman in the overcoat!"

Rui strengthened his Mind Mask, struggling to contain his volatile fury. It took every ounce of willpower to maintain his composure. He needed to muster every shred of discipline that he had cultivated to hold back.