Loser to Legend: Gathering Wives with My Unlimited Money System-Chapter 505: Et Tu

The ground was already wrecked when Reva stopped moving.

She slowed, boots dragging through loose stone and scorched earth, then turned back toward the basin. Dust hung low from the last exchange, and the air still carried the sharp bite of spent rounds and burned metal.

Rin caught it a second later.

"Reva," she said, sword angled forward, breath tight. "You good?"

Reva didn't look back. Her eyes were fixed ahead, on the shapes moving through the haze. The chasers had regrouped faster than expected.

Reva's eyes stayed ahead. Shapes were cutting through the haze again, spreading out, testing distance. The mercenaries hadn't broken cleanly. They were bruised, angry, and still coming.

"We're done running," Reva said. Her voice stayed level. "They don't get past this."

Arlen adjusted the nano suit across her shoulders. The plating reformed where it had taken hits earlier, a faint hum tracking the damage. She stepped in close on Reva's left, weapon raised, stance steady.

Viola moved past them.

Her pace stayed even as she crossed the open ground, weapon coming up without hurry. One of the mercs pushed out of cover, trying to flank wide. Viola fired once. The shot caught him clean through the throat and dropped him before he finished the step.

Rin surged forward, blade flashing. His movements carried weight now, every strike landing hard and final. One merc fell screaming. Another tried to retreat and ran straight into Reva's grip.

Reva drove her hand through his chest and pulled free. The body hit the ground at her feet, blood steaming faintly against the stone.

The rest hesitated.

The fight collapsed inward fast. No formation or coordination. Just short bursts of movement and bodies hitting the ground. When it was over, the basin floor was littered with broken gear and cooling corpses.

Rin leaned on his sword, breathing through clenched teeth. "That's all of them."

"For now," Arlen said. Her eyes stayed on the horizon. "We need to move."

Reva nodded and turned. "Requiem is alone."

They followed the route he'd taken, deeper into the basin, toward old infrastructure half-swallowed by rock and debris. The kind of place meant to disappear things.

Requiem stood where they expected him to be, near the remains of a collapsed transit platform. His rifle hung low, posture composed. Iria stayed close, quiet and alert.

Lyra was upright.

Reva crossed the distance in three strides. Lyra was breathing, eyes open, supported on either side. Relief came fast, then stalled when Reva really looked at her.

Lyra's focus drifted. Her gaze passed over Reva like it recognized the shape but not the timing. Her fingers twitched once, curling and uncurling without intent.

"What's wrong with her?" Reva said.

Requiem nodded. "I don't know."

"What happened?" Arlen asked.

"She collapsed," Requiem said. "No visible trauma. No energy surge I could trace. Whatever this is, it's deeper. It feels like a… disease."

Lyra's eyes slid to Rin, then to Viola. They lingered there a moment longer than expected. Viola noticed, but didn't comment.

"We need extraction," Rin said. "Before more show up."

The ground answered him.

A steady vibration rolled through the basin, controlled and deliberate. Engines throttling down.

Reva straightened.

The ship cut through the dust in ground configuration, wide and unmistakable. Landing struts bit into stone, stabilizers adjusting until the hum settled into a contained presence.

Jareth's ship.

The ramp lowered. Jareth stepped out first, hands visible. His crew followed behind him, measured and cautious, eyes taking in the bodies and the tension without rushing to fill it.

Weapons stayed raised.

"You picked a bold landing," Reva said.

Jareth met her gaze. "Leaving would've made it worse."

"You were compromised," Reva said. "Someone on your ship leaked our location to Kylus."

A shift passed through his crew. Recognition, not shock.

Jareth exhaled. "I was afraid of that."

"So you admit it," Arlen said.

"I admit it's possible," Jareth replied. "And that's already bad enough."

Rin tightened his grip. "You're not welcome."

"I know," Jareth said. "But I'm staying. Until this is handled."

No one lowered their weapon.

The silence after Jareth's last word stretched long enough to make it uncomfortable. Dust drifted between them, settling on armor, on blades, on bodies that hadn't cooled yet.

Reva broke it first.

"You don't get to land like that and say you'll explain later," she said. "You explain now!"

Jareth nodded once. He didn't argue the point. He gestured with one hand, slow and open. "Fair."

Rin stepped half a pace forward, sword still angled ready. "Kylus was on your trail. Hard. We saw it. Yet here you are. So talk."

Jareth's eyes flicked briefly to the bodies around them, then back to Reva. "Because we stopped trying to outrun him."

That drew a look from Arlen. "That's not an answer."

"It is," Jareth said. "Just not a dramatic one."

He turned slightly, indicating his ship behind him. "We cut thrust, dumped false signatures, and went dark inside the basin's interference bands. Kylus hunts patterns. Speed. He doesn't like variables that don't move the way they should."

Viola watched his face closely. "You're saying you hid in plain sight."

"I'm saying we made ourselves boring," Jareth replied. "No comms. No power spikes. No running. He overshot us twice because he expected us to flee."

Rin frowned. "That only buys time."

"Correct," Jareth said. "So we used that time to move vertically instead of laterally. Short hops. Masked drops. Every time he closed the distance, we changed elevation and let his scouts chase ghosts."

Arlen processed that. "And the leak?"

Jareth didn't dodge it. "Someone fed him an early trajectory. Not a live feed. Enough to put him in the right region faster than he should've been."

Reva's eyes hardened. "Meaning someone still had access."

"Yes," Jareth said. "And that's why I landed. I'm not letting whoever it is hide behind engines and distance anymore."

Suddenly, the wind shifted.

A pressure rolled across the basin that had nothing to do with weather. Dust lifted again, pulled upward instead of sideways. Loose debris rattled, skittering across the ground toward a growing shadow.

Viola's head snapped up.

"Down," she said.

The sky darkened.

A massive silhouette slid through the cloud cover, broad and angular, its underside studded with weapon ports already glowing. The scale of it crushed the air, the sound hitting a second later in a deep, concussive roar.

Rin swore under his breath. "That's—!"

The first volley hit Jareth's ship before anyone could shout a warning. Energy fire tore across the landing zone, slamming into shields that flared bright and buckled under the impact. Metal screamed as secondary explosions rippled along the hull.

"Kylus," Arlen said. "He is here."