Thadeus and his goons' arrival was indeed an unwelcomed surprise. Just as Travis thought the danger had past, now comes a new and potentially even more dangerous obstacle. True to Felix's briefing and warning, they were out for the Paragons too. Throughout the spat between Thadeus and Raiya, and just as the opposing group's ringleader addressed Travis as an Untalent, he frowned as if taking the referred-to title of his lesser capabilities in such a manner personally. But through that, he carefully stowed the Paragon away into the inner pockets of his coat but not before summoning a unannounced amount of mana and tapping the crystal ever slightly away from any prying eyes.

Now that talks were seemingly over and a fight about regrettably about to ensue, Raiya directed Travis' attention to the more sincere-appearing member of Thadeus' team; Alya, whose name was openly introduced along with the other members by Thadeus himself. "R-right..." Travis unconfidently replied. While Travis had little worries about engaging the undead or earthly constructs, harming humans, even especially those who weren’t holding back their hostility, scrapped against his moral compass about such conflicts.  

Ayla approached Travis until stopping several meters away from him. Just as Travis instinctively took a step back and leaned forward into a cautious stance, Ayla vocally expressed a disinterest in stirring up a conflict with him however reiterated Thadeus’ earlier demands once more in her own words, almost requesting him to giving up the Paragon. Whether or not her words held sentimental value, what Travis did know what that she was clearly more powerful than he was and would undoubtedly prove to be a serious threat.

As he made another brief advance, the runes on Ayla’s staff had then begun to emanate a sky-bluish aura in response to mana being summoned. Through the quick motion of her hand, a roundish and transparent construct matching the same aura had then materialized around her. There was no doubt in Travis’ mind that Ayla has summoned a barrier to ward against any of his attacks. It was a rather unanticipated play from his opponent; given his very low default amount of mana he could sustain, Travis was no stranger for previous adversaries to display their capabilities to comparatively intimidate him. He almost mused if Alya was treating him as a legitimate threat or if this was a common strategy for her to enact. Nevertheless, that barrier was now going to be a problem...

“I suppose that makes two of us...I'm not in the hurry to jump into a brawl,” Travis replied as he took a few more steps back as he began to slowly channeled his mana all the while making use of his mana analysis while he can, “but I can’t let you guys have the Paragon, especially not after everything we [i]paid[/i] for in getting it.”

And then Travis came back with another reply, a response that even shocked he himself in letting loose, "If you really want, you're gonna have to come here and take it."

[i]Great job you idiot[/i], thought Travis as he imagined him kicked himself for actually goading a likely-to-be-very-dangerous opponent in coming after him, [i]you are now a dead man if she comes after you for that[/i].