Artifact Report

Chapter 425 Chess - An Obvious Choice
Damian became a resident.

Perhaps because his injuries were too severe and his mind was hazy, after repeating the sentence to himself several times, for a moment, Chai Si actually wanted to burst out laughing.

Residents are not allowed to enter the human world.

Damian is dead and should not reappear; this is the natural order.

Damian becoming a resident was even more inappropriate—yet now he has entered the world and is standing right in front of me, isn't that ridiculous?
A stream of air passed through his chest and abdomen, trying to turn into laughter, but instead aroused a sharp, dark pain in the broken bones.

Chai Si stopped smiling, which had just begun to spread.

He stared almost indifferently at the dark, iron-gray parking lot walls, thinking to himself that perhaps he was the one who was ridiculous.

Based on his understanding of his younger brother—even after seventeen years, based on his understanding of twelve-year-old Damian—Chais knew that Damian would never let him go.

Chess simply didn't know what kind of script Damian had prepared for him.

But in any case, now is not the time for him to stand there, lost in sad memories of the past.

Chai Si turned his head and glanced at the other Kai family hunters from afar.

Chiberly and Sayuki were the core hunters in charge of the transfer, but there was still no sign of Tenshi. The third person standing next to them was just a low-level hunter from the Kai family.

Having two reliable people is enough.

As if sensing his gaze, Chiberly and Sayuki simultaneously turned their attention to him.

Chais lowered his eyelids and glanced at his hand on his waist and abdomen—that was enough of a hint—to make them more careful, he then looked up at Damian on the slope.

Damian was looking at him too.

"You...you pushed him into the lair?"

Kaironan wiped his face vigorously, looking neither at his wife nor Damian. His gaze fell vacantly between the two, as lost as his expression. "Then...his body is in the lair..."

"A corpse?" Haiper's voice suddenly sharpened. "He's standing right here, alive and well, and he's even grown up! What corpse? You didn't save him, but the nest did—"

Damian is indeed dead.

Damian's voice, like a splinter piercing between a fingernail and flesh, pierced through Aunt Hai's words, causing her to shudder violently, almost like a curtain about to collapse.

“I am not Damian,”

Damian smiled at Heper, his face turned directly towards Chess. "I am a resident who came into being after his death. Many of his memories and emotions are preserved in my mind."

...These are a few words that Chai Si will never forget in his life.

Before Damian could speak again, Chais already knew what he was going to say next.

“You are the mother he left behind, and I am the resident he left behind… But when I look at you, it’s the same way he looks at you. I always feel like I am him, and you are my mother.”

Chai Si wanted to laugh out loud, wanted to roar, wanted to tell Aunt Hai that Damian's words were meant for him.

Those were the words that Chess said when he first stepped into the world as a resident of Daiju Monroe.

Chai Si clenched his teeth tightly, repeatedly reminding himself not to move, lest the broken bone pierce his internal organs.

If someone told him at that moment that if he could just pull the broken bone out of his body, he could use it to pierce Damian's heart again and again, he would.

Do you think that's your son expressing his feelings for you? Do you really think that after waiting seventeen years, what you've finally witnessed is a reunion between mother and son?

Hepburn let out a trembling cry.

“Yes, yes, I said I would never regret it no matter what you become. As long as even a little bit of you remains, I will be happy, very happy… So what if you are a resident? You are my child, you are Damian…”

Chai Si opened his mouth, and the urge to roar and laugh just now vanished completely in an instant.

Like a fish that has been forcibly pulled ashore, in that instant, it's unclear whether it awakens in the cold or is about to be submerged and suffocated by the air.

Forget it.

There's nothing to say... let her be happy for a while.

Seventeen years ago, on that night, when the resident who looked like Dewi Munro stood in front of Chess, he had never thought as firmly as Heber, "You are my mother."

He admired Hepburn.

Even a moment of happiness like this is better than a desolate truth.

Unfortunately, Aunt Hai, you'd better cherish this little bit of time and try to see him as much as possible.

Damian has returned as a resident. So what?
Seventeen years ago he was able to kill Damian, and now Chais wouldn't mind killing him again—whether the residents would die or not was not a concern for him.

Damian had only two choices: die or go back to his lair.

Uncle Kai won't stop him; because this one in front of him has already admitted that he is a resident, hasn't he?
Even after killing the real Damian back then, didn't Uncle Kai forgive him?
Kaironan took a step back. He seemed about to take another step, but then stopped. "You...you really are a resident."

He lowered his voice, as if he were still the same Keronan who always had the upper hand, no matter where he went. "Hyper, come here. The residents cannot be trusted."

Heaper remained motionless, only glancing back at him once. "Then who can be trusted? Damian can't be trusted, so who can be trusted? Your own adopted son?"

Chai Si felt a surge of heat in his chest—but he couldn't say anything.

Damian's attention must now be focused on Uncle Kai and Aunt Hai; he must try to remain on the sidelines as much as possible.

After receiving his signal, Sayuki quietly opened the car door, disappeared behind it for a few dozen seconds, and then walked back to Chiberly's side—Chai Si knew what she had been doing.

He was fully aware that everything about the Kai family was built and constructed by him.

Also being moved with the convoy tonight are some decoys, some of which are of low value or were kept as spares by our own people; several of them can be used for healing and recovery.

The problem is that even if Sayuki obtained the healing illusion, she had already missed the chance to get close to Chaisi—at this moment, as soon as a hunter takes a step, Damian will know that Chaisi has made a move.

He glanced at Sayuki; Sayuki had one hand in her pocket, trying to keep her face calm, but like Chiberly, she couldn't suppress her underlying anxiety.

"Don't talk to me like that."

Kaironan looked at his wife with half-closed eyelids, his voice hoarse, like a giant python lurking beneath a muddy swamp. "Go wait in the car."

Hepburn stared at him intently; after a few seconds, she seemed to finally succumb to decades of inertia, glanced back at Damian, and walked down the slope.

But she refused to walk towards the car, and stopped at the bottom of the slope, gazing up at Damian as if it were the most beautiful scenery in the world.

“Dad,” Damian smiled. “Why don’t you seem happy at all to see me back?”

“Because my son hasn’t returned. You’re a resident.” Kaironan stared at him coldly. “I’ve been a hunter for so many years, I know what a resident is.”

“Aren’t there harmless residents too?” Damian tilted his head and asked, almost curiously—for a moment, he looked almost twelve years old.

Kaironan looked at him, paused for several seconds, and finally asked, "So, are you harmless?"

“Father, how do you define harmless?” Damian countered. “In my entire life, both before and after my death, I have never personally killed anyone. Brother… dare you say that?”

It took Chai Si a while to realize that "brother" referred to himself.

“Dad, I’ve never blamed you.”

Damian continued, "Even if you brought Chess Monroe into your home and gave him the opportunity to eventually kill me, I never blamed you."

The look Hepburn gave her was enough to peel away a layer of skin. Tonight, her years of suspicion were finally confirmed by her dead son himself.

Caronan remained silent, his face expressionless.

"Even if you continue to raise him as your son after I die, I will never blame you. Even if you love a stranger more than you love me, I will never blame you."

“Stop talking nonsense,” Kaironan finally managed a slight tremor in his voice. “That night—you were all so young. I never—”

He didn't finish his sentence. He paused to catch his breath and asked, "How did you enter the human world? You have a passage, so why did you only return now? What do you want from your sudden return?"

“Uncle Kai,” Chai Si called out in a hoarse voice.

He recalled what Fu Tailan had said about the "original liquid" and wondered if it was related to Damian's appearance. Before he could finish speaking, Kaironan interrupted him without turning around: "Now is not the time for you to speak."

"I have no way out, Dad."

Damian had been smiling gently the whole time, but it seemed that this was the first time he had truly smiled; his row of white teeth gradually emerged from his red lips, like a snake slowly raising itself after smelling its prey.

"All I have is an artifact called ??? Yes, you know that, don't you? It's one of the target artifacts in the Nest Domination game. It can melt away the boundaries and limitations of reality... With it, things that were impossible before are now possible."

Chai Si's heart sank—but it wasn't until a few minutes later that he realized this was just the least bad of all the bad news.

"The reason I was able to get in is because the barrier between the human world and the lair... the 'Black Abyss Belt' has lost its function. Does Brother Chai hate it when residents enter the human world?"

Damian smiled genuinely and happily, just like the child he was seventeen years ago.

"The human world is now connected to the nest."

He seemed to hear the thoughts of everyone present, and seemed to be enjoying them as well. He glanced at Chess, then his gaze returned to Kaironan.

"However, as long as we win the game, we can still gain control of the nest, no matter where the nest is. Dad, you have two target illusions that Chess gave you, and I have one... I know the location of the rest."

Chai Si felt as if he were standing on a coastline, with waves rising again and again from the dark deep sea behind him, grabbing his ankles and trying to drag him into the darkness.

"Keronan."

Damian said softly, “Tonight is the most important choice of your life. Will you choose to rule all, possess all, atone for your sins, and restore your own son to human form... or will you, as you did twenty-five years ago in Los Angeles, drive the inhabitants before you back to their lair?”

(End of this chapter)