Starting as dockworkers, they swept through Chongqing.

The tip of the gun pierced David's lower back.

The extraordinary dark cyan aura was torn apart the moment it came into contact with the spearhead.

The power of the Red Star drove into David's body like a nail, and then exploded inside him.

"ah--!"

David's eyes widened.

He looked down at the spear tip protruding from the front of his abdomen.

His blood was on the tip of the gun.

Bright red.

It's warm.

It flowed down the iron-gray gun barrel.

He wanted to turn around.

But Lund won't give him that chance.

With a twist of the gun barrel, the tip churned half an inch inside David's body—David's body convulsed violently, and his knees began to buckle.

He is of the third rank.

But he was injured.

The extraordinary power that Roy retained from killing his father backfired on his meridians.

He thought this injury was nothing serious.

He thought that facing a second-tier Xiren, this injury was not even worth mentioning.

But he didn't expect—

There was another person hiding in the shadows.

Another person who is also at the third level.

A third-tier extraordinary individual who has been preparing for a long time, going all out, and holding nothing back.

His body quickly lost its strength as the spear pierced through it.

His knee hit the ground.

The guards outside the window heard the commotion—Love was the first to rush to the door and reach out to push it open.

But the door was blocked from the inside by something.

It is West London.

As Lund made his move, he picked up a table and blocked the door.

It's not about blocking for long.

It's all for those few seconds.

Lund pulled the gun out of David's body.

Blood trickled down the tip of the iron spear.

He took a step back, the tip of his gun pointed at the back of David's neck.

There was no pursuit.

No finishing blow.

Because—it's no longer needed.

David knelt on the ground.

His hands were braced against the floor, blood seeping from between his fingers.

Blood was also flowing from his mouth.

His third-order distortion power was frantically trying to repair the wound, but the destructive power left in his body by the Crimson Star was like an exploding seed, disintegrating his extraordinary cycle from the inside out.

He raised his head.

He looked towards Xilun.

In those gray eyes—

For the first time, emotions other than calm appeared.

It's unbelievable.

"When...did you...?"

His voice was broken and intermittent.

Xilun looked at him.

no answer.

He simply stepped out from behind the table and stood in front of David.

Bow down.

Looking down.

"Mr. David."

His voice was as calm as before.

"I said I was prepared."

Luo Wei, who was outside the door, finally led his men to smash the table open.

A dozen guards rushed in and saw David kneeling in a pool of blood, with a strange man standing behind him holding a gun.

They instinctively wanted to rush forward.

But the tip of Lund's gun was already pressed against David's neck.

He'll die if he moves even slightly.

Everyone stopped.

One of the elders in the encirclement finally reacted and cried out urgently, "Master David!"

David did not answer.

He knelt on the ground, blood dripping down his face.

Tick.

Tick.

Then—he smiled.

It was a very soft, almost inaudible laugh.

"Well... well, what a golden knight."

His head slowly lowered.

The sound grew fainter and fainter.

But everyone present heard that last sentence clearly.

"I lost."

Xilun stood still.

He watched as David was pinned to the ground by Lund.

Sunlight streamed in through the window, illuminating the pool of blood and refracting it into a dark red, fragmented glow.

He suddenly remembered Daisy.

I thought of Susie.

I remembered that pale girl who squatted by the flowerbed, looking at the roses, pretending to know nothing.

She said—

I don't like him.

At the time, Xilun didn't know why.

Now he knows.

He withdrew his gaze and turned to look at the dumbfounded guards and elders at the door.

His voice was calm.

"Your chieftain, Roy, was killed by this man this morning."

He pointed to David on the ground.

"I have evidence."

He paused.

"If you're interested—you can go to his bedroom and see the blood on the floor."

The room was completely silent.

Silence reigned.

Only the wind outside the window stirred the half-drawn curtains.

wow——

wow——

Like turning a page in a book.

I turned to a page that nobody wanted to see.

……

Susie lay quietly in the blankets.

Her body was curled up like a snail hiding in its shell, with only half of her pale face showing.

There was a sound coming from outside the window.

A sound from a great distance.

Noisy, chaotic sounds, with the clanging of metal and shouts of people.

She didn't move.

She hadn't paid attention to what was happening outside for a long time.

Inside the manor, what was happening outside—the adults' arguments, the guards' footsteps, the furtive whispers in the middle of the night—was none of her concern.

All she needs to do is curl up in bed.

Just as her mother taught her when she was alive.

Quietly.

Don't listen.

Don't look.

Do not ask.

But today is different.

Susie blinked.

The fingers under the blanket twitched slightly.

There was a certain atmosphere in the air—not the dullness and decay usually found in the manor, but something much sharper.

Like iron.

Like blood.

Like lightning before a storm.

She closed her eyes, feeling the restlessness seeping in from the cracks in the door, the gaps in the window, and the tiny cracks in the stone wall.

A fluctuation of extraordinary power.

a lot of.

Very dense.

Moreover—they are gathering.

Susie sat up.

The blanket slipped off her shoulders, revealing her slender collarbone and a cotton nightgown.

Her hair hung loosely on both sides, like a withered blade of grass bent by the wind.

She tilted her head and listened attentively for a while.

Then she got out of bed.

Barefoot, I stepped onto the cold stone slabs.

She wasn't wearing shoes.

She rarely wore shoes in the manor, and her shoes would make noise.

Sound will attract attention. Attention can bring danger.

When she pushed open the door, the hallway was empty.

The servants who usually dozed off in the corner were gone.

The guards who used to sneak out for a smoke before dawn have also disappeared.

The corridor lights were only a third on, and the remaining candles seemed to have been hastily blown out, with the wax still clinging to the brass holders before it could solidify.

Susie walked barefoot down the corridor.

No sound.

Her footsteps were so light that she couldn't even hear them herself.

This is a skill she spent four years learning.

In this manor, quiet is an instinct.

As she walked down the stairs, she saw the courtyard of the manor through the narrow windows.

Firelight.

A human figure.

A lot of people.

Armed with weapons, they formed several streams and surged in the same direction.

It is the west wing.

wrong.

Susie looked at it more carefully.

Those people weren't surrounding the west wing guest room area, but rather—

David's living room.

Or rather, the room where Mr. Celen lived.

Susie's gaze didn't linger in that direction for long; she knew what was happening there. She knew even earlier than most people—because of David killing her father.

She saw David changing clothes as she squatted down next to the flowerbed.

She noticed the different buttons on his cuffs.

She noticed the way he walked, his body slightly turned to the side—a posture usually seen in people with back injuries.

She saw everything.

But she didn't say anything.

It's not because she doesn't want to talk about it.

It's because—saying it won't make a difference.

In this manor, no one will listen to a fool.

Susie looked away.

She turned around and continued walking down another, narrower corridor.

At the end of the corridor was an iron gate.

Behind the iron gate lies the restricted area in the east wing of the manor.

She knew Risa was being held there.

That woman.

The woman who killed her mother.

Susie's pace neither quickened nor slowed. She simply walked step by step at a steady pace, as if walking on a road she had measured countless times before.

She did indeed measure it.

Over the past four years, she has memorized every corridor, every door, and every corner of the manor.

It wasn't to escape.

It's for today.

Two people were standing at the entrance to the detention area.

A young servant.

Second-order extraordinary.

They carried short guns in their hands and standard steel knives at their waists, their posture relaxed yet alert.

At the height of the upheaval at the manor, they had clearly received some kind of order to keep an eye on the prisoners.

As Susie walked over, one of the servants spotted her first.

He frowned slightly.

"It's Susie."

His tone carried a hint of pity, but more so, impatience.

Everyone in the manor knows Susie.

That silly adopted daughter, a strange girl who only knows how to eat, daydream, and squat by the flower bed looking at the flowers all day long.

"Please leave," another servant said. "This is not a place for you."

Susie stood in front of them.

Her eyes were large, with very dark pupils, like two black glass beads immersed in water.

She did not speak.

He just blinked.

A very slow blink.

It's like they're confirming something.

—Confirm the smell in the room.

—Confirm the type of door lock.

—Confirm the positions and weapons of the two attendants.

—Make sure you have enough of what you need.

The next moment, she lowered her head.

He pulled a yellowed piece of paper from his sleeve with his right hand.

The paper was covered with densely packed rune lines.

Those lines weren't drawn with ink.

It was carved stroke by stroke with his own blood, dipped in his fingertips.

The rune paper trembled slightly between her fingers.

Tiny sparks floated from the paper—like fireflies, like shattered starlight—and swirled silently between her pale fingertips.

The expressions of the two servants froze at the same moment.

They sensed a power fluctuation that did not belong to this frail girl.

That kind of fluctuation—

It's very quiet.

Very clean.

Like the first ray of sunlight on a winter morning.

But like sunlight, it's also something you can't look directly at.

……

In the room behind the iron gate, Risa sat in an old chair.

The chair is hard.

It's a regular oak chair, without cushions or armrests.

Only servants would sit in these chairs on the manor.

Risa Link.

Viscountess.

The mistress who once managed the entire manor's daily life and meals.

He is now sitting in a servant's chair.

Her fingers were crossed on her knees, her knuckles white.

It's not because of the cold.

It's because of anger.

Her scheme—from beginning to end, from poisoning to framing, from colluding with Fowles to arranging for a third-tier assassin—was meticulously planned at every step.

It took her five years.

Five years.

She thought she had plugged all the possible loopholes.

But she didn't expect—

Loy will take a drug to fake his death.

She never expected this—

Her own biological son, David, the eldest son who had always been respectful to her and never disobeyed her, would choose to kill his own father at that moment.

Then they locked her up too.

Risa's lips trembled slightly.

It's not fear.

It's a more complex emotion.

In that instant, she suddenly realized that David was never the obedient son she had thought he was.

He was just waiting.

The moment when she and Roy are completely exhausted.

Then they can sit back and reap the benefits.

"nice one……"

Risa murmured.

She didn't finish speaking.

Because she didn't know what words to use to describe her son.

She has killed many people.

Susie's mother.

A hindrance to the person in charge.

A talkative maid.

And—she almost killed her husband.

These killings were not heavy in her memory.

You could even say it's very light.

It was so light that she could no longer remember the faces of those people.

I only remember—

rainstorm.

Every time we took action, it seemed like it was pouring rain outside.

Maybe it's a coincidence.

Maybe not.

Risa listened thoughtfully to the sounds outside the window.

There was a faint rumble of thunder in the distance.

Dark clouds are gathering.

It's going to rain soon.

She remembered something.

Memories related to the torrential rain came flooding back like a tide.

It was raining heavily the night Susie's mother died.

The night she sent someone to poison Susie's pastries was also raining heavily.

……

pity.

Now there's nothing she can do.

He didn't even have a single third-tier guard by his side.

Fowles' assassin is dead.

She herself was not an extraordinary person.

She was just an ordinary woman.

An ordinary woman who has lost all her chips.

Just then—

The door was pushed open.

There was no knocking.

No notification was issued.

The iron gate was pushed open from the outside.

Risa suddenly looked up.

A thin figure stood at the door.

She was wearing a faded cotton nightgown, barefoot, and her hair was disheveled.

She was holding a piece of talisman paper in her hand.

There were tiny sparks flickering on the paper.

Very faint.

But it's very stable.

Like a beating heart.

Risa was stunned.

It wasn't because they recognized the person who came.

Rather, it was because—she sensed the power fluctuations emanating from the rune paper.

That level of fluctuation—

"Intermediate... Scholar?"

Risa blurted it out.

In the system of mysticism, the rune manipulation ability mastered by intermediate scholars is already comparable to that of a second-tier extraordinary being.

Her gaze shifted from the rune paper to Susie's face.

That face—

pale.

Thin.

Sunken eye sockets.

But her eyes are very bright.

It's not the dull kind of brightness.

It is a kind of light that has been suppressed for a long time and has finally been released.

Like lightning.

Like a blade.

Risa's back pressed tightly against the back of the chair.

"When..." her voice was hoarse, "When did you acquire this kind of strength?"

Susie did not answer.

She walks into the room.

The door slowly closed behind her.

A damp, rusty smell wafted into the corridor.

Risa's gaze passed over Susie's shoulder and landed on the dark liquid on the ground outside the door.

That is blood.

The blood of those two second-rank servants.

Her pupils contracted sharply.

"impossible!"

Risa stood up.

The chair scraped sharply against the ground behind her.

"You foreign bastard—I haven't even allowed you to turn a single page of the library! I haven't used a single pound of gold to support you! How could you—"

Her voice grew louder and sharper.

It's not a question.

It is fear.

Susie stopped in her tracks.

She stood in the center of the room.

Behind me was a closed iron gate.

Risa was standing in front of him, retreating to the corner of the wall.