Ron’s wrist flicked slightly, and the narrow blade traced a cold arc through the air, flinging off every drop of blood clinging to it.
The blood splattered onto the smooth, dark marble floor, blooming into irregular black-red flowers that, together with the twisted corpses strewn about, formed a silent yet tragic abstract painting.
He looked down, his gaze calmly scanning the results of his battle — three members of the Royal City.
These were the forces lying in wait tonight, attempting to block or hunt him. It was a decent effort, enough to start a small-scale war elsewhere. Unfortunately, they had chosen the wrong opponent and the wrong occasion.
‘Traveling Merchants,’ Ron thought, the name echoing in his mind.
The Traveling Merchants were a loosely structured transnational chamber of commerce.
They believed in transaction itself, serving the supreme entity that symbolized Equivalent Exchange. To gather treasures and prices on the widest possible scale, they usually divided their strength into four main merchant caravans, wandering through the shadowed corners of the continent, each operating independently.
Ron took the narrow sword — its blade nearly as tall as he was — and casually stabbed it into the floor covered by a magnificent carpet, where it stood steadily.
Instead of looking for a chair, he leaned back, sitting directly on the end of the high sword hilt.
He pulled a flat metal cigarette case from his coat, took out a cigarette, and lit it. Taking a deep drag, the dark red ember brightened before he exhaled a thick cloud of gray-white smoke.
“Come out,” his voice mingled with the smoke. “Hiding is boring. The show is over; it’s time for the curtain call.”
Since it was a complete Traveling Merchant squad, there had to be a captain coordinating the whole situation. And as far as Ron knew, the leaders of the four merchant caravans were all God-Enlightened.
In the shadows behind the curtain at the side of the auction stage, there was a slight movement.
A man wearing a gray hood stepped out silently, his face covered by a plain white mask.
“Speak.” Ron took another puff, his gaze piercing through the smoke to land on the blank mask. “When did you Traveling Merchants… degenerate into lackeys for the Bliss Troupe?”
“You shouldn’t put it that way, Master Executive,” the gray-hooded man’s voice came from behind the mask. “We merchants value Equivalent Exchange above all else. The members of the Troupe simply happened to provide an offer that we… found difficult to refuse. It’s just a transaction, nothing to do with allegiances.”
“Good evening, Mr. Ron. Or should I say… former Executive of the Shadow of Glory.”
The tip of Ron’s finger holding the cigarette paused almost imperceptibly, and he raised an eyebrow.
“You know me?”
“I am not so blind as to fail in that regard.” The man’s voice carried a hint of a smile. “The Shadow of Glory you once commanded ranks at the top of many appraisal lists for classified intelligence. As you know, we merchants must maintain a clear understanding of potential major clients — or dangerous factors.”
“That’s good then.” He brought the nearly finished cigarette to his lips and took a final, deep drag. “Will you bring your head over yourself to save me a few steps… or should I come over and take it?”
His tone was as flat as if he were discussing choices for a late-night snack.
The gray-hooded man remained silent for a moment, his mask turning slightly as if looking at his own shadow on the floor.
“I am well aware that alone, I am no match for you,” he admitted frankly, though no fear could be heard in his voice. “Therefore, to ensure tonight’s transaction proceeds fairly… we have invited another to complete this performance with me.”
The moment he finished speaking, the long, black shadow at his feet, cast by the lights, rippled violently!
The shadow surged upward, stretching and shaping itself… in an instant, a slender female figure emerged from that darkness — another God-Enlightened.
It was a Scriptwriter from the Bliss Troupe.
Ron flicked the burnt-out cigarette butt away. The orange-red spark traced a short arc in the air before landing on the carpet and extinguishing with a hiss.
“What a pain,” he muttered under his breath, though it was unclear if he was referring to the extra opponent or something else.
Two God-Enlightened. In a battle of this level, even a slightly uncontrolled aftershock of power would be enough to level a small portion of the Lower City.
He slowly stood up from the sword hilt and stretched his neck, his bones making a slight cracking sound. ‘It seems…’ Ron whispered to himself, ‘it’s time for some… gameplay fitting for the God-Enlightened.’
The aura around him changed abruptly.
The air began to warp, and the light around him grew dim and flickering, as if swallowed by an invisible force. With him as the center, a bizarre domain of absolute silence — where even sound and color began to vanish — expanded rapidly.
**[Divine Domain: Shadowless Blade]**
Ron’s Soul Source belonged to the Shadow Blade branch of the Origin School. Beyonders of the Origin School generally focused on influencing abstract rules or concepts.
When a Soul Source was too rare, complex, or difficult to categorize, it was often tucked into this all-encompassing school.
Within his domain, light and darkness lost their meaning, and sound returned to silence. Even the fact of being attacked might quietly vanish before it could even be perceived.
More importantly, any attack within the domain would not leak outside.
—
“The target has left the mansion.”
“…What about the other Special Operations Groups?”
“They have been entangled by appropriate troubles and cannot escape for now.”
A brief silence followed, broken only by the extremely faint crackle of a burning lamp wick.
“…What about the stone?”
“In place. The blood for the ‘altar’ has just soaked the final etching.”
The questioner seemed to take a very light breath. That breath carried a shiver in the dead silence, though it was hard to tell if it was from fear or ecstasy.
“Very good.”
“Using the despair accumulated over 100 years in the Lower City as fuel, and using the blood and madness flowing tonight as a sacrifice…”
The voice dropped even lower, nearly turning into a hiss of friction against the air, yet it contained a frenzy that tore at one’s sanity:
“We humble observers shall, at this moment —”
“Witness the Witch of Lust’s…”
“New king’s birth.”
—
The sky had darkened at some point, and rain began to fall.
The silver-blue car sped along the wet road, the engine’s low growl drowned out by the patter of the rain. Inside, the radio — which someone had tuned earlier — was stubbornly playing a light, cheerful pop love song that felt completely out of place with the current atmosphere, its cloying melody echoing throughout the cabin.
Jiang Ming’s index finger tapped the leather-wrapped edge of the steering wheel unconsciously and irritably.
This was the third time he had seen that comical frog sign at the street corner with only one lit bulb.
Three times.
The same broken street sign, the same half-collapsed newsstand.
The entire Lower City seemed to have come alive in the rainy night, turning into a labyrinth. The streets twisted, the forks were endless, and all signs trying to point toward an exit had become a deception.
He was driving according to the route Elvia had pointed out, yet he felt like a rat trapped in a circular slide, constantly returning to the same hair-raising starting point.
“Elvia.”
Jiang Ming called out again, his voice not loud.
There was no response.
A silence that was to be expected. Since some point that could not be precisely defined — perhaps after passing through a particularly dark tunnel, or after rounding a fountain in a town square that had long since dried up — the Spirit Body girl who always floated lively by his side, chirping directions, had completely disappeared like a phantom washed away by the rain.
Even the faint connection to her in his consciousness had gone silent as well.
Jiang Ming shot a quick glance at the back seat through the rearview mirror.
Lillian and Elvira remained in the same positions they were in when he had placed them there, leaning over as if they had fallen into a deep, dreamless sleep.
He had tried calling them, nudging them gently, and even using a hint of Soul Source power to stimulate them, but it was all like a stone sinking into the ocean.
The sound of the rain, the engine, and the hollow music.
Outside the car was the wet, eerie streetscape constantly looping.
The entire world seemed to have been quietly swapped out within this rain-ravaged maze. All connections were severed, and all points of reference had lost their meaning.
Only he remained.
Gripping the steering wheel, he stared at the rain-blurred road ahead that seemed to have no end, all alone.
Suddenly, his gaze caught something that shouldn’t have been there.
As a former medical student, Jiang Ming had an excellent memory. He was certain that on the way there, in this exact spot, such a conspicuous presence had not existed.
It was a telephone booth — an old-fashioned red cast-iron booth, almost identical in style to the one inside the mansion.
Jiang Ming instinctively slowed down. The silver-blue sports car gave a low whine as it slowly glided to a stop beside the booth.
The moment the car came to a halt, Jiang Ming suddenly felt a searing heat coming from the pocket on his left thigh.
His brows furrowed as he reached into his pocket.
What his fingertips touched was that coin, the very one the red-haired Angel of Gluttony, Beelzebub, had given him as a gift during their first meeting.
Now, it lay quietly in his palm.
Jiang Ming fell silent.
The engine hummed, and the night wind wailed through the gaps in abandoned pipes. In the back seat, Lillian and Elvira were still immersed in an ominous trance.
Time seemed to stretch and freeze at this moment.
All the clues, anomalies, and instincts were like scattered puzzle pieces forced into a central point that had to be faced by the sudden appearance of the telephone booth and the hot coin in his hand.
‘This is no coincidence.’
Jiang Ming took a deep breath, pushed the car door open, and stepped out.
Clutching the burning coin, he walked step by step toward that silent red metal box.
Reaching the telephone booth, he reached out and pulled open the worn glass door. The old hinges gave a slight creak that sounded particularly harsh in the silent night.
The interior was cramped, smelling of dust and old metal. The old-fashioned rotary phone hung quietly on the wall, the receiver resting lopsidedly to the side.
Jiang Ming did not hesitate. He raised his hand and aimed the coin in his hand at the coin slot.
The coin slid in.
Almost simultaneously, a faint sound of gears meshing and an electrical hum came from inside the telephone — the sound of long-dormant machinery starting to run.
Then, from the receiver, a familiar female voice spoke.
“Welcome back…”
“My friend.”