Liyue Academy, the top student’s independent tower.
Angelica Alsaid stood silently in the shadows, her cold gaze piercing through the cracked door, falling upon the slightly distracted figure in the training field.
Her sister, Rhea Alsaid—the future “heir” of the Alsaid family—was currently staring blankly into an ice mirror.
The mirror reflected her sharp, silver-haired short cut, but those eyes, which were usually piercing and cool, were now clouded with a lingering haze. Her fingertips unconsciously twined around a strand of hair, and even her usually diligent evening training appeared half-hearted.
This state of mind had persisted for quite some time.
It had been like this ever since they returned from the Raymond territory.
Angelica’s red lips curled into a cold arc.
She knew this expression all too well. It was certainly not because of a cultivation bottleneck, but rather… a young girl in love, her mind wandering elsewhere.
‘Who is the person she likes?’ Angelica whispered to herself, her voice icy and heartless.
Rhea was the hope of the Alsaid family. She had to discard all feminine emotions and must never be swayed by pointless personal feelings.
Any “accident” that could potentially shake the heir’s will had to be nipped in the bud.
The first suspect to cross her mind was Lien.
This commoner-born genius had been getting quite close to Rhea lately, often approaching her under the guise of sparring or seeking advice.
His talent was decent, and he might have some utility, but if he were to shake Rhea’s emotions, he would be seeking his own death.
That night, on a secluded path back to the dormitories, Lien was enveloped by an invisible force and lost consciousness instantly.
When Lien regained his senses, he found himself in a completely isolated, dark space. His limbs were bound by cold chains of magic, leaving him unable to move.
The thick darkness elements not only swallowed the light but also continuously eroded his mental defenses.
*Click, clack.*
The crisp sound of footsteps echoed in the dead silence. Angelica’s figure slowly emerged from the darkness, looking down at him from above. Those eyes, similar to Rhea’s but deeper and colder, held no warmth whatsoever.
“Classmate Lien,” her voice carried a hypnotic rhythm, striking directly at his mental sea, “tell me, what improper thoughts do you have for my ‘brother,’ Rhea?”
A powerful mental pressure surged like a tide. Lien felt as if his consciousness was being pierced by countless thin needles, causing him to groan in pain.
“Instructor… Angelica… I don’t understand what you mean!” Lien gritted his teeth, struggling to stay conscious.
“Heh, still being stubborn.”
Angelica chuckled softly. “Do you think you can hide it from my eyes? Rhea has been restless lately, and it has everything to do with you.”
“Furthermore, the way you look at Rhea isn’t clean; it’s not the affection of a senior for a junior. Speak! What exactly happened between you two?” A stronger mental shock hit him, as if trying to forcibly peel the memories from his mind.
Veins popped on Lien’s forehead, and sweat instantly soaked his back.
Under the forced interrogation of this mental magic, he felt as if all his disguises were being stripped away.
“Nothing! There’s really nothing!”
Lien roared in pain, his voice a mix of the anger of being wronged and a trace of undetectable resentment. “She has someone else in her heart! She never even looked at me!”
These words practically burst out, carrying a jealousy that even he hadn’t fully realized.
In his mind, the mysterious “voice” had once vaguely mentioned an “intimate relationship” that should have belonged to him and Rhea. That stood in sharp contrast to the extraordinary attention Rhea paid to Izel in reality, a gap that stabbed deeply into his heart.
“Heh, based on those words, you really do have improper feelings for Rhea?” Angelica’s gaze narrowed. “Do you know something?”
Under the suppression of the mental power, Lien confessed everything, revealing the fact that he knew Rhea was a woman.
“I promise I won’t tell anyone this secret, but there’s really nothing between Rhea and me. It’s all because of another person.”
Angelica’s mental pressure eased slightly, but her inquisitive intent grew stronger. “Who?”
Gasping for breath, driven by the continuous influence of the mental magic and his own inner unwillingness, Lien spoke with a sense of vengeful pleasure, exaggerating the details:
“It’s that Izel from Starry Academy! Senior Rhea is especially different toward him! In the Raymond territory, she protected him multiple times, even disregarding her own safety! Since coming back, she mentions him often… Their relationship is definitely not ordinary!”
“I… zel?”
Angelica repeated the name, a corner of her sealed memories being pried open.
That black-haired brat from 6 years ago who didn’t know the heights of the heavens and tried to get close to Rhea?
That little waste she had personally thrown into a mind-torturing abandoned magic circle, only for him to be rescued by Claire?
It was actually him?!
Angelica’s eyes instantly became incredibly deep, killing intent weaving together with the realization of having found the root cause.
She slowly retracted her external mental power. In the dark space, only her low, husky voice, carrying a trace of a crazed smile, echoed:
“Izel… so it’s you, you haunting little brat…”
She looked at the slumped Lien, who was exhausted from the mental drain, and said coldly, “Hold your tongue, Lien. If a single word regarding Rhea leaks out, the Alsaid family will let you know the meaning of true despair.”
Having said that, she ignored Lien.
At the top of the independent tower, Angelica leaned against the railing and looked into the distance, her gaze seemingly penetrating space to land in the direction of Starry Academy.
The moonlight reflected off her beautiful yet cold face, outlining a twisted and pleasant curve.
“You were lucky enough to escape 6 years ago. I didn’t expect you would dare to appear before Rhea again, even shaking her resolve…” she whispered, her fingertips tracing the cold railing, leaving faint white marks. “For the future of the Alsaid family, so that Rhea can ‘perfectly’ inherit the family business…”
‘Izel, you must disappear.’
***
On the other side, inside a carriage, Izel felt a chill run down his back for no apparent reason, causing his body to tremble slightly.
“Brother Izel, are you cold?” Sarah, sitting opposite him, noticed his abnormality and asked with concern.
Izel waved his hand, his brow furrowing slightly. “I’m not cold. I just suddenly felt a chill down my spine.”
‘Is someone talking about me behind my back?’
Just as his thoughts turned, the carriage fully entered the Betty territory.
The night was as dark as ink, tightly wrapping around the entire territory.
Unlike the silence of a normal night, the air here was permeated with a suffocating dead silence and coldness.
Rose took a deep breath, suppressing the fear in her heart, and briefly explained the desperate situation facing the Betty family to everyone:
“Except for our final stronghold—the inner city—all outer areas have been designated as extremely dangerous zones and have completely fallen. The one leading the Bloodkin against us is a monster who calls himself ‘Horn.’ He has only four direct subordinates, but every one of them possesses terrifying strength that can crush our knight captains… It was just these five people who, in a short time, turned nearly 10,000 of our citizens and soldiers into… into monsters that only know how to thirst for blood…”
Although Sarah had already witnessed the Bloodkin’s ability to convert others in the Raymond territory, her heart still sank when she heard the staggering numbers from Rose, and her expression became incredibly grave.
The moment Dio heard the name “Horn,” his pupils suddenly contracted, and a bone-deep hatred that almost took physical form erupted from his eyes.
Horn!
Memory fragments from his past life flooded his mind like a bloody tide. It was this demon who, right before his eyes, had cruelly slaughtered almost every member of the Betty family, including his parents!
He had even turned Rose and Dio’s younger sister, Dini, into Level 3 Bloodkin with intelligence and relatively pure bloodlines…
Using bloodline control, he forced them to drink the blood of Betty family members.
However, Rose and Dini had two different endings.
Rose eventually fell, embracing eternal life and willingly joining the ranks of the Bloodkin.
But his biological sister, Dini, had begged Dio to kill her with his own hands.
That memory, soaked in blood and betrayal, was a nightmare he could not escape in any lifetime.
Ultimately, the culprit behind everything was Horn!
Izel keenly captured the intense, almost tangible hatred in Dio’s eyes that far exceeded common logic, and he couldn’t help but wonder:
‘Strange… Swan’s hatred is sky-high because his family was destroyed; that’s understandable. Even though Senior Dio’s family was attacked, his family is still alive. Why does this hatred feel even deeper than Swan’s? It’s as if there’s a blood feud…’
At this moment, Rose’s expression was tense to the extreme, her eyes fixed on the faint silhouette visible ahead. “Almost there. As long as we cross that bridge ahead, we can enter the inner city’s range, and we’ll be safe…”
However, as if to confirm her deepest fear—*Whinny—!*
A sharp neighing and a violent jolt came at the same time, forcing the carriage to a halt!
Immediately following that, a charming yet cold and wicked voice drifted into everyone’s ears: “Oh my, let me see… what kind of remarkable figures are hiding in this carriage in the middle of the night?”
*Boom!*
Before the words finished, the entire carriage was torn apart from the outside by a massive force, as if it were made of paper!
When Rose saw the woman outside the carriage—the one with a smile on her face but eyes like a predator—her face turned as pale as paper. She whispered, “Damn it… we were so close… how could we run into her!”
Standing outside was one of Horn’s direct subordinates, Hearts.
Hearts’ gaze swept across everyone’s faces with interest, finally landing on Rose, a playful light flashing in her eyes.
“Oh? It’s you, little beauty. Our Lord Horn hasn’t stopped thinking about you. Well? Have you considered it? Join our embrace.”
Her voice was full of temptation, yet it carried an unquestionable coldness. “As long as you nod, you can receive Lord Horn’s generous gift and become a noble Level 3 existence equal to us. Not only will you have eternal youth and beauty, but you’ll also gain almost infinite life… Why cling to a fragile and short-lived human body?”
In the circles of the New Bloodkin, they were divided into five levels.
Level 1, Level 2, Level 3, Level 4, and Level 5.
As a Blood Pillar, Horn was a Level 4.
Meanwhile, Level 1 referred to mindless monsters that only knew how to crave blood.
Upon hearing the words “eternal beauty,” Rose’s pupils contracted almost imperceptibly, and her breath stalled for a moment. But immediately, intense anger and a sense of family responsibility overrode that instinctual sway.
She shouted sharply, “In your dreams! You monsters in human skin! The Betty family will never surrender to you!”
The smile on Hearts’ face vanished instantly, replaced by a coldness like ice. “How ungrateful. Since you refuse the easy way, I’ll have to tie you up and bring you back so Lord Horn can ‘persuade’ you personally.”
“But before that, which delicacy should I taste first?”
Her gaze swept over the remaining people in the carriage once more, as if evaluating the quality of her prey. Finally, those eyes, glowing with red light, landed precisely on Izel, who had subconsciously hidden behind the others in an attempt to lower his presence.
“Hmm~?” Hearts licked her bright red lips, a predatory smile appearing on her face, like she had discovered an interesting toy.
“You look… like you’re particularly afraid of me? This cautious appearance is truly cute~ It’s decided. I’ll start the ‘tasting’ with you!”
Izel, having been called out: “…”