Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
Impermeable silence shrouded the world before sunrise. Quietly Lu Shu lowered himself into the room underneath. His desire to kill Nogiwa Hakushun had been there since the post on Darkness Kingdom, and it took him great patience for this day to come.
According to the information available, Nogiwa was a Class C Practitioner, which increased Lu Shu’s confidence in taking him down. But he needed to be careful because the last thing Lu Shu wanted was for Nogiwa to escape and leak any unfavorable information about himself.
Lu Shu had no interest in earning Nogiwa’s distress points, as he would soon be able to receive those from the Collection of Gods as compensation. All he had to do was deal a fatal blow to Nogiwa.
However, the silence was torn apart by a piercing swoosh just when Lu Shu was about to jump into the room. He had sensed the approach of a sharp blade!
Holding onto the edge of the hole, Lu Shu immediately changed his direction and evaded the attack!
The room was lit up at once. It was Nogiwa Hakushun’s voice, with a tinge of surprise. “It’s you?! Kitamura Hirono!”
That was the face Lu Shu was wearing at the moment. Without a word, he sprang towards Nogiwa. Underneath him the wooden floor instantly collapsed into pieces!
In the not so spacious room, two shadows moved around at tremendous speed. Nogiwa Hakushun had always been on guard against his opponent’s sword, which was the fastest among the Class C’s!
Surprisingly, though, in the next instant two flying daggers shot out from Kitamura’s hands. Despite Nogiwa’s quick defense, he was unable to resist the attack from two flying daggers at the same time!
Before he could utter a sound, Concealed Arrow had punctured his neck, reducing his voice to an indistinct groan.
Lu Shu was ready to leave after robbing Nogiwa’s longsword. He had no intention to kill that young lady, from whom Lu Shu detected no energy waves and deduced that she was only a commoner.
Moreover, Nogiwa had mentioned the name Kitamura Hirono. Would it cause confusion in the Collection of Gods if the woman heard that name?
Yet, he was also cautious about underestimating his rivals. How could Nogiwa Hakushun have anticipated his move, which was supposedly too stealthy to be noticed? What went wrong? Thinking back, Lu Shu recalled a pause in Nogiwa’s motion right before he entered the villa earlier.
Was it because of his reflection on the body of the car? Seriously?
Even so, Nogiwa had decided to be on the alert silently instead of startling the intruder!
He might have been dead if not for his extraordinary powers that were way beyond Nogiwa’s.
Indisputably, Lu Shu in his current state could defeat any Class C’s effortlessly in a one-to-one combat.
Fifteen minutes after Lu Shu had left, more than twenty black cars roared towards the villa.
A middle-aged man was the first to alight, followed by many younger ones, dressed in black suits and a Collection of Gods badge pinned in front of each chest. Soon, all key locations around the villa were occupied in an efficient and orderly manner, while a few others went to knock on the neighbors’ doors for further inquiries.
Everyone was clear on his or her own task. The entire group operated like a piece of machinery with all cogs fitting together perfectly.
The door of the villa was wide open, into which the Collection of Gods members were guided in by a pale-looking young lady. Shivering in nervousness, she was making an explanation.
Next to the middle-aged man stood a young man respectfully. The former asked the latter calmly, “What do you think, Kitamura?”
“Can’t be sure as of now.”
“Okay. Go take a look inside.”
They ascended to the second floor from the staircase, only to see Nogiwa Hakushun lying in a pool of blood. The entire room had been blocked off and staff in white clothes, goggles and masks were gathering every useful clue.
As if calculating something, Kitamura Hirono paced a few steps and then, suddenly, he threw a punch into the white wall, extracting a small black box to be passed to the middle-aged man.
The man connected the box to a phone in his pocket with a cable. Then, Nogiwa Hakushun’s confused voice in his last minutes was heard by everyone in the room. “It’s you?! Kitamura Hirono!”
The line seemed to be the greatest clue, casting aside the fighting sounds that ensued after. However, it had already been mentioned by the woman just now.
The middle-aged man was expressionless. “An outsider’s doings.”
Kitamura seemed totally unconcerned, though he was the only suspect pinpointed at the moment. He analyzed the situation with composure. “If it was one of us, he would have known that every room is installed with this equipment and he would have destroyed it altogether. Besides, not a clever trick to purposely leave behind clues.”
Indeed, if it were really Kitamura, he could have killed the woman and taken the box with him. Then, he would be free from suspicion even if others found out that it was done by their own people because the pool of suspects would be too big.
The middle-aged man looked up at the hole, whose edges were smooth like a mirror. However, he did not associate it with the divine water. Rather, he was misled into another direction, the earth type.
In Pattaya, an earth-type Metahuman once helped Li Yixiao in killing the materialization-type expert Johnson. And the unknown person’s level was suspected to be Class B.
This gave the middle-aged man an ill hunch. To them, expansion was a necessary cause but the current Heavenly Network was too powerful an opponent to be messed with. They were no longer the sleeping lions as they were decades ago. Now, even the Collection of Gods felt helpless sometimes.
But there was no turning back. The Collection of Gods would be suffocated by the shortage of resources if they did not venture out. Many elites chose to support the Jingoists because they knew there were no better alternatives.
Of course, there were a number of extremists agitating for a radical idea like “let Japan merge with China and become an autonomous province”. They believed it was the shortcut to economic growth in the context of increasing volcanic and tectonic activities.
Clearly, though, the Collection of Gods did not agree.
The middle-aged man said, still emotionless. “Everyone on first ground alert. The Heavenly Network is here.”
