Under the warm glow of the living room lights, the atmosphere gradually shifted. The beams cast down by the chandelier felt like a soft embrace, melting away every trace of the winter chill lingering in the space.
At this moment, the ticking of the clock slowed, no longer sounding like a curse of fleeting time, but like a leisurely melody. The coldness and rage in the girls' eyes slowly faded, replaced by understanding and tenderness.
Softened by this mood, Sigrid and Hyperion both relaxed their grip, finally breaking the deadlock.
Even before their hands had fully dropped...
"Holy Son, I was thoughtless and failed to consider your feelings," Sigrid was the first to speak to Lanqi, her voice softening noticeably.
"!"
Hyperion was caught completely off guard. How could this woman change her face so fast?
Hyperion immediately reached out again with both hands and rested them on Lanqi's wrist, seemingly checking whether she had hurt him a moment ago.
She said nothing, merely lifting her head to gaze at Lanqi with a hint of apology, her eyes brimming with empathy as though she felt his pain as her own.
"This..."
Gloria's eyelids twitched furiously.
This abrupt transformation finally made her realize that the Holy Son of Domination's most overpowered skill wasn't his terrifying professional competence, but his uncanny genius for handling a jealous battlefield!
From beginning to end, he barely showed any emotional turbulence. It was as if he genuinely believed he was acting in the best interests of Sigrid and Hyperion, yet neither of them understood him, leaving him with nothing more than a faint trace of dejection.
He was so pure that it baffled the mind!
For a moment, Gloria couldn't tell whether this man was truly pure and saintly, or an absolute masterclass in playing the innocent victim.
She couldn't shake the feeling that her adoptive mother was being played like a fiddle, yet she had zero evidence.
Perhaps Sigrid was perfectly clear-headed and saw through the Holy Son's intent, but this was an open maneuver. If she continued arguing, it would only make her look unreasonable, and Hyperion would seize the opportunity to take her place.
"Meow..."
Boss Cat poked half its body out from under the sofa and locked eyes with Gloria.
It knew Side's adoptive daughter's brain was practically itching right now.
Boss Cat was in a slightly better state. Back in Ikerite, it had heard a few rumors—for instance, that Lanqi was remarkably adept at mediating civil disputes and untangling romantic conflicts.
Yet this was the first time it had seen Lanqi trapped in a romantic crossfire of his own.
It only made Boss Cat feel that if someone were walking a tightrope high in the sky or strolling among the clouds, their serene expression would look just like his—completely unaware of any mortal danger.
Boss Cat couldn't even imagine what it would look like if he suddenly fell to his death.
To the side...
"Phew—"
Seeing that the dispute in the living room was finally settled, Lanqi let out a relieved breath with a smile, appearing genuinely gratified by their reconciliation.
"Let's sit down and talk."
Lanqi elegantly and calmly gestured, inviting both of them to take a seat.
Sigrid and Hyperion, who had just exchanged glances and nearly started another spat over who Lanqi should sit with, instantly held their tongues. Each picked opposite ends of the sofa and sat down.
Whoever stirred up trouble at this point would lose the upper hand.
Gloria quickly moved out of the way, waiting off to the side like an attendant.
Lanqi made no move to sit on the sofa either. He turned and walked over to the magic crystal screen embedded in the wall, inserted his backup recording crystal into the magic projector on the cabinet, and went to switch off the room lights.
Images and sound began projecting onto the dim wall directly facing the sofa.
Though puzzled, Hyperion watched attentively.
The perspective appeared to be Lanqi's. He was inside a heavily fortified city-state, seemingly somewhere in the northern reaches of the empire, surrounded entirely by frozen earth and snow-capped mountains.
A war song played by crisp strings and booming drums paired with the deserted city-state, evoking a chilling, eerie atmosphere.
In the footage, the recorder passed along the suspended gallery of the city ramparts and stepped onto the upper tier of the city-state, occasionally conversing with Side, who remained off-screen. Their voices intertwined throughout the recording.
Eventually, the two stood on the staggered upper column tier of the city-state. The camera panned to the side, revealing snowflakes drifting in the wind above a broad suspended bridge. They drifted for quite some time before settling into the lower column tier dozens of meters below. Clearly, one only had to go down to the lower residential district to uncover why the city-state was so sparsely populated.
However...
Right then, the footage suddenly blurred, as if everything in the recorder's field of view accelerated in an instant, and the recorder himself was swept into the sky.
High above, through the clouds and mist, the full view of this northern border city-state finally came into focus.
Only the entrance area they had walked through earlier still presented an illusion of peace; its deeper regions were already swallowed by a darkness reminiscent of an eclipse realm.
Beneath that black mist, severed limbs and broken bodies seemed to be devoured. Be they children, women, or the elderly, their remains were dumped into earthen pits...
At this point, Lanqi turned off the projection magic apparatus.
What followed was the appearance of the Bishop of Extinction, Askesan, and Sigrid fighting him with her true strength as the Bishop of Domination.
Lanqi knew Sigrid did not want anyone knowing her true identity right now.
Darkness swallowed the room once more, the only source of light being the quietly humming projection magic apparatus.
Hyperion sat on the sofa with wide eyes, as if watching a classified documentary in the dead of night.
Gloria, too, was seeing these shocking visuals for the first time, struck speechless with horror. She could now roughly imagine what the bishop and the Holy Son had encountered up north.
Lanqi remained quiet, giving Hyperion ample time to think, before switching the lights back on.
"As for working together, I can't force either of you. I can only serve as a middleman and help you arrange a mutually beneficial transaction as best as possible,"
Lanqi said, looking at Hyperion and Sigrid on the sofa. He avoided the word "cooperation," framing it strictly as a "transaction."
"The Domination branch's current objective is to crush the Extinction Branch. And for the Church of the Goddess of Fate, surely no one wants to see the Bishop of Extinction become the top authority of the Protos Empire, right?"
Lanqi turned his gaze toward Hyperion.
Hyperion nodded.
From what she had heard, the Domination branch hadn't committed any particularly heinous acts within the Protos Empire, whereas the sins of the Extinction Branch defied heaven and earth. Whatever conspiracy lay behind them, if allowed to succeed, it would bring an irreversible catastrophe.
The Bishop of Extinction could never be allowed to become the head of the Protos Empire.
"Whenever it comes to striking at the Extinction Branch, the Church of the Goddess of Fate will naturally take action on its own,"
Hyperion clenched her fist, giving Lanqi her word.
As a priest, for the greater good, even if she had to temporarily strike a deal with the Resurrection Church, the Goddess would surely understand.
Assured of Hyperion's stance, Lanqi exchanged a look with Sigrid.
Regarding the prison break, the two of them needed Hyperion to go to the prison in person, which was extremely perilous. Thus, Hyperion would likely be getting the short end of the stick.
Yet Sigrid clearly refused to owe any favors to the Church of the Goddess of Fate.
She would certainly offer extra compensation.
"State your terms first,"
Sigrid said to Hyperion.
She decided to hear what Hyperion wanted first so she could gauge how the Domination branch should adjust the price it paid.
Hyperion pondered.
She reasoned that since the Domination branch wanted to take down the Extinction Branch, what they needed most was formidable combat strength.
"Give me some intelligence on Herrom Prison, and I can recruit a great demon to fight on your side. That way, if we have to clash with Askesan, your odds of winning will be much higher,"
Hyperion proposed her terms.
She believed she was showing immense sincerity. All she asked for was as much intel as possible, and in exchange, she could provide the aid of an Eighth Tier great demon at a critical moment.
For the other party, this deal was an absolute steal.
Yet...
Lanqi and Sigrid glanced at each other, both wearing exceedingly bizarre expressions.
Gradually, Sigrid looked terribly embarrassed and hung her head.
"Is that not acceptable?"
Hyperion asked.
"..."
Lanqi barely knew how to explain.
He remembered how just a moment ago, one of them had sworn in the name of the Goddess that she would never let personal feelings interfere, while the other had proclaimed she would show them who truly ran this household.
And after all that bickering, they had been planning to do the exact same thing all along.
"We're planning to raid the prison too,"
Gloria blurted out anxiously to help clarify.
Instantly, Hyperion seemed to understand the look on Sigrid's face, and her own cheeks flushed crimson.
The living room fell deathly silent.
Both of them felt like dying of embarrassment.
Chapter 384