In the distance, the silhouette of South Vantina's main city grew distinct against the deepening dusk, like a quiet prelude to the falling night.
Lanqi, Hyperion, and Talia were still sitting on the bench in Heart Pulse Plaza, gazing from afar at the city-state with its distinct terraces and tiers.
They chatted leisurely, and before they knew it, dinner time was nearly upon them.
"We'll head out once we hear the six o'clock bell chime. That way, dinner should be ready just as we get home."
Lanqi glanced back at the clock tower in the square and said to Hyperion and Talia.
"I feel like spending time with you will turn anyone into a total layabout before they know it."
Hyperion leaned back on the bench, looking completely disinclined to move as she tilted her head back to watch the golden-orange sky tinged with purple and crimson, murmuring to herself.
Back at Ikerite Academy, she could accomplish so much in a single afternoon, yet whenever Lanqi dragged her along to slack off, the afternoon slipped away without a trace.
Talia still sat quietly.
Though her face remained unreadable, she seemed quite peaceful.
Hyperion tilted her head to look at Talia's profile, sorely wishing to tell her that she already knew about the relationship between them.
Then she gave a slight shake of her head. She would wait until tonight, once they were back at the Wilfort residence and she had Tata all to herself, to talk through it slowly.
Lost in thought, Hyperion turned her head toward Lanqi on her other side.
She noticed that, for some reason, Lanqi had frozen completely still.
She had stared at his face for quite a while, yet he gave no reaction at all.
Squinting, Lanqi seemed to be fixing his gaze on a figure along a distant street on lower ground, observing them with rapt attention.
Hyperion sat up a little straighter and peered in the direction of Lanqi's gaze.
After a long moment.
Hyperion finally confirmed that Lanqi's eyes were tracking a young woman. She wore a delicate, soft-colored woven tight-fitting top, her skirt swaying lightly with each step, her hair long and sleek, and her figure exceptionally attractive.
Talia's eyes turned instantly frigid.
"What are you looking at?"
She turned her head toward Lanqi and asked.
"That person..."
Lanqi's brow knitted slightly. Lowering his voice with a look of confusion, he traced the characters for 'Resurrection' on his knee with his fingertip.
Lanqi didn't understand the underlying principle, but right now he could strongly sense in his heart that this woman carried a [Proof of Resurrection].
Even as Talia felt a wave of relief, her aura grew noticeably sharper.
She knew many Resurrection Church cultists wanted to harm Hyperion; last time at Boss Cat Restaurant, she had caught a Destruction cleric who had come knocking.
"I'll be right back."
Just as Talia prepared to stand up and seize the Resurrection cleric, Lanqi caught her sleeve, his eyes signaling her to wait.
"She seems to have just arrived in South Vantina, and she hasn't noticed the three of us at all," Lanqi murmured to Talia.
Judging by the direction she was walking, she seemed to be heading toward the northwest side of South Vantina—which was precisely the direction of the Wilfort residence—rather than tailing them or approaching them. In fact, she hadn't noticed their existence in the slightest.
"?"
Talia's puzzled look seemed to ask: *You didn't counter-surveil her; you detected her out of thin air without any cause?*
Lanqi nodded.
"I don't know why, but I just have a powerful intuition that she's definitely a Resurrection cleric..."
In the end, Lanqi could only attribute this unexplainable, evidenceless sensation to intuition.
Before leaving the Northern Continent, he had felt something similar toward the great clerics of the Domination branch.
Back then, however, he had already known their identities clearly, so he hadn't found it strange.
Yet now that he was back on the Southern Continent, when the person clearly wasn't a Domination branch great cleric, how could he still sense it?
Beside them, although Hyperion's heart had suddenly leapt into high gear, hearing Lanqi's explanation put her slightly at ease.
Hyperion figured it made sense.
If the enemy had noticed that Lanqi and Hyperion were accompanied by the unfathomable Tata, she would never dare to 'surveil' them so brazenly.
"What should we do then?"
Talia sat back down, but her demeanor shifted right back to that cold, ruthless presence ready to kill at any moment.
If they didn't hurry and catch her, she might slip away, and finding her again would be difficult.
She knew Lanqi's caution was also reasonable: leaving the two of them behind might put them in danger, but approaching together might startle the snake, or alert whoever was connected to her.
"Tata, this mindset of wanting to resort to violence the moment you lay eyes on someone is fundamentally wrong."
Lanqi winked at them, signaling for them to follow his lead.
"The people of our South Vantina have always been simple and honest. We must not commit uncivilized or unfriendly acts. Just watch and see how I handle business."
...
Half an hour later.
Along a forested highway on the northwestern edge of South Vantina.
Inside a car parked by the roadside, a slender young woman frowned slightly. Feeling a chill run through her on the back seat, she slowly opened her eyes.
Her memory was somewhat blurred.
Like the moment of just waking from a dream, she couldn't quite tell which things had belonged to the dream and which were unfinished tasks in reality.
Her name was Elaine, a great cleric of the Destruction branch. After receiving orders at their stronghold in the Knox Mountains that morning, she had traveled to the main city of South Vantina. Her mission was to take up residence in a manor not far from the Wilfort home, tasked with real-time surveillance while remaining on standby.
Just earlier, a driver calling himself Luoqi McCarthy had pulled up alongside the road and asked if she needed a ride anywhere. He claimed he knew the area well, having previously driven for the Wilfort family before being fired by that bastard spoiled rich kid, so he had struck out on his own.
There were two other female passengers carpooling in the back seat, making it look quite safe.
Thinking it was a rare opportunity to gather intelligence related to the Wilfort family, she hadn't hesitated to get in.
Her memory seemed to end right there.
Elaine felt a stabbing headache, and through the pain, she racked her brain to recall more carefully.
She was certain she hadn't fallen asleep naturally—a slender hand had clamped over her nose and mouth, and after struggling for a few moments, she had blacked out.
Evidently, she had boarded an unlicensed bandit cab.
Didn't everyone say public security in South Vantina was excellent?
How could a dignified Great Cleric of Resurrection be targeted for human trafficking the second she arrived?!
Elaine snapped fully alert like a startled bird and instinctively tried to save herself, but in the next second, she found her body immobilized once more.
Just like sleep paralysis, her mind belonged to her, yet her body couldn't budge an inch.
She felt only that a terrifying, mysterious entity beside her was controlling her. The enclosed space of the vehicle seemed to plunge into utter pitch-black darkness, where only a pair of demon-god-like golden pupils gleamed with vivid clarity, making her feel utterly insignificant.
At the very peak of Elaine's terror.
She saw.
The driver in the front seat glanced back at her, then turned his gaze toward a statue sitting on the dashboard.
Pressing his palms together, he raised them above his head and offered a prayer to the statue of the Goddess of Fate.
Immediately afterward:
"Welcome to South Vantina."
Lanqi took off his sunglasses, turned around, and said to Elaine.
Sitting beside him, Hyperion felt words lodge in her throat. She couldn't shake the feeling that one wasn't supposed to pray to a statue of the Goddess of Fate like that—how on earth had he managed to make a prayer carry the threatening intimidation of a human trafficker?
"..."
Elaine's pupils trembled violently, wondering what had gone so terribly wrong with public security in the Hutton Kingdom.
The gentle-eyed man before her seemed at once to be praying that the Goddess of Fate would forgive her, and atoning in advance to soothe his own conscience.
*Are you praying to a goddess, or worshipping the greed in your own heart?*
Chapter 504