On a bleak, chilly autumn night, a full moon the color of fresh blood hung high above the industrial district of Brierda.
Rust-pocked shipping containers and winding dark alleys were bathed in an eerie, seductive crimson glow.
A black crow drifted downward from the moon, revealing through the dense mist the sprawling expanse of this massive Mafia stronghold—dilapidated workshops scattered in uneven clusters, mountains of magic engineering machinery, narrow crisscrossing alleys, and rust-colored shipping containers looming in and out of the haze.
This was the harbor district located in southeastern Brierda.
It was also one of the rare gray zones in the city.
*Phew.*
Footsteps, ragged gasps for air.
Abruptly, the figure of a young girl dashed around the corner, tearing through the deathly stillness of the night.
Her long black hair whipped in the wind, purple eyes gleaming with both terror and resolve. She clutched an ink-black kitten tightly to her chest, holding it as if it were her sole hope and solace.
"Meow, meow, Lan-Lan! It's all shipping containers and dark alleys here! A bunch of guys in black are chasing us! Help, meow!"
Boss Cat whispered urgently, pressing its mouth against the purple-glowing communication magic card, desperately crying for help.
It had started as a calm, peaceful afternoon. The two of them had been happily chatting as they walked back toward Saint Creti Monastery.
Then, Elsa had suddenly sensed something amiss—a glimmer of malice.
Sure enough, someone had immediately hurled a transparent magic power capsule at them.
When she opened her eyes again, she was already in this unfamiliar district, surrounded and hunted by Mafiosi.
The instant Boss Cat felt the spatial magic power, it had dove straight into Elsa's shadow. Fortunately, its spatial magic boasted high enough priority that it had traveled along with her; otherwise, Elsa would truly have been in dire straits.
By the same token, it was in danger too.
Yet after spending the entire afternoon with Elsa, it had grown fond of her, realizing she was an earnest, innocent girl. Moreover, the mission Lanqi had entrusted to it was to protect Elsa; it couldn't simply abandon her.
"It sounds like Brother can't hear us clearly," Elsa murmured.
Most of what reached them through the communication magic card was harsh static, and she feared her brother was hearing much the same on his end.
As an unfamiliar corner of Brierda, Elsa had never set foot here before, leaving her to navigate the terrain purely by instinct.
If this truly was the Brierda Mafia's stronghold, the jamming magic devices would grow stronger closer to the core and weaker toward the perimeter.
Only after she had gotten her bearings and sprinted some distance toward the outer edge had the little black cat successfully connected the communication magic with her brother.
She had never imagined this little black cat was actually Tier 6, capable of producing a Tier 6 utility magic card like [Ultra-Long-Range Communication Program]. When it pulled that card out, Elsa had felt like she was looking at a mythical beast.
The girl's footsteps were hurried and erratic, yet she scrambled with astonishing agility. Her soles clicked crisply against the hard ground despite her best efforts to muffle the sound with her stride.
Elsa's silhouette flashed through the gaps between containers—one moment close enough to glimpse her face pale with fright, the next vanishing into the distance as her supple figure wove through obstacles.
"Meow, meow!"
Boss Cat's eyes glowed fluorescent yellow in the darkness like two pinpricks of light.
Across the district, dozens of figures clad in black coats filed out, gliding like ghosts through the factory ruins and container maze in hot pursuit.
Their eyes were cold and predatory, like a pack of wolves catching the scent of blood.
At their head was a burly, fierce-looking man with a crew cut, his scar-riddled face appearing all the more sinister beneath the moonlight.
"You can't even handle a Tier 2 little girl?! If the other cadres catch wind of our shady dealings, we're all going to pay for this!"
He barked orders in a furious whisper, his raspy voice echoing through the deserted factory grounds like a vengeful specter.
If she kept running, she would piece together the surrounding layout before long.
Her heading was already getting more accurate, steering straight toward the perimeter.
Fortunately, the distance was still substantial.
The black-haired girl nimbly scaled a rust-colored container, bounding across rickety steel girders as if unfettered by gravity—or as if an invisible force was aiding her, buoying her up.
Adept at utilizing her surroundings, she tucked into dark corners or snaked through intricate pipelines, narrowly slipping past the cordons of black-clad killers at every critical juncture.
Though the Mafiosi knew the grounds like the back of their hands, they couldn't pin down her trajectory or make sense of her anti-gravity movements. They could only rely on sheer numbers to tighten the net, shaving away her room to maneuver bit by bit.
Throughout this thrilling race against death under the blood moon, the night air was thick with the howling wind, rustling dry leaves, and the cawing of crows.
After what felt like ages, Elsa finally shook off her pursuers for the moment, slipping into the corner of a narrow, shadowed alley.
Her back pressed against the mottled brick wall, her slender frame trembling uncontrollably like a startled bird.
Beads of crystal sweat rolled down from her pale brow, tracing the contours of her delicate face before dripping onto the pavement.
"Little Black Loaf, thank goodness for you."
Elsa's parted lips trembled from terror and exhaustion, ragged gasps magnifying and interweaving with the drumbeat of her racing heart.
Without this spirit beast assisting her with psychokinesis, she wouldn't have bought even this brief respite.
Slowly shifting her position, Elsa adjusted her field of view.
By the faint moonlight, she surveyed her surroundings, doing her best to analyze possible escape routes.
Her gaze swept past towering ruins of buildings and tangled pipes, ultimately settling on a path stretching into the distance.
That alleyway was flanked by ruined, rusted containers overgrown with climbing vines, looking profoundly gloomy in the night.
Yet the direction was right.
Heading that way would likely bring her closer to the outer boundary.
"Meow..." Boss Cat mewed timidly.
This cursed place had an anti-flight barrier in addition to the jamming barrier; they couldn't fly high at all.
It had only ever heard of an anti-flight barrier when Lanqi described the cliffside in the Banquet of Sanctuary Villains Shadow World; it hadn't expected to run into one in reality.
If only it were a little stronger, it wouldn't be helpless against these enemies.
Those black-clad men hunting them weren't extraordinarily powerful; the leader was only around Tier 5. But there were simply too many of them, all trained killers. It could barely handle one mini-boss; pitted against him plus a swarm of subordinates, it had no viable recourse.
Then again, its growth had essentially plateaued. If it wanted to become stronger, the next stop was Tier 9. A Tier 9 fighting a Tier 5 would be rather comical.
"I can't shake the feeling that something isn't right..." Elsa didn't rush out; she pressed her temples.
When cornered, rational thought was far more valuable than reckless action.
Showing herself again would quickly alert the Mafiosi, but hiding here forever was no solution either; before long, she would be completely encircled.
These people had intended to kill her from the very start.
Fortunately, the rest of her deck was tailored entirely for survival—granting stealth, acceleration, and crowd-control removal. Added to that, her vision and stamina were exceptionally sharp at night.
Had Headmistress Violet's [Mirror of the Moon Goddess] not deflected the initial ambush, she would likely have succumbed already.
She glanced down at the silver full-moon pendant clutched tightly in her hand.
[Mirror of the Moon Goddess]
[Category: Equipment Card]
[Grade: Pink Sacred]
[Attributes: Scouting / Regeneration]
[Tier: 2]
[Effect: Equipping this accessory enhances danger premonition. When the bearer is about to suffer unavoidable fatal damage, the mirror surface shatters in place of receiving the wound. The mirror requires 30 days to regenerate. Does not stack with other effects that grant immunity to fatal damage.]
[Description: Solace, shelter, hope, and love. The world we share abides with you through prayer.]
Even now, she felt a lingering sense of crisis that refused to dissipate.
Even though she had evaded that mob of Mafiosi, the danger warning from the Mirror of the Moon Goddess seemed to prick at her heart unabated.
"Elsa, we should keep running toward the outside, meow..." Boss Cat felt it was no longer safe to hide here.
"Little Black Loaf, did you get through to Brother?" Elsa asked in a low whisper, cradling the little black cat.
"The signal is still bad. If we push a bit further out, where the jamming barrier weakens, it might get better," Boss Cat answered, looking up.
It longed desperately for Lanqi to appear out of nowhere and rescue them from this firestorm, yet it knew full well the odds of Lanqi making out its words were slim.
For now, they would likely have to rely on themselves.
"I'm sorry. I dragged you into this," Elsa whispered with guilt, hugging the cat tighter.
In the escape ahead, if push came to shove, she would use her unpracticed innate magic, [Sin-Judging Eye]. Its intrinsic function was to gauge a target's accumulated slaughter, determining their level of danger; if acting as a detective, it also allowed one to obtain the conclusion first before working backward to prove the process.
At night, she could also tap into the scouting aspect of the Sin-Judging Eye to detect the general location of targets through walls over a short range.
Yet this ability forced her to witness far too much she would rather not see. At the Roland family's banquet last time, she had seen an unsettling number.
Elsa had informed Ursula.
Ursula believed her and immediately notified her elder brother, Marquis Ryan, the head of the Roland family. But after investigating, Marquis Ryan had arrived at a baffling conclusion:
No such person had existed at the banquet that day.
It was as though everyone else's memories were flawed, and only Elsa had laid eyes on that man.
Ever since, Elsa had been plagued by nightmares, afraid to use the Sin-Judging Eye again.
When she consulted Headmistress Violet, the headmistress had gravely warned her never to let anyone know about her innate magic.
Now her brother, Landry, happened to have arrived in Brierda, giving her a rare sense of comfort, yet she terrified herself with the thought of entangling him in trouble.
Sure enough, she had seen something she shouldn't have.
"Don't say that, Elsa, meow! Protecting you is my job, meow."
Boss Cat felt that Elsa placed too much pressure on herself; this girl always shouldered every burden alone.
Their current location was probably closer to the Mafia's interior than to the perimeter, which explained why running for some time hadn't noticeably improved communications.
Escaping or successfully reaching Lanqi would likely demand another prolonged chase.
"Just focus entirely on planning the escape route! I'll follow your lead, meow..."
"Wait. If we're closer to the interior..."
Elsa's gaze darted between two directions.
From the very start, she had sensed an incongruity.
If this truly was Mafia territory, why would the Mafia target her...?
As the biological sister of Professor Landry—the scientific community's current superstar—harming her would inevitably invite massive trouble.
Although the Mafia's current boss possessed some ties to legitimate circles, within the underworld he leaned toward keeping a low profile.
Even several cadres of the Brierda Mafia were running corporate enterprises in broad daylight across the Empire.
And the boss stayed year-round in the Riverport Building at the heart of their territory.
A Mafia boss with such an operational philosophy would hardly issue an order to assassinate her.
Judging by the actions of that leader and his thugs, they seemed more like a rogue faction that had taken an astronomically lucrative contract behind their boss's back!
Elsa gritted her teeth, her gaze turning firm and decisive.
She decided to take a gamble.
The next second, she rose silently. Beneath the moonlight, swift as a black wolf, she plunged into that unknown alley, continuing her flight.
Not far behind, the footsteps of her pursuers drew closer, dogging her every step like shadows.
She had barely charted a new escape route in her mind when a sharp whistle tore through the air, followed by a bullet hole exploding into a brick wall, sending dust spraying.
Perched atop a high container, a Mafia sniper lurking in the shadows aimed cunningly at her.
His magic engineering firearm had been modified with a silencer, producing no gunshot sound at all.
Fortunately, Boss Cat sensed it in the nick of time. An invisible force magic enveloped Elsa, and the bullet deflected as though slamming into an unseen barrier, skimming past her and vanishing into the night.
"Elsa, you're going the wrong way?!" Boss Cat gasped in shock.
It felt Elsa was running backwards—not out of a mistake, but deliberately heading deeper into the Mafia's heartland.
"That's right. We're heading into the Mafia's heartland. If the boss discovers us, we'll probably be safe," Elsa replied, picking up speed.
She was no longer fleeing outward; instead, she dashed resolutely toward the core of the Mafia—that bustling area bathed in faint light.
"Stop right there!"
Seeing Elsa's direction, the crew-cut Mafioso froze for a split second. Once he confirmed it was intentional, he saw through her scheme.
Not just him—the girl's move rattled the Mafiosi behind him.
This hit had not received the boss's permission; it was entirely unauthorized.
But the sum offered by the employer was simply too colossal.
The deposit alone was enough to cover all their missing quotas.
Upon completion, the massive bounty would allow them not only to leave the Mafia, but to achieve lifelong financial freedom.
The current boss was excessively conservative; even if they defected, they wouldn't have to worry about him relentlessly hunting them to the ends of the earth right now.
They had banked on the boss being unwilling to cause a scene!
Yet this cunning girl seemed to have pierced their motives, realizing that the Mafia's inner enclave was her true path to survival!
If the commotion grew too loud and alerted the boss and his confidants, their plan would be utterly ruined, and they themselves wouldn't escape punishment.
"We have to kill her, fast!"
At that thought, the Mafiosi grit their teeth and accelerated recklessly.
Yet the girl darted lithely through the labyrinthine buildings, scaling rickety fire escapes one moment and crawling through tight pipe conduits the next. They could never catch up, and their ranged weapons couldn't breach the invisible psychokinetic shield shielding her.
Meanwhile, Elsa's mind raced.
The Mafiosi's noticeably panicked reaction thoroughly validated her hypothesis:
Their operation was unsanctioned, and they feared drawing internal attention.
"Little Black Loaf, watch for an opening and attack the containers!" Elsa instructed.
Boss Cat nodded and cast Wind Blades.
A series of detonations erupted abruptly, ringing harshly in the quiet night.
Surrounding heavy objects—rebar, shipping containers, even multi-ton discarded machinery—were pulverized, whipping up tempests of dust and debris.
Each blast fell like a heavy sledgehammer upon the pursuers' hearts, turning their faces paler and their movements more frantic.
"That damned b*tch!"
They knew that if this continued, this seemingly frail girl would turn the entire Mafia stronghold upside down.
Earlier, she was being hunted and dared not make a sound; now, she had turned the tables and was deliberately making as much racket as possible!
The louder the noise and the closer to the heartland, the more certain the boss was to notice!
"Little Black Loaf, as long as we reach the brightly lit core of the riverport, we'll be safe," she whispered to the black cat in her arms, as though offering a promise.
"Yeah!"
Hearing this, Boss Cat felt confident once more.
Even without Lanqi, it was still a top-tier driver!
The damp air from the moat chilled the night to the bone.
Far behind them, over a dozen black-clad men moved as swift as ghosts.
Yet now it was their turn to dodge the girl's terrain destruction while doing everything in their power to suppress the racket of collapsing containers.
Their hands were tied.
Their target's nimble grace and the black cat's uncanny powers were thorns in their side, leaving them trapped in a dilemma.
Seeing the distance widen and realizing how difficult it would be to seize her before she reached the riverport core, their anxiety spiked to a boiling point.
Elsa sprinted through the darkness, darting into a winding, maze-like alley.
Flanking the alley were shipping containers stacked dozens of meters high, rust-stained and casting giant shadows across the night.
To Elsa, whose body was burning hot from the sprint, this filthy, dark alley felt like the dawn of hope.
On her fair face, exhaustion and terror were steadily giving way to relief.
Though she couldn't reach her brother, Landry, with the miraculous power of the little black cat he had left with her, she was certain to shake off the relentless Mafiosi behind her!
Ahead, the hazy, brilliant contours of lights grew ever sharper.
Right at the end of the dark alley.
"Almost, almost there, meow!"
Elsa's pupils reflected the points of light gleaming through the darkness.
The crimson moon remained suspended in the heavens, intermittently shrouded by dark gray haze.
Like an evil eye, it cast a dim red luminescence across the ink-black night, looking on coldly at this absurd chase of life and death, or perhaps trembling with excitement for the impending tragedy.
A gust whipped through the alley, and the unsettling eerie feeling turned in an instant into a bone-piercing chill.
The ambient air condensed into frost, making breathing excruciatingly difficult, as though an invisible giant hand had seized everyone by the throat.
Not only Elsa, but even the pursuing Mafiosi turned pale in an instant.
They skidded to a halt, fingers reflexively resting on their firearm triggers.
Alas.
Everything occurred in the blink of an eye.
A shrill, bloodcurdling scream tore through the air, nearly rupturing eardrums.
When Elsa focused her gaze, the heads of the Mafiosi flew into the sky in unison, like a string of snapped kites.
Gouts of blood erupted from the severed stumps of their necks, carving beautiful yet horrifying crimson arcs in midair before raining down upon the ground like a dark downpour, pooling into a foul, stench-ridden puddle of blood.
The headless torsos collapsed like marionettes with their strings cut, limbs still twitching spastically on the ground like mannequins smeared in black paint, chilling to the marrow.
"...!!"
Elsa's eyes went wide, her purple pupils shrinking sharply in sheer horror.
Instinctively, she tightened her hold on the little black cat—the only source of warmth in her arms—feeling it tremble slightly against her chest.
Boss Cat likewise sensed that spine-chilling malice, its fur puffing up all over.
It let out a low, furious hiss that echoed through the deserted labyrinth of containers.
Compared to Elsa, it was several tiers higher, and it located the most dangerous enemy's position in an instant.
Following the cat's gaze, Elsa's breath caught in her throat—at the far end of the bottomless alley, a dark figure was descending slowly, blotting out the sky.
In the center of the dark figure's face were blood-red eyes, resembling the blood moon itself, or rubies formed from congealed blood.
He was draped in formal black attire, crimson silk fluttering in the night breeze.
His pale face resembled fine white jade, yet exuded a chilling aura of death.
The corners of his lips curved up in an exquisitely cruel smile, fangs glinting coldly beneath the moonlight.
"These useless Mafiosi. Good grief."
The red-eyed man alighted leisurely upon the ground, his tone laced with disdain and suffused with a suffocating pressure that made it hard for Elsa to breathe.
Each word struck Elsa's heart like an icicle.
Those scarlet eyes, that visceral aura of repulsion—she could think of only one type of extremely perilous being recorded in the ancient tomes of Saint Creti Monastery.
"Miss Elsa Washington, I hear your eyes can see things they shouldn't?"
Viscount Carmel stared at the invisible psychokinetic barrier around Elsa, shifting his gaze to the black cat in her arms.
Endowed with authority over concealment, he had come tonight purely to clean up loose ends: wait for the Mafiosi to kill Elsa, then slaughter the Mafiosi so dead men could tell no tales.
As for the Resurrection Church cultist who had served as the intermediary to hire the Mafia, he had already been disposed of long ago.
He simply hadn't expected this little wolf girl to be accompanied by a cat that wasn't weak, dragging out the chase endlessly.
If she kept running, she might truly reach the Mafia's heartland, which would spell trouble.
He couldn't let her escape, and more importantly, he couldn't let the Mafia boss capture these rogue subordinates who had taken an unsanctioned job.
"..."
Elsa understood everything now. Her throat trembled, but no words came.
The one before her now.
The one she had seen that day.
The person at the Roland family's banquet with an atrociously abnormal tally of slaughter had undoubtedly been a member of the Blood Clan as well.
When you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes back into you.
The other party clearly knew about her ability.
And for that very reason, they had targeted her to silence her permanently.
"Heh."
Seeing her silence, Viscount Carmel strode leisurely toward Elsa. The pool of blood squelched beneath his boots, as if even the earth shivered before this sovereign of carnage.
Even Boss Cat's psychokinetic barrier at full strength seemed capable only of nudging him slightly, slowing his pace by a fraction.
Were it not for this resistance, he would likely have claimed her head in a flash.
Elsa stumbled backward, only to find no escape—behind her loomed the cold, hard wall of a shipping container, sealing off her path of survival like a locked door.
Dizziness washed over her, the world spinning.
The hope that had just kindled was dashed to pieces, replaced by bottomless despair.
Even if she escaped now, what about next time?
Against this mysterious, inescapable racial power, she and the black cat could never hope to survive.
If you see one bug in a room, it usually means the place is crawling with them. She didn't dare imagine the sheer scale of the Blood Clan's presence in Brierda.
Viscount Carmel closed in step by step, his tall frame emerging from the shadows of the alley to envelop the girl's petite form.
"Could you tell me how many people I've killed?" Carmel asked, standing before Elsa, his voice silky smooth and dripping with mocking malice.
He hadn't seen a member of the Wolf Clan in years.
In any era, torturing and butchering wolves was an immensely entertaining pastime for the Blood Clan, as the Wolf Clan's bodies were tough enough to endure anything without breaking easily.
A wolf's terror and screams were, without question, the most exquisite seasoning.
"..."
Tears welling in her eyes, Elsa sat on the ground, the equilateral triangular verdict mark flickering instinctively in the depths of her pupils.
She clutched the black cat tightly, her slender fingers digging deep into its pitch-black fur as if trying to draw a fleeting illusion of safety.
"Seven digits... You monster, the Goddess will never forgive you..."
Elsa choked on her words, tears of fury streaming down her cheeks. Her vision was crammed with distorted numbers—a coagulation of sin so vast it seemed to blot out the dark shadows at the end of the alley, making it impossible to discern its exact shape.
Aside from this Blood Clan member, she couldn't imagine who else present could have slain so many.
"?"
This time, it was Viscount Carmel of the Blood Clan who was taken aback.
To the Blood Clan, killing humans was like stepping on bugs, and he couldn't possibly keep track of how many maggots he had crushed.
But seven digits? That was absurd.
Wasn't the Sin-Judging Eye supposed to be infallible? Was she playing dumb, or was her ability genuinely flawed?
"Hello."
Suddenly, a warm, firm hand pressed down onto his shoulder. He hadn't even noticed when someone had arrived behind him.
...Wait.
In this alley, there was supposed to be only him, the little wolf girl, and that cat.
Now there was one more.
All at once, realization struck him.
Perhaps, in this alley, there truly was an existence whom the Sin-Judging Eye had judged with a seven-digit count.
And that thing...
Was right behind him.
Chapter 739