The night had grown deep, and the clamor on Brierda's Broadway Central Square had gradually dispersed.
The opera house's main illumination was already extinguished, leaving only a few soft nightlights that plated the magnificent building's silhouette in a faint golden glow.
In front of the theater doors, the last lingering spectators were reluctantly departing.
"Tonight's public premiere was simply spectacular."
"I think when the original work gets reprinted, they could consider altering the plot."
"Speaking of which, have you ever heard of those two actors before? They're so talented. If there weren't a war going on, they'd definitely be touring nationwide."
They spoke in hushed voices about the wonderful performance just now, the lingering thrill still painted across their faces.
Inside the lobby, Brierda Opera House began its routine closing procedures.
Footsteps in the main auditorium echoed across the empty floor, punctuated occasionally by the distant click of folding seats as the staff tidied the house and carefully dismantled the set.
In the backstage area, the performers had already removed their makeup and departed.
One by one, the dressing room lights flicked off.
Along the long first-floor corridor, only a handful of rooms still cast a faint glow.
Meanwhile, the theater's second floor remained as bright as day.
"Miss Abigail, thank you very much for being willing to meet with us privately."
Lanqi and Talia had finally received an invitation to meet with Abigail inside the opera house.
Through the half-drawn curtains, a rather spacious mansion terrace was visible outside the window.
The interior floor plan covered roughly the same area as the opera house's entire auditorium. Blending the style of an age-of-gods temple with a modern library, this space belonged exclusively to Abigail as her private residence.
"Just which friend of mine introduced you two?"
Abigail pressed a hand to her forehead. Her pure silver-gray hair, cascading like a waterfall, gleamed with a metallic sheen beneath the lamps.
She wore a black off-the-shoulder evening gown whose finely tailored fabric clung to her exquisite curves. A black gemstone necklace encircled her throat, highlighting her fair skin. At that moment, she was leaning back against the sofa, seemingly suffering a severe migraine.
Blaming the two was naturally out of the question. After all, they had saved the show; otherwise, she might have had to go on stage herself tonight.
But those two...
When asked to perform, they had actually dared to accept!
Even now, Abigail still felt a lingering chill of dread, deeply shaken by the sheer risk.
They were genuinely two amateurs! Relying solely on dumb luck, raw nerve, and their natural resemblance to the characters, they had somehow bumbled their way through, pulling off a hair-raising stunt that completely fooled the entire audience!
"It was Mr. Barton—Mr. Barton Hall of the Mafia—who recommended we come find you,"
Lanqi replied politely.
Talia nodded in silence, sitting beside him without a word while focusing her senses on the space around them.
Its complexity far surpassed even the Silver Palace beneath the Brierda Mafia's turf.
The vaulted ceiling rose roughly fifty meters high, painted in a style similar to the opera house's auditorium. However, the surrounding walls were lined with dark brown solid wood bookcases stretching all the way to the top. Every single shelf was packed with rare musical and theatrical manuscripts, without a single tome on magic engineering—leaving Talia hard-pressed to imagine just how disdainful Abigail was of her own genius in the field.
Aside from countless antique collections, where they sat in the center was a suite of sofas and a coffee table in the style of the ancient Vence Free Federation, with an exquisite silver tea set resting on top.
A faint scent of sandalwood drifted through the air. A cabinet along one wall displayed an assortment of fine liquors and crystal glasses. The entire space was bathed in warm brass-toned illumination, while the terrace outside offered a sweeping view of Broadway Central Square.
Yet things were not as simple as they appeared on the surface.
Beneath every wall lay spatial barrier rune engravings far beyond her comprehension.
Abigail, a Tier 7 spatial magic artisan, possessed mediocre combat strength in her own right.
But inside a stronghold she had painstakingly constructed, the situation was an entirely different story.
Talia had originally been quite averse to entering such dangerous, unknown territory.
However, having determined that Abigail's invitation carried no hostility, she had ultimately agreed to come with Lanqi.
"Barton? You're acquaintances of his?"
Abigail sat up a little straighter, looking over Lanqi and Talia. It had never crossed her mind that Barton would happen to save her skin.
"Yes. This is the token Mr. Barton gave me."
Lanqi drew a silver cross brooch from his gray coat pocket, placed it on the glass surface of the coffee table, and slid it toward Abigail.
"It's indeed his."
Abigail picked up the brooch, murmuring thoughtfully as she examined the light reflecting off it.
From what she knew of Barton, he would never lightly give his personal keepsake to someone else.
While she and Barton shared a unique communication channel, it was unfit to be displayed before others or have its existence revealed. Barton must have taken their established rules into account, which explained why he hadn't contacted her directly.
"What brings you to me?"
Abigail handed back the silver brooch, her tone softening slightly as she asked.
"The two of you certainly aren't ordinary people. I can tell you're both very strong—especially her."
She pointed toward Lanqi, then shifted her gesture to Talia.
These two were clearly exceptional figures.
There was no reason she shouldn't have heard of their names.
Yet regardless of who they were,
since they had done her such a huge favor, it was only right for her to help if they needed assistance in return.
"It's like this, Miss Abigail,"
Lanqi said, dropping his disguise.
"I am actually Professor Landry of Saint Creti Monastery. I ran into some trouble today, so I had to change my appearance to avoid prying eyes and come to the opera house to see you."
He gradually shifted back into Landry's form—black hair and blue eyes.
Upon hearing the name "Landry," Abigail's pupils trembled ever so faintly, and the rhythm of her breathing subtly shifted.
"Professor... Landry...?"
Abigail gave a hesitant smile and asked.
"I am terribly sorry for concealing my identity, but we were genuinely referred here by Mr. Barton."
Lanqi believed that even without stating it outright, Abigail could likely deduce his intentions—
He needed her support with the Imperial military.
"It's fine, it's fine. Why apologize?"
Abigail maintained a flawless hundred-point smile, waving her hand.
"...Of course I must apologize,"
Lanqi said, feeling Abigail didn't seem angry.
"There may have been a misunderstanding when we met, and we only wanted to help you to the best of our ability, which is how things ended up that way."
He couldn't quite read what Abigail's true attitude was.
Abigail seemed to understand, yet didn't entirely believe him. Tucked beneath her demeanor was a barely perceptible sarcasm and chill; or rather, in that very instant, she had thoroughly distanced herself from him on some level.
Talia watched Abigail, unable to decipher what was running through her head.
"Professor Landry, so you wish for me to help you expand your influence in the Empire's magic engineering circles, and make the Imperial military value you even more personally, is that right?"
Abigail asked point-blank.
"That is indeed correct,"
Lanqi admitted.
"May I ask a question first?"
Abigail did not answer whether she could or could not. She merely placed a hand over her chest, bowed slightly, and inquired with keen interest.
"Please, go ahead."
Lanqi nodded.
"How did you manage to suddenly become so enlightened lately, proposing a whole series of principles like mana fission one after another? I'd like to consult you on that first..."
Abigail's voice remained calm and unhurried.
"..."
Right at that moment,
as if keenly sensing a subtle shift in the air, a glint of vigilance flashed in Talia's golden eyes.
The smile remained on Abigail's lips, but deep in her eyes, it had turned frigid and sharp.
Her fingers lightly caressed the black gemstone necklace, and a dangerous aura permeated the room.
The hands of the antique clock had just crept past eleven. Time seemed to freeze in that instant, and both Lanqi and Talia felt an invisible pressure that set their hearts racing.
In a split second, the lights in the hall flickered, and the candle flames began to sway erratically.
"What are you doing?!"
Talia darted forward to shield Lanqi, whirling around to seize Abigail. She knew that at this moment, Abigail was no longer the friendly conversation partner from earlier, but an outright enemy!
Suddenly, a deep, resonant hum, like a morning bell from an ancient sacrificial rite, reverberated within this confined space.
The soundwaves expanded in visible ripples, stirring layer upon layer of undulations in the air and tearing countless fine fractures across the frozen fabric of space-time.
The cherished opera manuscripts on the shelves fluttered without wind, and the portraits of famous divas in gilded frames seemed to come alive, watching the sudden upheaval with scrutinizing gazes.
Almost by sheer instinct, Talia moved to shield Lanqi from this spatial magic power that had already reached the Tier 8 level.
The raw power behind the spell was not overwhelmingly destructive—a spell triggered by a high-tier magic apparatus would at most leave her slightly injured, but Lanqi could never withstand it.
Yet the gears within this space turned ruthlessly.
Just as Talia was about to suppress Abigail with her mind magic and intercept the spell unleashed by the black gemstone necklace, space abruptly warped, and a mirror surface roughly two meters tall materialized soundlessly out of thin air.
Talia felt the weightless sensation of striking empty air. The feet that had danced so gracefully on stage moments ago now found no foothold to exert force.
"Lan—!"
Before her voice could reach him, she passed right through Lanqi's fading, translucent silhouette, as if clutching at a wisp of dissipating morning mist. When her vision cleared, only emptiness remained.
The room was still the same room.
But in front of the sofa, both Lanqi and Abigail had vanished.
"Lanqi, can you hear me?"
Talia looked around in all directions.
She suspected she had been cordoned off into another channel of this space, unable to return to where Lanqi and Abigail were until it was dispelled.
"Don't you dare get hurt! She can't keep me trapped for long!"
She shouted in panic. No matter how much damage she wrought, it felt as though she were the sole inhabitant of this world; she could only cause it to tremble faintly, unable to find the core coordinates to tear the spatial node open.
The reality confirmed her suspicions: though she was ostensibly mere inches from Lanqi, she received no response from him.
...
Inside the original room.
The fluctuations of spatial mana gradually subsided, and the vortex vanished without a trace.
The second floor of Brierda Opera House plunged back into dead silence, as if everything just now had been nothing more than an illusion.
Lanqi sat entirely alone in the center of the magnificent mansion.
A trace of the floral fragrance that usually accompanied Talia seemed to linger in the air, mingling with a faint resonance of mana to remind Lanqi that what had just occurred was no hallucination.
"Miss Abigail? What are you doing?"
Lanqi asked Abigail, who had suddenly launched her attack across from him.
She seemed to have no intention of attacking him further for the moment.
Or perhaps she believed that with Talia out of the picture, he had lost nearly all of his threat.
"You certainly have nerves of steel..."
Abigail sneered, crossing her legs.
"Who on earth are you?"
Narrowing her eyes, she observed Lanqi and demanded.
"I'm Landry,"
Lanqi replied with absolute certainty.
Just as when Nicholas, Section Chief Kestrel of the Imperial Special Operations Department, had questioned him, he could not give any other answer.
"Still lying? That's getting boring."
Abigail tilted her head back, as though finding it utterly absurd.
"Why do you say that?"
Lanqi inquired in confusion.
His gaze swept across the room.
The wall clock ticked rhythmically, each chime sounding like merciless mockery directed at him.
Though he hadn't admitted anything, he inwardly had an inkling that Abigail probably wasn't fishing. Her decisive strike against the far stronger Talia indicated she likely possessed solid proof.
"Landry is my junior disciple-brother. Do you really think I wouldn't recognize him?"
Abigail's gaze grew progressively piercing, her patience for this impostor's lies exhausted.
"I already thought it was impossible for someone of Landry's caliber to achieve such things. Even given another ten years—no, even a hundred years—he could never have formulated such profound theories on fire and sealing. Now I am certain: he was indeed murdered and had his identity stolen."
Her voice dripped with intensifying hatred, her fingernails digging deep into her palms.
"Wait, Landry's death had nothing to do with me,"
Lanqi hastily explained.
He realized how dire the situation was now.
Setting aside why Abigail was Landry's senior disciple-sister, when connecting all the dots, in Abigail's eyes, he was practically the culprit who murdered Landry!
Barton's token had likely been swindled under Landry's guise as well, meaning Barton's favor was no longer of any use.
Perhaps because his and Talia's earlier performance in the theater had been so comedic that they didn't look like villains, Abigail had granted him one final shred of courtesy and refrained from striking him down immediately.
"Then tell me, what happened to my junior brother Landry?"
Abigail rose to her feet, stomping one foot onto the coffee table and looking down at him.
"He... probably isn't coming back."
Lanqi choked on his words.
"Fine. Since you admit he was murdered, and you know he was killed, yet claim you aren't the killer, then tell me: who is the culprit?"
Abigail shed every trace of an opera director's demeanor, turning into an imposing, fierce interrogator.
"It's... well..."
Lanqi was left at a loss for words once again.
He couldn't very well sell out the Allied forces.
If Abigail went and tracked down the Allied spy, Miss Unity, and turned her over to the Empire, then Lanqi would truly become an Honorary Imperial.
"Hah."
Abigail let out a cold sneer and took her foot off the coffee table.
She couldn't be bothered to waste more breath on this clown.
Handing him over to the right person would pry the intelligence out of him soon enough.
Abigail retrieved a magic card swirling with pink brilliance, tapped it lightly, and held it to her ear.
Lanqi stared in astonishment at the communication card in Abigail's hand.
It was practically identical to the one Landry had owned.
"Which... number are you?"
Lanqi asked, gazing at Abigail from the sofa.
Abigail spared him a glance without replying, focusing entirely on the communication at her ear and waiting for the call to connect.
A few seconds later, static crackled from the translucent pink communication magic.
"Teacher, come to the opera house. I caught a big fish. Your guess was right—there's something wrong with Landry,"
Abigail spoke swiftly to the other end.
"But I'm in the middle of investigating something very important, and teleporting over takes a lot of mana."
The communication magic card flashed intermittently as a faint male voice came through.
"When I tell you to come over, you come over! Stop making so many excuses!!"
Abigail barked into the communication magic.
"..."
The other person didn't dare say another word.
"Fine,"
was all he said.
Abigail promptly hung up the call.
Chapter 756