Taking advantage of the moment, Yu Xian wrapped his arm around Nora and plunged into the elastic bubble.
Just then, the elastic bubble expanded enough to envelop Nora's mother. A second later, all three teleported back to Qilin headquarters.
In the corridors of the headquarters, the surrounding personnel were already very familiar with Yu Xian. After all, he was the only person capable of using spatial abilities inside headquarters—it was impossible not to remember him.
Seeing him return with two people, no one had any intention of stepping up to question him. Everyone merely glanced their way before hurrying off to attend to their own duties.
"This is Qilin headquarters. Follow me!" Yu Xian put Nora down and said to the two of them.
Nora's mother asked in a low whisper, "What on earth is happening? Who sent those killers?"
"Mom, Dad was killed by the Progenitor. The killers were all sent by him," Nora said, her eyes red. As she finished, tears betrayed her once again, spilling down her cheeks.
No sooner had she spoken than her mother froze in place. Slowly, her eyes reddened as tears rolled down her cheeks.
After quite a while, she muttered to herself, "I told him we couldn't trust that old ghost Edward. That rat-faced bastard was never any good. Back then he even tried to persuade me to turn into a vampire, babbling about immortality. As if I'd believe his crap."
"Auntie, this isn't the place to talk. Let's head to the conference room first," Yu Xian said helplessly. Catching sight of him with two weeping women, many passersby were casting increasingly gossipy glances their way.
In truth, his teleportation had brought them only a few steps from the conference room.
Led by him, the trio arrived outside the conference room door. He pushed it open and walked inside. Sure enough, everyone was slacking off—either fiddling with their phones or daydreaming into space.
The situation was tense, to be sure, but without orders from above, there was nothing they could actually do besides wait for news in the conference room.
"This is Marcus's daughter, Nora, and this is Nora's mother. Please look after them for a bit," Yu Xian said to everyone in the room, then seated the two next to Gong Qian.
He whispered to Gong Qian, "Vice-Captain, Marcus was murdered by the Blood Clan Progenitor. Right now the Progenitor is hunting Nora and her mother down. Help me keep an eye on them—don't let them leave headquarters."
"All right. What about you?" Gong Qian glanced at Nora and her mother before asking.
Yu Xian answered seriously, "I still have things I must do."
With that, he returned to Ice City once more.
In Nora's mother's room, two men in black trench coats breached through the window and immediately checked the conditions of the two men in black lying on the floor.
Suddenly, an eyeball bubble appeared out of thin air, gazing at one of the men. That man reacted extremely fast, instantly slashing a blade toward the eyeball bubble.
At that exact moment, Yu Xian manifested from thin air. Holding the Manji Flash Thunder Saber, he slit the man's throat in a single flash.
The other assailant saw this and swiftly raised his left hand to shoot at Yu Xian. Yu Xian didn't dodge the bullets, letting them strike harmlessly against the Reverse Scale Dragon Shield. Looking at him, Yu Xian asked, "Could you tell me what route you took to get into the country?"
Suddenly, he slashed behind him. A hairy arm gripping a dagger was severed in an instant. The black-clad man before him let out a wretched scream as copious blood gushed from beneath his leather coat.
"The Frank Nation's Hairy Hand Squad... Could the Blood Clan Progenitor be hiding in Frank?" Yu Xian murmured to himself, staring at the man.
A second later, however, he dismissed the thought. Since the Blood Clan Progenitor had dared to dispatch forces cultivated within the Frank Nation into Huaxia to abduct Nora, he definitely wouldn't be hiding in the Frank Nation himself.
The real question now was just how many covert factions the Blood Clan Progenitor had cultivated over the past five hundred years using the Blood Clan's wealth.
Yu Xian suddenly flashed forward, cutting down the assailant in one stroke. He teleported the two corpses back to headquarters, then proceeded to clear out the assailants waiting outside.
The force attacking Nora's mother's home was actually a nine-person tactical squad. Aside from the four who had entered to attack and search, there were five others outside acting as backup.
The Frank Nation's Hairy Hand Squad was composed entirely of the Hairy Hand race.
This was an obscure Transcendent race whose progenitor was a monster that had sprouted a thousand arms after consuming a Forbidden Fruit.
The more arms a member of the Hairy Hand race possessed, the greater their strength. They could conceal their hairy arms behind their trench coats, only for them to 'appear' within an enemy's visual blind spot to ambush their target.
Unfortunately, the opponent they faced this time was Yu Xian. He had visual blind spots, but no true blind spots.
Using Super Smell like a full-map wallhack, Yu Xian flashed in and instantly executed four of the Hairy Hand assailants. Then, trapping the last female Hairy Hand assailant in a bubble, he inserted a black thread into her body to draw blood and read her memories while he was at it.
After reading her memories, Yu Xian furrowed his brows slightly.
Every member of this squad had infiltrated Huaxia a year ago, dispersed under tourist identities.
In other words, as early as a year ago, the Blood Clan Progenitor had already prepared a plan to abduct Nora—and even a plan to stand against the entire world.
Of course, his actual preparations had likely begun far, far earlier.
It was even possible that before Yu Xian or Nora were ever born, the Blood Clan Progenitor had already conceived an audacious scheme.
Unfortunately, this squad was mere cannon fodder. They had infiltrated under orders from their superiors, receiving the command to take Nora away immediately following Marcus's death.
While carrying out the mission, they didn't even know what kind of enemy they were facing.
Their attack on Yu Xian was purely because the mission required only taking Nora alive, making Yu Xian an extraneous obstacle to be eliminated.
In short, the intelligence they possessed was extremely limited.
They didn't even know their true employer was the Blood Clan Progenitor.
Having wrapped things up here, Yu Xian teleported straight to Silver City without pausing for breath. He appeared outside Nora's home, and the stench of blood instantly assaulted his nostrils from inside the door.
Walking into the house, he found that several of Nora's human bodyguards were already dead.
Their injuries were remarkably uniform—every one of them had their vitals pierced by bamboo leaves. Yu Xian crouched down and plucked a bamboo leaf from one bodyguard's wound, discovering that it truly was just an ordinary bamboo leaf.
He took a deep breath over the bamboo leaf, and in an instant, a model of the weapon formed in his mind.
The weapon used by the assailant was a langxian, an exotic ancient weapon. Standard langxians were forged from metal, but the langxian used by this attacker was actually made from ordinary bamboo.
Having grasped the situation, he continued inward. Passing through the garden into the main building, he saw that the front doors were riddled with holes from bamboo leaves, and a thick scent of bamboo leaves lingered in the air.
On the floor, several vampires had been reduced to desiccated corpses.
They had all been Marcus's trusted confidants, obviously drained dry of their blood by the Blood Clan Progenitor.
Yu Xian walked up to one of the desiccated corpses, slit his finger, and dripped blood onto the body. In moments, the withered corpse rapidly filled out.
When the 'corpse' revived, she promptly rose, knelt before Yu Xian, and bowed her head. "Zhao Caiying greets Master."
"Just call me proprietor. Your duties remain the same from now on: protect Nora," Yu Xian told Zhao Caiying.
He knew Nora and Zhao Caiying shared a deep bond. If Nora learned Zhao Caiying had died as well, she would probably be heartbroken for a long time, which was why he had used Final Origin Blood to revive Zhao Caiying.
After considering it for a moment, he went ahead and revived Nora's bodyguards on the floor one by one as well. In any case, he was rolling in money now and didn't lack this bit of wealth.
Ordering them to clean up the premises, red light enveloped his body, and he instantly appeared at a tube-shaped apartment building.
Chapter 156