"Stop right there!"
Adeline’s voice cracked through the air like a whip.
Yin Zhen turned around.
Adeline stood at the elevator doors, her blood-red eyes locked onto White Phosphorus and the others — sharp and unsheathed, like a drawn blade.
"Did I say you could take her?"
The words had barely left her mouth when an invisible wave of pressure detonated from her body!
Yin Zhen’s skull rang like a struck bell, as if something had slammed into it full force. White Phosphorus and Lighthouse both stumbled back half a step. The Tuner’s expression shifted violently.
A spiritual power surge!
"Miss Adeline, you know exactly why we’re here!" White Phosphorus snapped, fury bleeding into her voice. "Are you trying to get our captain killed?!"
"Your captain," Adeline said, stepping in front of Yin Zhen, "has nothing to do with me."
"I’m sorry, Miss Adeline, but I’m taking her today whether you like it or not!"
Lighthouse bore down on Yin Zhen in long strides, one massive hand shooting out to grab her by the shoulder.
"Lighthouse! Don’t—" White Phosphorus’s voice came from behind.
His hand had barely reached halfway when it froze. Those cloudy eyes went blank in an instant — and then he spun around and drove his fist straight into White Phosphorus.
She twisted aside. The punch grazed her face and exploded into the wall, cracking the concrete and sending dust spraying in all directions.
White Phosphorus lived up to her name — touch a spark to her and she ignited.
"Don’t push it, Adeline!"
She charged in bare-handed, deep crimson flames roaring to life across her knuckles, the heat so intense the air itself warped around her fists.
Controlled by Adeline, Lighthouse lunged at White Phosphorus. His skin flooded with a metallic sheen in an instant — Iron Bone, full activation.
White Phosphorus drove a flaming fist into his chest. Sparks flew. Lighthouse was pushed back one step. There wasn’t even a dent.
His defense against her offense — one couldn’t be hurt, the other couldn’t be caught. Two B-level Transcendents tore into each other like wild animals, every blow landing flush, each impact thundering through the lobby.
The Tuner was the quietest but the fastest to react. Blood silk erupted from his fingertips in an instant — a dozen crimson threads, writhing like living snakes, coiling toward Yin Zhen.
"717, kill him! I’ll take full responsibility!" Adeline screamed.
Yin Zhen rolled sideways. One thread of blood silk grazed her throat as she hit the ground. Two more came for her the moment she landed — she kicked off the wall and launched herself clear. The floor where she’d been standing was sliced open.
There were too many threads. Yin Zhen couldn’t even catch her breath. One caught her across the back — her Combat Uniform split open, flesh parting with it, blood seeping through.
She drew her sidearm and returned fire. The bullets streaked toward the Tuner and were shredded mid-air by blood silk, fragments scattering in every direction.
The Tuner narrowed his eyes, mildly surprised. He hadn’t expected her Gun Technique to be that precise.
"Interesting. The captain’s going to love you."
As he spoke, he drew his other hand from his pocket.
Twenty threads... thirty... more and more blood silk poured out from every direction, weaving into a seamless net that began to close in.
Yin Zhen had nowhere left to go. Her magazine ran dry. In the split second it took to reload, a thread of blood silk coiled around her ankle and yanked — she was flipped upside down, hanging in the air.
The blood silk tightened, cutting into her flesh. Yin Zhen twisted her gun upward and fired at the thread above her head.
Bang!
She dropped and hit the floor, rolling clear immediately.
The Tuner frowned. This test subject was too slippery — impossible to pin down, like trying to catch an eel. Her combat instincts were on par with half the captains in the Third Brigade. He was getting irritated.
"Enough. Time to end this."
He spread both hands wide. All of the blood silk surged at once, weaving into a massive net that sealed off the entire space.
The gaps shrank tighter and tighter, smaller and smaller, pressing down on Yin Zhen from every direction.
The crushing weight of an A-level Extraordinary Ability crashed over her. Short of turning into a cat, there was no slipping out of this net — but Yin Zhen had already made her peace with being taken.
Then, without warning, the shadows behind the Tuner erupted into countless pitch-black tendrils, surging up from the floor to coil around him and lock him completely in place.
The blood silk net burst apart overhead, dissolving into a haze of crimson mist.
Yin Zhen turned to Adeline in surprise. She was the one controlling those shadows.
So beyond Spiritual Manipulation, Adeline had a second Extraordinary Ability — Shadow Manipulation.
The Tuner’s eyes went wide as he thrashed with everything he had, but the shadows only coiled tighter. Adeline’s spiritual power clearly outmatched his.
"I’m ordering you to kill him!" Adeline snarled.
There was nothing else for it. Yin Zhen raised Night Song and leveled it between the Tuner’s brows, her eyes utterly flat — looking at him the way you look at a dead man.
She squeezed the trigger.
Zzzzt—
The electric shock at the back of her neck fired before the bullet did. Her whole body convulsed. The shot went wide, grazing the Tuner’s temple as it flew past, carving a deep gash through the skin.
Bang!
The bullet punched into the wall behind him. He stood there, eyes wide, blood sliding down his cheek.
So close.
Just a hair’s breadth — and his skull would have been blown open.
"Everyone stand down!"
Victor’s voice came from the entrance. Yin Zhen lay face-down on the floor, her entire body paralyzed, unable to move.
Victor stood at the lobby doors in a precisely tailored black trench coat, a palm-sized remote control pinched between his fingers, four fully armed Saint Group security personnel behind him.
The remote was linked to the tracking chip embedded at the base of Yin Zhen’s neck.
Everyone went still. Adeline turned a furious glare on Victor.
"Please don’t be upset, Miss Adeline." Victor smiled lightly, pocketed the remote, and flicked a hand at the security team. "Take her."
Two of them moved forward and hauled Yin Zhen up off the floor.
"Lighthouse!" Adeline hissed.
Lighthouse charged forward, swinging at the two guards.
Victor moved — no one caught how — and in the next instant he was standing directly in front of Lighthouse, driving a single punch into his gut.
Lighthouse’s seven-and-a-half-foot frame folded like a shrimp. He dropped to his knees, both hands braced against the floor, dry-heaving without stop.
His Iron Bone ability was still active. The metallic sheen still gleamed across his skin. And yet one punch from Victor had put him on the ground, unable to stand.
At the same moment, Adeline staggered back a step, the impact breaking her Spiritual Manipulation over Lighthouse. Shadows poured out from beneath her feet and reshaped into a dozen razor-black blades, driving at Victor from every direction!
Victor didn’t move. He stood there and let them hit him — and they shattered on contact, splintering into nothing, as though they’d struck solid steel.
He glanced down at the hem of his coat where the shadows had pierced through, and brushed it off with one hand.
"Miss Adeline." He raised his head, that same polished smile still on his face. "You truly are the purest bloodline and the most gifted of the Cavendish family — inheriting both Lilith’s Spiritual Manipulation and Shadow Manipulation. But you’re still young. You haven’t honed either nearly enough."
Victor kept walking toward her, each step slow and deliberate, as casual as an evening stroll.
Adeline held her ground, but the color had drained from her face under the invisible weight of his presence. Every instinct screamed at her to run — but her pride kept her feet planted.
Victor stopped three paces in front of her.
"Miss Adeline, your father would not want to see you make an enemy of the Dracula family. And this experiment is of critical importance to the Saint Group."
Adeline’s hand clenched at her side. She opened her mouth — and the same choking sensation seized her throat, the words dying before they could form.
Victor waited three seconds, then smiled with quiet satisfaction.
"Good night, Miss Adeline. May Lilith of Moon City watch over you and the Cavendish family always."
He turned away — and the moment he did, his expression dropped like a stone. The pale, blood-tinged eyes went cold and carried a quiet, lethal edge. He fell into step with the guards hauling Yin Zhen and walked out into the dark.
Silence settled over the lobby.
White Phosphorus slumped against the wall, breathing hard. Where Lighthouse had landed a blow on her left shoulder, a shattered scapula jutted through the skin in a mess of blood.
Lighthouse was still on his knees, one hand pressed to his stomach, unable to get up.
The Tuner stood where he was, fingers touching the gash at his temple. His hand was still shaking.
Adeline stared in the direction they had gone. She reached down and picked up Night Song where it had fallen from Yin Zhen’s hand, her expression unreadable, her lips moving without a sound.
"I’m sorry, 717..."