James, who was in the alley, saw Lawrence’s neck almost completely severed, after which he collapsed to the ground and died.
He carefully retreated deeper into the alley, then joined Samuel Carter and the others through the back exit.
“Samuel, that man is dead. Let’s return to the estate!”
Samuel smiled mysteriously, looked at James, and said:
“Kid, the matter isn’t over yet, but we really don’t need to do anything else.”
“William, stay here and watch the police arrest the demon hunters, then return to the estate and report!”
“The rest of you are coming back with me. The butler is still waiting for our news!”
James’s entire body trembled, as though he had only now truly gotten to know this older friend for the first time, and his eyes were filled with disbelief.
Using the demon hunters to kill Lawrence, and then arranging for the police to arrest them as well…
That really was somewhat excessive.
Seeing him standing motionless, Thomas patted him on the shoulder and said with a sigh:
“All right, don’t just stand there. The world of adults is like this, full of all kinds of schemes and deception!”
After leaving the alley, the group arrived at a residential building that looked completely abandoned from the outside.
Samuel knocked on the door three times, then twice more.
Click!
Click!
Click!
After several sounds of mechanisms turning, the thick door opened.
A head appeared through the opening.
The man looked at the newcomers and said:
“Come in. What do you need?”
After Samuel and the others entered, the man looked left and right, then quickly closed the door and locked it again.
“The master has never activated this place before. If you had gotten the password wrong, you would already be dead.”
As he spoke, he lit a kerosene lamp, illuminating the dark room.
Only then did James clearly see what the man looked like.
He was bald, had a reddish, knobby nose, and a very strong, muscular body.
Behind the thick door, the middle section of the wooden panel was actually movable, something that could not be noticed at all from the outside.
Behind the movable panel was an entire array of mechanisms resembling crossbows.
The densely arranged thin steel needles were coated with a strange grease that gave off a faint smell of bitter almonds.
When James looked at the substance, his beast-like instinct immediately warned him of danger.
Even with his Accelerated Healing Factor, something in that grease could cause him serious pain.
“The young man is very curious, but it would be best if you didn’t touch that!”
“That grease contains concentrated cyanide. It is the latest result of research from the family chemistry laboratory. Just 0.1 grams is enough to kill a person. It is extremely dangerous.”
The red-nosed man looked at James and kindly warned him not to touch anything.
Everyone who knew the password to enter this place belonged to the very core of the Blackwood family.
And when he saw such a young man, the man had already guessed his identity at their first meeting.
If anything happened to the master’s adopted son while he was here, only God knew how Aron would punish him!
“Skoll, stop talking nonsense. Remember your position and prepare several good horses for us. We need them urgently!”
Samuel spoke impatiently.
Across Alberta, there were at least a thousand secret agents like Skoll.
If this man thought he could get close to the master’s adopted son and thereby enter the Blackwood family’s inner circle, he truly was far too bold.
Samuel decided that when he returned, he would definitely speak with the butler and suggest that Skoll be taught a serious lesson.
It seemed that people who had lived in the shadows for too long had begun developing some unnecessary ambitions.
Skoll’s cheeks twitched several times.
He realized that his behavior had been too obvious and quickly headed toward the back of the room.
“Follow me. The stables are in the back. The riding equipment is regularly maintained, and the horses are large, healthy, and strong!”
Several people followed him and watched as Skoll turned a candlestick attached to the wall several times.
Click!
Click!
Click!
After the muffled sound of a mechanism activating, the solid wall slowly moved aside.
The neighing of horses came from the space behind it, accompanied by a faint animal smell.
James was completely amazed.
He had not expected that behind the seemingly small room was an enormous hidden stable containing at least a dozen tall and powerful horses.
Several people randomly selected horses and led them out of the stable.
They each took a handful of beans, fed their horses, and gently stroked their manes.
They waited until the animals calmed down and grew accustomed to their new riders.
Skoll then tossed them riding equipment that he had brought from who knew where.
“Everything is new and high quality. Do you need anything else?”
Samuel shook his head and looked at him with disgust.
“No. Go back to your work, Skoll!”
After they put the equipment on the horses, Skoll opened a passage inside the stable.
Once everyone led the horses inside, the tunnel entrance slowly closed, leaving not the slightest visible trace.
The kerosene lamps along the tunnel automatically lit one after another with the sound of flint striking.
After traveling a certain distance, James quickened his pace, approached Samuel, and quietly asked:
“Brother Samuel, do we have many secret bases like this?”
Samuel looked at him strangely, then waved his hand, and the others knowingly moved a little farther away.
“There are quite a lot of them. Every major city and important location in Canada now has at least one.”
“Even I don’t know their exact number, and we are only allowed to use the supplies in those bases during special missions.”
“Many of the people who manage those places were once enemies of the Blackwood family. Because of their special abilities, the master spared their lives, then used certain means to bring them under control and force them to serve the family.”
James fell silent thoughtfully.
Although he had lived with the Blackwood family for so long, only now did he feel that he had never known its true side.
His foster father had never told him about these things.
On the surface, the Blackwood family controlled almost one-third of Canada’s agriculture, commerce, manufacturing, and arms trade.
But no one outside the family knew how great their strength in the shadows truly was.
Seeing James’s silence, Samuel knew that the young man still could not fully accept this shocking information.
He could not help smiling and shaking his head.
And this was nothing.
If he truly told him that the Blackwood family also possessed its own army, the young man would probably be so shocked that he would not know what to say.
After years of development, the Fox Hunt Squad had grown into the six-thousand-man Fox Hunt Legion.
Every man who could be selected for the Legion was a fighter who did not fear death.
Thanks to the special training method designed by the master, after several years of hellish training, every soldier of the Fox Hunt Legion became a top-class marksman who almost never missed, regardless of the enormous amounts of ammunition consumed during training.
At the same time, their close-combat abilities were not bad either.
A fighter at the peak of Manifest Force could easily defeat ten ordinary soldiers alone.
When they formed a battle formation, even Transforming Force masters like Samuel would face serious trouble.
It was no exaggeration to say that a Transforming Force master could still desperately break through and escape if surrounded by fewer than a hundred soldiers.
If more than a hundred surrounded him, even such a master would almost certainly die.
And if they were armed with firearms, as few as twenty soldiers of the Fox Hunt Legion would dare pursue a Transforming Force master.
Samuel remembered the time when he had first broken through to the Transforming Force level.
By the master’s order, more than twenty of his old comrades who had also reached that level participated in a military exercise.
At the beginning, they relied on their enormous personal strength and silently infiltrated the military camp.
After knocking down several hundred soldiers, they were still very pleased with themselves and believed that the Fox Hunt Legion was nothing special.
However, the soldiers of the Fox Hunt Legion quickly adapted.
They stopped engaging them in close combat.
Under Chadson’s command, they picked up rifles, and their shots almost never missed.
The reflexes of ordinary soldiers could not keep up with the speed of Transforming Force masters.
However, these soldiers also practiced the Blackwood family’s martial arts techniques.
Although their simultaneous military training allowed them to reach only the peak of Manifest Force, their eyesight and nerve-reaction speed were several times better than those of ordinary soldiers.
It seemed as though they had been specially trained precisely to fight opponents who moved at incredible speed.
One group of soldiers used continuous fire to block escape routes.
The second group carefully tracked their trajectories and fired precise shots.
By the end of that exercise, Samuel and the others were completely convinced.
The pride of the Transforming Force masters had been completely shattered by ordinary soldiers.
From that moment onward, all underground organizations throughout Canada lowered their heads before the Blackwood family.
The leaders of those organizations began calling Aron the Shadow Emperor of Canada.
“Brother Samuel, we’ve reached the end of the tunnel. Open the mechanism!”
Thomas’s shout interrupted Samuel’s memories.
Samuel took several steps toward the wall at the end of the tunnel and pressed the switch in the place Skoll had shown them earlier.
Rumble!
The wall before them split down the middle, and bright moonlight illuminated the entire group.
Everyone led their horses out of the tunnel.
When they looked back, they saw two enormous rocks slowly moving together again.
They looked at the dense bushes and tree canopies surrounding them.
They had already left Edmonton and were deep in the wilderness.