However, for several days in a row, the neighboring cabin remained completely empty.
Xavier asked No. 1 and found out that Kane had been staying in the medical pod area, and since he didn’t have access permissions there, he couldn’t get in at all.
Just as he was growing impatient from waiting, the man finally returned.
According to No. 1, every time after running the medical pod’s NSI system, Kane would inject himself with some sedative-type medications to get through the post-treatment period when his spirit and body were extremely prone to agitation and instability.
Xavier knew in his heart that this was his best opportunity.
In the dead of night, disregarding Celine’s identity-based dissuasion, he slipped on a light jacket and quietly made his way to the neighboring cabin’s entrance.
Thanks to the Second District being Kane’s exclusive, single-occupancy area with no partition settings, the access permissions No. 1 had opened for him covered the entire zone without any private areas. Xavier was able to sneak into Kane’s room without a single obstacle.
Walking with light, graceful steps, Xavier silently arrived by the bedside.
Kane was lying on the bed. In the dim environment, his heaving torso resembled a dormant behemoth, carrying a natural, inherent sense of oppression.
Having just been injected with medication, he kept his eyes closed, his breathing long and steady. The fierce, biting hostility that usually surrounded him had rarely faded away, returning to a state of stillness.
A few slender, pearly-white spiritual tentacles quietly unfurled, condensing into translucent, thread-like strands that cautiously probed toward Kane’s temple.
Xavier stood by the pillow. Deep within his pale-golden pupils, wisps of gold and red slowly bloomed from the center, washing over his entire iris and ultimately settling into a rich, vibrant rose crimson.
His small body froze in place, standing stiffly as if stripped of its soul. Yet Xavier’s consciousness had already followed the traction of the spiritual tentacles, catching a glimpse of the dreamscape floating within the man’s mind.
Seated behind a layer of illusion as hazy as a thin mist, a tender picture slowly unfolded.
In a courtyard where spring flowers bloomed in full, two golden-haired figures—one large, one small—sat nestled together.
The child shared similar facial contours and features with Kane. His eyes filled with incomprehension, he looked up at the person beside him and asked softly, “Uncle Andre, you’ve been chosen by divine revelation to be the Son of God. Why don’t you look happy at all?”
The person addressed as Andre merely curved his lips faintly at the words, offering no response.
Fleeting specks of golden light fell all over their identical golden hair, the edges of their strands blurring into a soft, hazy halo.
What a sacred and beautiful color it appeared to be.
Xavier’s conscious entity lingered behind the rose bushes outside the courtyard, his gaze locked fixedly on the golden-haired child as he delivered a mocking evaluation.
Just at that moment, the previously serene dreamscape suddenly began to churn. The warm sunlight dissipated, and the golden-haired child in the courtyard slowly stood up, raising his eyes to gaze in his direction.
“Who?”
Several pitch-black, vine-like entities burst forth from the mist, carrying a chilling momentum as they drove straight toward Xavier’s spiritual body.
The second before the dreamscape shattered, Xavier snapped his eyes open, the red mist within his pupils rapidly dissolving.
Before his vision had even returned to normal, a low, hoarse voice sounded right beside his ear.
“Enjoying the view?”
He raised his eyes in a daze, colliding directly with those low-slung brows and gray-blue eyes filled with a freezing flame. Emotions surged in those eyes like descending heavenly fire and boiling seawater.
Xavier’s brow twitched.
He’d been caught!
Kane flipped over abruptly, his hand shooting out to pin down Xavier’s retreating form. Staring at him intensely from above, he dialed Gu Shen’s communicator: “Get over here.”
With that, he directly severed the communication. Suppressing the raging fury within him, the man’s gaze was as sharp as a predator’s, confirming that Xavier was locked precisely within his hunting range before he spoke coldly.
“Who is your master?”
Kane had originally thought the small intelligent entity came from some faction coveting the Blood Blade, but the memory that had just been triggered made him realize Xavier’s appearance might stem from the Church.
Or rather, from His will.
First having his path blocked, followed immediately by harsh, rigid interrogation—how could someone as proud as Xavier possibly endure it?
The two of them had long since established three rules of engagement; he simply couldn’t understand why Kane kept harping on his origins over and over again.
Besides, he had already made it crystal clear!
Impatiently, Xavier emphasized once more, “I said it before! I am a third-generation vampire prince, a descendant of Cain. No living creature dares to declare themselves a master in front of this Prince!”
“And as for you—”
His pale-golden irises took on a chilling luster. Looking closely, Xavier’s pupils had deformed into a bizarre slit-like shape, making his already stunning and exotic face look all the more uncanny.
He enunciated word by word, “Why did you keep bringing up the Church earlier?”
Kane drew a heavy, deep breath and remained silent, clearly refusing to believe his words.
Receiving no answer, Xavier turned his head away in an equally irritated huff.
At that moment, the door was tapped lightly, and Gu Shen walked in. The moment he entered, he ran straight into the tense, sword-drawn atmosphere between the two. Stunned for a moment, he asked, “Boss, did you need me for something?”
With his gaze locked heavily onto Xavier’s profile, Kane issued a cold command in a flat tone: “Take him apart. Full inspection.”
Gu Shen was dumbfounded: ???
Disassemble… disassemble who? Is it what I think it means?
Xavier instantly flew into a rage, snapping his head back as scarlet bloomed within his pupils: “What on earth are you losing your mind for?! I merely looked at a memory of yours, and you want to take me apart?”
He hadn’t even questioned what kind of relationship Kane had with the Church yet.
This guy… this guy actually dared!
Sensing his master’s intense emotional fluctuations, the pure-white tentacles rapidly uncoiled. Shedding their usual soft disguise, they bared their fangs in a clawing, threatening display of warning.
And the out-of-the-loop Gu Shen plunged into utter bewilderment once again: ???
Hold on! Did you say you looked at whose memory?!
Gu Shen’s gaze darted back and forth between the two of them, doubts swirling in his mind. The Boss, who always acted with absolute finality in everything he did, actually hadn’t flown into a rage on the spot in the face of Xavier’s furious interrogation.
Kane truly hadn’t expected the small intelligent entity to fly into such a rage.
He had to admit that, subconsciously, he had felt Xavier would only trade verbal blows with him—much like how, when he used to tease him this and that way, Xavier would only puff up with anger and curse him as a “crude pirate leader,” rather than…
Catching sight of Xavier’s reaction, Kane’s normally iron-hard heart subconsciously wavered a fraction.
The small intelligent entity, who was always so elegant and composed, now had rage surging in the depths of his eyes, completely stripped of his usual aristocratic self-restraint.
The pure-white spiritual tentacles that had always floated quietly at his side were now completely tensed up. Standing guard in a defensive posture, they shielded him vigilantly, isolating all surrounding threats.
Threats from… him.
Kane’s Adam’s apple rolled slightly as his voice dropped a fraction. “If you stubbornly refuse to tell the truth…”
Before the words could fall, Xavier had already stripped off the jacket he bought in Floris City and hurled it straight toward Kane.
Kane tilted his head slightly as the lightweight garment brushed past his jaw. The impact was painless and ticklish, yet it carried an abundance of provocation and humiliation.
The veins at his temples violently throbbed, and his expression darkened completely.
Sensing that the atmosphere was wrong, Gu Shen hurriedly chimed in to smooth things over: “Boss, don’t be angry. I’ll take him away right now.”
As he spoke, he even discreetly shot an encouraging look at Xavier.
Xavier completely ignored Gu Shen’s gaze. With a cold expression, he straightened his sleeping robe, then raised a foot to kick the soft shoes—also purchased in Floris City—aside.
The tiny shoes landed on the floor without making much of a sound at all. Nor did Xavier pay any heed to the hand Gu Shen had deliberately stretched out toward him; walking entirely barefoot, he left without looking back.
From beginning to end, he didn’t spare Kane another single glance.
The Second District returned to a deathly, heavy silence.
Late into the night, ink-black spiritual energy unfurled and spread out, probing everywhere to search for lingering traces.
Kane stared at the iron-gray metal ceiling. The smooth surface seemed to project an image—first flashing with Xavier’s curious, assessing gaze from their initial meeting, then transforming into the little fellow’s anger and… utter disbelief when he heard him order his disassembly.
This was the first time this perpetually haughty and proud little fellow had ever exposed such an expression in front of him.
With his jaw clenched tight, Kane turned off the light with a cold face.
The image before him vanished instantly.
In the dark, Kane recalled how the equipment containing a covert surveillance system that Wild Hunt had sneaked in previously had been taken apart by Gu Shen into thousands of pieces and wrung dry of all research value once discovered.
In the end, it was either dumped on some bombed-out wasteland planet or turned into a pile of space junk in the lonely void.
…
The silver-haired, golden-eyed tiny doll had shifted from the ceiling straight into his mind.
When happy, he would address him as “Your Excellency the Pirate,” “Mr. Pirate”; when unhappy, he would bare two tiny, milky-white fangs and scold him as a crude fellow.
The pitch-black spiritual energy beat against the bed and walls with near-tangible force, making loud “clacking” noises in Kane’s consciousness as they mingled with Xavier’s voice, making it hard for him to fall asleep.
The sedative medication had zero effect.
He could only forcibly bind his own spiritual energy.
Yet they had already sensed that the presence they liked had vanished. Under their stubborn, persistent probing, they finally broke free from their master’s shackles. Rampaging and colliding wildly, they swept every piece of weaponry displayed on the cabin walls straight onto the floor with a loud, clattering crash.
Kane couldn’t help opening his eyes, greeted instantly by a scene of utter devastation.
With an unsightly expression, he dialed Gu Shen’s communicator.
Connecting call…
The user is busy.
The communication signal was cut off.
The “Tyrant” held a one-way forced override function over his subordinates’ communications, but Gu Shen, as the Blood Blade’s chief engineer, held the sole high-level permission that was an exception.
During high-precision work or higher, his terminal could temporarily block messages from everyone, only providing non-forced response prompts.
Kane stared at the red cross indicating a broken signal, his heart leaping violently as the spiritual tentacles that had nearly filled the entire room tightened madly in an instant.
He cursed under his breath.
Standing up, he strode out with long strides.