NOVPUB"Mr. Xia, the Prince is waiting for you in Hall 3."
The guard, after pushing open another door, bowed and gestured politely, "Turn left at the end of the hall, and you’ll see it."
The corridor was long, and the walls adorned with carved dragons and beautifully painted buildings flickered with sporadic, dim candlelight.
"Alright, thank you."
Xia Feng smiled and nodded, then headed toward the end of the corridor.
He detected the scent of Evil Power, quite concentrated, almost reaching the density of Evil Dragon Miss.
However, the Evil Power was not active, so it was not inherently from an Evil Beast but merely a high concentration of Evil Spirit Liquid.
"This is getting interesting." Xia Feng reached the end and looked left to see a dark red door looming in front of him.
The door was marked with a gilded "3".
The Evil Power was emanating from this door, but it seemed to be repressed and sealed, hardly detectable by ordinary Spirit Masters below the Venerable rank.
But Xia Feng was no ordinary Spirit Master. As he approached the door, he could sense the shape of the Evil Power inside, seemingly enclosed in a small orb suspended in mid-air.
It was clear now, someone wanted to kill him.
Although it was the Prince who had summoned him, the Prince had no reason to harm him, so it was likely some mischief orchestrated by the Prince’s ambitious eldest son.
And the guard who led him to Hall 3 was probably one of Li Siwen’s men.
This was not a perfect assassination plan, but this being the Prince’s domain, once the deed turned into a fait accompli, the Prince would likely have to cover for Li Siwen.
After all, Evil Dragon Forest was nearby, and it would be all too normal for a First Rank Spirit Master to accidentally trigger something and then die from Evil Power consumption.
Xia Feng looked back, there were no surveillance cameras.
The door was slightly ajar, he knocked as if unaware of anything, and after a long wait with no response, he pushed the door open in confusion.
Inside was a meeting hall, and at the center, a dark red orb, no larger than half a palm, shot towards him as he opened the door.
The moment the orb flew through the gap in the door, Xia Feng nonchalantly shut the door. The orb, sensing something amiss, tried to retreat, but Xia Feng grabbed it in one swift motion.
The orb buzzed and vibrated, and the terrifying Evil Power instantly surged into his heart through his palm.
Crack—
The orb shattered into ordinary glass fragments scattered on the floor, with a short thin metal wire inside dull and dimming.
"This looks like a Spirit Science weapon," Xia Feng picked up the metal wire and inspected it. The glass shard connected at the bottom clearly had ’Ping Shan Technology’ written on it.
"Thud—"
"Thud thud—"
With the influx of Evil Spirit Liquid, the activity in his heart increased again, reaching a critical point. Xia Feng’s complexion slightly changed as a tingling electric current surged from his heart to his limbs and reached deep into his soul.
[Evil Demon Heart Repair Progress: 0.01%]
[Activate Basic Demon Power: Blood Beast’s Shadow]
[Effect 1: Filtered out Blood Beast impurities can be deposited into the shadow which, upon overlapping with the target’s shadow, establishes a shadow passage wherein the target’s shadow can also become a container for storing Blood Beasts.]
[Effect 2: All shadows linked through the shadow passage become weapons to invade the target’s spirit, controlling Blood Beasts to erode the target’s spirit, with the erosion effect depending on the target’s spiritual power]
A flood of information passed through his mind, Xia Feng widened his eyes, "Damn…"
This ability looked quite formidable—killing invisibly, but it required optimal use of light sources.
Thinking it through, he threw a cluster of Blood Beast mist onto the floor, and as it consumed and assimilated the glass fragments on the ground, it vanished into the shadow, disappearing from sight.
Xia Feng looked at his own eerily sinister shadow and suddenly felt his power was inching closer and closer to that of a nefarious super-villain.
It was another case of duplication and mental erosion, utterly outrageous.
Thinking about it, he glanced at the slightly open door and nodded. "Okay, pretend I was never here."
Xia Feng turned around, hands in his pockets, strolling leisurely back the way he came.
*
When flowers bloom, each branch shows its own expression.
Li Siwen watched Xia Feng enter the corridor, then smiled and looked at Mu Qingtong: "Miss Bronze, come with me, I need to talk to you."
Mu Qingtong glanced at the nearby Mushroom and spoke softly, "There are no outsiders here, just speak directly."
"What should not be seen must be discussed in a place where it can’t be seen," Li Siwen said with a smile that wasn’t quite a smile. "Miss Bronze, are you sure you want to talk here?"
Mu Qingtong’s beautiful eyes lifted slightly, and the smile on her mask receded: "Ants always like to boast triumphantly after committing evil deeds, using it to flaunt their mortal wisdom."
"What—?" Li Siwen was stunned for a moment, then realizing, he looked up thoughtfully, "Do you know what I have done?"
Mu Qingtong naturally didn’t know what he had done, but she could quite accurately guess, especially since she had seen many secrets in the memories of the prince’s second son.
For instance, there was a Spirit Science weapon called the Evil Condensing Pearl that the two brothers liked to use for assassination—silent and after death, all the blame could easily be attributed to the Evil Beast.
Mushroom looked at the two confusingly, wondering what they were talking about.
"I have to say, Miss Bronze, you are very clever."
"But you also have many secrets, and that’s not necessarily a good thing," Li Siwen said lightly, chuckling as he held up his phone screen in front of Mu Qingtong.
It blatantly read, "I know you killed my brother. If you want to keep this a secret, come to room 404."
Li Siwen set down the phone, displaying a polite smile, but his gaze was aggressively fixed on the woman in the black dress: "I trust Miss Bronze will make a wise choice."
As he spoke, his lips curled into a meaningful smile before he turned and left.
However, strangely, just as he reached the center of the conference hall, he suddenly stopped in his tracks, his mocking gaze gradually losing its liveliness and becoming hollow.
Leaning on the sofa, Mu Qingtong’s gracefully crossed legs hidden beneath her restrained black dress lifted her tall goblet, the liquid swaying with a blood hue as she sipped it into her red lips.
The dim candlelight softened as she slightly lowered her long eyelashes, drawing the cold killing intent back beneath her golden irises.
Now was not the best time to kill.
There were too many people in the banquet hall, and if Li Siwen suddenly dropped dead, dealing with the contents of his phone would be troublesome.
She would wait until the banquet was over to dispose of this nuisance.
"Your Highness, I am Count Louis’s foster son. Have you considered the project I mentioned last time?" A man walked up to Li Siwen with a smile, handing him a glass of red wine.
Li Siwen looked up, his hollow gaze fixing on the man.
The man paused, worriedly saying, "Your Highness, are you alright? You don’t look very well."
Li Siwen’s neck tilted to the left, he paused before nodding normally, taking the wine glass with an indifferent voice: "Go on."
Seeing Li Siwen giving him an opportunity, the man hurriedly began to describe his luxury project, attracting many people around them.
"You—" The guard was startled when Xia Feng suddenly walked out.
"What about me?" Xia Feng asked, puzzled.
The guard hesitated, then said seriously: "Didn’t the prince summon you? Why did you come out so quickly?"
Xia Feng rolled his eyes: "I feel like you’re playing with me. There’s nothing in Hall 3."
"How could that be..." the guard muttered, instinctively glancing towards the center of the conference hall.
Xia Feng followed his gaze, seeing Li Siwen surrounded by a group of people and the shadows intertwining at their feet.
