A brave man may not live, but he cannot die

Chapter 300 Command Seals
After acquiring extraordinary characteristics, extraordinary individuals gain a magical "sixth sense".

It is a kind of spiritual intuition that can outline calamities or mysteries that ordinary people cannot understand into a form that can be deconstructed by thought, and then imprint it into the mind in an attempt to understand everything that is perceived. However, this understanding or perception is often accompanied by pollution—such as the Riff that Quinn saw.

He found it difficult to determine whether this was still a "person".

This was different from the Reeve he had seen in the garden who was watering the flowers with his daughter. That Reeve was just a blurry figure, like a ghost or some kind of phantom with a physical form. Although it was eerie, it was still acceptable to the well-informed Quinn.

But the Rif before us is different.

His body was so clear it couldn't be clearer.

In the Demon King's Eye, his skin was almost transparent, and the terrifying lines of blue light emanating from his body resembled his blood vessels. However, human blood vessels are not arranged in this way. If Quinn were to describe it, he would simply be a modified cyborg.

The light of the Star Flower is azure and soft, giving people a dreamlike brightness, just like the stars in the sky.

When the faint light of a flower is magnified hundreds or thousands of times, it will no longer be gentle, nor will it evoke a sense of azure; instead, it will become an extreme light that causes pain, like sunspots falling on a person's face.

But that's not all that's terrifying.

Quinn inexplicably felt that these "starlight" rays did not exist within Reeve's body.

Instead, through some means, his body was transformed into a bridge, "grafted" together with the source of this extremely intense light, and Quinn gazed at the source of the starlight through him.

When he realized this, an indescribable twist of fate suddenly descended upon him.

The source of this light was not some star, but countless individual lights, one by one.
"Eye".

Insect-like eyes, crawling eyes, eyes scattered throughout the universe, they pervade the deep, distant, inky sky, watching humanity with madness—

This wasn't the first time Quinn had seen something like this.

He remembered—in March, before he joined Grindelwald, on the night his family's jewelry store was robbed by thugs.

Holding the revolver Ankuya had given him, he secretly climbed up the fire escape stairs at the back of the building to the third floor to save Chaldale, found cover to hide under, and witnessed the battle between bodyguard Graham and the robbers.

Graham was a Sequence 8 Fighter, capable of shattering an entire brick wall with a single punch. It should have been a one-sided battle, where even arcane magic couldn't threaten the superhuman who had an absolute advantage in speed.

The turning point comes when Chaldale is kidnapped and found by a thug named Bates who should have died at Graham's hands. Bates injects her with three vials of "Starlight," a strange, azure substance that fills her wounds like slime and keeps her alive.

The "substance" growing from Bates' body emitted a faint blue light, filled with an undeniable sense of malevolence. The arcane runes that should have been etched on Bates' skin were distorted by this blue light, appearing from a distance to Quinn as if they were indescribable insects crawling on her skin.
And that feeling is so similar to what I feel right now.

But unlike back then, when he could still raise his hand to finish off an opponent from afar, the feeling now was different. Back then, it was like looking at the stars through a screen, but now the entire "starry sky" was descending upon Quinn through Reeve's body, so vast and close that he felt he could decipher the source of that madness simply by looking up!

Almost the instant he sensed something was wrong, the moment the pain of his mental energy being instantly drained swept through his brain, and the instant his eyes were burned and stung by the light, Quinn decided to shut down the Demon King's Eye. This thing had allowed him to see something that should never be witnessed.

However, he couldn't do it.

Before I could react, my thinking suddenly went sluggish, and I was in a dazed state, not knowing what to do.

Their gazes seemed drawn to the "stars" within Reeve's body that connected to the distant universe, captivated like an ignorant person thirsting for truth, unable to look away, unable to close their eyes, unable to fail to comprehend.

Gradually, even though the room was completely silent, he seemed to begin to "hear" an eternal, deep hum permeating the cosmic background. That sound seemed to be trying to speak to him, to instill something, drawing him closer to the common source of wisdom and madness—those stars.
Up, up, up
For no reason at all, this premonition suddenly popped into my head.

Inside the jewelry store, Bates, a robber injected with an excessive amount of starlight, needs to look up. He is looking for something, but the roof and the thick world canopy block his view, causing him to gradually go mad.

But Quinn didn't need to look up; the starlight was right before him, passing through Reeve's body, and he began to understand what it was—

"Kesiupozu Kesiupozu. Kesiupozu."

He understood this set of names to be the names of those "stars".

It was a distortion and alienation of space. He felt as if he was slowly leaving the ground. Even though he was still standing there, even though Reeve was slumped in his wheelchair asleep, even though neither of them had moved, he felt that they were getting closer and closer. He felt as if he were flying, slowly rising, like scraps of paper being carried into the sky by the wind. He was getting closer and closer to them.
"Mr. Shelby?"

Seeing Shelby standing motionless in front of his father, not even blinking, Elon had no objection. After all, he knew that the strange habits of the underworld's eccentric individuals were somewhat peculiar. But it wasn't until he noticed that Shelby's hands were trembling slightly and his breathing had stopped for a full minute that he finally couldn't help but speak.

Shelby did not respond.

The next second, Hakimi jumped out from behind the door and observed the strange man with his master.

“Shelby?” Elon’s tone turned serious.

Shelby still did not respond.

Fortunately, this is what he looks like after disguising himself.

To conceal his dark eyes, Quinn wore colored contact lenses and thick glasses, so Elon and Hakimi, along with their dog, did not notice the gradually emerging blue light in his pupils.

Elon and the dog exchanged a glance.

If this guy discovers something, or does something strange...
Without hesitation, Elon would eliminate this strange man from the mob on the spot to prevent future trouble.

They were willing to turn against Ike, as it concerned the Branson family's two parliamentary seats and all their future plans.

Hakimi took a step forward, then another, his back arching. This clumsy, ugly little pug, usually so lazy, revealed his fangs—canines as sharp as a knight's sword.

Quinn was completely unaware of what was happening around him.

The starlight within Reeve was no longer blinding to him. He had never felt such joy in his life, as if he had grasped the truth of everything. The past was no longer a burden; he had found the answer. His emotions began to calm, his thoughts began to settle, and his soul floated towards the starry sky.
Kesiupozu. Kesiupozu. Kesiupozu.
He was just a hair's breadth away from uttering those awkward, discordant words, words that seemed to be a blasphemy against the world in themselves.

He didn't know what would happen after that. Quinn's thoughts had long since ceased, and even his extraordinary traits—including those of heroes—became as silent as stone statues under the vast, boundless, dark starry sky.

They are too weak to withstand the pollution from everything they see.

Just then, gray mist suddenly surged from the depths of Quinn's eyes.

In an instant, a vast gray fog enveloped him, like a thick wall blocking the starry sky within Reeve's body.

The distant sounds layered around his ears were like a bell that had been struck and stopped. In an instant, Quinn felt as if the world had gone silent, as if everything had frozen in time. His human thoughts gradually returned to his mind, and he began to wonder what had happened.

One hundred and thirty-eight days later, after leaving the Demon King's castle and coming to the human world, Quinn finally heard the Demon King's voice again.

The Demon Queen Ruby's cold voice pierced the boundaries of the world, resounding from the depths of his soul:
"My hero, Ruby Lotalia, commands with her second Command Spell—"

"Qin Chuan—"

"Shut your eyes, you idiot."

With disgust for the trash, the gray mist vanished instantly, along with Ruby's voice. It was as if it had never existed. Quinn's figure swayed, and his vision returned to color. He had been forcibly pulled out of the Demon King's Eye state, and immense fear swept over him. Quinn, who clearly understood what had just happened, almost collapsed to the ground.

But he saw Elon's scrutinizing gaze.

And a pug that had somehow appeared beside him.

“Mr. Shelby,” Elon’s voice was calm and devoid of any emotion, chillingly indifferent, “What did you see?”

The air was heavy with stillness.

Quinn's mind raced. Calm down. Now wasn't the time to think. He needed to find an excuse to get through this, an excuse that wouldn't arouse Elon's suspicion.

"Can you explain to me your behavior towards my father since you entered my house?"

"That seems strange."

Then he saw Shelby rubbing his forehead in distress and laughing weakly.

"I was just thinking..."

"What are you thinking about?"

Shelby looked at Reeve with deep affection, his expression exactly the same as before.

"Can men be this beautiful?"

"?"

"?"

The man and his dog were stunned for a long time by those words.

What is this guy saying?.jpg
There was a feeling of being teased and then holding back.

There were originally three people in the room, and he was worried, so he specifically asked Lucas to come along, so the origin of this smell was very strange.

He even began to suspect Lucas; after all, the boy's face was flushed, and it wasn't a new thing that he liked his sister—the adults in the family were well aware of it.
But in hindsight, that was a huge mistake.

"You...you weren't in jail for soliciting prostitution?" Elon narrowed his eyes. "A gangster like you would go to jail for something like that?"

Brothels are legal in most countries of the Southern Continent. Even in places like Aishwell or Ron, where women's rights are relatively high, prostitution is only considered a public order offense, and one can be released by paying a paltry bail.

“Good question. My fellow inmates have asked me similar questions.” Shelby’s smile bore a striking resemblance to that of a freshman in Grindelwald’s first-year divination class—a perfect imitation, three parts narcissism, three parts lewdness, three parts sexual repression, and one part a point of truth.
"They asked me what the point of this thing is if I don't like women?"

".yes?"

Quinn scratched his head shyly.

"Referring to male needles."

"."

Elon's eyelids twitched. Quinn's mental state was similar when he was captured by the starry sky inside Reeve's body; it was too chaotic.

"You really won't let me touch you?"

"Get out—" Elon had rarely been so furious in his life.

“But I didn’t lie to you.” Shelby winked innocently at him. “I swear to the sun, it’s impossible to make a one-to-one disguise without a careful touch.”

"."

About ten minutes later.

At the gates of Branson Manor, Ike met Shelby and Elon. Shelby gave him a "it's all sorted out" look, so he figured things wouldn't go wrong. Full of confidence, he went up to them to claim credit, enthusiastically asking, "Hey there—"

He noticed Elon's expression.

"Eron, why is your face so red? What's making you so happy?"

Elon wanted to say that was my red temperature, you idiot.

“Nothing.” Elon’s gaze at Ike made Ike uneasy, and he almost gritted his teeth as he said, “Your subordinate had better be as capable as you say. Understand?”

"Uh, I understand."

Ike looked at Shelby innocently, while Shelby smiled even more innocently.

With a bang, the iron gate slammed shut.

Elon felt uneasy as he saw off the two plagues; something seemed amiss.

He had the butler summon Lucas and Chaldie.

On the sofa, Elon, his brow furrowed, asked Lucas first, "When you were talking to Shelby, did he do anything suspicious?"

Lucas really disliked Shelby.

But at this moment, he was still immersed in happiness and didn't want to say anything that would displease Xia Dai'er, so he thought about it seriously and said vaguely, "He seems... well, lecherous. You know, gangsters are very vulgar."

These words instantly made Xia Dai'er feel guilty.

Wow, Lucas is so mean! It's not like he's licking your boots!
She quickly interjected to clarify, "No! Absolutely not! He was looking intently at his father's photo! Completely absorbed, absolutely—absolutely not doing anything else!!"

Ever since.

Xia Dai'er saw her brother hunch over wearily, covering his face with his hands and murmuring:

"Dair, I'm so unfilial!"

"?"

(End of this chapter)