He is the leader of the Tantric sect in Chagdu.

Today was absolutely the worst day ever.

Connor was in a bad mood at the moment. Recalling the seemingly unsuccessful first half of his life, he couldn't help but sigh.

- Strange things always happen during sewage discharge - The chaos and disorder in the suburbs have been insane these past few days, and even as a nobody, Connor can see the turbulent undercurrents beneath the surface.

In the past few months, there has been a reshuffling everywhere, with all factions restless like headless flies, and all sorts of rumors flooding the air:

First, the Stranglers announced that their "headhunter" position was temporarily vacant, and then news of the death of the "leader" of Eaglehorn Alley spread. Suddenly, both giants lost their leaders, and they will probably be busy with internal strife for a long time. The "suburban alliance" verbally signed by the various factions has been completely ignored.

It's too chaotic. Riots are happening everywhere, especially among the workshop owners in the back alleys. They've gone completely mad, desperately trying to seize more "railway control"—that thing is the lifeline of the outskirts!

It seems that someone is dissatisfied with the current situation and wants to stir up an unprecedented upheaval.

Now, fires are breaking out every day at the main transportation hubs in the suburbs, and countless people have died. "Vultures," or "corpse scavengers," have become a hot profession in the suburbs recently, with everyone trying to find ways to scavenge other people's corpses. The tertiary industry, which had finally started to show signs of improvement, has collapsed.

This makes it impossible to live a life that was already so messed up.

Connor had a feeling that was hard to explain in words: over the past three months, it was as if some enormous, invisible thing had suddenly died in the suburbs, and the unseen behemoth had begun to rot. In this faint stench, scavengers were drawn to it and frantically scrambled to seize and devour the carcass of the invisible thing.

Of course, most of his friends couldn't understand this feeling; they all thought Connor had gone mad.

Who's gone mad...?

This time... the scale of the incident may not be as large as the previous ones, but it is more dangerous for Connor—the previous major events had nothing to do with him, but today, he personally encountered Foundation agents.

Damn it! Why would someone like that cause trouble for a small bar?

Connor huddled in the innermost corner of the warehouse, forcing himself to remain calm, quietly observing the bizarre unfolding of events—

A small, grey fox-like animal was standing at the warehouse entrance.

A black bird perched on his shoulder, and a girl of similar age followed behind him, her steps light and silent, her eyes slightly narrowed.

The fox gently closed the door behind her, her petite figure blocking the faint light streaming in from outside. The entire warehouse was plunged into darkness, and an indescribable tranquility permeated the folds of the space like ointment, the stillness reigning supreme over everything in this area.

Connor swallowed.

No sound.

The deathly silence was broken only when the fox spoke.

Good evening, everyone.

His voice wasn't loud, but it was exceptionally clear, reminiscent of the radiance of dawn—seemingly hot and dazzling, yet utterly devoid of warmth, emanating only a chilling indifference.

He said, "Let's make a deal."

Connor quietly moved to a more secluded corner, burying his entire body in darkness, using the silhouettes of others to conceal his own presence, instinctively avoiding that pale blue gaze.

It's like hiding from hunters in a dense forest.

The visitor is not good.

Connor felt himself sweating profusely; fear, like an invisible blade, tore at his mind and cleaved his spirit.

The squinting, seemingly young figure in front of him exerted an immense pressure he had never experienced before and could not comprehend at all.

In Connor's view, if the sense of crisis emanating from the headhunter of the Stranglers is like that of a ferocious wolf... then that figure is the embodiment of "destiny," the harbinger of "death," and an inescapable natural law, like a natural disaster.

Connor had no desire to resist; his courage dissolved and vanished in the grayness.

He looks like just a little kid, so why?

However, not everyone is as perceptive as Connor, able to glimpse the gray hue flowing within the red liquid.

In the corner, someone quietly raised a gun.

The dark gun holes were already well hidden in the darkness, but this place also eerily blocked out all sound.

Naturally, some people had strange, dangerous thoughts—even knowing that this child was not an ordinary person, could this seemingly fragile and delicate body withstand bullets?

This is a kind of visual luck, but there are always people who are superstitious about such illusory perceptions.

So the hero aimed at the Demon King and pulled the trigger.

"Click—"

The crisp sound was incredibly abrupt in the deathly silence. The person who fired the shot in the corner stood frozen in place, stubbornly continuing to try firing. With each "click-click" sound, cold sweat soaked his back.

Ai glanced in that direction, her face still expressionless, but a hint of mockery flickered deep in her eyes.

- Nirvana, well done.

"Um……"

The mischievous little girl deliberately suppressed her power of silence, making the hero look like a clown.

The effect was like someone letting out a loud fart in a sealed space—a crude but apt analogy. The guy who fired the gun was now in a complete predicament; he had just checked his weapon for the fourth time and still couldn't find anything wrong.

Apart from the few clicks when the bullets were fired, they remained silent in the chamber.

Damn it!

The brave man steeled his resolve, relying on the lingering effects of the alcohol, and slammed the gun to the ground. He opened his mouth to shout again, only to find that his microphone was still muted.

Slang, guns—all the usual street brawling tactics were rendered useless; now he looked more like a clown. Even worse, the fox was using the glimpses of light peeking through the crack in the door to slowly make his way deeper into the warehouse.

He walked around everyone in front of him as if they didn't exist—some made way for him, some foolishly blocked his path, and Ai smiled at them all equally, like a king on a tour.

He stood before the hero.

-Name?

The feeling of blockage in his throat suddenly disappeared, and the hero found that he could speak again. He took a deep breath:

"Fuck you—"

The next instant, he pulled a short dagger from his waist and stabbed straight at Ai Yi. Alcohol was coursing through his veins; since they'd already crossed the line, he might as well go all in. Who was he trying to scare with all this nonsense?

do not!

Connor, who was hiding in the corner, saw this and immediately closed his eyes and pretended to be dead.

It sounded as if flesh was being torn apart.

The darkness was intense, but everyone present had become somewhat accustomed to the warehouse environment, and they all stared intently at the scene before them.

In the midst of their intertwined figures, the crazed warrior suddenly lost his balance and fell forward, the gleaming dagger plunging into the fox's chest—

Success!

.

Wait, no—

The next moment, the tip of the knife emerged from the other side of the figure. The dense darkness, like a background panel independent of the layer of reality, transformed into an unrecognizable, blurry phantom.

How is that possible?

How could you possibly miss at such close range?

The hero thought he might be seeing things. He had clearly plunged his knife into the damned fox's heart, but the feeling of imbalance in his body and the empty sensation in his hand indicated that his confident strike had missed its mark.

"Brother, this is dangerous."

"It won't happen again next time."

Ai smiled, politely stepping aside as she watched the hero fall heavily to the ground. "Darkness is indeed my shell, but you can't penetrate it..."

idiot.

Ai sighed, the mockery in her eyes turning into ruthlessness. She stepped on his wrist, slowly took out her hand spray, and gently pressed it against the back of his head with a gentle force.

Have you undergone brain modifications?

No...no...

"It seems not, that's a real shame."

-Bang--

Connor shuddered violently.

A silent shotgun shell blasted into the back of the hero's neck, shattering his brain and exiting through his forehead, bringing with it a pool of foul blood mixed with murky mucus.

The stupid guy is dead.

Ai slowly shoved the sprayer back into her waistband, then turned to the group behind her: "Continue?"

Continue what? Did you let us speak?

A chill ran down everyone's spine; in the deathly silence, unease and fear were spreading rapidly.

Humans, lacking a strong and fearsome physical form in nature, rely on the medium of "sound" to convey "deterrence." When the ability to make a sound is taken away and communication is cut off, their courage cannot penetrate the body and become a force.

Those who are silent are often more easily captured by fear, and this warehouse is now Ai's territory. He is happy to see this happen—because vessels trapped in fear are often more fragile and full of flaws. Facing a group of lambs to the slaughter, it will be easier for him to bring these people's hearts under his control.

In the past, Hui liked to use this method to suppress dissenting voices.

What a nasty guy.

"It seems no one has any further objections. Now, let's discuss the details of the transaction."

Ai clapped her hands: "Who among you was the original owner of this bar?"

Not long after, the obsequious shop manager from before was pushed forward from the crowd. He looked terrified, confused, and at a loss, so Ai lifted his silencing.

He stammered, "Your Excellency, I..."

"Next, I'll ask, and you'll answer—how long have you been doing business here?"

"Forget...forget...no, I remember, I remember, let me think, about three months, maybe less..."

The store manager, who had originally intended to say he had forgotten, was forced to change his mind after a spray bottle was pressed against his stomach.

Ai sighed softly, feeling that she couldn't expect too much from this lowly old man, and continued to ask, "Three months ago, this bar looked like it was originally, that 'Silence Club.' Do you know what its original owner was like?"

"The Silent Club, I know—this place used to belong to a cult, it looks really weird, but when we first discovered this place, the cult members had mysteriously disappeared, and as for where they went... I really have no idea."

Disappeared—

Three months ago was the time when the Mirror of Radiance fell silent, the point after Ash died.

Ai narrowed her eyes, twirling the gun, and continued with the next question: "Where did all the original items in this shop go?"

"Where did you go...?"

Seeing Ai's increasingly dangerous gaze, the shopkeeper felt a chill run down his spine: "Sold... all those strange things, sold... Sir, I can give you all the money, could you please put the gun away...?"

Has it been sold...?

Although she had expected it, Ai still frowned slightly.

This is troublesome.

Although I've already gained the most important things here—reconnecting with Mo Ya and obtaining the Silent Sequel—there are definitely more secrets hidden in this club than just these.

Leaving aside the missing "disciples," Ai remembers that there was a "library" on the original site of the Silent Club, with a wall full of books—who knows how many secret manuals were hidden inside.

We absolutely have to get this back.

Spinning the short-range sprayer around in her hand again, Ai Yi exchanged a playful glance with the shop manager: "Now, listen carefully—we're about to complete this transaction."

"Get back all the stuff you sold. I don't care what methods you use, where you find connections, or how much money you spend, I just want to see results—"

"Okay, okay, I'll definitely do my best!"

-hehe.

Seeing through the store manager's perfunctory attitude, Ai smiled dismissively.

"boom--"

The sudden, deafening explosion nearly shattered his eardrums. The bullet blasted a gruesome gash into his stomach, and the shopkeeper collapsed to the ground in agony, writhing as pale yellow fat, along with his internal organs and shattered flesh, slowly oozed out.

His eyes widened, seemingly bewildered by Ai's unpredictable mood swings. In those pale blue eyes, he successively displayed fear, resentment, anger, and resentment—

In the end, there is only despair.

People watched, but no one stepped forward.

On this silent land, yet another fool has died without a sound.

Ai raised her head slightly, but her posture seemed to be looking down at me: "All I see in your eyes is a wild dog that never knows hunger. Even as death approaches, you still show me such disrespect. What a pity."

The breathing around us was slowing down little by little, and the living wished they could stop their heartbeats in their chests.

Everything was eerily quiet.

Under the gazes of those who were either fearful or numb, Ai Yi's eyes suddenly lit up as if she had discovered a new toy.

He walked toward a corner.

-Really?

Connor huddled in the corner, trembling, watching the gray figure draw ever closer. He felt he might die, drown in that indifference to life, that grandiose indifference that obscured everything.

Ai stopped in front of the corner, lowered her head with interest, and whispered:

"Name?"

"Connor."

The moment he was able to speak, a trembling voice escaped from his throat. Half of Connor's body had completely lost sensation, as if he had drunk poison, his eyes vacant and lifeless.

Up close, through that body, Connor saw something inhuman.

Like the dull, lusterless color of raven feathers, it rests perfectly on the bridge between black and white, cool rather than icy, restrained and mysterious, spreading outwards in a silent, unrealistic way, filling the atmosphere with gray tones.

Are you afraid of me?

The fox seemed intrigued. He quietly observed the unassuming man before him—very young, probably in his early twenties. He hadn't seen him when cleaning the bar lobby earlier; he must have been hiding.

"Your Excellency, I respect you."

Hearing Connor's answer, which was clearly filled with fear yet forced out, Ai nodded, revealing a smile that was not at all cruel for the first time: "You're quite good... well, your red fluid is much fresher than those idiots', and your eyes—look up at me."

Connor looked up, trembling, and met Ai's pale blue eyes.

Ai leaned down and gently touched one of his eyeballs with her fingertips. Whether it was the contact with a foreign object or the body's instinctive rejection of a foreign object in a vulnerable part of the body, it produced an almost unbearable soreness and pain, but Connor still endured it without closing his eyes or taking a step back.

-Hey, how's this guy?

"The seed still has the right."

-There was an unexpected bonus...

A white dot flashed on Ai's right eye, and the Ember Criterion flowed out along her white beak. In the Insightful Vision, a thin layer of black embers floated in Connor's red liquid.

"Can you handle the transaction we just did?"

"I will do everything in my power to reclaim all your wealth."

Connor knelt on the ground, the black embers flowing in his veins, seeping into his red fluid, taking over his will—he was touching death so close at hand, as if bowing to a king's crown before him.

- That's really nice, the gray perspective.

Ai watched the flow of the black ashes in silence. He had a feeling that if he wanted, these black spots would turn into an invisible poison, announcing the death of the person in front of him.

He patted Connor on the shoulder and looked around:

"I have said that this is a transaction: you give your energy and loyalty, and I give my name as the authority behind you."

Ai poured the black ashes into everyone's red liquid, imprinting the authority to control life and death into their souls.

"I want you to inform every ear in the suburbs, to tell those fools who call themselves the lords of the suburbs, those faction proxies, that they are lowly scum who are eager to assert their presence while the real master is temporarily away."

Those dogs that can't be tamed—

He smiled gently, etching his merciless brilliance into the depths of those minds trembling with fear:

Tell them—Mr. Grey is back.