Xing Tie: Wait a minute! How come Weng Xing has two saviors?

Her voice was lowered even further, almost a whisper.

“Listen, Bai Mo,” her gaze suddenly turned extremely serious.

“I will be prepared for… Ohma to lose the Senate.”

But that doesn't mean I can protect you! You must remember that the Senate has survived to this day not only because of its deep roots, but also because of that renowned 'celebrant'!

His existence is their greatest reliance.

This also means that after you did 'that', I cannot openly offer you asylum in front of the thousands of citizens of Ohma.

Under the watchful eyes of the public, the rules are the rules.

"But, if... I mean if you really encounter a problem you can't solve on your own, use this. It will connect you with me in real time."

The Golden Blood have already considered you one of their comrades, and we've always been there for you.

Bai Mo's smile remained unchanged, but a fleeting, almost imperceptible emotion flickered in the depths of his deep blue eyes, as quick as an illusion.

He calmly tucked the gold thread, which carried immense risk and promise, into his sleeve. "I understand, Ms. Aglaia."

He nodded slightly, his movements elegant yet carrying an undeniable decisiveness. "But rest assured, I know what I'm doing."

His gaze inadvertently swept over the spot where the grilled fish had been placed—it was now completely empty, even the silver plate that had held the fish had vanished without a trace, as if it had never existed.

A genuine smile finally appeared on Bai Mo's lips as he softly said:

"After the Senate made such despicable and bottom-line threats against me and those around me..."

"They actually have the nerve to send a 'gift' to my birthday party today? And they call it 'celebrating my birthday'?"

He let out a short, cold chuckle: "Ha. While I must admit that the liquor was indeed 'clean,' and even included some rare vintages aged for a hundred years, the act itself..."

Bai Mo slowly turned around, his back to Aglaia, facing the deep night outside the banquet hall doors.

His silhouette stood tall and solitary in the shadows, exuding a newfound aura of power—no longer the ease or pretense of before, but a refined and deadly presence capable of tearing through the night.

"This is no ordinary behavior. This is blatant provocation, a wanton trampling!"

"For this kind of scum who disregards the bottom line of others..."

Bai Mo didn't look back. He strode forward, his figure resolutely disappearing into the thick darkness outside the door, leaving only his last cold words echoing in Aglaia's ears:

"We absolutely must use a powerful elbow strike!!!"

Deep within the Senate, in Katniss's banquet hall.

The crystal chandelier illuminated the luxurious banquet hall as if it were daytime, and the air was filled with the sweet, decadent scents of expensive incense, delicacies, and power.

Golden goblets clinked, producing a crisp, hollow sound. The elders sat around the long table, their faces flushed with the satisfaction of victory.

"Hahaha, Elder Katniss, your move is truly a stroke of genius! If you ask me, we should have used such swift and decisive methods to deal with that arrogant brat long ago!" A fat elder raised his glass obsequiously, his greasy face full of flattery.

“Exactly! It’s almost the third day,” another gaunt elder immediately chimed in, his eyes gleaming with greed and cruelty.

Once the deadline is up, we won't have to worry about Bai Mo not submitting and becoming our most obedient puppet! At that time, the Holy City..." His voice trembled with excitement.

Kainese Ohma sat at the head of the table, her scarlet lips curving into a domineering smile. She raised her glass high, her voice slightly shrill with elation:

"Gentlemen! To our impending total victory! To utterly crush those self-important 'Golden Descendants' who are born to be trampled underfoot! Cheers!"

"Cheers!!" The frenzied cheers almost lifted the roof off, as the elders were intoxicated by their impending acquisition of supreme power.

However, on the edge of the commotion, Lai Gushi, sitting in a corner of the banquet, seemed to suddenly realize something.

Chapter 76 The Senate: We're usually the ones setting the traps, but today we've been set up.

Lai Gushi turned slightly to the side, bowing slightly to Katniss, who was seated at the head of the table, with an extremely restrained and distant demeanor:

"Elder Kaines, please forgive my rudeness. The bodies of the Antikythera people are naturally averse to the hazy intoxication brought on by alcohol."

Lai Gushi's voice was steady, "Before leaving, please allow me to offer my pure spirit in place of this cup..."

Finally, he paused, his gaze meeting Katniss's ambitious eyes, "To your... unfathomable ambition."

Before he could finish speaking and before Katniss could respond, Ragus's figure had already vanished silently and swiftly outside the noisy door, like ink blending into the shadows, leaving Katniss, who was in the main seat, with a fleeting look of displeasure in her eyes.

Outside the Senate, the corridor of death

"Are you ready, hyenas of the Senate?" A whisper, carrying a mocking chill like icy shards colliding, gently echoed through the brightly lit yet silent outer corridors of the Senate.

Bai Mo's body seemed to become the shadow itself, pressed tightly against the cold, rough stone wall, with only his right index finger hanging at his side moving gracefully within a very small amplitude.

A cold glint flashed at his fingertips with his heartbeat—it was a dagger with an ancient design and smooth lines.

Ironically, this appears to be one of the "precious works of art" that the Senate had previously sent out insincerely?

At the end of the handle, a thin, almost invisible golden thread is wrapped around it, its subtle luster flowing in the dim light.

This strand of gold thread is a token delivered by Aglaia, carrying both promises and risks.

“I spent a very long time carefully ‘observing’ the fragments of memories about the ‘Purgers’ that Sister Xilian had condensed.”

Bai Mo's lips slowly curled up, the curve so cold it was devoid of any warmth. The rhythm of his fingers suddenly stopped, as if time itself had frozen.

"Not for any other reason than to witness with my own eyes the desperate, ugly... frozen image of each of you 'cleansers' as you take your last breath."

The gold thread wrapped around the hilt seemed to come alive, instantly taut like the strongest bowstring!

In the next instant, the ancient dagger was no longer a simple projectile, but was launched by Jin Si with terrifying power beyond the mortal realm and control that was accurate to the millimeter!

It transformed into a silver-white lightning bolt that tore through the air, emitting a sharp, piercing shriek!

Tsk! Tsk! Tsk! Tsk! Tsk!

The once solemn and tranquil corridor was instantly transformed into an echo chamber of death! Silver lightning refracted and bounced wildly between the towering stone walls on both sides, which were carved with the glorious history of the Senate!

Each icy impact was accompanied by a short, muffled groan, almost swallowed by a sharp whistle, and the piercing sound of scalding liquid violently splattering onto the ancient stone wall. Dark red patterns rapidly spread and flowed across the moonstone, like paint carelessly splashed by a painter from hell.

That originally warm and gentle golden thread was soaked and stained red by the scalding blood drawn along the way during the high-speed dance of death, leaving behind a series of scarlet and dazzling deadly trails, like a venomous snake that had drunk its fill of blood and gone berserk, weaving a web of death in the narrow space!

The cold stone bricks greedily absorbed the splashed heat, and the air was filled with an intense, pungent, metallic scent of rust.

Bai Mo's heart, however, remained as still as polar ice: midnight had passed. Although... he hadn't wanted to commemorate his parents' death anniversary with blood.

But... a comforting thought flashed through his mind: if his companions at the Ai Li Secret Pavilion knew that what he had personally delivered tonight were those villains who had tried to harm Sister Xi Lian, they... would surely forgive him for this special "gift," right?

No…that’s not right. Bai Mo listened silently to the system’s voice in his mind, a surge of madness mixed with absurdity and coldness welling up inside him; he almost chuckled aloud.

Ha...hahaha! They...don't even qualify to go to the underworld? What a...perfect ending!

"Hmph~?" A light, almost eerie humming sounded from the shadows at the end of the corridor.

Bai Mo's figure appeared like a ghost, his finger simply hooking gracefully.

The crimson-gold thread, now heavy and stained with sticky blood, suddenly contracted as if it possessed sentience, precisely pulling the life-sucking dagger back into his fingers with a "whoosh."

(Aglaia: What is this? My camera is covered in blood?)

A few drops of blood splattered onto Bai Mo's head, bending the once unyielding white ahoge! It stained him red!

He lowered his eyes, glancing at the warm, sticky crimson threads wrapped around his fingers, and the drops of blood constantly dripping from the dagger, and let out a light, cheerful chuckle:

"Cleaner's Code of Conduct, Article 21: 'Always maintain personnel on guard to the left and right front'... Huh?"

The laughter was laced with deadly sarcasm, and it was particularly clear in the empty and deathly silent corridor. "A thousand years have passed, and you're still too lazy to even change the position of the 'road sign' on guard?"

It's amazing... they've drawn each and every bullseye perfectly and presented them to me. Tsk tsk tsk.

Bai Mo's figure, like a ghost defying the laws of the world, gracefully hangs upside down above the magnificent yet cold dome of the Senate.

His toes lightly touched the stained glass and reliefs depicting ancient gods and epic battles, his steps as leisurely as if he were strolling along the corridor of his own garden.

Gravity seemed to lose its meaning around him, and the hem of his robe fluttered upwards against all reason, creating a chillingly inhuman feeling.

Below, in the spacious corridors and halls large enough to accommodate an army marching through, a large number of Senate private soldiers, clad in heavy steel armor and carrying standard long swords, were patrolling in formation.

Heavy footsteps echoed between the empty stone walls, and the sound of armor scraping against each other produced a dull metallic scraping sound.

Their wary eyes scanned ahead and to the sides, completely unaware that a deadly shadow was looming over the "sky" above them.

The bloodshed outside the Senate has not yet seeped into this area, and everything seems to be under control.

However, as Bai Mo silently stepped across the dome, the fully armed soldiers directly below him suddenly froze in their tracks!

The decree states: "In this place, anyone wearing armor and carrying a sword shall—bleed from all seven orifices, have their bones shattered, and die in agony."

It was as if an invisible giant hand had instantly gripped their hearts and blood vessels; their raised legs froze in mid-air, their hands holding knives stopped at their waists, and their twisted necks stiffened into bizarre angles.

Time seemed to be pulled away, leaving only the teeth-grinding clattering sound that suddenly came from the gaps in the armor—the faint sound of bones twisting and cracking under an irresistible force.

Immediately afterwards, thick, dark red blood, as if forcibly squeezed out from the inside, began to gush out, and then surged forth, from the seams between the helmet and neck armor, the breathing holes in the faceplate, the joints of the arm armor, the gaps in the clasps of the breastplate... gushing out wildly!

Chapter 77 Bai Mo: It's very simple, I'll just become an elder, won't I?

The steel armor, now a metal coffin imprisoning them and hastening their death, flowed down the grooves of the armor plates, pooling into rapidly expanding, steaming, dark red swamps.

A deathly silence descended, a silence more terrifying than any clamor. Apart from the viscous sound of dripping and pooling blood, there was no other sound.

Bai Mo did not stop walking. He continued walking on the inverted "ground," his gaze calmly sweeping over the piled-up steel wreckage and the pools of blood below.

His voice rang out again, carrying an almost compassionate mockery, piercing the silence of death:

"What a pity... your proud thousand-year heritage, those meticulously woven, airtight spider webs—all the troop deployment maps, all the sentry duty schedules, all the coordinates of the 'safe houses' hiding conspiracies and sins..."

Bai Mo's voice contained no anger, only a weariness and understanding that seemed to have pierced through the dust of time.

"In the long torrent of time, long enough to turn oceans into mulberry fields and mountains into flat land, it's as if... not even a decent, effective, or even merely minor adjustment in position has occurred?"

He shook his head slightly, the movement elegant yet carrying an extreme contempt for inferior creations; the sigh seemed capable of freezing the soul.

“Truly… a breathtaking display of laziness and folly.” He emphasized the word “folly” with exceptional clarity, like a final epitaph etched upon the unchanging, decaying foundations of the Senate.

He even "thoughtfully" invoked the authority of the "law," and the invisible power of the rules enveloped the entire bloody Senate, firmly locking in the nauseatingly strong smell of blood, preventing even a trace from leaking out.

They were afraid of disturbing the "wonderful" revelry that the elders were currently indulging in in the banquet hall, a celebration of the pinnacle of power.

Only when the last faint trace of life within the Senate was completely extinguished, leaving only the viscous sound of blood slowly dripping, did Bai Mo stand in front of the door and slowly raise his hand.

"Squeak-"

The heavy banquet hall doors were pushed open by a slow, deliberate force.

In an instant, a bloody frenzy, so intense it was almost suffocating, that had been suppressed for so long by power, surged wildly into the brightly lit, revelry-filled banquet hall like a bloodthirsty beast breaking free from its cage!

That savory, rusty smell instantly overwhelmed the fragrance of the wine and the aroma of the food, brutally filling everyone's nostrils!

The noise in the hall came to an abrupt halt. All smiles froze on their faces.

The golden goblet slipped from his trembling hand and shattered on the polished floor with a jarring sound.

In the dead silence, Bai Mo's figure appeared at the doorway, with an intense, impenetrable darkness and bloodshed behind him.

He wore an almost innocent, harmless smile, his gaze precisely locked onto Katniss, who sat in the main seat, her face pale and her pupils constricted.

"Good evening, Elder Katniss..." he began, his voice clear and pleasant, as if greeting an old friend.

“You see, I’m a man of my word. You gave me three days to consider it, so I just…”

Bai Mo paused deliberately, his smile widening as if sharing an amusing anecdote, "...Did you manage to give me a reply in person within 'three days'?"

As he spoke, he seemed amused by his own words and couldn't help but chuckle softly, his shoulders trembling slightly.

"Oh, sorry, what a terrible memory I have." He raised his hand, the fingertips still stained with undried blood, and gently tapped his head, his posture as elegant as if he were performing in an opera.

"I'm too well-mannered; I can't help but be polite to people."

Bai Mo's eyes were as cold as the far north, yet his lips still held that dazzlingly bright smile. "Being polite to scum like you... must be very, very annoying for you, right?"

Katniss's face, which had been flushed with ecstasy and alcohol, was now completely drained of color, turning as pale as her ashen hair, and her lips trembled uncontrollably.

"Bai Mo! You...aren't you afraid..." Her voice was sharp and broken, like a bird being strangled, filled with unbelievable fear and the last bit of bluff.

"What's there to be afraid of?" Bai Mo chuckled, the sound of which was particularly clear and jarring in the deathly silent hall.

He strode confidently toward the center of the banquet hall.

With each step he took, the still-wet pool of blood outside the door seemed to come alive, silently and stickily spreading in along the cold, smooth marble floor.

Following in his footsteps, the mark of death was branded on the floor that symbolized the supreme power of the Senate.

One by one, the elders along the way retreated in panic, jostling and pushing, their eyes darting away, none daring to look directly at the young man who always wore a "polite" smile.

"Afraid that the Holy City will lose its stability? Afraid that you will threaten Sister Xilian? Of course I'm afraid, terrified to death..." Bai Mo stood in front of Katniss, looking down at this once arrogant elder.