Chapter 73: Patience

Chapter 73: Patience

“How was it? Did you get a clear look?” Fors had only just left the street where Viscount Stratford’s residence was located when she saw Xio walking back with a gloomy expression, looking somewhat lost.

Xio hesitantly nodded.

“I got a clear look…”

After saying that, she seemed to finally come back to herself. Rather shocked, she said,

“I know her. No, him!”

“Him?” Fors was completely puzzled.

Xio habitually observed her surroundings before saying,

“He is Sherman! The Sherman I told you about!

“He, he actually turned into a woman!”

Fors stared blankly for a moment, then subconsciously asked back,

“Could you have mistaken her?

“Could it actually be Sherman’s sister?”

Xio firmly shook her head.

“No. She admitted it herself. She even asked me not to disturb her and said she wanted to completely say farewell to the past!

“But… how did he just become female…”

Fors’s eyes moved slightly as she suddenly remembered something. Thoughtfully, she said,

“It isn’t impossible… There is a Beyonder pathway that can make a man turn into a woman at a certain stage.”

She remembered that Miss Justice had once mentioned something similar during a free exchange.

“Ah? Truly?” Xio’s eyes widened at once as she asked back in disbelief.

“Certain!” Fors had already recalled the specific details and answered with considerable certainty.

“This…” Xio found it somewhat difficult to accept for a moment, but she could not find words to refute it. She could only ask, “Which pathway is it?”

Fors answered,

“Demoness!

“Uh, the Assassin pathway.”

“Demoness… Sherman actually became a Demoness…” Xio repeated as if talking to herself.

Suddenly, her voice grew a little louder.

“Could she be being used by someone?

“No. I have to warn her!”

No sooner had she spoken than Xio had already turned around and begun running in long strides, trying to catch up to that hired carriage again.

However, even after chasing through several streets, she still could not find the target. Shermane and that carriage seemed to have vanished into thin air.

Xio gradually slowed, then finally stopped, looking with a complicated expression at the empty street ahead.

Behind her, Fors passed through several walls in succession and finally caught up.

“She’s gone…” Xio said in a low voice.

Fors likewise cast her gaze forward and responded thoughtfully,

“We were discovered…”

Without waiting for Xio to speak, she turned around and sighed.

“Let’s go back. We can look for another chance.”

Xio did not move. She still stood there.

Several seconds passed before, under Fors’s puzzled gaze, she said,

“Since they have discovered there is a problem, could they act early?”

“It’s possible! If they don’t want their plan to fail here, tonight they may very likely try a final gamble and act before we have time to prepare!” Fors immediately agreed with Xio’s judgment. “We’ll return to Viscount Stratford’s place, hide somewhere more concealed, and continue watching!”

Xio nodded at once, answering without the slightest hesitation.

“All right.”

…

In the dock area, inside a warehouse stacked with many goods.

Shermane sat on a filthy wooden crate with both hands bound behind her back. Fine yet resilient spider silk wrapped around her body, strand after strand.

She looked as though she had been placed inside a transparent cocoon. Even her voice could not escape.

“This is not necessarily a bad thing for you.” Trissy stood in front of Shermane, holding a cluster of flames as black as ink. “At least you will be able to confirm because of this whether he truly loves you, or whether he is deceiving you.”

Shermane was both furious and terrified. She desperately used muffled whimpers to express her pleading, but Trissy was not moved in the slightest. She flipped the hand holding the pitch-black flame and pressed it against Shermane’s stomach.

The flame seemed to possess a will of its own. First, it scattered like flowing water. Then, as though it had no physical form, it penetrated skin and flesh, attempting to drill inward.

Trissy’s smooth black hair drifted against the laws of nature, tugged outward by invisible hands. It extended in all directions, until the surrounding air was stained with an indescribable scent.

That hair faintly became thicker, separating strand by strand, each distinct.

At their roots, deep rays of light emerged one after another, carrying curses and words. They rapidly flowed forward, merged into the black flames, entered Shermane’s stomach, and swiftly disappeared.

Shermane’s face twitched uncontrollably, yet she felt no pain. It seemed to be nothing more than a pure nervous reaction.

She soon calmed down and saw Trissy, who wore a gloomy black dress, gradually fade, becoming transparent inch by inch until she vanished.

Shermane’s pupils dilated. She began struggling once again, but no matter what she did, she could not break free of the restraints.

She exhausted her strength again and again, then began again and again, as though, inside that silent warehouse, floodwater was rising centimeter by centimeter.

After an unknown length of time, the warehouse door flew backward with a clang, slamming into the walls on both sides.

A figure staggered inside. It was Viscount Stratford, already middle-aged.

He was not wearing the white wig he normally donned when leaving home, revealing a high hairline and very messy black hair. The strands clung together as if they had been drenched by a storm and then dried somewhat. Yet for the past several hours, the clouds had been thin, and the red moon had hung in the sky. It had not rained at all.

Drop after drop of sweat slid down Viscount Stratford’s rigid facial lines toward his neck, while beneath his skin, there seemed to be countless fine black lines flowing.

His body was slightly hunched. His facial muscles were somewhat twisted. His eyes were full of pain and worry.

After looking around and discovering Shermane, he first brightened with joy, then grew anxious, rushing toward her with difficulty while barely maintaining his balance.

When Shermane saw him enter the warehouse, her face suddenly came alive, as though covered by a layer of light.

Immediately afterward, her expression mixed worry with fear, and she madly tried to shake her head. But her neck was firmly fixed in place by spider silk, making it impossible for her to turn at all.

She grew more and more anxious, until tears spilled from her eyes, drop after drop, crystal clear and fragile.

Just as Viscount Stratford was about to rush before her, a loud bang suddenly erupted between them.

It was as though an invisible wall had appeared there, separating Viscount Stratford and Shermane on opposite sides, impossible to cross.

“If you want to dispel the curse and take her away, then answer my questions without concealing anything.” At that moment, a figure rapidly outlined itself in the corner of the warehouse.

Each of her features possessed charm on its own, but when combined together, they were exceptionally sweet, as though she were the lover every man had imagined in his youth. It was the Demoness Trissy.

Without waiting for Viscount Stratford to respond, she directly raised her right hand, letting a black flame leap out.

Viscount Stratford’s face, hands, neck, and all other exposed skin instantly turned transparent, revealing one blood vessel after another.

And within every blood vessel, black flames burned quietly, flowing soundlessly.

The pain in Viscount Stratford’s eyes reached its peak at that moment, yet it vanished in an instant.

His expression became extremely cold, and his gaze even carried a few traces of ridicule, as though the one afflicted by the curse were not himself, but Trissy standing far away.

Around Trissy in the warehouse corner, a large amount of black flame abruptly surged up, illuminating countless invisible spider strands. Yet it could not ignite them.

In the blink of an eye, just like Shermane, Trissy was “sealed” inside a transparent “cocoon,” unable to move or escape.

At the ventilation opening high above the warehouse, another figure outlined itself. It was a lady whose specific age was impossible to determine. She wore a simple, holy white robe. Her hair was black, her eyes blue, and she was clear, beautiful, and graceful, possessing an indescribable charm.

“Katerina Pelle…” Trissy seemed to use all her strength before she finally whispered a name.

At that moment, Viscount Stratford grabbed at himself and pulled out an illusory doll densely wrapped in black fire threads.

He glanced at Shermane beside him, then turned to Trissy and smiled.

“When it comes to matters that concern my life, I am never careless. After that fellow Sykes died, I knew my turn would come one day.

“Heh. You were hunting me, and naturally, there were others who wanted to hunt you. We were very patient. We feared scaring you away, so we did nothing at all and simply waited until today.

“Also, your gift was quite nice.”

Hearing Viscount Stratford’s words, Shermane, who had still been struggling out of habit, abruptly stopped all movement. Her expression grew blanker than ever before.

Her eyes were wide open, yet without focus, as though she were sinking inch by inch underwater.

“Love…” Trissy suddenly laughed, seeming both mocking and self-mocking.

She was not nervous in the slightest. She did not panic at all.

…

At Rose Song Manor, night had already deepened.

Klein, who had arranged accommodation for more than twenty guests and prepared for the next day’s hunting event, had only just gone to sleep not long ago when he suddenly woke.

His intuitive premonition had been triggered, sketching an image inside his mind:

Major General Qonas Kilgor, wearing only a shirt and trousers, was covertly flying out from a guest room window, floating outward in defiance of the laws of nature.

This… I haven’t even made my move yet… He came here with a purpose of his own… As the thought flashed through Klein’s mind, he had already controlled a cockroach outside, transforming it into a marionette and using its “eyes” to observe the surroundings.

Almost at the same time, Qonas Kilgor appeared.

After leaving Rose Song Manor, this demigod immediately disrupted the “distance” and swiftly arrived at the bank of the Tussock River, preparing to cross.

That cockroach watched quietly, making no reaction.

He is going to the south bank of the Tussock River… What does he want to do… Does he enjoy hunting in the outskirts precisely to conceal actions like this? Is that also part of why he introduced Rose Song Manor to me? Lying in bed, Klein carefully analyzed Qonas’s behavior.

When that MI9 demigod truly set foot on the south bank of the Tussock River, Klein suddenly remembered one thing:

After he had escaped from the underground ruins where Ince Zangwill and the others had been, the place he had appeared was northwest of Backlund—precisely on the south bank of the Tussock River, and not especially far from the area where Rose Song Manor was located.