Volume 8, The Beginning NO.4: That Which Hides in the Darkness..

Translated by TaffyGirl13 (proofread by Trespasserby & EvlNabiki; C/E edited by lucathia)

“Ah Yan..”

“It’s Sun Emperor!” I furiously glared at the other person. One of the two secretaries is impudent after staying for so long, while the other, though he obeys commands, is impolite because he lacks the ability to differentiate personal and professional matters. Neither of them is satisfactory!

Bai Lian Yue said in a grieved voice, “I simply wanted to ask what you wanted to eat for dinner.”

“You won’t be here by dinnertime. I’m going to have you go over to Ah Ye later.”

“Did you request for me to come here just to dispatch me to your younger brother’s side—” Bai Lian Yue immediately burst out. However, he realized his own mistake midway through his words. “No, Kyle is not by your side, so you wouldn’t send me out as well.”

Definitely disobedient. But, as expected of a secretary I had personally chosen, he was still on the more intelligent side. I ordered, “Of course. Go handle the matter with Ah Ye in the afternoon and return here for work at dawn.”

“You..” Bai Lian Yue’s expression fell as he said, “Never mind. You have always thought that secretaries do not need to sleep. Kyle has really spoiled you! What do you want me to do with Ah Ye?”

“P29’s criminals escaped. Ah Ye will not just let it go.” I looked at the secretary with a frown. “Kyle said P29 is an organization under your management. What did you do there?”

“I did not really do much. Most of it was research-related to see if any of those abilities could be replicated. However, there have not been any results yet. I have already cut the expenditure as much as possible, only continuing with a small amount of research and drills. The worthwhile people are brought out to be used, but there are not many of them. Nearly all of those people have issues. The majority of them truly are criminals. P29 is a failing business, yet it has to continue, hmph! Fortunately, I was able to gain quite a decent subsidy from the government to help break even by threatening to release all the criminals.”

I sneered. “Anyone with power would want to use it, thinking that they are absolutely unrivalled. How many people are as good and honest as my Ah Ye, who possesses the greatest strength and support yet has not become corrupted?”

“Yes, yes, yes, your Ah Ye is the most lovable, most powerful, and most compassionate—So my task is to prevent Ah Ye from hunting down those criminals?”

“Ah Ye will not do as he is told.” I spoke somewhat gloomily as I tossed a binder down. “That is why I want you to take this film project and distract him with it. If the criminals indicated in there are located, let Ah Ye go and deal with them.”

“Understood.” After agreeing, Bai Lian Yue thought of something else and quickly asked, “Wait, Ah Ye’s authority is higher than mine in the Sun Alliance. It will be too difficult to hide anything from him.”

“No need to hide it from him. There are no lies in the plans. It not only involves the Church, it also points to criminals that are all dangerous.”

Bai Lian Yue stared at me curiously as he inquired, “You are really willing to do this?”

I was silent for a moment. “I’m not. But rather than letting Ah Ye charge into unknown dangers, it’s better to have him go capture targets that he is more than capable of dealing with. The Church must have their apprehensions about me, which makes them much better than those absolutely disgraceful things that have recklessly knocked a blow on me before. The Church will not rashly make a move against Ah Ye.”

“That’s reasonable.” Bai Lian Yue nodded. “However, why not just have me deal with the Church? There is no need to get Ah Ye mixed in.”

“That will not do.” I calmly replied, “I want Ah Ye to get mixed in.”

Bai Lian Yue’s eyes widened. I could understand his shock. If it weren’t for An Te Qi’s report, I definitely would never have allowed Ah Ye to get involved in any trouble—

“You..you are definitely not Ah Yan. Who are you? You dare to disguise yourself as the Sun Emperor?!”

“..”

“Another hotel. Why can’t they find a more abandoned place to hide?”

The young master’s voice carried some resentment as he angrily huffed, “If we break into a fight here, it would be impossible not to draw the Church’s attention!”

“It might be those Church guys that actually captured your wife, you know!” Ezart plainly stated, “They obviously would not be afraid to draw their own people’s attention.”

The young master first retorted, “Not my wife yet,” before adding, “They shouldn’t have been the ones who took Bri. We are still collaborating on the film. Plus, it’s unlikely for them to actually turn hostile. I have my gē backing me, so I doubt they really want to open war. That’s why I don’t think they would kidnap Bri.”

Ezart replied with an “Oh.” He then raised his head to glance up the long staircase as he asked, “Is it okay for us to just casually stroll up? Although this is the fire escape, won’t we still be discovered?”

“I was originally going to take the elevator.”

“I see..”

“But I was afraid they would blow up the elevator. If we cause too much of a disturbance, it won’t go well.”

I was grateful that the young master had not taken the elevator. If the young master and Ezart had done so, I would have had to stay back to first watch what floor the elevator stopped at before instantly racing up by myself, rather than continuing to follow them closely as I was currently doing.

The emergency stairs were spacious and sealed; however, the slightest noise would be greatly amplified. This forced me to stay extremely cautious. Everything would be fine if I could continue following the young master.

“When they took Bri, they didn’t try to specially avoid the surveillance cameras, which means they wanted us to follow. They might want to discuss conditions.”

It was no wonder the young master did not seem to be in a rush. If the other party was planning on discussing conditions, they would not harm Briar.

The young master hesitantly said, “I think it might be Lieder that took Bri. The person was wearing a long, khaki trench coat that looked similar to what Lieder wore before.”

“Ah Shou? Then don’t worry. That guy might have a few loose screws in his head, but he sticks pretty closely to his principles. He won’t hurt your little wife. Tch, it seems like finding a little girl to be your wife wasn’t bad at all.”

“I already told you she’s not my wife yet!” The young master sounded somewhat annoyed. “Lieder has done so many bad things, yet you’re speaking up for him!”

“How am I speaking up for him—”

At that precise moment, the young master spun around sharply and swung a fist in Ezart’s direction. With a miserable cry, a person heavily crashed into the wall and collapsed nearby..

Ezart remained in the same upright standing position, staring in disbelief at the figure that had appeared only after being knocked down. He roared out indignantly, “Invisibility? That’s breaking the rules!”

“That’s why I hate these kinds of annoying abilities the most!” The young master ground out through gritted teeth.

Ezart sent another kick flying at the person, who let out a faint groan, and could not even let out a shout before falling unconscious. Ezart then turned to ask, “How did you notice that guy? Damn, he’s only wearing socks on his feet. I bet his footsteps didn’t even make a sound!”

“He was too close. I could hear his breathing.”

The young master lowered his head to look at the unconscious person. After some hesitation, he stomped down strongly on the person’s calf. The crack of the shattering bone accompanied another scream. However, the victim’s scream did not last long before he fainted from the pain once again.

I should truly focus on maintaining a distance of ten or more steps.

“You’re not killing him?” Ezart frowned, “Invisibility is a pretty annoying ability. If he fired a gun from a further distance away, even you wouldn’t have been able to notice, right?”

“A lot of people escaped from P29. There are too many that would need to be killed.” The young master shook his head and stuffed something into the person’s clothing as he continued, “Kyle-gē will come and take this person back to P29. This person might not have done anything bad yet. Maybe he just escaped from P29. Since he needs to run around and seek refuge, he likely didn’t have any time to do much.”

“Your heart has gone soft.” Ezart clicked his tongue as he said, “In the past, you would kill anyone that harmed your brother or the people around you even faster than someone chopping up radishes.”

The young master furrowed his brows at these words and asked with hesitation in his voice, “This doesn’t seem to be a good thing?”

Ezart instead replied, “Nah, it’s pretty good.”

The young master glanced at Ezart without much of a response. Instead, he said, “Put your knuckles on. There are others.”

“Mm, more ability-users?” Ezart frowned.

The young master’s voice turned cold. “No, they’re vampires!”

Not good, I have been discovered!

As Ezart removed the knuckles fastened to his thigh, he asked, “How do you know they’re vampires?”

“Their style of movement and hiding places are very similar to Charles’.” The young master then let out a “hmph” as he added, “But they’re much worse than Charles!”

.. So the vampires the young master is talking about do not include me?

Just after Ezart put his pair of knuckles on, a mass of shadows descended from the ceiling. There were approximately a dozen or so people total. They did not wear the “standard vampire outfits,” instead sporting simple black clothing. However, the fangs at the corners of their mouths indicated they were indeed vampires.

“Didn’t you say this city doesn’t have non-humans?” Ezart growled, “What are those then? Humans with teeth modifications?”

The young master did not respond, only murmuring, “As expected, it wasn’t the Church that kidnapped Bri. But who dispatched so many vampires?”

historical

Ezart slammed his knuckles together with a resounding clang as he shouted, “Who cares! Anyways, we need to wait until we snap their legs first. Then we can find your wife and take our time asking the questions.”

The young master did not reply any more, simply extending his silver claws without a sound.

Compared to Ezart and the young master, these members of my race were not quite powerful enough. Based on the color of their blood ability, I doubted their generation number was very low. They would have to spend a tremendous amount of effort and many years in order to become truly powerful vampires. This was perhaps the reason they had been hired by humans.

The young master’s slide steps made all these vampires stare at him in astonishment, almost in disbelief at their own eyes. In that moment of shock, the young master grabbed one of the vampires’ heads and slammed it strongly into the wall. With a bang, a large section of the wall fell off, and the vampire weakly slid down onto the floor, no longer showing any signs of movement.

Ezart raised an eyebrow and commented, “You trying to kill them?”

“They’re vampires. If you don’t hit a bit harder, they’ll run away when we go up and look for Bri later.”

“Oh!” As soon as Ezart replied, his fists smashed into another vampire’s stomach, nearly causing them to vomit.

That is hitting too hard.. They might die. I felt some sympathy. Perhaps it was my own resilience that had given the young master the impression that vampires could endure such severe damage?

However, I was a pureborn vampire, of the fifth generation as well. While my age was on the lower side, I possessed an innate superiority. These vampires that were many generations higher were likely nowhere as resilient.

Truthfully, the scene of their fight with the young master and Ezart was too tragic to describe with words. It was not a fight; it was a purely single-sided massacre.. and the side with smaller numbers was beating the side with greater numbers.

“Stop, stop! No more fighting, I’ll speak! I’ll tell you everything!” The final vampire fell to the ground and stuttered in terror, “The hostage is on the highest floor and is n-not injured!”

The young master nodded and reached out a hand to grab the vampire’s head, slamming it down onto the ground with a loud bang. The vampire’s skull surprisingly did not burst. Perhaps.. it is the empty emergency staircase that is amplifying the sound.

“Ezart, don’t put your knuckles away. The situation is getting stranger.” The young master glanced around the floor covered in vampires with an expression of doubt and suspicion. However, he shook his head and said, “Forget it, let’s just go rescue Bri first.”

“O.K.”

While the young master had been bickering with Ezart along the way, he was finally unable to continue joking now that they were nearing their destination. Instead, he anxiously charged up in a rush, kicking open the fire escape doors upon arriving at the entrance. The strike forced the sturdy double doors to hang limply, rocking on each side.

I did not dare to enter the brightly lit corridor, and instead hid inside the stairwell to stealthily watch the young master. He did not hold any misgivings with regards to which room he should enter as he walked straight toward his target. The moment he left my range of vision, a loud bang echoed out, indicating that the young master had likely used his foot to kick open the door as he had previously.

Thinking that he should have already entered the room, I gathered the courage to step out into the bright hallway that offered no protection and discovered that this was probably a “presidential suite.” There was nothing along this corridor aside from the elevator and a large, hinged door. It was an extremely elegant wooden door that even sported an old-fashioned lock with a keyhole. This was also the reason the young master could kick open the door.

“Bri!”

Upon hearing the young master’s shout without being able to see what was occurring, I abandoned my concerns of being discovered and stealthily walked over to the door. Ezart was standing at the entrance.

“Ezart, this is Charles.” I spoke in hushed tones, “Do not move. I require your assistance to cover me.”

The other person froze, then purposely knocked his fists together to emit a sonorous clang, taking the opportunity to answer, “Don’t speak, Ah Ye will notice!”

I pinched his back to indicate that I understood, then secretly stole a look inside the room to survey the situation.

“Ah Ye-gē, I’m sorry..”

Briar stood next to the sofa, too timid to raise her head. However, she did not appear to be injured, and a wave of relief instantly washed over me.

“It’s O.K. Bri, don’t move.”

Briar looked at up the young master in bewilderment.

The young master coldly inquired, “What exactly are you planning? Taking Briar and hiring those weak vampires to block my way. Those vampires had absolutely no intention of hurting me!”

Just then, I finally noticed that there was another person sitting on the sofa. His back was facing the doorway, so that all I could see was his hair and collar—the collar of a khaki trench coat.

The other person did not reply. Instead, Briar’s eyes widened in great astonishment. She turned to glance at the man, then shifted her gaze back onto the young master as she asked, “Ah Ye-gē, didn’t you ask him to come pick me up after finding out that I had snuck into Daystar City?”

“What?” The young master replied in exasperation, “Why would I send him to pick you up? Bri, have you lost your mind? You would just walk away with anyone?”

Briar froze, shame coloring her expression. However, it vanished in a flash, and was followed by a look of understanding as she responded in an upset voice, “Oh, right, Ah Ye-gē is fighting with Gēgē right now, so you wouldn’t have asked him to pick me up. I forgot.”

Regardless of whether the young master was fighting with the Sun Emperor or not, he would never have sent Lieder to fetch Bri. Bri, what exactly do your words mean?

The young master evidently did not understand either. He stared blankly at the trench coat-clothed man whose back still faced him. After a moment of contemplation, he unexpectedly used a commanding tone to utter, “Stand up.”

The other person really did stand up, to my disbelief. Is Lieder such an obedient person?

“Turn around and look at me.” The young master gave another order.

The man once again obeyed, turning to face the young the master. However, it was unexpectedly—

Mr. Kyle!

Mr. Kyle always wore a well-ironed suit, as he was currently wearing. He had simply added an additional khaki trench coat over it. His expression seemed somewhat helpless.

At this point in time, I finally understood why Briar had quietly followed him away, as well as why she had been taken aback by the young master’s rebukes. If it had been Mr. Kyle, even I would not have harbored any suspicions, let alone Briar.

The young master’s face was extremely unsightly, yet he did not appear surprised. He had likely realized who it was when he had used a commanding tone to speak.

“Kyle-gē, was it Gēgē who sent you here.. Oh no! Shūshu!”

The young master dashed forward to pick Briar up, then shouted, “Ezart, we’re leaving!”

Mr. Kyle opened his mouth to warn, “It is too late, Young Master.”

The young master did not look back as he answered, “It is not too late. Melody and the others are all there. Don’t underestimate my people.”

Mr. Kyle slowly stated, “Young Master, your people all belong to the Sun Emperor. They have no way of disobeying him.”

The young master finally stopped and spun around to glare at Kyle. He simply emphasized once more, “You underestimate my people.”

Mr. Kyle did not respond further. Although his expression did not shift much, it was evident that he did not agree with the young master’s words.

“Why does Gēgē want to kill Luo Ye so badly?” The young master furiously shouted, “Why is he unwilling to meet him even once? If he agreed to meet and talk a bit, I wouldn’t care what happens after!”

Mr. Kyle weakly said, “Young Master, I am just a secretary carrying out my orders. I do not know what the Sun Emperor is thinking, but I will pass your request onto the Sun Emperor.”

The young master angrily answered, “Don’t pass it onto him! Gēgē wouldn’t listen to you. Tell him to pick up my call and hear me out!” Then, he turned to leave without stopping.

Mr. Kyle loudly shouted, “Young Master, you can leave Briar here. I will take responsibility for her safety.”

The young master did not pay him any mind, nor did he let Briar go as he walked straight out the door.

Not good! I had absolutely no time to flee. Just then, Ezart took a step backwards to push the large shuddering door open. On the outside, it appeared as if he was helping to open the door for the young master. However, I immediately understood his intent and hid behind the door, even going as far as temporarily holding my breath—I had not forgotten that invisible person’s fate.

As the young master walked past, he spoke in a low voice, “Bri, hold on tightly. I run very fast, so it may be a rough ride.”

Briar replied with an “Mm” before quietly apologizing, “Sorry, Ah Ye-gē. I caused you trouble.”

The young master simply rubbed her head as he ran and softly said, “Don’t worry, it’s fine as long as you’re unharmed.”

Ezart huffed in exasperation, “If you guys continue flirting over here, your uncle might be so long dead that his bones could be used as drumsticks!”

“As if!” The young master replied in a vexed voice, “Anyone ‘dealt with’ by Gēgē won’t even have bone ash left, so there’s no way there would be bones to play on a drum with!”

Ezart was struck speechless.

Despite the two continuing to ceaselessly throw jabs at each other, their steps were extremely swift. They bounded out of the room and charged directly into the elevator. During this period, the young master’s expression remained wooden and frigid. If not for Ezart’s words constantly easing the tension, the young master’s appearance might even have frightened Briar.

The current young master.. was likely at least halfway to Dark Sun’s frame of mind. It was as clear as day to me.

Just now, when the young master passed by me, there was merely a door between us.. Perhaps due to the fact that he was focused on Briar, or because he was anxious over Luo Ye’s situation, or possibly as a result of the door’s aid.. I decided to attempt decreasing the distance between us to five steps as I tailed behind. This allowed me to see the young master’s facial expression more clearly.

The young master was indeed correct.

I am an assassin.