Chapter 482 - 423: Chaisi · Old Ginger

Chapter 482: Chapter 423: Chaisi · Old Ginger

"That won’t be necessary."

As the words were spoken, Damian had just raised one hand into the air. The summoning gesture had barely begun before he froze.

He remained frozen for a second before slowly turning his head and lowering his hand.

"What?" Damian asked, sounding almost bewildered. He looked like a small child who had just been told his trip to the amusement park was canceled.

Kai Luonan looked at him and repeated, "That won’t be necessary."

The night fell silent for a moment; the Nest seemed to press in from the sky above, listening.

"If you were going to show me what happens after I gain ultimate dominion, then that won’t be necessary." Kai Luonan chuckled. "Your dad is no fool."

"Wh... what do you mean?" Damian asked. "You don’t want to see it?"

"Why would I want to see it?"

Kai Luonan shook his head. "’Ultimate dominion over the mortal world’—the phrase itself says everything. Anyone, so long as they’re not a fool who enjoys wallowing in fantasy, only needs to think for a moment to understand what that means. And since I already know what it means, why would I need to watch some script you’ve prepared for me? If I wanted to watch a movie, there are plenty of productions far more professional than yours."

Damian’s face instantly flushed red. Chaisi couldn’t tell if it was from anger or humiliation—or perhaps both.

"It’s not the same at all—what would you know?"

For the first time, Damian showed a sliver of genuine emotion, though it was impossible to tell if it belonged to "Damian" or to the Resident. "You think I was going to show you a movie? You stupid old man, stop trying to apply your ignorant assumptions to me!"

Just as he started toward Kai Luonan, Chaisi took a step forward, shielding Uncle Kai behind him. Staring at Damian, he warned, "Watch yourself."

Damian seemed not to hear him, his voice still brimming with fury. "You have no idea what you’ve just passed up! The future I painted is nothing like a movie! You would have experienced a sensation of power with your whole body, felt it seep into every single cell, and tasted the absolute bliss of absolute control! After experiencing power like that just once, it’s like walking out of a dungeon and seeing the world for the first time—you would’ve realized your past fifty or sixty years were nothing more than playing house!"

’Is Uncle Kai doing this on purpose?’

As he faced the Resident Damian, whose human features were subtly distorting with rage, Chaisi fought the urge to smash his fist into that face. He held his ground, but a question couldn’t help but surface in his mind.

Seventeen years ago, when Damian had first decided he wanted to make movies, Uncle Kai had been extremely displeased.

He had swallowed his displeasure and, at Aunt Hai and Damian’s insistence, watched two of Damian’s "films." When his son made a third and asked him to watch it, Kai Luonan had said the exact same thing.

"I’m not watching it," Kai Luonan had said. "If I want to watch a movie, there are plenty of productions more professional than yours. If I want to torture myself, I can just enter a Nest. You’re free to waste your time on such boring things, but I am not."

That afternoon, even Damian had been unable to suppress his sullen mood, locking himself in his room and refusing to come out for anyone.

The Resident Damian of today had obviously not forgotten.

Even if he didn’t remember the exact conversation, he remembered the wound it had left.

If Damian weren’t a Resident, Chaisi would have loved nothing more than to knock some sense into him. But no matter how desperately he wanted to drive the creature back to the Nest, he couldn’t let the situation escalate—not on his watch, and not before the right opportunity presented itself.

After all, Uncle Kai and Aunt Hai were both there.

"As for you, I understand everything now," Kai Luonan said, his voice heavy. "And I am very disappointed."

Chaisi had to clench his jaw tight to stop the flood of gratitude, relief, or guilt from bursting through him.

"You’ve spent seventeen years growing in the Nest. If this is the level you’ve reached, then I’d say even if you hadn’t died back then, you never would have amounted to much. A complete waste of your talent."

Despite facing such a powerful Resident, Uncle Kai seemed completely unafraid.

He would die before he allowed Uncle Kai to suffer the slightest harm.

"Your goals, your schemes... they’re too shallow. Like..." Kai Luonan glanced down at the concrete ground. "As shallow as a puddle on the street after a rainstorm."

Damian was left speechless. Chaisi, though tense and ready to fight at a moment’s notice, was surprised to see Damian stumble backward a few steps as if he’d just been struck.

"You want to use me as a pawn," Kai Luonan continued, his voice still calm. "But it never occurred to you that you don’t have the ability to control a piece like me. If you’ve manipulated anyone before, I’d say it was just luck. It wasn’t because you were so skilled, but because of the Nest Dominance Game."

"Father, you don’t actually think I wouldn’t dare to lay a hand on you, do you?"

Damian suddenly laughed. "I know, the ’Rumor’ Illusion is in your mouth. Do you think I can’t get it out if you’re dead? Do you think that makes me hesitate? An ordinary Hunter might not have a way, but I’m different. Once I drag your corpse back to the Nest—"

Damian stopped short.

Kai Luonan said nothing. He had simply shaken his head, letting out a silent sigh, as if he found this conversation as tedious as a film made by a twelve-year-old.

That was enough to make Damian trail off.

"So shallow."

"What’s so shallow?" Damian’s voice was lower now, but Chaisi could see he was many times more resentful and enraged than before. His voice, his breathing, everything was trembling slightly. "Are you trying to say you’re not afraid to die? Do you think I’ll believe that?"

Damian paused for a moment.

He suddenly turned his head and glanced at Haiper in the distance.

"...Shut up," Chaisi muttered.

’Don’t say it.’

Chaisi himself didn’t even realize he had taken a step forward—but as his hand shot out to grab Damian by the chest, Damian’s words came spilling out at the exact same moment.

"You’re not afraid to die, but are you afraid of me killing *her*?"

The fury that seized Chaisi in that instant was so intense he couldn’t understand it himself. This was a woman who hated him to her very core, yet his mind roared, as if a blood vessel had burst.

’He didn’t care anymore that the thing in front of him was a Resident.’

But a single command from Kai Luonan stopped Chaisi in his tracks.

"Stop."

Chaisi’s fist remained frozen in the air. He stared at Damian, panting slightly, still unwilling to lower his hand.

When he finally turned back, he deliberately avoided looking at Aunt Hai. "Uncle Kai..."

"He isn’t some ordinary human you can subdue with brute force," Kai Luonan said. "Your strength and ferocity used to be effective weapons in the Hunter circles of Blackmoor City, so I let you be. But you’re a smart man; you should be able to see that anger is useless right now."

As if Haiper weren’t even in the room, Kai Luonan continued, "Damian, your mother is the person I cherish most in this world. However, if you think you can use her life to threaten me, that only proves two things.

"First, you know far too little about me.

"Second, for the past seventeen years, you have been nothing more than a fool completely absorbed in your own revenge fantasies, entertaining yourself."

Damian had become a Resident at the age of twelve.

It seemed that even though he had grown into what appeared to be a calculating adult, whenever he was provoked, he would revert to a hybrid of a twelve-year-old boy and a Resident—in other words, a mass of pure madness.

Kai Luonan gently pulled Chaisi away, gesturing for him to stand aside. As Chaisi reluctantly stepped back, Kai Luonan pulled a gun from the waistband at the small of his back.

Damian’s furious shout had barely begun when his gaze was drawn to the gun.

The muzzle of Kai Luonan’s gun was pointed at the ground, and the safety was still on. It was less of a threat and more of a simple demonstration, letting Damian see that he had brought a gun. That was all.

"What are you doing?" Damian paused, then sneered. "This is useless against me. Who are you trying to scare with that gun?"

When Kai Luonan replied, not a single person present understood what he said at first.

Chaisi would later reflect that perhaps his luck had been truly extraordinary.