Chapter 152: The Assassin’s Deduction

Chapter 152: Chapter 152: The Assassin’s Deduction

Inside the room, Adrian’s expression darkened when he heard her demand.

He had been hoping to avoid this confrontation. It was not that he was particularly afraid of Mira herself.

She had only just reached the 1st Star of the Spirit Platform Realm, so he did not consider her a serious threat.

What troubled him was the powerful man standing behind her.

He is friends with Graham Cole who was the monster who had single handedly brought the Lindsay family to ruin.

Adrian had no desire to become his next victim. Even someone as powerful as the Lindsay family’s senior generation had failed to stop him.

What chance would the Sinclair family have?

However, the attempt to settle things through the other family members had clearly failed. There was no point hiding inside any longer.

Adrian took a deep breath and walked out.

"Mira, what exactly are you trying to accomplish?" he said, maintaining a composed expression, deliberately emphasizing their family relationship.

"I’m your uncle, whether you like it or not!"

"Don’t you dare call yourself my uncle!" Mira said.

The moment she saw him, the warmth vanished completely from her eyes. She raised the Dragon Bone Sword and pointed its blade directly at him.

"Adrian Sinclair, let’s not waste time pretending there’s anything left to discuss between us," she said, her voice icy.

"Only one of us is walking away from here alive today. If you have any courage left, fight me yourself. I want a one on one battle to the death!"

She did not bother acknowledging the other relatives. Her attention remained fixed on the man before her.

The hatred she had accumulated toward Adrian had reached its limit.

She had not come to negotiate, demand compensation, or listen to excuses.

She wanted him dead.

Adrian stared at her in disbelief.

"A fight to the death? Just the two of us?" he said.

He had imagined countless ways Mira might seek revenge, but this was not among them.

Where was her master? And what about Mr X, the terrifying figure who had accompanied her?

Was she seriously planning to settle the score without relying on either of them? Did she have any idea how far apart their strengths were?

Adrian almost found the request laughable. Then his gaze shifted to the young man standing beside her.

Recognition struck him, followed immediately by a surge of resentment.

"Isn’t that Mr. X?" he said, his eyes narrowing.

He remembered this man very well.

At the Skywater Pavilion auction, Mr. X had been the one to expose the fact that Jonathan possessed a Celestial Core.

That single incident had thrown his plans into disarray.

If Mr. X had not revealed the secret, Adrian would not have been forced to curry favor with Collins Lindsay.

Jonathan would not have become entangled in Collins’s schemes, and he would not have been manipulated into attempting to use the Life and Death Talisman against Mira during the Barley Cup.

That incident had ultimately landed Jonathan in prison.

Adrian had since investigated Mr. X and learned that he was an exceptionally talented alchemist.

However, he did not believe the young man’s personal combat strength could be anything special. After all, human energy and time were limited.

Someone so young who had already achieved such remarkable accomplishments in alchemy was unlikely to have reached an equally impressive level in martial arts.

He also knew that Mr. X had a close relationship with Samuel Bush, but that no longer concerned him.

Adrian had already begun considering leaving Valemont to rebuild the family elsewhere. Before that happened, however, he wanted to settle an old score.

His eyes flashed with hostility.

"How dare you come here and show your face in front of me?" he said, giving a cold laugh. "Fine! I’ll deal with Mira later. But you, Mr. X, aren’t leaving this place alive!"

Without another word, Adrian abandoned his confrontation with Mira and charged straight toward Xavier, his long blade raised.

He did not even get the chance to swing it. A moment later, his body crashed to the ground, and Xavier’s foot came down firmly on his head, pinning him in place before he could move again.

The entire attack had ended almost instantly.

"You’re talking about killing me?" Xavier said, looking down at him with undisguised contempt. "Have you even considered whether you’re capable of doing that?"

He had already killed Winston Lindsay, a half step Divine Power Realm expert.

Adrian, who had only reached the 1st Star of the Spirit Platform Realm, was nowhere near strong enough to threaten him.

The only reason Xavier had not crushed his skull immediately was that Mira had wanted to deal with him personally.

"Release my son!" the Sinclair family’s Grand Elder shouted. He had just emerged when he witnessed the scene. Seeing his only biological son pinned beneath Xavier’s foot, he completely lost his composure.

He immediately charged forward. Unfortunately, his attack ended even more miserably.

Xavier struck him with a single punch, sending him flying backward with such force that he smashed through a wall before crashing onto the ground outside.

The old man lay motionless, his condition unknown.

"Know your limits," Xavier said, not even bothering to turn to look at him.

The Grand Elder was merely at the peak of the Spirit Platform Realm. A direct blow from Xavier was more than enough to leave him crippled, even if it did not kill him.

Xavier then turned toward Mira.

"Sorry about that," he said. "I forgot I had a personal score to settle with Adrian. I may have gotten in the way of what you wanted to do."

He genuinely had not remembered the old incident at Skywater Pavilion when he agreed to accompany Mira.

It had happened so long ago, and the matter had seemed insignificant to him. He had not expected Adrian to recognize him and attack so recklessly.

Mira took a deep breath.

"That’s his own fault for offending you, Mr. X," she said.

She had not expected the confrontation to unfold this way.

But with Xavier stepping in and overpowering Adrian so effortlessly, her desire to fight him had largely disappeared.

There was little satisfaction in challenging someone who could barely put up a fight.

"Let’s finish this and return to cultivation," she said. "Mr. X, please step aside. I’ll take his head myself."

She approached Adrian, bringing the Dragon Bone Sword toward his neck.

"I won’t accept this!" Adrian struggled beneath Xavier’s foot, his face twisted with desperation.

"Mira! Weren’t you the one who demanded a one on one fight? You said we would settle this ourselves!"

But Mira had already lost interest in hearing him speak. She had given him the chance to fight her. He had chosen to attack Xavier instead. There was nothing left to discuss.

The Dragon Bone Sword flashed. A deep wound opened across Adrian’s neck, and his head was severed in an instant.

"I... I regret... I..." Adrian’s lips moved weakly as he struggled to force out his final words.

What exactly did he regret? Perhaps the choices that had brought him to this end.

Perhaps the way he had treated Mira. Or perhaps he simply wished he had acted differently before it was too late.

No one would ever know. His life ended there.

"Let’s go," Xavier said.

With Adrian dead, he saw no reason to linger. He motioned for Mira to leave with him.

However, as they prepared to depart, he sensed something unusual. It felt as though someone was watching them from a hidden location.

His expression remained unchanged, but he became quietly alert.

Someone had been observing them in secret.

* * *

Could that man actually be Graham Cole in disguise?

At the very moment Mira executed Adrian, an ordinary looking man stood on the rooftop of a high rise building roughly two kilometers from the Sinclair family compound.

He had a pair of binoculars raised to his eyes, carefully observing everything unfolding below.

His codename was Nightfall, and he was an assassin belonging to the Shadow Ring. His cultivation had reached the 1st Star of the Star Sea Realm.

Nightfall had arrived in Valemont seven days earlier with one objective: assassinate Mira.

Unfortunately, Mira had remained inside the Extraordinary Division throughout that period.

With the security surrounding the place, he had not found a suitable opportunity to make his move.

However, the information supplied by the Shadow Ring’s intelligence division had revealed something useful.

Mira had a deep rooted conflict with the Sinclair family, and Nightfall reasoned that she would eventually return to settle the score.

Rather than waste time waiting outside the Extraordinary Division, he decided to stake out the Sinclair family compound.

His plan was simple: wait until Mira confronted Adrian, then exploit the chaos to carry out his assassination.

Everything had unfolded just as he anticipated. Mira had indeed come to the Sinclair family.

The unexpected complication was the young man accompanying her.

Nightfall recognized him from the intelligence reports.

The organization had identified him as someone closely connected to Mira, a talented alchemist known as Mr. X. The reports also mentioned that he possessed considerable combat ability.

Still, Nightfall had not expected anything like what he had just witnessed.

With a single movement, the young man had pinned Adrian, a 1st-Star Spirit Platform Realm martial artist, beneath his foot.

He had then sent the Sinclair family’s Grand Elder, a peak Spirit Platform Realm expert, flying with one punch.

What kind of alchemist possessed that level of strength? It simply did not make sense!

A name suddenly surfaced in Nightfall’s mind.

Graham Cole!

Could Mr. X actually be Graham Cole using another identity?