Chapter 33: Husband And Wife In Action

Chapter 33: Chapter 33: Husband And Wife In Action

Ethan bit into his palm. Blood immediately welled up.

He pressed his bleeding hand against the wooden figure, allowing several drops of his essence blood to soak into its surface. Then he threw it onto the ground.

The instant it touched the pavement, a crimson glow flashed. The tiny figure began expanding. Its wooden limbs stretched. Its torso grew larger.

Within seconds, the little puppet had transformed into a towering humanoid construct nearly two meters tall. A terrifying pressure spread from it. A pressure that was like no other.

And immediately, everyone could see that this was no ordinary puppet. It had been personally crafted by the renowned master artificer Orion Vale, and its combat strength had reached the seventh star of the Foundation Establishment Realm.

For someone like Ethan, it was practically a trump card. And now he had decided to use it. Now the games had changed.

His bloodshot eyes locked onto Xavier.

"It’s all because of you," he raved, his voice shaking with madness.

"If you disappear, they’ll stop protecting you. Everything will go back to normal," he added.

He pointed toward Xavier.

"Kill him!" he screamed.

The puppet moved. There was no hesitation. Its heavy foot slammed into the ground, cracking the pavement beneath it.

Then its enormous body shot forward. It was so fast that the surrounding people barely had time to react.

No one had expected Ethan to actually order a killing in the middle of the street.

Evelyn was still occupied by the two Carter bodyguards and couldn’t break away. She turned her head just in time to see the puppet charging toward Xavier.

"Ethan, stop!" she screamed.

But it was already too late.

Mira reacted even faster.

"Don’t you dare touch my husband!" she shrieked.

She rushed forward. But the puppet’s speed was beyond what she could immediately match.

Her expression changed. There was no time to chase it down.

Mira clenched her teeth. Then she bit down hard on her tongue. A mouthful of blood burst from her lips.

The moment the blood touched the air, the temperature around her plummeted.

Frost spread across the ground. The surrounding air seemed to crystallize.

Then a tiny figure emerged from within Mira’s body. A miniature phoenix made of shimmering frost appeared in front of her.

It was barely larger than a kitten. Yet the moment it opened its wings, an icy cry rang through the street.

The Frost Phoenix shot forward. Wherever it passed, delicate ice crystals formed in the air before falling like shattered glass.

The cold was so intense that everyone nearby instinctively shivered. Their limbs stiffened. Even their thoughts seemed to slow beneath the overwhelming chill.

Only Xavier remained unaffected. The Chaos Aura within his body quietly circulated, shielding him from the freezing pressure.

His gaze shifted toward Ethan. The moment Ethan had ordered the puppet to kill him, whatever hesitation Xavier had left disappeared.

So Ethan genuinely wanted him dead. In that case, there was nothing more to discuss.

"You wanted to kill me," Xavier said, a cold glint appearing in his eyes.

"Then I’ll deal with you first," he added.

He didn’t make a large movement. Instead, he silently gathered a strand of Chaos Aura between his fingers.

The strange energy condensed and narrowed until it became something resembling a tiny needle.

This was one of the techniques Xavier had experimented with the previous night.

The Chaos Aura could be compressed and shaped according to his will. It wasn’t particularly destructive yet.

When he had tested the technique against himself, even with his body protected by Chaos Aura, the condensed strand had only managed to penetrate roughly a centimeter into his palm.

It also couldn’t travel indefinitely. Once it moved beyond roughly twenty meters, the condensed energy would disperse.

But Ethan was standing well within that distance. And Ethan’s physical defense was nowhere near Xavier’s.

The moment the puppet charged forward, Xavier flicked his fingers. The tiny needle of Chaos Aura shot through the air. No one noticed it. Not even Ethan.

At almost the exact same moment, the Frost Phoenix collided with the wooden puppet.

Crack!

The construct shattered. Wooden fragments exploded in every direction as the Frost Phoenix tore straight through it.

Then, thud, Ethan collapsed. His eyes rolled upward as his body hit the ground. Blood began flowing from his mouth and nose, staining the pavement beneath him.

The street fell silent. The terrifying puppet had been destroyed in an instant. Ethan was motionless on the ground.

Xavier stood where he was, his expression unchanged. Beside him, Mira breathed heavily. The attack had clearly consumed a considerable amount of her strength.

But she had protected him. And that was all that mattered.

The confrontation was over.

Or so they thought.

Several streets away, a man walked through the morning crowd with a visibly exhausted expression.

His name was Grant Mercer, captain of the Third Investigation Unit of Valemont’s Extraordinary Affairs Division.

He hadn’t slept at all. Yesterday evening, while he was already off duty, an urgent order had reached him.

A massive awakening phenomenon had appeared over the surrounding cities, and the department wanted the person responsible located immediately.

The problem was that they had absolutely no idea where to start.

Grant and his team had spent the entire night searching. Nothing. No leads. No confirmed sightings. No useful information.

By morning, he had decided to try the most obvious possibility.

The academy. Young martial artists were among the groups most likely to awaken unusual talents or special constitutions.

If the person responsible for last night’s phenomenon was a student, the academy was one of the first places they needed to investigate.

Their orders were simple. Find the awakened individual before other organizations did. Once located, bring them under the protection of the Extraordinary Affairs Division.

Grant was still thinking about the matter when a commotion suddenly reached his ears. He looked up. He had arrived near the academy. A crowd had gathered around a small plaza beside the entrance.

"Someone’s dead!" a voice shouted.

"Call the authorities!" another cried.

"Does anyone know what happened?" someone else asked.

Grant’s expression changed. A murder? He immediately walked toward the crowd.

Technically, a street killing wasn’t his department’s responsibility. But he was already there, and ignoring it would make no sense.

He pushed through the people until he reached the center. The scene immediately caught his attention. Several men who appeared to be bodyguards were standing nearby.

A group of young people was gathered around them.

And on the ground lay a young man whose face was covered in blood. The pavement surrounding them was badly damaged, with cracks and holes scattered across the concrete.

One of the bodyguards was shouting desperately.

"We didn’t kill him!" he insisted.

"We never even touched him!" he added.

Another immediately joined in.

"Why are you stopping us? We were the ones attacked!" he protested.

Evelyn’s voice cut through the commotion.

"You’re seriously trying to make yourselves look like victims?" she demanded.

She pointed toward Ethan’s body.

"Your employer brought a seventh star Foundation Establishment puppet here and ordered it to kill Xavier. If Mira hadn’t stopped it, Xavier would already be dead," she said, her expression icy.

"Don’t pretend you don’t know what happened," she added.

The bodyguards looked furious but had no immediate answer.

Evelyn continued.

"And now you’re trying to blame us because Ethan died?" she pressed.

She glanced around at the gathered crowd.

"There are witnesses everywhere. Everyone saw him order the puppet to attack," she said.

The more Grant listened, the clearer the situation became. A wealthy young man had apparently brought several fighters to confront someone.

Things had escalated. He had then deployed a powerful puppet with the intention of killing his target. And somehow, the young man himself had ended up dead.

Grant had seen enough incidents in the martial world to know that such things could happen.

But then his eyes settled on the fragments scattered across the pavement. Something caught his attention.

A faint, lingering chill.

Grant’s pupils narrowed. He could sense the remnants of a very particular aura.

Frost.

His expression changed. That couldn’t be...

He crouched beside one of the broken pieces and examined it carefully. The traces were faint, but unmistakable.

Frost Phoenix Bloodline.

Grant’s heart skipped. Was this the person they had been searching for all night?

He immediately stood. His gaze swept across the people gathered at the scene before settling on Xavier and Mira. Then he stepped forward.

"Who destroyed the puppet?" he asked, his eyes moving between the two of them.

"Which one of you awakened the Frost Phoenix Bloodline?" he demanded.

Grant’s question hung in the air. For several seconds, nobody answered. Then everyone seemed to understand what his words meant.

The Frost Phoenix Bloodline. That was the power he had sensed lingering around the shattered puppet.

Looking at the frost still lingering around the broken puppet, Grant felt a surge of excitement.

I actually found the person.