Chapter 609: Murder On My Mind [Bonus - ]

Chapter 609: Murder On My Mind [Bonus Chapter]

It didn’t release an ordinary shockwave.

A colossal expanding dome of dense lightless black sand and pressurized divine plasma erupted outward from the citadel, traveling at ten thousand miles per hour...

The White Citadel, the eight-hundred-year-old stepped pyramid of polished titanium and gold, was instantly vitrified into black glass and pulverized into fine ash in the span of a single second.

BOOOOOMMMMMm!

The wave rolled forward, swallowing three square miles of the capital’s most opulent district...

Palaces of marble, multi-story luxury hotels, ancient monuments, manicured parks, and seventy thousand fleeing citizens and guards were washed over by the black wall.

Al-Kadhir didn’t even have time to close his eyes.

The black sand touched his armor and his steel, his flesh and even his screaming mouth froze into solid crystal.

SNAP!

The glass shattered.

Within three seconds, the entire Inner District of Iunu, the seat of the Sun-Crown’s imperial power, was completely wiped off the face of the Earth, leaving behind only a colossal three-mile-wide crater of drifting, lightless black sand beneath the weeping desert sun.

...

[30 Minutes Earlier]

DING!

The hum of the central cooling station inside the penthouse suite of the Grand Oasis Palace possessed that hush unique to five-star hospitality.

’Not that I understand it... It’s my first time...’

It was designed to suppress the sweltering kiln of the southern desert, reducing the dry kiln-hot temperature of the Great Dunes to a sterile one that smelled of mountain mint and distilled spring water.

"Haah..."

Silas stood in the center of the spacious private quarters, letting out a slow breath as his fingers methodically worked his silk tie loose from the stiff collar of his charcoal dress shirt.

He looked around the room.

The architectural aesthetic was an aggressive blend of dynastic wealth and modernized engineering... The place had soaring arched ceilings ribbed with polished petrified cedar, baseboards carved from rose-veined alabaster and wide floor tiles forged from crushed lapis lazuli that had their own cooling as well.

’We arrived not too long ago,’ he thought, his thumb absently rubbing the sore skin beneath his eyes.

TICK-TICK-TICK!

The watch in the room currently indicated a sharp four-hour jump forward from the timezone of Europa.

The transition had been a lot... One moment, he was in Europa and the next, he was clearing the high-priority immigration turnstiles of the Khemet Dominion under a clean corporate passport issued by the Directorate.

’This is actually my first time officially in another country...’

A faint self-deprecating smirk touched the corner of his mouth.

To a kid who had grown up in the damp rat-chewed corners of Sector Five, measuring the passage of weeks by how many copper credits he could scrape from stripping burnt wiring out of condemned alchemical turbines, the concept of an international border had been an unattainable myth.

The world beyond Europa’s perimeter had felt like another dimension entirely, reserved exclusively for the smiling oligarchs, Lords, and dynasties paraded across holo-screens.

’It feels nice...’

His standard Europa passport had cleared the gate without a hitch though he had a little help from Evelyn.

Wealth, combined with verified clean credit credentials from the LAB, had a way of turning even the strictest southern border marshals remarkably accommodating.

’Maybe we would have done a proper trip if it was possible,’ Silas mused, his gaze drifting toward the luggage stacked neatly by the cedar wardrobe.

He certainly had the capital now.

His private accounts were swollen with spirit credits, and his storage in Blessed Land was choked with enough ore to probably buy out an entire commercial district.

If the world weren’t unraveling at the seams, he could have rented a gilded private skiff, sailed down the clear channels of the southern lakes, and let Lia spend an entire week eating candied dates and buying ridiculously overpriced brass trinkets with Kaede and Penelope.

CLICK!

The heavy brass handle of the primary suite door turned smoothly.

"Master Silas?"

Martha stepped into the room, balancing a circular tray of beaten silver in her hands.

As always, the middle-aged housekeeper was dressed in her pristine starch-stiff maid’s uniform, her grey-streaked hair pinned into an immaculate knot.

Her face bore the faint lines of travel fatigue, but her posture was steady, anchored by decades of professional composure.

"I took the liberty of consulting the kitchen staff on the lower floors," Martha said softly, stepping across the lapis tiles with soundless grace. "The tea blends of Khemet are quite renowned for restoring core circulation after high-altitude flight... This is an infusion of dried crimson bush, desert lotus nectar, and shaved sun-root."

She set the tray upon a low table of petrified oak, pouring a single cup from a slender long-spouted bronze kettle.

A curling plume of fragrant white steam rose into the cooled air, carrying a sharp scent that immediately cut through the stale smell of the aircraft’s pressurized cabin.

Silas stepped over, accepting the delicate porcelain cup as he brought the rim to his lips, testing the heat, and took a slow sip.

’Mm?!’

The liquid was surprisingly deep.

It began with an earthy taste that settled heavy on the tongue, followed almost immediately by a bright sweet bloom of lotus and a sudden prickling heat that traveled down his throat, going down and sending a gentle warmth into the meridians of his chest.

"It’s good," Silas admitted, taking a second deeper sip and nodding in genuine appreciation. "Very smooth as well... The sun-root cuts the bitterness nicely."

He lowered the cup, looking at Martha. "How are the girls doing?"

"They are doing properly, Master," Martha replied, folding her hands neatly over her white apron, her expression softening with quiet relief. "Miss Lia was somewhat dizzy from the pressure changes during the descent, but Miss Kaede has been hovering over her like a dutiful sister, ensuring she drank her fruit juices... They are currently inspecting the automated lotus-bath in the secondary suite."

She paused, glancing back toward the corridor.

"And Penelope?" Silas asked.

"She is... significantly calmer now, Master Silas," Martha murmured, her voice lowering. "Having crossed the border, and knowing that you are within shouting distance, seems to have lifted the worst of the terror from her shoulders... She drank half a bowl of warm broth and has ceased trembling. The child carries a great deal of pride, but she was genuinely terrified for her sister."

"I’m thankful for that," Silas said, staring into the dark amber depths of the tea.

He took another sip, letting the heat settle into his core.

Bringing the girls along hadn’t been a frivolous choice at all, now that he was thinking about it...

Harper had been snatched from her private residence under the nose of her family’s security detail by an entity that moved through shadows and manipulated minds.

Penelope was Lia’s genuine friend, constantly in and out of the Silverleaf estate.

If whoever had hijacked Harper’s body knew about Harper’s domestic routines, they knew about Lia.

Leaving Lia and Martha alone in Europa while he crossed to Khemet would have left his back exposed.

If an enemy struck at his home while he was thousands of miles away in the desert, no amount of acceleration would get him back in time to stop it.

Keeping them inside his immediate sensory umbrella, guarded by high-grade barriers and stationed in one of the most fortified tourist strongholds in the city, was the only way he could operate without his mind tearing itself apart with paranoia.

’As for Kaede’s brother...’

Silas felt an involuntary sharp shiver run down the length of his spine.

...Minamoto.

The memory of the private airfield in Europa was still uncomfortably fresh in his head.

The man had been surprisingly accommodating on paper.

Tall, weathered, and lean, wrapped in a long sea-gray overcoat, Minamoto looked exactly like what he was... a Level 10 Lord who spent most of his life on maritime subjugation quests along the coast of the Sovereign Realm.

A silver sedan sat idling on the tarmac behind him, and he hadn’t raised a single objection when Silas approached him to explain the emergency flight.

In fact, he had immediately pulled four of his best officers, seasoned second-stage combatants trained in defensive barriers and attacks, to accompany the party as sworn bodyguards.

Silas had been genuinely thankful for the gesture.

...Right up until the moment Kaede had happily grabbed Silas’s hand at the boarding ramp, beaming about her very first international flight.

In that single second, the polite stoic smile on Minamoto’s face hadn’t shifted by a millimeter.

Yet, the spiritual pressure radiating from the man’s core had plummeted into an absolute zero.

’Haah, scary dude.’

Silas’s instincts had screamed in alarm as a razor-sharp concentrated aura of pure killing intent had brushed past his neck like the unsheathed edge of an ancient katana.

Silas had stood there on the tarmac, forcing his facial muscles into a mask of pure polite indifference and now that he thought about it.

’Well... he is her older brother. If some strange guy showed up at an airfield asking to fly Lia to a foreign continent on two hours’ notice, I probably would have flattened his car with an iron girder before he finished the sentence...’

Silas took a final sip, emptying the porcelain cup, and handed it back to the tray with a soft metallic clatter.

"Tell the escorts to maintain a rotating two-man watch at the main suite entrance and the secondary fire stairwell," Silas instructed calmly. "Tell them to keep their spells active... I have a bad feeling about this city, Martha."

Martha took the tray, her eyes reflecting the gravity in his voice.

"Understood, Master Silas. Are you going to begin looking for Miss Harper now?"

"Yeah," Silas said, rolling his shoulders back until his spine gave three sharp muted pops. "I’ll head out into the Airport first and ask around the terminals to check if any private charters or freight shuttles logged an irregular landing within the last six hours."

"Please be careful, sir," Martha murmured, offering a deep respectful bow. "We will await your return."

"Keep the deadbolts engaged," Silas added as the housekeeper turned and slipped quietly through the door, sealing the heavy oak panel behind her.

The suite fell silent once more.

Silas walked toward the center of the Persian rug, planting his feet shoulder-width apart.

He raised his arms, stretching his torso from left to right with his joints creaking under the subtle tension of his mana channels.

’This entire situation is completely twisted.’

He let out a long frustrated hiss through his teeth.

...What was so special about the Khemet Dominion?

Harper was a brilliant woman. She was sharp, calculating, and exceptionally gifted at what she did but in terms of raw martial output, she was only Second Stage or perhaps even first...?

That was no insult to her.

If an ancient foreign entity, a rogue Lord, or a black-market cabal wanted a vessel to infiltrate a foreign country, there were tens of thousands of seasoned high-tier Awakened walking the streets of Europa.

There were third-stage mercenaries, temple champions, and combat-hardened Lords whose bodies could withstand ten times the stress Harper’s could bear so why take Harper?

Whatever had taken her hadn’t been shopping for the strongest vessel. It had wanted her, her body, her blood, or her bond with him.

’I hope you’re safe...’ Silas thought, his eyes narrowing into cold slits.

Her face rose unbidden in his mind making him sigh.

’I never really knew I liked her this much...’

Why else would her face be popping up in his mind this much...? She was really beautiful.

The violet eyes behind her wire-rimmed glasses, the way she pushed them up her nose whenever she was saying something clever, the smirk she wore when she thought she’d caught him off guard, and the ridiculous confidence with which she had once tried out ’Silas-kun’ before he set her straight.

Then the picture bent, and it was Penelope’s trembling voice describing a sickening green glint spinning behind those same violet eyes.

His fists clenched until his knuckles cracked with his jaw setting into a hard merciless line.

’If they lay a single hand on her head... I’ll kill them.’

He wasn’t going to negotiate and he wasn’t going to hold an inquiry.

Whoever was pulling the strings behind that green light would die.

The only question was how agonizing the process was going to be. If Harper was unharmed, it would be quick but if she had been harmed, tortured, or broken... he would unravel their meridians grain by grain.

’I’m really starting to sound like a bloodthirsty cultivator,’ Silas scoffed inwardly, catching the violent drift of his own thoughts.

Yet, as he looked out through the curtains at the blazing white skyline of Iunu, a bizarre gnawing intuition refused to leave his mind.

A city of white stone, surrounded on all sides by an endless hostile desert.

...Sand.

’It couldn’t be that fucker... right?’

The name surfaced in his mind like a rancid corpse bobbing to the top of a stagnant pond.

’Ititius.’

It was a wild and almost irrational leap of logic but in his entire life, Silas had only ever encountered one singular monstrous entity that treated sand as an extension of divine authority.

And yet, the reality made no sense.

’How the hell does that even work?’ Silas asked himself, his brow furrowing deeply. ’How resilient can one bastard be?!’

First, during the Secret Realm, Thor had literally swatted the god’s divine avatar out of the sky with an attack of cosmic thunder, vaporizing his physical form into ash.

Then, as Silas was going home with Elora, Silas had personally flooded him with a water spell, drowning his spiritual remnant in crushing pressure.

And then, as if that weren’t enough, when a residual fragment of the creature’s soul had attempted to hijack Kadi’s body inside his territory of Blessed Land... the Territory had purged him as well.

So...

How did a creature survive being erased three separate times across three different planes of existence...? Was the bastard made of spiritual cockroaches...?

BZZZZ-BZZZZ!

The black phone on the low table vibrated sharply with its blue notification diode flashing in rapid double-pulse bursts and Silas walked over, picking up the phone.

’It can’t be more bad news, right?’