Chapter 1537: The Division

"It was them!"

Sean hurled the file onto the overbed table. The impact sent loose pages skidding across its surface, then the photographs of Clift and Jay fanning out like damning evidence laid bare. Faces frozen in moments that now burned behind Sean’s eyes.

Yes. Once again, Sean had been sent back to the hospital. After the fight, he suffered quite heavy internal injuries, including broken ribs, Fractured bones, and a bleeding spleen.

Most of it had already been mended by healers, and some light injuries healed by health potions after the healers knitted flesh and the doctor bones back together.

Sean was not in critical condition. Overall, he would be alive. Though living was not the same as winning. And once again, he was confined to a bed, ordered to rest for several days. Again.

Salvo pinched the bridge of his nose, fingers pressing into his glabella as though warding off a headache. His lips curled into something resembling sympathy, if one looked only at the surface.

"Well," he drawled, voice slick with false consolation, "try to see the bright side." A sneer slipped through. "Only a handful of people ever face an Archknight firsthand and live to tell the tale."

Sean’s jaw clenched, teeth grinding audibly. "I told you—it wasn’t the Archknights. It was that man...Zhao Li Xin." He squeezed the name from his teeth with deep frustration.

"The painter?" Salvo scoffed, dismissive, waving the notion away as if it were laughable.

"You know damn well he’s not just a painter," Sean shot back. "Isn’t that the very reason you wanted him recruited in the first place?"

Salvo paused.

For a fleeting moment, calculation flickered across his face before he masked it with calm interest. "I’ll admit," he murmured, "I didn’t know his Gift was... that powerful." His eyes sharpened, alight with something predatory. "Which only makes him more valuable. All the more reason to bring him to our side."

Sean let out a dry, humorless sigh and rolled his eyes. "Please, that’s impossible. That guy’s hell-bent on fighting us. You think I didn’t try to talk him out of it?"

Salvo tilted his head slightly. "Maybe he doesn’t like your questionable interest in his wife," he quipped,

Sean stiffened; he looked away, just like a naughty kid caught red-handed by his parents. Salvo watched the reaction closely, eyes narrowing just enough to catch the fracture in Sean’s composure.

"You seemed rather invested in that woman," he continued softly. "Luce told me how you plan all the kidnappings, you even go there personally to get her. Wait, what was her name again...Oh, Raven Jane, wasn’t it?"

Sean’s expression hardened, the muscles in his face tightening like a drawn wire. "It’s not what you think."

"Oh?" Salvo’s brows lifted, feigned innocence dripping from the single syllable. "Then explained it to me."

"She merely piqued my curiosity," Sean said sharply. "That’s all. Once she made it clear she stood against us, no matter what. I lost interest in her."

An unreadable smile tugged the corner of his lips. "So..." Salvo’s voice came out slowly, his eyes glinting with something far darker than amusement, "You were indeed interested in her." The words that lingered in the air are more like a confirmation than a question.

Sean’s expression tightened; he couldn’t understand what Salvo was trying to do. He and Raven Jane had barely interacted at all, and every encounter they had shared was brief, strained, calculated, and never under anything resembling normality.

Not once did they ever share a moment of leisure, not even a single civilized conversation ever happened between them. There had only ever been tension, opposition. Everything that happened between them was violence tempered by deceit and manipulation. No honesty, nor sincerity ever exists between, and yet, strangely, the memory of her refused to fade.

"So then," Salvo said lightly, breaking into his thoughts, "you wouldn’t mind if I placed a bounty on Zhao Li Xin and her, would you?"

He looked at Sean closely now, the casual tone betraying nothing, while his eyes probed for everything.

Sean’s frown deepened. "Is that really necessary?"

Salvo shrugged, unbothered. "Orders from above." His voice remained almost conversational. "Theodore Navaro was furious over the destruction of Blackridge. And Alexander Behrenn—well." A faint, amused exhale. "Well, His grace didn’t take his humiliation in Harland very well."

Sean’s voice deepened with heaviness. "So, you’re planning to attack Harland now?"

"They struck us openly," Salvo replied with a thin smile. "Naturally, we should give an appropriate response, right? " He tilted his head. "Of course, we can’t be too blatant. Sadly, the public still adores the Lucient family, and they’ve been hiding their animosity toward us neatly, so we don’t have a good reason to attack them openly."

His gaze sharpened, glinting with quiet conspiracy. "But that doesn’t mean we can shake them a little bit, making their life a bit harder..." Salvo sneers.

Sean did not know what Salvo was truly thinking, only that Salvo never spoke without a design. Every word carried weight, every suggestion a blade hidden in velvet. Whatever plan was forming, Sean knew one thing with sickening certainty: Raven Jane was already woven into it.

And in that design, there seemed to be only one possible end between them, and it was death. The realization settled heavily in his chest, like a stone sinking into a lake.

Sean closed his eyes, drawing a slow breath, as if he could force the feeling down by sheer will, swallow it whole before it dared to surface again. Some things were better left unnamed, so it would not hunt him.

Fortunately, she had always been so cold to him, always merciless and unyielding. There had been no softness in their interaction, no hesitation in her defiance. No mercy in her gaze. She had met him with steel every time, and that, at least, made things simpler... Cleaner.

Thus...it will make it easier.

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The next day, it did not take long for the narrative war to begin.

Whispers spread first, then speeches, then carefully edited broadcasts that dripped with alarm and righteous fury. They subtly remind the public of how dangerous the Gifted were, how strange their existence truly was, how unnatural power had no place among ordinary lives.

They even bring up the past, the time when the Dark Ages War happened, when the law of the jungle inevitably prevailed as governments collapsed and laws all but ceased to exist. In that era of ruin and desperation, order was a fragile illusion, and survival often came at the cost of morality.

During that time, some Gifted people exploited the chaos for personal gain. Armed with powers unchecked by authority or consequence, they terrorized the weak and plundered the innocent, killing with a cruelty that stripped their victims of dignity as well as life.

These stories were dragged into the present and held up as proof, carefully framed to suggest inevitability rather than exception.

They implied that this was the true nature of the Gifted when left unrestrained, dangerous, uncontrollable, a looming menace to society. Blackridged was cited again and again as the ultimate example, a name spoken like a warning, meant to silence doubt and harden fear.

Big media continued to cultivate suspicion with quiet persistence, nurturing unease until it took root in everyday thought. Neighbors began to watch one another more closely. The mere existence of the Gifted became something to be wary of, something that demanded vigilance.

Later on, President Theodore Navaro made a big speech to address the tragedy that happened in the Blackridged. ℴ𝒗ⅇ𝑙.

Then, with a somber expression and voice heavy with controlled anger, he started his speech:

"My fellow citizens of Luxemborough," he said, "what happened in Blackridged is a tragedy that has shaken us all. Families were destroyed, lives were lost, and fear has once again been carved into our streets."

He paused before continuing. "This attack has exposed a painful truth we can no longer ignore. Unregulated power, a power beyond law and accountability unquestionably dangerous. The Gifted people possess abilities capable of devastating entire communities when left unchecked, and Blackridged stands as grim proof of that risk."

"We remember the Dark Ages War," Navaro added. "We remember what happens when law collapses, and power reigns without restraint. It is always ordinary people who pay the price."

"This is not hatred; it is responsibility," he concluded. "I urge other nations to stand with Luxemborough. Let us work together, let’s share intelligence, align our laws, and establish unified oversight. Only through cooperation can we prevent another Blackridged and ensure the safety of our people."

For some people, President Navaro’s words struck a raw, familiar chord. Fear hardened into anger, and anger is always desperate for a target. In the streets of Luxemborough, murmurs turned sharp, suspicion grew like a wild grass.

People clutched their children closer. They began to glance twice at those around them, growing worried whenever they heard that a Gifted person had moved into their neighborhood.

To them, Blackridged was proof enough. Navaro had spoken what they were already thinking, and his call for international cooperation felt like long-overdue action rather than overreach.

Others responded with cautious approval. They did not cheer his accusations, but they welcomed the promise of control and unity.

If nations truly worked together, if laws were clear and fair, perhaps safety and coexistence could still be preserved. These voices spoke softly, hoping regulation would prevent fear from becoming persecution.