Chapter 1559: Provocation II

The following morning, another headline rippled across Harland’s news networks, stirring murmurs throughout the city. Several charred corpses had been discovered in a narrow, deserted alley along Pristine View Road, an upscale district located disturbingly close to the luxury villa where Lory and Zhao Li Xin were currently residing.

Mainstream media outlets quickly reported the incident as a violent altercation involving Gifted people, though the exact cause remained under investigation.

Authorities soon confirmed that none of the victims were Harland citizens. Fingerprint records exposed them as internationally wanted criminals, heavily sought by the Xiya government for their involvement in the assassination of one of the nation’s most respected and influential elites, a wealthy patron whose death had stirred significant national outrage.

The revelation brought an immediate sense of relief to the general public. Since the deceased were neither locals nor innocent civilians, most people dismissed the event as little more than criminals meeting an inevitable end. Within hours, the city resumed its usual rhythm, the tragedy fading into background noise among more pressing daily concerns.

Yet within the shadows of the underground world, the reaction was far from indifferent.

Those who recognized the faces displayed on the news broadcast understood the message hidden beneath the official narrative. It was not merely a report of deaths, it was a declaration.

A silent, merciless mockery of another failed attempt to eliminate Lory and Zhao Li Xin. After that, the black market erupted.

Assassins came, some cautiously, others boldly, drawn by greed, ambition, or the staggering price still hanging over Lory and Zhao Li Xin’s heads. They arrived alone or in small teams, employing poisons, blades, firearms, curses, and techniques honed through years of bloodshed.

Still, they had failed.

In the days that followed, more reports surfaced across the news—each framed as a separate incident. Some were labeled tragic accidents, others remained under investigation, their details vague and inconclusive. Burned vehicles in forgotten districts. Bodies discovered in abandoned buildings. Explosions blamed on faulty infrastructure or rogue Gifted clashes.

To the public, these events appeared unrelated, scattered misfortunes stitched together by coincidence. But to those who knew how to read between the lines, the pattern was unmistakable.

Every attempt ended the same way, failure, and with each headline, the message grew clearer: Come and get us.

For two full weeks, the cycle repeated itself.

Yet the villa remained untouched. The targets remained alive.

They did not change their residence. They did not alter their routines.

If anything, they continued their days with unsettling normalcy, as though deliberately inviting danger, challenging every so-called professional to step forward and prove their worth. To those watching from the shadows, it no longer felt like a job.

It had become personal.

At the same time, the pressure from Luxemborough become heavier by the day, they asked for responsibility, question the black market about providing capable assassin. They insisted the job had to be done as soon as possible, or else.

Eventually, the King Broker made a decision.

At the same time, pressure from Luxemborough grew heavier with each passing day. They demanded accountability, questioning the black market’s ability to provide assassins capable of completing the contract. Their messages became increasingly direct, increasingly impatient.

The task, they insisted, had to be completed as soon as possible.

Or there would be consequences.

The Broker had run out of times. Thus he finally declared the contract as an ’Open Table’ and From that moment forward, the commission became a job for everyone. No ranking, requirements, no exclusivity clauses, no limitations.

Soon after, veteran assassins, rookie killers, underground mercenaries, rogue agent, bounty hunters, syndicate executioners, even desperate opportunists looking to carve their names into the underworld, were now free to claim the target.

The stake get higher, the rule absolves, it’s an open hunt now.

The reward swelled to absurd proportions, inflating further with every failed attempt. With each new escalation, the contract drifted farther from ordinary employment, transforming into something that felt less like a job... and more like a legend whispered through the underworld.

Whispers spread that whoever succeeded would not only earn unimaginable wealth but also instant notoriety across every black market network in existence.

The Broker’s decision was both practical and cruel. Elite assassins had already fallen. Carefully planned operations had collapsed.

Pride had been buried alongside corpses that never reached burial grounds.If skill could not secure victory, then numbers might worked. Someone must able to killed them right?

From that day onward, the contract was no longer a professional assignment.It became a frenzy. A feeding ground. A storm of blades and ambition, all converging toward one quiet villa that continued to stand, unchanged, unmoved, at the center of the gathering chaos.

While the underworld drowned itself in the frenzy of the open contract, Jay worked in silence.

The Broker’s King network was infamous, not merely for its secrecy, but for its paranoia. The black market platform did not exist on any ordinary server.

It floated through layered proxy realms, constantly shifting its digital footprint like a mirage. Every access point dissolved after a single session. Every communication route rerouted through ghost relays scattered across forgotten infrastructures and abandoned satellite channels.

Finding the Broker’s King location was considered impossible. Thus, Jay treated it like a challenge.

He began by dismantling the outer veil, slipping into the marketplace through dozens of false identities he had cultivated over the years, each one carrying its own verified history, transaction record, and criminal reputation.

He moved cautiously, observing patterns rather than forcing entry, allowing the system to accept him as just another predator circling the feeding ground.

The black market ran on adaptive encryption, codes that mutated continuously, rewriting themselves every few seconds. Most hackers would attempt brute-force intrusion and trigger immediate eradication protocols, but Jay did the opposite.

He listened patiently for days. He monitored transaction timestamps, data packet delays, routing echoes, microscopic irregularities invisible to ordinary analysts.

He traced how contract updates traveled across the network, how bounty adjustments synchronized across mirrored servers, and more importantly... where the signal hesitated.

Every system, no matter how sophisticated, required a central authority, and authority always left fingerprints. He constructed a shadow algorithm designed to imitate the market’s own encryption logic.

Instead of breaking the security layers, he allowed his program to evolve alongside them, mirroring their mutations until it became indistinguishable from native code.

Slowly, carefully, he embedded fragments of tracking protocols into routine contract updates, tiny, harmless parasites disguised as authentication verification loops.

The system accepted them without resistance.

From there, Jay waited.

When the King Broker authorized another bounty escalation, the command rippled across the network like a stone thrown into still water. Servers synchronized. Mirrors updated. Firewalls recalibrated.

For a fraction of a second—

One relay lagged.

That microscopic delay was enough.

Jay’s eyes narrowed as streams of data cascaded across his monitors, layers of routing masks peeling away one after another like serpents shedding their skins.

Coordinates flickered into existence for mere heartbeats before dissolving, replaced by elaborate false trails and decoy nodes designed to lure intruders into digital graves.

But Jay had already captured the echo.

He leaned back slowly in his chair, fingers hovering above the keyboard as lines of confirmation scrolled endlessly across the glowing screens. The dim light reflected in his eyes, sharpening the predatory gleam hidden beneath his calm expression.

"There you are..." he murmured, his voice barely louder than a breath.

With a satisfied exhale, Jay pushed his chair back and rose to his feet. He grabbed his phone from the desk as he stepped out of the room, already dialing a number from memory.

A moment later, the call rang once, then twice, before he heard click.

"Hey, Luc. I got it," Jay said the moment the line connected, not bothering to wait for a greeting.

"Oh?" Lucas’s voice came through, smooth and composed. "Faster than I expected." The faint praise lingered in his tone, though it carried no trace of surprise, only quiet certainty.

Jay’s lips curved with restrained pride. "You know how I work." He paused briefly before continuing, his voice lowering slightly. "So... when do we move?"

Silence stretched across the line for a moment, thoughtful rather than hesitant.

"Tonight, I suppose," Lucas replied at last, his tone relaxed, too casual, like he was discussing a late evening stroll rather than a hunt for one of the most elusive figures in the underworld.

Jay leaned against the corridor wall, folding one arm across his chest. "Want me to join?"

"No, not this time, brother," Lucas replied evenly. "I’ll take Fargo and Fred with me. You and Clift focus on extracting everything from those two—Calista and Ceila. Don’t let Lory’s work go to waste, or she would sulked" he jest.

Jay’s smile deepened slightly, a glint of mischief flashing through his eyes. "Yes, Your Majesty." Hut close the phone after Lucas ended the call.

Jay lowered the phone slowly, still looking pleased with himself. Then suddenly, something crossed his mind. He paused... then dialed another number.

The line rang a few times before a bright, familiar voice answered.

"Sup, Jay~" Lory cheery voice coming.

"Yo, Lory. You busy?" Jay asked casually.

A loud crash exploded from the other end.

"Xin! Careful! My chocolate cake is right there!" Lory shouted in panic.

"Yes, wife," Zhao Li Xin’s calm voice answered.

Jay grin in amusement. "Busy, huh?"

"Nah, just the usual," Lory replied casually, as if property destruction was a daily background noise. "Anyway, how’s it going? I stirred the underground world pretty well, didn’t I?"

"You didn’t just stir it, Princess" Jay snorted. "You flipped the whole table. Those assassins showing up at your villa? Half of them are well known in the undeground world even before the Dark Age war, and you guys squashed them like bugs." ⅇ

"Hey," Lory said defensively, "most of that was my husband’s work."

"Oh yeah?" Jay chuckled. "How’s your husband holding up after getting rained on by assassins for days?"

"Oh, please" Lory roll her eyes. "It just feels right like home for him."

Then she suddenly yelled again, "Xin! Garden! Throw them into the garden! It wpuld make the clean up team work easier!"

"Oh, okay!" Zhao Li Xin answer obidiently.

After that, another massive crashing sound followed.

Jay let out a chuckles. "He sounds like he’s having the time of his life."

"Yeah... pretty much," Lory sighed. "Although they’re kinda weak, so he’s getting bored now."

"Well, finding someone on his level is not gonna be easy" Jay had witness how powerful Zhao Li xin could be.

"True," Lory hummed. "But with this whole Zalchana and Paladin mess... maybe he’ll finally meet someone worthy of him. Who knows, that Salvo De Rova guy might turn out to be a decent sparring partner."

"You’re probably the only wife in existence hoping her husband finds a worthy opponent." Jay teased.

"Well what can I say..." Lory replied cheerfully. "As long as he’s happy, I’m happy too. And if trouble comes... he still got me by his side"

"Yeah, that’s true," Jay agreed. With Zhao Li Xin and Lory combined, he couldn’t imagine anyone capable of matching them, and if something did go wrong.There were still Lucas, and the Archknights to help.

"Oh yeah—Luc’s moving tonight," Jay added, remembering what he’d called about in the first place. "He’s taking Fargo and Fred with him."

"Ooooh really?" Lory sounded instantly interested. "Tell me everything later."

Suddenly—

CRASH.

"HEY—HEY—HEY!" Lory shouted. "Stop breaking the wall! Do you even know how much the renovation cost?"

There was a brief pause, followed by a long, exasperated groan. "Sorry, I’ve gotta go, Jay. They keep breaking my walls. Seriously—these people are so unprofessional."

Jay laughed. "Alright, alright. Have fun, Princess."

"Byeee~" Lory reply cherfully before ended the call.

Jay lowered the phone, a small chuckle escaping his lips. How he had missed days like this. Fortunately, he had them back now... and he had no intention of ever letting this time slip away again.

Whether it was Luxemborough, the S.A.I.N.T. organization, the Saintess, or Zalchana, he would not allow anyone to hurted the people he loved. This time, he would not fail.

Never again.