The night was deep.

The night wind was cold.

The man stood beside the fountain in the rear garden and lit a cigarette.

The tiny ember flickered in and out with his breathing.

Of course, that little spark was nowhere near enough to illuminate the darkness, but he could still clearly see every shadow here.

“The hell do you mean, intruder?”

Time passed second by second. Several minutes later, after waiting here in vain for half the night without finding anything, the man violently flicked the cigarette butt into the white-jade fountain beside him.

The ember went out instantly without even splashing any water.

Just like this quiet night.

From Saint Haze Palace, one could not see the western district.

Naturally, one could not see the blood and flames there either.

The man stared at the water surface and instinctively spat hard.

Intruder?

Heh. Did they even know what kind of setup this place had?

Aside from lacking a Crowned, nearly every current Seat-holder in the entire Salvation Society had sent their strongest and most capable subordinates into this palace. Some had even sacrificed the speed of their own plans just to guard against any possible accident.

Especially not long ago, after the Holy Lord supposedly observed a ripple in the timeline, the security around Saint Haze Palace had been raised another level entirely.

Forget intruders.

In theory, not even a fly should be able to get in.

“Still...”

“Now that I think about it, if the grand barrier raised the alarm, then an intruder should indeed exist.”

The man was rarely using his brain to think when suddenly, he saw a ragged-looking Salvation Society member run out from the rear garden woods and hurry toward the other side.

“Hey, you.”

The man stopped him.

“What are you doing?”

“Ah, Lord Ghoul.”

The man clutched his arm. He seemed badly injured. Upon recognizing him, he hurried over, looking overjoyed, as though he had survived a disaster.

“Y-you people finally came.”

“What happened?”

The man frowned.

“There’s... there’s an intruder!”

The other man pointed in the direction he had come from and said excitedly,

“A very strong intruder! He’s already wiped out several of our squads. I barely escaped alive myself and rushed here immediately to report to you!”

“An intruder? Strong? Interesting.”

The man rolled his shoulders excitedly.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve seriously stretched my body. Hopefully this won’t disappoint me... Right, what does the intruder look like?”

“I don’t remember the details too clearly.”

The man thought seriously for a moment.

“But there’s one thing I can confirm.”

“What?”

“He’s handsome.”

“...More handsome than me?”

“...”

The man looked at his thick, brutish face and fell silent for a second.

“A little more handsome.”

“Really?”

The man’s expression immediately twisted in fury.

“What I hate most... are bastards more handsome than me. Let’s see me rip his face off and turn it into bar food!”

The man stormed away in huge strides.

Meanwhile, the other man remained standing there, watching him leave.

The two seemed destined to drift farther and farther apart...

But suddenly, the man stopped.

“Oh right. One more thing.”

He turned around expressionlessly.

“I want to ask—since something this major happened, why didn’t you use our Salvation Society internal communication channel remotely? Why’d you run here on foot instead?”

“My voice stone broke.”

The other man also answered expressionlessly.

“So I couldn’t use the internal channel.”

“I see... Guess I worried for nothing.”

The man scratched his head honestly.

“But... even so... I should still remind you of something.”

Killing intent erupted instantly.

And the man’s face became savage in a heartbeat.

“The second thing I hate most... is being deceived by food!”

“...”

This time, the other man did not answer.

Because in what felt like a mere blur, the man suddenly discovered that reality itself seemed to have skipped a segment.

Without any warning, the other man vanished.

Then without any warning, he appeared again.

Immediately after that, the man felt something cold pierce his chest.

And after that...

A scorching heat that burned the soul itself!

“You!”

The man’s pupils contracted violently as he stared in shock at the intruder now standing right before him.

He had exploded into action at the fastest speed possible, yet the other side had somehow been even faster!

The man slowly leaned close, revealing a face entirely different from before, unbelievably handsome.

“See? I didn’t lie to you.”

The man said,

“I am more handsome than you, aren’t I?”

“Muen—Campbell!”

The man roared!

By now, this person’s appearance and information had already spread throughout the entire Salvation Society. Even before this, the man had been curious about what sort of person could make the Salvation Society’s upper ranks value him so highly.

Why would lofty Crowned take a mere early fifth-rank brat so seriously?

Yet he had never imagined that this long-awaited first meeting would humiliate him so thoroughly!

The man lowered his head.

A pure white blade had pierced his heart with perfect precision. Holy Light from the Church flooded into his body along the blade. The agony of the burning made every cell in his body tremble.

He was going to die.

In a single exchange, he was already going to die.

Blood flowed.

Vitality drained away.

Death...

Was arriving.

The other side clearly thought so as well. The man could distinctly feel Muen beginning to withdraw his strength, preparing to pull out the blade.

The next moment, Muen would probably flick the blood from his knife and sneer at him for being arrogant and careless enough to fall to a sneak attack.

However...

The man suddenly grinned, revealing bloodstained teeth and a mocking smile.

“You don’t actually think... this is enough to kill me, do you?”

“Hm?”

Across from him, Muen raised a brow, looking surprised.

“You think you won’t die? I infused Holy Light directly into your vital organs. If you still don’t die under those circumstances... don’t tell me the Salvation Society, which claims to hate Evil Gods, not only borrows an Evil God’s power but actually accepted Its blessing too?”

“Hah, naive!”

The man burst into laughter.

That was right.

Naive.

A weapon piercing the heart.

Holy fire burning flesh.

Unless someone was an evil cultist personally empowered by an Evil God or some kind of immortal monster, injuries like these were almost certainly fatal.

But he...

Was different.

He was special.

Even if he was neither an evil cultist nor an immortal monster, he was still special.

And it was precisely because of this special trait that Donna had assigned him to test the intruder as the vanguard.

Because it was absolutely impossible for him to die from a sneak attack, even if he was arrogant and careless.

Arrogance and carelessness were fatal flaws for anyone else.

But not for him.

Instead, they were weapons used to mislead enemies.

“A mere early fifth-rank brat can only rely on cheap sneak attacks like this. But aside from sneak attacks, what else do you have?”

The man’s muscles began writhing in an eerie fashion. Beneath his flesh, pitch-black veins pulsed wildly, as though all his blood vessels and organs were rapidly shifting positions.

Inside his chest, the heart pierced by Muen’s blade was gradually failing.

But on the side of the man’s lower back, hidden from sight, the outline of another heart gradually emerged.

Then...

It began beating.

Strength flooded back into his body. All of it happened within an instant, too fast for anyone to react.

The man had already grabbed his weapon, a specially modified boning knife.

And Muen Campbell, who had approached this close in order to ambush him...

Naturally had no chance of escaping anymore!

“The arrogant one may have been me, but the naive one is you, Muen Campbell!”

The man laughed even more smugly.

“Repent for your ignorance and narrow-mindedness! The wonders in this world are far beyond anything you can imagine!”

The boning knife came down.

Then—

Pfft.

Flesh was pierced.

The man’s smile instantly froze.

The boning knife in his hand swung through empty air, dispersing only an afterimage identical to Muen.

“Oh? What wonders?”

Muen stood behind him and asked teasingly beside his ear,

“Could it be... the miraculous wonder of your vital organs growing out of your kidney?”

The blade pierced into him again.

That newly grown heart in the side of the man’s lower back had only managed to beat a few times.

Then it was pierced again...

And completely shredded.

The vitality the man had just recovered weakened once more. 𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

And this time, it would never erupt again.

“Why?”

The man opened his mouth. Black blood flowed from all seven orifices.

“How did you know?”

“Know what? Your vital organs? Or perhaps...”

Muen pulled out the blade and flicked the filthy blood from it.

“Ghoul. Subordinate of the Salvation Society’s Second Seat. High fifth-rank warrior. Powerful, battle-tested, and fond of eating people. Yet despite your notorious reputation, very few know that during an expedition into ancient ruins, you acquired a special ability...”

Muen looked at the man coldly.

“That is... as long as you swallow a person’s heart whole, you can gain a second life for a short period of time. And unless someone precisely destroys that second heart, you effectively possess endless vitality.”

“That’s why you keep eating people.”

“...”

The man’s eyes widened even further in disbelief.

“Y-you... how do you even know that...? Something like this should have...”

“Who knows?”

Muen shrugged.

“Maybe the world really does contain someone as knowledgeable as me.”

“H-how is that possible... before this, I never even... had any contact with you...”

The man wanted to deny it, but as his vitality faded, he could no longer even speak clearly.

Then he died.

“That may not necessarily be true.”

Muen bent down, black flames swirling in his palm.

Yet just as the black flames were about to devour the man, Muen’s hand paused, and he himself hesitated for a moment.

Fragmented, bloody, nauseating images surfaced before his eyes, stabbing painfully into his nerves. Almost instinctively, his body reacted with rejection, refusing to devour this rotten meat that reeked unbearably to him.

But in the end, he still controlled the black flames and devoured the man’s body.

He needed stamina.

“Gaius, is this the kind of trash produced by following your so-called grand ideals?”

After the devouring ended, Muen covered his face and murmured softly,

“How laughable.”