Outside the window, the sky was getting dark. In the distance, the pile of charred wreckage was just a hazy, menacing shape against the fading light. Every now and then, a final weak wisp of smoke drifted up into the gray-purple sky.

  Nicole switched on a portable high-brightness lamp. Its soft, steady light lit up the grimy “spoils” on the table. She started carefully looking them over, piecing things together.

  Her nimble fingers turned the damaged pages, her eyes quickly scanning the charred edges and faded writing. Sometimes she picked up one of the badges, holding it up to the light, squinting at patterns almost melted away by the heat.

  Pandora and Elsa waited quietly.

  After about fifteen minutes, Nicole looked up. Her face showed understanding, her eyes sparkling with excitement.

  “As I thought…” She picked up the half-burned notebook, pointing at a few barely readable paragraphs. “Raelf Pence was ‘Grave-Touch’!”

  Her tone was final. “This guy hid amazingly well. Most of the time, he acted as the respectable, low-key gentleman ‘Raelf Pence.’ He even hired some clueless low-ranks to play servants and maids in his house, building this whole image of a harmless senior second-ranker. He almost never fought under that name. Stayed quiet. Unnoticed.”

  Nicole made a clicking sound and shook her head. “No wonder. I knew about Grave-Touch and his link to Aldrich, but I never connected him to the harmless-looking Raelf Pence…”

  A satisfied smile touched her lips. “But this time, we didn’t just uncover his real identity. We took him out. Directly.”

  Her eyes got brighter, her voice full of barely held-back delight. “Perfect. I’d already mapped out Blighted Hand Wilbur’s people. Now Aldrich’s key enforcer, Grave-Touch, is gone too.” She rubbed her hands together excitedly. “That messy fight planned for tonight just lost a major piece. Today is really my lucky day.”

  Nicole radiated the satisfaction of imminent payback.

  Pandora listened quietly. Putting together the intel Nicole just analyzed with the earlier info from Poxman and Raelf… the whole thread of the incident became clear in her head.

  The Hunter team’s ambush really was started by Poxman. The reason was simple. Almost laughable. Just because the potions she sold in Ascension Road were too good and too cheap, squeezing his market and cutting his profits.

  A minor business conflict. That’s all it took for the petty, vindictive worm to hold a grudge and plot her death.

  But the main conflict now wasn’t with the now-headless, charred Poxman. It was with the real power behind the Hunter team and Grave-Touch Raelf Pence—The Blood Tonic, Aldrich.

  Pandora understood clearly. Unless this senior third-ranker approved, or at least agreed to the murder try… Poxman alone could never have moved assets like the Hunter team and Grave-Touch.

  She didn’t know what arguments or “benefits” Poxman used to stir Aldrich’s murderous intent. But now, the specific reason didn’t really matter. What mattered was the outcome. And the conflict that was definitely coming.

  “Although…” Nicole’s excitement cooled a little. Her expression turned calm and serious again as she looked at Pandora. “…from our side, we were defending ourselves. We were the ones hitting back. But in The Blood Tonic Aldrich’s eyes…” Her tone showed deep familiarity with the man. “You’re the enemy who wiped out his Hunter team and killed his key man, Grave-Touch. He’s someone…” She paused, choosing her words. “…extremely arrogant, full of himself, and vindictive. He won’t take this loss. He won’t just let go of the ‘damage’ and ‘humiliation.’”

  “Unless…” She looked at Pandora and slowly shook her head. “You go to him yourself, kneel, beg, hand over everything…” She quickly dismissed the thought. “Knowing him, even if you did, he’d probably still kill you. He’d ‘entertain’ you first. Humiliate you completely. That’s just how he is.”

  Nicole’s voice was calm, but her words gave a cold, clear read of the man’s core nature.

  “Now…” She summed up, her gaze sweeping over Pandora, then the silent Elsa beside her. “We’re on his bad side. And… it’s the kind that can’t be fixed.”

  Without meaning to, in the middle of her analysis, the subject of her speech had shifted subtly from “you” to “we.”

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  The reason was simple. Nicole already had her own deep, settled feud with The Blood Tonic Aldrich over the Blighted Hand Wilbur business.

  In fact, back when Pandora and Nicole first met—Nicole had sold key intel to Wilbur. After the deal, the other side turned on her, tried to erase her, nearly got her killed by Rot-Spiders.

  Over these months, her fight with Aldrich’s faction had long since become a life-or-death struggle that couldn’t be taken back.

  Now, seeing Pandora earn Aldrich’s undying hate because of this ambush too… Nicole almost instantly saw Pandora as “one of us.” Closer, more united against a common enemy than in their earlier, purely business dealings.

  One of them.

  As for Pandora, she didn’t mind Nicole thinking that way. In fact, she really did need more information about The Blood Tonic Aldrich from Nicole.

  Pandora needed to know what kind of man he really was. His methods. His weak spots. And what exactly made this so-called “senior third-ranker” different from the ordinary ones.

  “‘Senior third-rank’?” Nicole repeated the term. The corner of her mouth twisted into a curve that held mockery, disdain, and something deeper, more complicated.

  She picked up a half-finished bottle of purified water and gave it a gentle shake. “‘Senior’… sounds impressive. Intimidating. But in reality…” Her gaze drifted out the burger joint’s broken window, to the now fully dark sky and the distant, charred shape of the ruins. “…To put it bluntly, it just means their talent isn’t good enough. They aren’t real geniuses. Not the top-tier kind. So they have to rely on time. On getting a head start. On piling up resources and connections, grinding and filling bit by bit, forcing that road to the next rank open with pure bulk.”

  Nicole’s voice was calm, but her words carried a clear chill. “People like that, because their talent’s limited and the road’s hard, tend to clump together. They form little interest groups. Build factions.”

  “Eden…” She paused, a hint of history in her tone. “…was started by a bunch of third-rank apprentices like that. Of course, those original founders are either dead or long since moved up. Became real Demon Hunters, left the apprentice circles behind. They’ve got nothing to do with Eden now. But the organization, the name ‘Eden,’ stayed. It got taken over by the next batch of new third-rankers, and they built on it.”

  “Later on…” Nicole’s mouth twisted into an ironic smile. “Because of interests, ideas, all sorts of reasons… that once kinda-unified group kept splintering. You got ‘Ascension Road,’‘Echo Quarry’… and other big and small crews. Then, as time went on, interests tangled, grudges piled up… It slowly turned into the mess we have now. A mix of working together and competing even harder, with fights breaking out here and there.”

  She summed it up, her tone showing a clear-eyed grip on the core of it. “Sounds complicated. Like there’s some deep thinking and history behind it. But at the heart, the logic’s simple: Not enough talent, so you make up for it with resources. And because resources are always limited, you have to fight for them… So you end up with all this… nonsense.”

  She tilted her head back, finished the last of the water, and set the empty bottle down on the table with a soft tap.

  “Honestly…” Nicole’s voice dropped a little. Her eyes flashed with a mix of resentment and something sharp, almost obsessive. “The ones with real talent, the true geniuses… they don’t stick around at third rank for long. The Academy’s deadlines don’t mean anything to them. They wouldn’t care about being ‘senior,’ and they wouldn’t waste their time and energy wading into Eden’s… stinking swamp.”

  Pandora actually agreed with a lot of Nicole’s speech, with all its mixed-up resentment, disdain, envy, and weird respect. A crude but fitting saying from her past life popped into her head: Shallow water, lots of turtles. Not wrong.

  But even if the reasoning was sound, the reality was that the strength, influence, and resources a “senior” like Aldrich could bring to bear weren’t anything to sneeze at. Especially since she was still only second rank.

  “So…” Nicole suddenly turned to look at Pandora, who’d been listening quietly. Her expression got serious and solemn again. “After ticking off a guy like that, a faction like that… What are you planning to do next?”

  Pandora was quiet for a moment. She didn’t answer right away.

  This wasn’t a situation she could end just by “wanting” to walk away or being “willing” to back down unilaterally anymore. The real question was… would the other side, The Blood Tonic Aldrich, be able, or willing… to let her go?

  But judging by Nicole’s description of the man and the way his underlings acted…

  Would he let it go?

  Could she bet on him suddenly showing mercy or backing down for some reason?

  No.

  The answer was clear and cold.

  So what she needed to do now wasn’t to hope for his mercy or wish for things to blow over.

  It was to get strong enough. Fast.

  Even if, at the “senior” level, she might be a bit behind in resources, connections, and influence because of the time gap… that didn’t matter. The real key was the most basic, most core thing of all: power.

  If she could just reach third rank, a lot of the problems she was facing right now would solve themselves, or at least stop being a death sentence.

  So the best move now wasn’t to retreat, hide, or hole up and pray to be forgotten.

  It was to take the initiative.

  To… stall the other side. Tie him up with something bigger, more important, to eat up his attention, energy, and resources. Make him too busy to come after her fully.

  Then, in that precious, bought time…

  Reach third rank as fast as possible.

  That line of thinking got clearer and sharper in Pandora’s head.

  “Pandora?”

  Seeing Pandora stay quiet, Nicole frowned a little and asked again.

  This time, Pandora looked up. She didn’t answer Nicole’s question directly. Instead, she asked one of her own.

  Her gaze rested calmly on Nicole’s face. “The Blood Tonic Aldrich… I remember you said you wanted payback against them. Earlier today, you made it sound like you’d already made a move?”

  She paused, her eyes holding a clear question.

  “Could you… tell me the details?”