Blackfin stepped back, his eyes gleaming with pure, unfiltered schadenfreude, as if he were watching a particularly satisfying train wreck unfold in slow motion.

Ethan felt a faint but persistent sting of secondhand embarrassment. These two were not merely ruthless, they were actively escalating each other. One was a cutthroat by nature, the other a cutthroat who delighted in raising the stakes simply because he could. Watching them work together felt like being forced into a rigged card game where the dealer kept changing the rules mid-hand.

Honestly, across two lifetimes, Ethan had never done anything this openly shameless. Even when he killed, there was usually a justification, at least one he could accept. What was happening here had none of that. Blackie was acting entirely on whim, turning a single irritated hmph into a half-million price tag. Blackfin, hearing Henry hurriedly distance himself from the situation, had immediately seized the opportunity, naming names and calmly listing net worths like a banker reading off account balances. Blackie, apparently inspired, had then declared he would not be too unreasonable and demanded a full billion per person.

Together, they were a perfect storm. Blackie provided overwhelming, unquestionable force, while Blackfin supplied the cold, calculating cruelty of a chessmaster who enjoyed cornering his opponent with no legal moves left.

After Blackie's billion-per-head announcement, the crowd went completely still. Then came the second half of his statement, the casual addition that everyone else could still leave by paying the original per-head rate, and panic detonated all at once. A desperate surge rippled through the mass of people as survival instincts took over.

Saint-Germain and his three Bishop-tier Mutants, who had been standing at the front moments earlier, were suddenly shoved aside without ceremony. Bodies collided, curses flew, and dignified facades shattered as the mob fought its way forward, eager to pay the cheaper price and escape before the terms changed again.

Within minutes, the area outside the Serenity Hotel looked almost deserted. Only around a dozen individuals remained, along with their respective entourages, the unlucky few Blackfin had deliberately singled out.

"Alright, pay up," Blackie said cheerfully, flashing a grin that showed far too much teeth. "Or you can pay with your lives. Your choice."

At his side, Blackfin was barely containing himself. He clutched a portable card reader, the absurdly large sum already entered, his excitement practically radiating off him. He had just processed payments for seventy-four heads at half a million each. Thirty-seven million dollars, collected in under five minutes, for doing nothing more than standing still and smiling.

His thoughts drifted to his own Blackfin crew. All their equipment, weapons, logistics, and years of operations probably added up to eight or nine hundred million in total expenditure. His personal account barely scraped together a few million. Compared to that, this was nothing short of a miracle.

Now he waited eagerly, savoring the moment, watching the faces of the remaining dozen, the same people who had once placed the highest bounties on his own head. He wanted to see them squirm.

They did not disappoint. Each of them looked as if they had swallowed something rotten. No one moved. The air grew thick as a tense standoff settled in.

Blackie, for his part, was in no hurry.

Ethan had already stopped paying attention.

His Soul Sense had detached itself from the farce entirely, stretching outward and locking onto a different presence. The singer, Jenny.

After leaving the stage, she had taken a back staircase straight to the top floor of the hotel. From the beginning, Ethan had suspected that Henry was not the true authority behind this place. Jenny's movements confirmed it. He wanted to see exactly who she reported to.

His consciousness followed her up the stairwell and into the quiet corridor of the top floor. Just as he reached the landing, something unexpected happened.

She stopped.

Then she turned.

Her eyes lifted, and for an instant, it felt as though she were looking directly at the invisible thread of his awareness.

'Detected?'

The thought startled him, sharp and immediate.

Jenny smiled. It was not warm or inviting, but cool and faintly mocking, as though she were indulging a private joke at his expense. Without a word, she pushed open a heavy door at the end of the corridor, glanced back one last time with that same dismissive amusement, and stepped inside.

Ethan reacted instantly, driving his consciousness forward to follow her.

The impact was brutal.

It felt like slamming his head into a speeding truck. A massive repelling force exploded outward, hurling his psychic probe back with overwhelming force. A sharp, needle-like pain stabbed into his mind, making his vision blur for a fraction of a second.

Psychic-dampening material. And not just a room. The entire floor.

As his awareness recoiled, he expanded it further, trying to probe the perimeter from a wider angle. What he found made his expression darken. The fifth floor was completely sealed, a seamless shell with no gaps or weak points. The Serenity Hotel had five levels. The bottom four were ordinary construction. The top floor was something else entirely, a monolithic vault composed of a material utterly impervious to spiritual perception, its normal exterior nothing more than decorative camouflage.

This is absurd. Who has this kind of money?

The Silverwood family had possessed dampening materials, but even those could eventually be breached with sufficient Soul Power. After everything he had endured, the Sea of Death, eight years of refinement, the Heart-Devil Tribulation, his energy evolving into Source Energy, he could not even scratch this. It did not feel like something that belonged on Earth at all.

Then recognition struck.

He had encountered this material before.

In the Eastern Seas, on Ascension Isle, during his tribulation.

The envoy from the Divine Sea Temple he had reduced to dust. The identification plaque that had fallen from the body. The strange string of numbers etched into it.

The material was identical.

'Is the Serenity Hotel connected to the Divine Sea Temple?'

The thought sent a chill through his blood.

The Divine Sea Temple was his sworn enemy. During the battle outside the City of the Whale Fall in the Merfolk Kingdom, they had not fought directly, but they had armed the Megalodon Clan rebels. Without their weapons, the loyalist Merfolk would never have dared to revolt. Without that rebellion, Lyla would never have been captured. If Lyla had not been taken, Ethan would never have gone there. His father, Starfall, whom he had only just learned was still alive, would not have nearly died protecting him. If his mother, the Lord of the Underworld, had not braved immense danger to descend to Earth and teach him how to transform the Nether Jade into the Nether Jade Wraith Coffin, his father would be dead.

And the Underworld itself, the bridge at its entrance guarded by a soul-reaping entity that specifically targeted powerful spirits, his father might never have crossed it alive.

Every path of thought led back to the Divine Sea Temple.

A cold, murderous hatred crystallized in Ethan's chest. Anything tied to that temple was an enemy, without exception.

His eyes turned glacial. Within his mind, his restored Soul Power, now fused seamlessly with Source Energy, gathered in a dense, volatile mass. He was ready to tear open the fifth floor's psychic-proof shell through sheer brute force.

Then a hand clamped down on his shoulder.

"Boss!"

The sudden contact nearly triggered catastrophe. Ethan's focus had been completely inward, and the violently condensed energy inside him lurched, threatening to detonate on the spot.

He recognized the voice instantly.

Blackie.

With a monumental effort, Ethan forced the raging power back into control, locking it down before it could erupt.

He spun around, fury blazing across his face.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?!" he roared.

Next chapter will be updated first on this website. Come back and continue reading tomorrow, everyone!

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.