The explosion was so powerful that it didn't just tear my house apart—it shook the foundations of the neighboring homes. Window glass shattered everywhere, and car alarms screamed through the street.

I was flung like a dry leaf, my body tumbling across rubble and cracked asphalt.

The first thing I registered was the loud ringing in my ears, followed by blurred, double-layered vision. Then came the pain—deep, sharp, and spreading through every inch of my body. A third of my ribs were broken, my left arm was badly dislocated, and burns and cuts scattered across my skin. Blood dripped from my lips and temple.

In the middle of all that chaos, with my mind barely held together, one name tore itself out of my bleeding mouth, rough and dripping with hate:

"GWENNETH… YOU BITCH…!!!"

If not for the Aegis Pendant taking most of the blast, I would have been reduced to ash.

Shit. My thoughts started to fade, darkness creeping in from the edges of my sight. But before I fully lost consciousness, one last skill surfaced in my mind. I focused everything I had left and activated it.

[Five-Minute Rewind.]

A strange sensation washed over me. My consciousness felt like it was being sucked into a whirlpool of time. My body and mind twisted, thrown backward in a dizzying, nauseating rush. And then, suddenly…

…I was back in the taxi's rear seat. The soft purr of the engine, the cool air from the AC, and the normal scenery outside the window returned all at once.

I rubbed the throbbing spot on my temple and gritted my teeth. Gwenneth had gone far beyond sending assassins. She even planted a bomb just to make sure I died. A faint smirk formed on my disguised face.

"I can't go home," I muttered.

I had no place to stay now. But then I remembered. I had just obtained a new slave.

"Driver, change direction. Take me to this address." I handed him the location Zoey had given me.

When we arrived at a modest house in a quiet neighborhood, I paid the driver and stepped out. After making sure no one suspicious was nearby, I knocked on the door several times.

It opened, revealing a little girl about six years old. She was adorable, with shoulder-length wavy black hair and big brown eyes that looked almost identical to her mother's. She stared at me with innocent curiosity.

"Good afternoon, sir," she said softly.

"Who are you looking for?"

I crouched down to her eye level, trying to appear gentle even though my intentions were anything but. "Hello, sweetheart. My name is Adam. I'm… your mother's new master."

.

.

.

Gwenneth's plan had been executed with near-perfect precision. Earlier that day, the moment Adam left his house, her hired watchers reported in.

From her distant office, Gwenneth controlled every piece of the operation. She was the mastermind behind everything that had happened to Adam today.

She had ordered the sniper to take his life in the middle of the city. When she heard that the shot was blocked by some sort of energy barrier, she wasn't particularly surprised.

She knew Adam had tricks up his sleeve. So she immediately activated her backup plan: sending a team of assassins disguised as security officers to capture him and execute him in a secluded spot.

While they carried out that assignment, Gwenneth focused on her true mission: rescuing her mother and little sister.

She knew Adam's strange power and how he could command Delilah to attack anyone, even her own children. To avoid that, she needed them unconscious during the extraction.

She sent a trusted courier to deliver a package containing two bottles of milk laced with a high dose of sleeping drugs.

When Delilah received the package, the courier whispered, "This is from someone who wants to save you."

Delilah understood immediately who it came from and accepted it without suspicion.

Without hesitation, she gave one bottle to Angeline and drank the other herself. Minutes later, both mother and daughter were fast asleep on the living room couch, their faces peaceful under the influence of the drug.

Only then did Gwenneth come personally. She entered the house carefully. Seeing her mother and sister lying helpless and innocent, pain twisted in her chest.

She never imagined she would ever see these two women—one her role model, the other her spoiled little sister—turned into playthings by her stepbrother.

She let out a heavy sigh.

But just as she stepped closer, something horrifying happened. Delilah's eyes shot open. Not the eyes of someone waking from sleep, but the sharp, lethal eyes of a killer.

Gwenneth felt a wave of murderous intent erupt from her mother's body, held back only by Delilah's own desperate resistance. Her expression contorted as she fought something powerful inside her. She held it back for only a fraction of a second.

Gwenneth understood immediately.

With a sorrowful but decisive motion, she drove her fist into Delilah's unguarded solar plexus. Delilah let out a soft gasp before collapsing unconscious again.

Gwenneth stood there, shaking slightly, both relieved and furious. That bastard… Adam… He actually ordered Mother to attack me.

Her hatred burned hotter than ever.

She wasted no time. She carried both unconscious women to her car. Knowing Delilah must not wake up, she had already arranged a private doctor to keep them sedated throughout the journey.

They left behind the house where so much horror had happened.

Before departing, as a final guarantee in case her assassins failed, Gwenneth left a "parting gift" for Adam inside the house: a bomb rigged to explode when someone opened the door or stepped inside.

In the smooth-moving car, tension hovered in the air. Gwenneth sat in the back seat, watching her mother and sister sleep deeply beside her.

Her phone suddenly buzzed. It was a report from another watcher—someone she hired secretly to monitor the assassins from afar, complete with visual footage.

Gwenneth opened the live feed. At first, she saw the duel between Adam and Rey, the Rank A Lancer. She could hardly believe her eyes.

Adam? That reclusive, weak boy? Her thoughts raced. And his method of winning… brutally throwing his sword and then punching Rey's head into pieces? That was no ordinary power.

Her brows furrowed in confusion and rising dread.

But what she saw next froze her blood. When the fifteen other Awakeners swarmed him and cornered him, Adam suddenly vanished. Not moving quickly—completely disappearing.

Moments later, the fifteen assassins, all locked in mid-attack, dropped dead at the same time. Each one had a stab wound through the chest, as if killed by a phantom. No visible enemy. No struggle. Just sudden, synchronized death.

A chill crawled up Gwenneth's spine. What… what was that? What kind of ability did he have? For days, she had only wondered how Adam controlled her mother's mind and body. But this… this was something else entirely. Something far more terrifying.

A wave of relief washed over her.

Mother was right.

Delilah's warning to never confront Adam directly had saved her life.

If she had been there herself, trying to capture or kill him, she had no idea how she could fight someone who could disappear and slaughter fifteen people in an instant.

Despite her burning hatred and twisted desire to torture Adam with her own hands, she forced herself to stay calm. She needed to prioritize her mother, her sister, and her own survival.

Now, all she could do was hope. Hope that the "gift" she left behind—the timed bomb—had ended everything once and for all. If Adam died in the blast, her mother and sister would finally be free.

But if he survived… if Adam somehow escaped again… then she would have to find another way to kill him and break his control.

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