After parting ways with Dan, Zi-Cheng and Elena pressed on toward the free clinic tents.

  Along the way, they handed out more potions, stopping to help the wounded whenever they could. It was slow progress, but at least they were doing something.

  Yet, the further they ventured, the heavier the silence became.

  The weight of fear had devoured every trace of sound that once filled the air. The streets, once bustling with movement, now lay eerily empty. Behind tightly shut doors and locked windows, the city seemed to hold its breath.

  (This isn’t right.)

  Zi-Cheng had already suspected it, that the Crimson Plume people feared might not be the same person he met in the alley. But now, with every step forward, that suspicion only grew stronger. While he couldn’t quite put his finger on it, something about this whole situation felt...staged.

  Just as he was piecing the puzzle together, Elena spoke up.

  “You know, they said Crimson Plume showed up, right? But so far, not a single person we’ve come across has seen him.”

  Zi-Cheng froze.

  An unsettling realization crept up on him.

  “Wait, what did you just say?” he asked.

  “Not a single person we’ve come across has seen him?”

  “No, the part before that…. You said, ‘they’….?”

  Elena nodded, sending a chill down Zi-Cheng’s spine.

  (That’s it!)

  Crimson Plume had never left loose ends—until he crossed paths with Zi-Cheng. Yet somehow, this time, there were multiple witnesses.

  (And...where are all the witnesses now?)

  Just as Elena had said, every single person they had met claimed they hadn’t seen a thing.

  Then, who started the rumor in the first place?

  (No, this has to be a setup.)

  Zi-Cheng was so certain he was about to draw a conclusion when Elena suddenly gasped.

  “What—“

  He looked up and saw Elena’s face go deathly pale, her entire body trembling as if she had just glimpsed hell itself. Following her shaking hand, her finger pointing toward the far end of the street, he saw it — a world of pure red.

  At the end of the road, a carriage stood motionless, drenched in blood. Thick streaks of deep crimson smeared the wooden panels, dripping in slow rivulets onto the cobblestone below.

  And atop it—

  A lone figure.

  Cloaked in black.

  Standing tall.

  Motionless.

  In his grip, a freshly severed head, still dripping.

  Zi-Cheng’s breath caught in his throat.

  (That’s impossible….)

  (Crimson Plume wouldn’t do this….)

  Not like this.

  Not in broad daylight.

  Not in the middle of a damn street.

  And yet, there he was.

  The same hooded reaper who had once spared his life.

  “Why…?”

  Zi-Cheng barely managed to squeezed out a word, his throat dry, his mind refusing to accept what was right before his eyes.

  The Crimson Plume he knew, a cunning predator, a ruthless but controlled killer, would never commit a mindless massacre like this!

  Fear gripped him, but doubt clawed its way to the surface.

  His eyes locked onto the figure standing atop the blood-soaked carriage. Something felt different.

  Something felt… wrong.

  (What the hell happened here?)

  Drip.

  Drip.

  Dark streaks of blood slithered down the severed head, seeping into the worn leather driver’s seat before spilling onto the cobblestone below.

  Around the carriage, mangled corpses lay scattered, their limbs twisted and torn apart.

  The sheer brutality of it all made the slaughter in the alleyway seem almost merciful in comparison.

  （This wasn’t a clean kill… it’s like the aftermath of a wild beast’s attack….)

  Something must have triggered Crimson Plume to act this way, but what?

  “……..!!”

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  The masked murderer slowly turned his head in Zi-Cheng’s direction, as if sensing he was being watched.

  In that same instant, Zi-Cheng clamped his hand over Elena’s mouth, dragging her behind an overturned carriage.

  (How could I be so careless?!!)

  Zi-Cheng’s heart pounded, his breath shallow, sweat gathering at this fingertips.

  It was foolish to think that just because he was spared once, he was safe from the murderer’s cold blade.

  And now, he could only brace himself to pay for the price.

  He closed his eyes, waited for the inevitable.

  Yet, that moment never came.

  Time warped under the sheer weight of terror. Second stretched into what seemed like eternity, until Elena finally wrenched free from his grip, gasping for air before giving him a sharp kick to his back.

  “Ugh, you’re choking me!”

  “No, Elena….”

  “Stop freaking out! Crimson Plume is already gone!”

  Zi-Cheng stiffened. Gone?

  He peeked from behind the carriage, and sure enough, the blood-drenched reaper had vanished.

  “How...how did you know that he left?”

  Elena opened her hands, revealing a soft red glow pulsing in her palm like a beating heart.

  “Whenever I use Transference, it reacts like a heart, guiding me to the nearest target I can transfer my healing power to,” she calmly explained, though there was a hint of sadness in her voice.

  “But right now…. The only person that I can heal—” She lifted her gaze, her voice barely above a whisper, “—is you, Ven.”

  Zi-Cheng watched as Elena turned towards the fallen victims. Though tears have welled up in her eyes, trembling on the edge, she held on and refused to let them fall.

  Once again, he was spared, for reasons unknown.

  “Ven, look at this!”

  Zi-Cheng snapped out of his thoughts again and hurried over, his eyes narrowing as he quickly understood why she had called out to him.

  Scattered across the bloodstained street, every person Crimson Plume had slain was dressed in black robes, their hoods still draped over their lifeless faces.

  In other words, they were all wearing the same clothes as Crimson Plume.

  He had heard the rumors, that Crimson Plume always left behind a paper crane after a kill. A signature, a calling card, an evidence that proved his murders were never random.

  Yet, here, there were none.

  This wasn’t a planned hit. It wasn’t a calculated execution like before.

  “These people… they weren’t with Crimson Plume.” he muttered.

  Never once had the whispers or tales of this infamous killer mentioned him working with others.

  “Something must have happened.”

  Something had forced Crimson Plume out of the shadows to kill these people.

  But what could have pushed him to such extreme?

  For every question he found an answer to, several more surfaced in its place. Instead of clarity, all he unearthed were deeper unknowns, an endless web of mysteries that refused to unravel.

  “Let’s go, Ven.”

  In the end, it was Elena who urged him to move forward. But while he thought they were closing in on the truth behind the incident, that illusion shattered the moment they arrived at the free clinic venue.

  “The place is empty….”

  The free clinic was set up at the base of the Sanctuary Hill, a stretch of open field where a few dozen tents stood beneath the relentless sun. The grass, once green and soft, had been trampled down into dry patches of dirt, the earth cracked from the summer heat. Wooden carts meant for supplies were lined up near the edge of the site, their wheels half-sunken into the hardened ground. The fluttering white canvas of the tents cast weak, irregular shadows, their interiors dark and hollow beneath the blazing sky.

  Yet, the entire area was deserted.

  No guards. No medical staff. No patients.

  Not a soul in sight.

  Zi-Cheng had passed plenty of wounded people on the way here. He had expected to find the medical team in the middle of treating them, bustling between the tents, voices calling out orders as they worked. Instead, an unnatural silence filled the air, as if….

  “It’s like someone evacuated the area….”

  Elena’s voice was quiet as she emerged from one of the white tents, shaking her head.

  Zi-Cheng exhaled sharply, his gaze scanning the desolate camp.

  “It doesn’t make any sense,” he muttered. “Those people in black robes… and Crimson Plume. They must have been after something.”

  The two then slipped into another tent, this one larger than the rest, positioned at the very back of the event venue. The moment they stepped inside, they noticed deep marks in the soil. Heavy crates had been dragged across the ground, leaving behind rough, uneven grooves.

  “The potion crates!” they blurted out at the same time.

  Moving quickly to the back of the tent, they discovered something even more alarming. A massive cut had been slashed through the canvas, its edges jagged and frayed. Zi-Cheng reached out and lifted the flap.

  Beyond it, the scene unfolded before them.

  Stacks of potion crates sat in the open, right behind the tent. A group of people dressed in Sanctuary uniforms were hurriedly lifting them onto a carriage, their movement rushed yet precised, like they had done this a hundred times before.

  Elena almost let out a sound, but Zi-Cheng caught her just in time, signaling her to stay quiet.

  “Move faster! The guards will be here any minute.”

  “Relax. Everyone’s too busy running for their lives to notice us.”

  “The boss really pulled it off. A few guys in black robes, a couple of bodies in the street, and the whole city panicked.”

  (So, this was their plan all along….)

  The thieves’ conversation was almost too convenient, connecting every missing piece in Zi-Cheng’s mind.

  Just as he had suspected, the chaos in the city wasn’t a coincidence. These black-robed figures weren’t Crimson Plume’s allies or targets. They were opportunists, using Crimson Plume infamy as the perfect cover for their scheme. Their plan would have been flawless, until they drew out the real Crimson Plume. What was meant to be a staged massacre turned into an actual bloodbath, sending people fleeing from the free clinic site.

  And judging by the way these bandits were still loading the crates without a care in the world, they really had no idea that their “perfect” robbery had already gone horribly wrong.

  “Cut the crap, Macky. Where the hell is Lloyd and his lot?” A wiry man scowled, irritation twisting his features. “I don’t like surprises, and this is starting to give off some really bad vibes.”

  Zi-Cheng and Elena exchanged glances. The way this guy was talking, it was obvious that “Lloyd and his lot” were the ones Crimson Plume had cut down in the streets earlier.

  (These idiots are as good as dead.)

  Yet, even knowing that their fate was sealed, watching them haul away crate after crate of potions made Zi-Cheng’s blood boil. Those weren’t just supplies to be looted, every bottle was the result of painstaking work. Seeing them carted off like cheap merchandise made his fists clench.

  But he knew better than to act on impulse.

  At least a dozen bandits were stationed outside the tent. Charging in now wasn’t only reckless, it would be suicide. Worse, it could drag Elena down with him.

  “Ven, are we really just going to sit here and let them take everything?”

  This was one of those times when Zi-Cheng wished Elena didn’t have the same thought as he did.

  He let out a quiet sigh. Aside from waiting for Crimson Plume to make his move, there was no plan, no opening.

  What could they possibly do?

  Then—

  “Who’s there?!”

  A sharp yell cut through the air and a dull thunk followed.

  Then another.

  And another.

  Panic erupted. Shouts rang out, bodies collapsed, the clash of steel against flesh filled the air.

  The bandits had been ambushed.

  Zi-Cheng barely had time to process what was happening before the canvas of the tent rippled.

  Something moved—fluid, precise, like liquid shadow.

  No, not something.

  Someone.

  The next moment, a figure slipped past the entrance, its silhouette sharp against the dim torchlight inside the tent.

  Zi-Cheng’s breath caught in his throat.

  (He’s here….)