Chapter 609: Threads That Lead Back
The dozen or so people in front of Ethan froze in shock, throwing up their abilities in a panic to defend themselves.
Slash. Slash. Slash.
The sound of tearing cloth ripped through the air—then silence.
Three streaks of bloody light cut forward. The lowest one skimmed over the fat man sprawled on the floor and punched through the opposite cabin wall, carving three neat holes before vanishing into the ocean.
Not even a splash. The water simply parted, swallowing the light whole.
The suite fell quiet.
Everyone facing Ethan remained locked in their stances, motionless as if they had turned to stone.
Drip.
A thin stream of blood slid down a man’s neck and spattered on the floor. The small sound acted like a trigger.
Bodies collapsed in unison.
Splash.
The smell hit them immediately—thick, metallic, and nauseating, carrying with it an undertone of rot.
More than a dozen people lay strewn about, hacked into pieces.
"Ah!" Quinn screamed. Her eyes rolled back and she dropped in a faint.
Outside the door came the sound of retching. The fat man had reached his limit.
Even the Zane elder standing stiffly at Ethan’s side had gone pale, his throat working as he fought down bile.
Boom!
"Who dares..."
From the suite across the hall—the presidential cabin belonging to Mr. Kane—a heavy boot smashed through the door, aimed directly at Ethan’s face.
Ethan tilted his head a fraction.
The foot missed.
Instead of pulling back, the leg bent unnaturally, snaking around in a whip-like strike.
"If you don’t pull that back, LongerThanLuffy, I’ll cut your leg off," Ethan said, dodging again with casual ease.
The foot froze, then snapped back in an instant.
"Ethan?"
The rubbery limb landed on the ground, attached to a body that stretched unnaturally across the corridor.
It was Emery Shaw—the man who had a meeting with Kane earlier.
"Uh... Emery Shaw, right?" Ethan frowned, searching his memory before the name came.
Shaw nodded, almost eager. "It’s me. Finally, I get to see you!"
Ethan’s gaze narrowed. Emery Shaw was on Lyla’s list. He had been the first target of the assassination mission Lyla and Astrid were running.
Back in that office building, Ethan had asked Celeste whether Shaw should live or die. She hadn’t been sure whose side Shaw truly belonged to.
So Ethan had left a note on the mission orders. If Shaw resisted, execute him. If he surrendered or offered help after Lyla revealed the mission, spare him.
Now Shaw stood here, alive and unscathed. Which meant either Lyla had chosen to spare him—or he hadn’t been at the office that night.
"You don’t need to look at me like that. Don’t you remember what I told you before?" Shaw asked when Ethan said nothing.
Ethan studied him. Shaw had once claimed he belonged to the Originalists, working directly under Director Vaughn, and that he was only posing as a Dissenter.
But the truth was, both factions were rotten, both creations of Vaughn himself. Going undercover inside your own organization—what kind of game was that?
"Are you Unaligned?" Ethan asked at last.
The question made him recall something else. A warning Shaw had whispered back in the game: hide quickly, and never trust anyone. Do you really think all Originalists are good people?
It was precisely that warning that had pushed Ethan to evacuate everyone around him into the Whitmore family’s Hidden Territory.
"Factions, schmactions. All we want is to maintain fairness and justice in the supernatural world, to stop those with power from trampling on ordinary people’s rights!"
Shaw declared his stance with firm conviction.
The words landed with a rehearsed, official tone that made Ethan’s stomach twist. Such righteous rhetoric sounded hollow to him—but he kept it to himself. Maybe this really was what the true Ninth Division believed.
"I just killed an ordinary person," Ethan said, pointing at Mr. Kane’s headless corpse.
"Once he stepped into supernatural business, he stopped being ordinary," Shaw replied, then wrinkled his nose. "Let’s talk somewhere else. The stench here is unbearable."
Ethan gave a short nod. He turned to the Zane elder beside him. "I’ll leave this to you."
The old man said nothing, only pinched his nose, nodded back, and rushed off to deal with the mess.
Ethan shifted his attention to Amber, still unconscious on the floor. He bent down and lifted her over his shoulder. The instant his hand brushed her skin, a searing heat coursed into him. His chest tightened—her body was burning. She had been heavily drugged, the kind of concoction that reeked of a powerful aphrodisiac.
He took a step toward the door, then stopped.
Quinn still lay sprawled on the ground. Ethan hooked her up with his foot, slung her under his arm, and carried both women toward his own Honeymoon Presidential Suite.
Shaw and the fat man followed silently, still dazed from the carnage.
Inside the suite, Ethan tossed Quinn onto the couch without care and carried Amber into the bedroom.
"Tree Form... Natural Healing."
He activated the cleansing ability. It was a skill meant to purge toxins, magical disturbances, and other foreign influences from the body.
Amber stirred faintly, a soft sound escaping her lips. The deep flush across her face gradually faded as the effect took hold. Ethan studied her features. He couldn’t tell if the drug had left lasting damage, but at least outwardly, her condition was stabilizing.
Satisfied, he stepped back into the living room.
The fat man was wandering about wide-eyed, muttering "tsk, tsk, tsk" under his breath, gawking at the lavish furnishings like a country bumpkin seeing the city for the first time.
Ethan ignored him and cut to the chase. "Alright, let me ask you something. Have you seen this woman?"
He pulled out his phone. The lock screen displayed Lyla’s photo.
Shaw leaned in and nodded. "I’ve seen her. And a blonde girl too. Look here."
He rolled up his sleeve, showing a bandaged wound. "That blonde girl clawed me and ripped out a chunk of flesh." His expression twisted in pain at the memory.
"You’re lucky you’re still breathing," Ethan said with a faint smile. He could sense Astrid’s aura lingering in the wound. The injury was genuine.
The Golden Falcon’s claws were as deadly as divine weapons, and paired with their blistering speed, few survived an encounter.
"Where did they go after that?" Ethan asked quickly.
"Don’t jump ahead. Hear me out first," Shaw said, raising his hand.
Ethan’s eyes narrowed. His instincts told him this was important.
"Three days ago, all Dissenter branches received the same order," Shaw continued. "They were told to capture and imprison a group of people. Some were ordinary citizens, others came from powerful families... but when I looked closer, I realized they all had one thing in common."
He paused, meeting Ethan’s eyes with a strange look.
"They’re all connected to you."
Ethan froze, caught off guard. "Connected... to me?"