Chapter 334: Intent To Murder
The dark, out-of-place shadow that had bowed gracefully vanished again in the blink of an eye, as if it were foam or an illusion.
However, the stares of others around and the servant’s cries couldn’t be faked.
Smash! John was dazed and the glass in his hand hit the ground and shattered, causing him to shudder. Then, as if waking up from a dream, he realized the seriousness of the problem and his heart plummeted.
Dead? All dead?
A sense of ominous foreboding made his blood run cold. His expression immediately turned twisted as he rushed forward and grabbed the servant’s collar tightly. With his body trembling, he roared, “What do you mean by all dead? What exactly happened? Explain yourself!”
The servant's face was covered in snot and tears, choking and struggling to breathe properly from John’s tight grip. As his face gradually turned red, he said with great difficulty, “Master and the others… they were carrying out… the slave binding ritual… Then suddenly, suddenly, everything turned black for a moment. The ritual was forcefully interrupted and the entire house collapsed after. Then it started to burn. It was too fast, too fast… I didn't know anything. I just crawled forward and ran out…"
John's eyes were those of a man-eating beast as he stared daggers at the servant before him. "You ran away?" he hissed through his teeth.
The servant was frightened but he shook his head at once. "No, no, no, I didn't run… Master asked me to find and inform you…"
John's hands tightened around the servant's neck as he face turned even more malevolent. "To inform me that they're all dead? If you don’t know anything, how do you know everyone’s dead? Stop with your nonsense!”
The noble youth was unimaginably calm. At such an occasion, even if all his family members were dead, he couldn’t let this matter be concluded like this! He had to… leave himself time to find a way out.
Otherwise—John thought about the guess he just had moments ago as well as the words he had just said—he, too, would be dead.
"Gurgh gurgh…" The servant panicked to realize that the young master was actually using the special incantation of the Fred Clan while speaking to him. He’s trying to kill me!
The servant's pupils contracted as he tried to struggle and shout, yet he discovered he couldn’t move nor even make a squeak.
His lifeforce was rapidly fading away, his face turning pale, and his pupils nearly dilated.
Tap!
A hand reached out and grabbed John's arm with such force that it almost shattered his bones.
John turned his head and met the steel gray eyes of the party’s hostess glaring at him coldy, which was quickly followed by a muffled ‘pop.’
He lowered his head and instantly saw the afterimage of that slender, fair arm clenching into a fist and heard a slight whistling of wind as silver-white fur and muscles enveloped it for a split second. What followed next was an unimaginable pain erupting from his abdomen, causing him to immediately let go and crumble to the ground.
"Ugh… cough!"
Curled up on the floor, John's face was twisted in pain as he writhed like a maggot. At the same time, his lower body suffered from incontinence.
Ji Zhixiu looked down from above and withdrew her fist before taking two steps back from this miserable scene. If Boss Lin hadn’t stopped her, she would have punched this guy in the face.
But this was more than enough… She had controlled her strike well, and there was no superficial bleeding or a wound. However, John’s internal organs had been ruptured and mashed together. Magicians without any defensive incantations were as weak as ordinary humans.
Ji Zhixiu was now in perfect control of her strength. This hadn’t been a momentary exertion but sustained diffusion: first shattering the internal organs and then dissolving them into a paste. This meant that the excruciating pain constantly stirred up inside his body would last for perhaps a full hour, until John died.
In the meantime, she would augment John with Steel Resolve to keep him awake. Trying to run after offending Boss Lin? While Boss Lin had already personally punished him, as a supporter of Boss Lin, she needed to express her stance.
She took a napkin from a table at the side and smiled as she wiped her hands. “It appears that Mr. John is a little too grief-stricken and can’t control himself. Help him up to rest for a bit and then bring him home to take a look. The police have already been informed about the matter regarding the Freds, and the Central Police Unit will handle it accordingly. Please don’t worry, everyone.”
There was the faintest of murmuring from the crowd.
John, who was helped to his feet, could vaguely feel the dampness and stench coming from his lower body amidst the intense pain coursing through. All eyes were on him as he was dragged along.
The other guests were all watching him…
He didn't deal with it nor hide it. He just merely watched as he was dragged along as his most miserable side was laid bare.
This was the greatest torture for a man who was extremely proud and proud of his noble status.
"Gurgh—uhh…" John let out a faint cry of utter despair. When his eyes were open, he could see the gazes of people all around him, and when he closed his eyes, intense pain wrecked through his body. He could even hear the sound of broken bits of bone piercing into his innards.
While undergoing such a torture, he was brought to the Fred Clan mansion where flames were still flickering.
The once-glamorous mansion, the huge family building that belonged to Area A, the domain that John had described as a superior class that commoners could never imagine—was now a charred ruin.
"Unhh … ah …"
John opened his eyes wide and saw the kneeling bodies in the flames. These had been where his confidence and arrogance had stemmed from. Members of an ancient and powerful family of black magicians.
He was pushed to the ground and crawled forward with great difficulty, a look of utter brokenness on his face. At this point, everything he once had was destroyed.
Some remnants of the slave-binding ritual’s array still remained on the ground. This cruel ritual would cut off the slave's tongue, gouge out the slave's eyes, and stab the slave's eardrum so that they could not speak, see, or hear and only accept wholeheartedly the orders of their master as if they were nothing more than pets.
It was exactly what the Fred Clan loved; an important part of the slave trade and a means of entertainment for them.
And these ‘voluntary’ slaves were from the slums of the Upper District…
Now, by some unspeakable intervention, the slave-binding ritual had been interrupted and reversed completely. All the effects had been applied to members of the Fred Clan instead.
There were only three huge cavities on the faces of those kneeling corpses in the flames as if having been gnawed on by something. The scene was like a painting depicting hell, yet the chained slaves beside were weeping tears of joy from having just survived a calamity.
And this scene would ultimately be frozen in this moment forever in John’s eyes.