*****For a moment that felt like an eternity, the two brothers simply remained there, staring ahead with broken minds and ruined bodies, unable to accept what had happened and even less able to process what came next.‘This is definitely a dream.’ This thought suddenly echoed in the third brother’s mind.And once it appeared, it began to echo over and over in his head like a maddened chant, repeating so many times it nearly became the only thing left in his mind.'This has to be a nightmare. Once I wake up, everything will return to normal. I will be back in my room, my cultivation intact, and my arms and legs will move just like before.'Beside him, Borgia’s thoughts weren’t any better.‘Once I wake up, everything will return to normal,’ he told himself again and again, his mind so chaotic it felt like someone had poured boiling water into his skull.‘My arms, legs, and cultivation are still there. This is all fake. No one can ruin me! This has to be some illusion or hallucination.’

*****As soon as the two brothers recognized the speaker, they couldn’t even begin to describe the avalanche of conflicting emotions that smashed into them.On one hand, there was intense, desperate, and shameful relief.The kind they had never felt before in their lives and had certainly never imagined they would feel.But on the other hand, there was a monstrous, suffocating shame that made them wish the ground would split open and swallow them whole.They had looked down on this brother for years… belittled him, ignored him, and treated him like an afterthought.Yet now, he was standing over them while they sat crying in the street, crippled and broken, looking less like powerful young masters and more like two failed villains after the hero had already left the scene.Then there was the ugly, stinging, and bitter envy.They were currently in such a pitiful and disgraceful state that not even many of their worst victims had ever been this miserable, yet Silas… the brother they had

*****The two brothers turned almost in perfect unison, and the instant their eyes landed on the approaching group, their expressions changed drastically.Currently advancing toward them were about two dozen armed men and women.Their faces were blank, their backs ramrod straight, and their movements were perfectly synchronized… so precise it looked less like a group of humans and more like a military machine that had been wound up and released.Their boots struck the ground in unison, their strides measured, and their presence disciplined to an almost suffocating degree.However, what truly terrified the two brothers wasn’t the weapons, the coordination, or even the fact that such a force had suddenly appeared out of nowhere.It was the aura pouring from them.Every single one of them was at the D-rank.The pressure from that realization hit the brothers like a slap to the face.On any normal day, they would have merely been shocked… maybe even intrigued.They would have looked at su

*****Meanwhile, as the fiasco on the street unfolded, the rest of the city had already descended into a state of restless panic.It had all started the moment the Revercrests arrived on that street and brazenly blocked off the road with their subordinates, forming a barricade so blatant it looked more like a declaration that they owned the city and everyone inside it.The sight alone had been enough to make every pedestrian, commuter, and driver in the area feel their scalp go numb.Nobody needed a formal explanation or to be told twice. The instant they recognized the Revercrests’ insignia and saw the sheer number of armed men standing there, every person on that road had scattered as though chased by death itself.Not a single one of them stayed behind.Instead, everyone fled with their tails tucked between their legs, no one wanting to become the next “unfortunate soul” just like the Revercrests’ victim from the previous day.However, despite this, only a few kept their mouths shu

*****For several moments, Mistress Ayra said nothing at all, simply observing every frame with a stillness that contrasted sharply with the bar’s rising uproar.Then suddenly, her eyes flashed.‘This is definitely the Sir Patriarch’s handiwork,’ she murmured inwardly, her certainty immediate and absolute. ‘Everything points straight at him.’Her gaze sharpened further as her thoughts deepened.‘The Revercrests had been searching all over town for him… and that road just so happens to be part of the route he would pass after leaving here.’By the time she connected the final thread, the corners of her lips slowly curled upward, and then she grinned.It was not the warm smile of a bartender amused by gossip, but instead... the proud, almost fierce grin of someone watching a prophecy begin to unfold exactly as she had hoped.‘My Nightshadow Sect is definitely rising again,’ she thought, and this time, there was no mistaking the bright gleam in her eyes.That gleam carried ambition, expe