*****“It seems this matter is far more serious and several times worse than we could have ever imagined,” the Prime Minister’s personal assistant muttered under his breath, his voice low and grim.And as soon as his words were heard, the room plunged into another suffocating silence, thick tension curling through the air like smoke, so dense that breathing felt like swallowing gravel.But then…“Since we’ve already identified the possible cause,” the PM’s right-hand man growled, frustration thrumming through every word, “what’s the solution? We can’t just stand here and let the enemy walk all over us, can we? And let’s not forget… there’s still that sir waiting for an acceptable explanation… which we only just discovered but can’t use until we have a well acceptable proof.”His glare sliced across the room like a polished blade, making several people visibly flinch.For a moment, no one spoke; instead, they merely stood there.But then gradually, their eyes began to sharpen on

*****Yes, the Blackwoods had already regretted how everything turned out, even between them and Xavier, after realizing they had lost the opportunity to have someone like that in their family.But they had also known the truth:Xavier would never, ever be their friend again.It was a tremendous loss and regret… all the more so because the boy’s intellect was terrifyingly sharp.His skill in both medicine and cultivation was so advanced that if he declared himself second-best in Riverton City, no one would dare to claim first place.But to the Blackwoods… Apart from Cassandra and Darius, none of them had truly regretted losing him as a person. Their regret came from the power behind him and the fact that they had repaid his kindness with pure evil.Still, they had comforted themselves: “We’re the Blackwoods… a first-rank, mighty family. There are plenty of geniuses in the world to recruit.”But today… everything was broken beyond repair, splintered into fragments that could ne

*****Right now, the Blackwoods Patriarch looked like a broken stranger… someone crushed beneath the weight of panic and despair.His dignity, his aura, and his authority… all of it had evaporated.Cassandra and Aldric stared at him in utter speechlessness, unable to reconcile the man before them with the one they had known their whole lives.And like that, heavy, suffocating seconds passed.Finally, Cassandra and Aldric exchanged another look… one filled with shock, worry, and a complicated mix of pity and dread.Then Cassandra inhaled deeply, gathering herself.In the past few weeks, she had grown more than she even noticed, and that quiet steadiness showed itself as she approached her grandfather... moving slowly and cautiously, almost as if she were nearing a frightened, injured creature.Then she bent down and placed a gentle hand on his trembling shoulder.“Grandfather,” she murmured softly, her voice steady, warm, and soothing in a way she hadn’t mastered before. “Plea

*****Aldric currently looked like he had just witnessed a ghost personally greet him by name.His jaw hung so low that it practically touched his chest, his pupils dilated as though he had suddenly learned he was adopted and his real father was a dragon.He wasn’t breathing.He wasn’t blinking.He wasn’t even alive-looking.Instead, he looked… exceptionally horrified, as though he had walked into a real-life horror.He had understood where this was heading.And when that truth sank in, the old patriarch released another exhausted, defeated sigh… the kind a man gives when he sees that his son has at last understood just how dire the situation truly was.He didn’t bother addressing Aldric… the man was mentally offline.Instead, he turned back to Cassandra and asked the one question that mattered.“Do you… perhaps remember the title of that great sir we went there to welcome that day?”His voice came out raspy and brittle, like it might shatter mid-sentence, and hearing him,

*****When Cassandra recognized Xavier earlier, lightning had shot through her body, electrifying every nerve.Her heart had slammed against her ribs, and her mind had gone blank. She had even forgotten breathing existed.But the craziest part wasn’t the fear, it wasn’t the guilt, and it wasn’t even the memory of her humiliation.No. It was the realization… slow, terrifying, and awe-inspiring, that Xavier wasn’t just extraordinary.Xavier was… monstrously, unbelievably, and reality-shaken mighty.This realization couldn’t help but make Cassandra suddenly feel like the world had tilted, leaving her hanging between terror, shock, and disbelief.She could still recall… painfully and vividly, every single time she had looked down on Xavier in the past. The memories came crashing back like a montage designed by the universe specifically to humiliate her.She remembered mocking him, calling him homeless, dismissing him as some cheap con-artist who intentionally came to scam her fami