The room felt different now.A few minutes ago, it had been filled with the quiet tension of two men trying to understand the person behind the assassination attempt. Now that the messages had stopped and Guardian had locked the phone, there was nothing left for Ethan to do except stand there and look at the man lying on the floor.The assassin was dead.His body remained where he had fallen, one arm resting at an awkward angle while his face was turned slightly toward the wall. The gun was still several feet away, abandoned after he had made his final decision.Ethan stared at him for a long moment with no satisfaction or relief in his eyes.This man had come to kill him. He had followed him, watched his movements, and had been waiting for the right moment to carry out an order given by someone Ethan still could not see.And yet, as Ethan looked at the body now, the assassin no longer seemed like the most frightening part of what had happened.He had been nothing more than a weapon.

Ethan remained in the hallway for several more minutes, unable to move.The hospital corridor had become strangely quiet. The sounds of hurried footsteps, distant voices, and medical equipment seemed far away now, as though he were standing inside a world that no longer belonged to him. His chest felt heavy, and every breath he took seemed to drag against the weight pressing down on him.He lowered his head and slowly rubbed a hand over his face, forcing himself to regain control. There was no point standing there and letting grief consume him. His parents were gone, and nothing he did now could change that.A few feet away, Guardian stood silently.The silver-haired man had not interrupted him once. He simply watched Ethan with a calm, patient expression, giving him the time he needed to collect himself.After another long breath, Ethan finally straightened.His eyes were still filled with pain, but something colder had settled behind them.He turned toward Guardian and walked over.

The next day arrived with a strange stillness.Ethan had barely slept.Even after leaving the hospital and returning to the hotel, his mind had refused to settle. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw his parents lying motionless beneath the white sheets. He could still hear his mother's voice from the night before, still remember the way she had looked at him when he promised he would come back.He had promised.And he had failed to keep that promise.Now there was nothing left for him to return to.The only thing he had managed to take from the hospital was the assassin's phone, and even that had come with a purpose far darker than he had imagined. The man had not been acting alone. Someone had paid him to kill his parents, and whoever had given the order was still out there.Ethan sat quietly in the back of the SUV as the city passed outside the tinted windows.Beside him, the Guardian remained unusually silent.The silver-haired man had spent most of the journey staring ahead, his

Ethan finally spoke, his voice cold and steady despite the rage burning beneath it. “So you killed my parents because you lost a business contract?”Ryan's expression hardened immediately. He slowly shook his head, his eyes fixed on Ethan with a mixture of resentment and wounded pride. “No. That wasn't the reason,” he replied, his voice lowering as his bitterness deepened. “I killed them because everything I had spent years waiting for was suddenly being taken away from me.”Ethan's face remained unreadable, but his clenched fists revealed the anger he was struggling to control.Ryan noticed the silence and continued, his resentment spilling out now that he had finally stopped pretending. “Clara stopped answering my messages,” he said bitterly, his mouth twisting as though the memory still offended him. “At first, I thought she was simply angry with me, so I kept trying to reach her. Then she blocked me.”A humorless laugh escaped him as he wiped the remaining blood from the corner of

Ethan stared at the Guardian.For several seconds, he could not bring himself to speak.The name of the crystal still echoed inside his mind.The Crystal of Life.Those three words had awakened something he had almost forgotten he possessed.Hope.It was a dangerous thing to feel after losing his parents because hope made the heart believe that the impossible might still be possible. Yet Ethan could not stop himself from clinging to it. His parents had been dead for less than a day, and suddenly there was a possibility, however small, that he could see them alive again.Ethan slowly turned toward the Guardian, his brows drawn together as questions crowded his mind. The pa