REBORN IN THE CITY OF GODS

CHAPTER 9 — THE GOLDEN BAIT TRAP

The shiny marble floor in the master study of the Vance Manor reflected the light of a gigantic crystal chandelier hanging magnificently from the high ceiling.

The room was filled with the scent of imported cigar tobacco mixed with the fragrance of aged mahogany wood. Behind a massive classic-style desk, Arthur Vance sat in an upright posture, his fingers wearing a black gemstone ring tapping rhythmically against the desk surface.

The middle-aged man's face was hard, cold, and radiated the absolute authority of a patriarch accustomed to orchestrating the life and death of others in this city.

Before him, Julian stood restlessly with a bandage wrapped vaguely around his neck. The lingering fear from the corporate lobby incident still haunted his eyes, mingling with a burning anger.

"Father, you have to believe me!" Julian's voice trembled slightly, trying to convince the man he feared most in this world. "Adrian is no longer the ordinary bodyguard we used to know. He killed an entire elite hunting squad in under a minute without leaving a trace. He is a real threat to our family!"

Arthur stopped his finger tapping. He snorted softly, staring at his only child with a gaze full of disbelief and a hint of disgust at the panic Julian displayed.

"You've lost your mind because you were defeated by a pet dog that happened to slip its leash, Julian," Arthur's voice sounded low, calm, but full of gripping pressure. "No mortal human in this city can wipe out a fully armed special forces squad alone without the help of forbidden magical weapons. The logical calculation is simple: he must have stolen or found an artifact left behind by an ancient dimension while working in our storage warehouse back then."

In a slightly darkened corner of the room stood a figure clad in a deep purple-hooded cloak. Madam Valeria, the mercenary black witch hired for a fantastic f*e, smiled, revealing her contrasting white teeth from beneath the hood.

"The great master is right," Madam Valeria's voice sounded raspy, resembling the friction of thin metal. "Mortal humans do not possess the spiritual capacity to rival the power of the Vance clan's system independently. If he truly possesses that power, then he must be holding an unstable artifact vessel. And such artifacts always possess a fatal flaw: greed and emotion."

Arthur smirked coldly. He was not accustomed to waiting for an enemy to come knocking on his door. If a rat dared to disturb a lion in its den, then the lion's job was not to hide, but to set the best trap on the face of the earth.

"I have already deployed all the resources I possess," Arthur spoke in a merciless, cruel tone. "First, I have frozen all financial access, ID cards, and bank accounts under Adrian's name. Without money and legality, he is merely a vagrant unable to move in this city. Second..."

Arthur raised his right hand, signaling his guards to turn on the holographic screen on the room's wall.

The light projection revealed a female doctor in a white coat being held captive inside a sterile room tied with iron chains. Her name was Dr. Elena Rostova, the genius surgeon who had secretly helped manage the medical data of the Vance family's Pantheon Collective system trials.

"...we are using the right bait," Arthur continued with a triumphant smile. "This woman knows too much about the biological loopholes of the system. Adrian interacted with her several times while handling his adoptive sister's medical care. If we spread the information that this doctor will be executed tonight, that savage dog will surely crawl out of his hiding hole trying to be a hero."

Madam Valeria chuckled softly, a horrifying sound echoing in the corner of the room. "A classic scheme that always works. Let him come, Mr. Vance. I will rip his soul out the moment he steps into the trap."

In another part of the city, inside the old warehouse hideout, a small tablet screen on the desk blinked bright red. Marcus, who was checking the informant network data, suddenly stared at the screen with eyes widened in shock.

"Adrian... this is bad!" Marcus exclaimed in a panicked tone, rushing over to Adrian, who was sitting calmly sharpening his blade. "Your banking system is totally frozen by the Vance corporate center. Not only that... they are spreading a public announcement that Dr. Elena Rostova is being held in the former suburban psychiatric hospital and will be executed tonight on charges of leaking state secrets!"

Marcus swallowed hard, staring closely at his friend. "Elena is the only doctor who once helped save Maya's life when her condition was critical. The Vance family deliberately set this open trap to lure you out. They know you won't sit still if Dr. Elena is tortured!"

The atmosphere inside the warehouse suddenly fell silent. Maya, sitting in the corner of the room hugging her knees, stared at Adrian with a gaze full of worry.

Yet, contrary to Marcus's expectations, Adrian showed no sign of panic whatsoever. His hand movements while sharpening the knife remained steady, slow, and controlled.

Instead of showing a tense face, a cold smile slowly curved at the corner of his lips—a smile full of confidence from someone who already knew his enemy's entire playbook.

"A trap?" Adrian's voice sounded calm, flat, yet laden with absolute self-confidence. "They think they are luring prey into a lion's den. They don't know... that I am deliberately letting them stage this play."

Adrian stood up from his wooden chair. The Mythic-grade shadow cloak rippled thinly around his shoulders, radiating a pitch-black energy glow that absorbed all light around him.

He had no intention of hiding, nor did he intend to formulate a complicated escape plan. For a being who had surpassed the system's rules through a bug loophole, the enemy's trap was merely an open invitation to come harvest the yield.

"Watch Maya here, Marcus," Adrian commanded briefly, walking toward the warehouse exit. "Tonight, I will show the Vance family the true meaning of an execution."

Exactly at eleven at night.

The former psychiatric hospital in the city's northwest district stood tall in a dense silence.

The old four-story building was surrounded by tall barbed-wire fences, with automatic searchlights rotating to sweep the vast courtyard filled with overgrown weeds.

The place had been abandoned for years, making it the perfect isolation location to carry out lawless acts without detection by civilians.

Inside the third-floor main building, dozens of heavily armed special forces belonging to the Vance corporation stood on standby in every dark corridor.

In the central main room, Madam Valeria stood near a large window, monitoring the front courtyard area while chanting an invisible curse spell coating all the walls of the building with soul-rotting energy webs.

In the center chair of the room, Dr. Elena Rostova was tied to an iron chair with her mouth gagged by a black cloth, her eyes betraying deep fear.

Arthur Vance, monitoring the situation via a remote surveillance screen from his luxury limousine outside the gates, flashed a triumphant smile.

"He's actually coming," Arthur whispered softly to himself upon seeing the hot spot on the infrared thermal sensor approach the hospital's main gate.

Outside the gate, a man in a black suit walked casually through the drizzle of the night. His footsteps sounded slow, tapping steadily against the wet asphalt street. Adrian walked straight past the hazardous property warning sign without a shred of fear.

As soon as his shoes crossed the perimeter boundary of the hospital yard, the automatic security sensors instantly blinked bright red, emitting a loud alarm sound that broke the silence of the night and sent a direct signal to all enemy troop guard posts inside the building.

Adrian slowly looked up, staring toward the third-floor window where Madam Valeria and the guards awaited him. His gray gaze radiated a lethal cold glint, signaling that the prey they had been waiting for had come to tear their trap to pieces.