Tsk… that old, gut-deep disgust rises like rancid oil on the tongue; Nana Toki doesn’t need to guess—only Trollop ever makes her feel this foul.

Her idiot System’s firewall patches were wasted, paper talismans slapped on a storm door.

“If you’ve got something, spit it. I’m not in the mood for hide-and-seek.” She draws a sharp dagger from her chest; her gaze pins a knot of people like a spear. “Come out yourself, or I drag you out.”

…

Her voice is frost; in this eerie quiet it rings like wind over gravestones.

Suffocating undercurrents churn like a black tide. Hiding in the crowd, Trollop watches the nearby silhouette, and his scalp prickles—fear of a woman’s shadow, ants crawling under the skin.

She’s abnormal, sure, but not enough to fluster a cool “gentleman,” not enough to make a seasoned fox drop his mask.

“Mm… truly worthy of Miss Nana Shi. Even your greetings are so novel.” He smooths his collar, chains his panic, and strolls out from the frozen crowd, a white tailcoat swan amid robes like cranes.

Nana Toki says nothing, just watches him step by step from the throng and stop five or six paces away, her gaze a blade, his steps beads sliding on a string.

“Long time no see, Miss Nana Shi. Have you been well?” His smile is warm and measured, lacquer over jade, as if she were an old friend.

Nana Toki doesn’t reply. She stares, then flicks the dagger at his brow like a lightning shard.

That idiot grin throws sparks into oil; it lights nameless rage every time.

“Miss Nana Shi, what are you doing?” The throw’s windup is too long; Trollop tilts a fraction and the blade whistles past, a reed bending in wind.

Nana Toki isn’t annoyed. She never thought she’d kill him in one strike; she only wanted to make this idiot gag, a fly flicked into his tea.

“Can’t you see you’re an idiot? Of course I’m killing you.” Her look is foul, a worm writhing in a dump.

“…” This woman’s game grows denser, fog on fog.

He’s simmering, but a gentleman can’t curse; he keeps a smile and shifts topics. “Your progress in this plane seems slow…” Words like thin needles, tempting a flinch.

“How’s that your business?” Nana Toki slants him a glance, cold as winter water. “If you came just to harass me, I’ll send you down to meet the King of Hell.”

“….” Fine. No chat today; the lamp’s snuffed.

“Is Miss Nana Shi always this refined?” He bites down on “refined”; a green vein jumps on his forehead like a snake.

“Depends on who.” Nana Toki bares her teeth, dead serious. “When I face idiots like you, I talk like this.” Her tone hits like hammer blows.

“…” In the end, the idiot label sticks like a burr.

“Since that’s that, Miss Nana Shi—small talk’s over. Let’s do business.” The curtain drops; the stage clears.

“…” So all that hemming was small talk? A drum roll for nothing.

“I shared the experiment’s real-time location to the Immortal Realm’s NPCs.” He drops it like a stone; his smile stays smooth, but malice bleeds across his face like ink.

“Real-time location sharing?” The words fall like cold hail against stone.

At first, Nana Toki doesn’t get it. Then she glimpses Blue Magpie and the others behind her; her face darkens like thunderheads. “What’s your aim?”

To kill her—or Nesting Phoenix? Two blades crossing at the throat.

Long ago she thought Trollop’s backers wanted Nesting Phoenix’s mental world in their grasp. Today says different: sharing Blue Magpie’s position shoves Nana Toki and the rest onto a cliff path.

No wonder he warned her this plane’s Nesting Phoenix would die; the hook was baited, the net cast, waiting for her bite.

“Who knows? Maybe this gentleman acted on a whim.” His answer is fog, and that teasing smile makes her rage climb like fire up pine.

“You know I could snap your neck right now, easy as pinching a stalk. I won’t worry about a body.”

Nana Toki clamps Trollop’s throat, iron tongs on flesh; her eyes are ice. In this plane he has no Spirit Energy; dealing with him is a finger twitch.

“So you think that threat scares me?” His smile deepens, a still pond unruffled, even with her hand on his neck.

“I think you should focus on the days ahead. Or you’ll watch an experimental individual die in front of you, helpless.” His tone tolls like a bell from a cold tower.

Crack—. Before he finishes, Nana Toki tightens her right hand; five fingers press, and his neck snaps like dry wood.

“You talk too much.” His head lolls; the warped smile hangs on his lips. Nana Toki tosses the body aside like sweeping dust.

“Wanting to kill and being able to kill aren’t the same. Don’t tell me these idiots can’t tell.” The logic stands like daylight.

Around them, Spirit Energy resumes flowing like freed rivers. She turns and meets three puzzled pairs of eyes.

“Just now… did something happen?” At the back, the Heavenswallow Serpent eyes Trollop’s body near Nana Toki and speaks, voice a hiss through leaves.

If her memory’s right, there shouldn’t be a corpse there. It was only a blink, yet the mismatch gnaws, a pebble in a shoe.

Her willow brows knit; rare confusion mists her face like fog over a lake.

Nana Toki searches for words, until the System sees Trollop’s face; the taut air finally snaps like a stretched string.

“Isn’t that the guy the master told me to watch? Why’s his corpse here?” The System stares blankly at Nana Toki. “Host, when did you kill him?” Birds scatter in its voice.

“Just now.” Her reply drops like a stone in a well.

“Just now?” The Heavenswallow Serpent and the System both freeze; even Blue Magpie copies their frown, lines like ripples.

“Yeah. Space was frozen. Only I could move.” Nana Toki offers a bit, time like still snow, her steps ink on white.

“That’s… impossible!” At a distance, the Heavenswallow Serpent can’t believe. “Space manipulation’s unheard of; even Emperor Immortals can’t. If you faced that, how did you kill him?” Thunder without rain in her tone.

“How? I choked him.” Nana Toki demonstrates with her hand, a clamp closing; her flat voice convinces no one.

Yet if not, the Serpent can’t explain that instant of wrongness, a stitch missing from the weave.

“It’s absurd.” The words slap cold.

“Even so, why did he show up to find the host?” The System squats by the corpse to examine it; for once, its intelligence boots up, smoke of suspicion coiling. “He never showed before. Now he appears and dies. It’s fishy…”

“Not exactly sudden. He showed once in the last plane.” Nana Toki helps it recall, memory a tide returning. “You’d cut our mental link then. That’s when he came.”

“Hey—! Why didn’t you tell me earlier?” The System is stunned, left in the dark; all those firewall patches were paper shields in rain while the thief sat inside.

“You didn’t ask.”

“…” Even if I didn’t ask, you should mind something that big! Exasperation steams.

The Heavenswallow Serpent can’t follow their chatter, but the air says it’s serious, a storm front rolling in.

“Anyway, park it for now. We have a bigger task.” Nana Toki turns the boat. “Before I snapped him, he said he’d exposed our trail to people in the Immortal Realm.”

“What!”

The System and the Heavenswallow Serpent jolt; at the same time, a vast holy aura slams down from above Netherworld City, a mountain of light.

A pillar from the Immortal Realm, a spear hurled from heaven.