Fear Is No Illusion

The Divine Ring of Stellar Authority shone with a dazzling light, and a blade of light, like a flying knife, gathered at the fingertip.

With a wave of his hand, he threw it; the blade pierced the air, soaring over a twelve-story building and reaching the rooftop.

The next moment, the light blade shattered, the Phase Door opened, and Kang De leaped out from a bursting, swirling vortex, straightening the collar of his trench coat.

The portal behind him closed rapidly, collapsing into shimmering points of light before vanishing without a trace.

Kang De opened the door to the rooftop room and went downstairs.

Phoenix Vision quietly activated, its blazing flames burning within its pupils. The unparalleled eye technique, capable of shattering illusions, revealed another facet of the world, with the three-dimensional structure of buildings extending layer by layer in its field of vision.

The soul of life, the cold reinforced concrete structure, the rushing electrical wires and cables—cold and visible, with no secrets. Kang De descended the stairs, his steps treading the outline of gray lines. The camera in the corner also had cold, hard lines, its illusory shadows enveloping his figure like flowing water, concealing the reflection of light and making him disappear from the camera's view.

A messenger moving through the Shadow.

Seventh floor.

He opened the door to the emergency exit. Two Britain police officers in uniform stood guard in front of the room at the end. Hearing the noise, they drew their guns and rushed forward to investigate. The invisible Kang De moved nimbly, brushing past the two officers, his gaze sweeping over their necks.

A beam of holy light silently swept past, slipping into the room through the crack in the door.

The portal opened, Kang De vanished on the other side of the world. The two policemen cautiously examined the empty emergency staircase, turned around in confusion, and found nothing had happened.

Kang De was already inside the room.

"Damn," he said casually, "You licked it really clean."

The guesthouse that An Youyi and You Luna rented was indeed luxurious, with two floors connected. There were no police officers lingering in the room, and a dozen or so hours was enough time for them to complete all the preliminary investigation work.

Or rather, they had no intention of staying any longer.

Kang De's eyes flickered as he looked at the messy insoles and shoe cabinet in the entryway, the overturned hat rack, and the broken vase—all signs of the fight that had taken place there the previous night. The kidnappers had quietly entered and, while the two young girls were still admiring the luxurious residence, had first seized You Luna.

An Youyi heard the other person struggling, so she locked the door and called Xiaoman for help...

In the bedroom at the far end of the upper floor, Kang De saw the damaged door; this was it.

Horus added, "Their shoes, handbags, and suitcases were not found."

"These must be the so-called evidence, and they must have been taken away by the United Kingdom police." Kang De looked at the lines drawn on the expensive floor, then glanced at the magnificent Swarovski chandelier on the ceiling. In the last part of the WeChat video, the room that An Youyi filmed was indeed this place. The location was right.

The Transformers asked, "Father, where do we begin?"

Kang De's gaze was deep as he slowly said, "Fear."

A silver bottle flew out of the Phase Door and landed in Kang De's hand. The cork was pulled out, and fine indigo powder was scattered throughout the room. The light fragments danced in the air like living little elves, or like dust motes dancing in the room under the sunlight, as if chasing and swirling around something.

Kang De rubbed the cork between two fingers of his right hand, and a white flame appeared out of thin air.

He raised his finger, pinched the flaming bottle stopper, and gently touched it towards the void.

It was as if Flame ignited the dust in the air; a silent but brilliant explosion occurred quietly, and the indigo powder seemed to come alive, giving form to fear.

The powder coalesced into a blurry human figure. She first wavered behind the door, then rushed to the window. She seemed to be trembling and crying, holding something in her hands, her mouth trembling violently and silently.

Then, she kept retreating, dodging, and screaming. In the process, the powder kept gathering, and then peeled off from the humanoid shape, separating and reconstructing three humanoid shapes: one of average build, two of tall and strong build. In the end, all the indigo powder was transferred to the three intruders.

This process is the birth of fear, and the feasting of fear.

The victim experiences fear, while the perpetrator revels in the target's fear.

The main ingredient of this potion is the Heart of the Fear Demon. Its innate demonic nature causes its offspring to have an instinctive obsession with the fear of living beings. The alchemists of the Council used this property to create a potion that could recreate crime scenes to a certain extent. However, due to its high cost, it was difficult to apply in judicial practice. In the end, it became a magic weapon used by nobles to solve court conspiracies and manor murders.

However, just as humans created armor from arrows and spears, and shields from swords, the same is true for the path of arcane magic; the emergence of anything new inevitably spurs the development of countermeasures.

The creation of the Fear Potion was no secret. After it proved its effectiveness and gained widespread fame, spells for "cleaning up the scene" were quickly developed.

This renders the potion useless; it is no longer suitable for high-level conspiracy murders and can only be used to solve some "treasonous" murder cases.

For example, a maid might poison her master, a groom might assassinate his young master, a farmer might ambush a tax collector... The common people, being of humble origins, could neither know of such a magical potion nor how to counteract it.

But none of that matters. What matters is that there will never be a way to crack this on Earth. With this, Kang De can become a detective who surpasses Holmes on Earth.

He smiled coldly, pressing the stopper, still burning with white Flame, against the bottom of the potion bottle. The next moment, the Flame went out, and the silver bottle gradually turned black as if stained with ink. The powder that formed the three terrifying human figures seemed to be summoned, rushing into the bottle with a whooshing sound, vibrating and pulsating.

Kang De put the cork back in the bottle.

The potion, tainted with the scent of fear, reveals who is consuming that fear.

"Next, once they are close enough, they will fly to the target on their own."

He slowly exhaled. "Not bad, at least it's useful."

Horus asked, "Can't we track them all the way back to them?"

Kang De shook his head. "No, An Youyi has already been knocked unconscious, so the fear has ended. The people who developed the potion didn't consider such a long-term consequence..."

He carefully put the bottle away, shook his head, and sighed, "The criminal investigation methods in this other world are too outdated, especially the outdated concepts, which have led to lagging behind in both methods and technology."

During the time the space beacon was flying towards London, he made a special trip to the White Mist World to consult with the henchmen training there—when selecting them, Horus had noticed their professional backgrounds and educational experiences; quite a few were former law enforcement officers and judicial knights, however...

However, the "criminal investigation techniques" they explained and practiced with Kang De were usually about "how to beat, intimidate, coerce, induce, and hallucinate suspects." Various spells and magical potions derived from this were developed under this guiding principle, with the core idea being "fuck your evidence, confess already!"

In this situation, the Fear Potion is a beacon of hope, but ultimately, its true purpose is still to "quickly identify suspects for severe torture."

Incidentally, with Kang De's advice, the green-skinned man also provided ideas for solving the case.

"Little puppy! Use our little puppy! It's amazing, it can tell where someone is just by sniffing them!"

Puppies and such... Kang De thought of the mutant hounds kept by the Greenskins, completely hairless, covered in explosively developed muscles, with sharp teeth, extremely cruel and ferocious.

Putting aside the fact that bringing it to Earth would require implanting Paradox Element, simply strolling it onto the streets of London in this form would likely cause an immediate riot, and the police would arrive with guns in no time.

"In any case, at least we have a clue," Kang De said. "Next, we need to figure out who these people are and what area they're active in—we need to narrow down the search area, and then these powders will automatically help us pinpoint the location of the people we're looking for."

"What to do?"

"In this situation, the most convenient method is still..." Kang De shrugged, "To watch the surveillance footage and take photos—we need to at least know what they look like and what their names are."

Such powerful time-reversal magic does not exist in other worlds.

Or rather, even if it existed, it wouldn't be something the tough guys in the White Mist World could control.

"That's enough. If all else fails, we can ignore all the clues and ideas, and start directly with the local London gangs, taking them down one by one. We'll eventually find them."

Kang De shrugged. "Although doing it this way is too troublesome and could easily cause a big commotion, which doesn't quite fit my kind, steady, and approachable persona, the criminal investigation techniques they demonstrated to me were mainly of that type."

A flash of light appeared, and Kang De emerged from the safety passage after leaving the room through the Phase Gate.

Heading downwards.

Target monitoring room.

Phoenix Eyes pierced through the thick wall structure, observing the direction of the wiring. The node where the monitoring system's lines converged was undoubtedly the location of the monitoring room. He silently walked to the corner of the corridor, his gaze passing through the wall. There was only one person sitting inside eating potato chips. He crossed space to arrive.

Hearing the noise, the staff member tried to turn around, but a flash of light appeared before his eyes. He immediately felt extremely sleepy, turned his head, and slumped onto the table, snoring loudly.

"Damn, that's convenient." Kang De extinguished the ball of light in his hand. The calming spell, producing a state of tranquility and stillness, could be used to treat insomnia and for special infiltration; it had numerous variations and wide applications. "I'll use this method to practice in a psychiatric clinic, and in three months I'll become an unparalleled master of traditional Chinese medicine."

A long, narrow mechanical arm extended from the cuff, its port forming a USB connector. Horus said in a deep voice, "Wait a moment, soon enough, let's see what happened last night."

Immediately after, Iron Son said, "Damn."

Kang De frowned and asked, "What?"

"The original hard drive has been removed, and the surveillance system's storage media is empty," Horus said. "And, do you see that, Father, the elevator's surveillance footage..."

Kang De glanced at it and exclaimed in surprise, "One of them is bad?"

"This is not good," Horus said. "I think we should ask him."

Kang De frowned, pulled the United Kingdom was slumped over the table to his feet, thought for a moment, and then took out a spray bottle from the White Mist World. The distilled mist of nightmare blood entered the other man's nostrils.

"I look like a terrible villain."

He used his right hand to forcefully wake the other person, and said in a deep voice, "Wake up! I need you to wake up!"

The United Kingdom awoke groggily, looked at Kang De, and then screamed, "Aaaaaaah! It's a spider! A spider! Don't come near me!!!"

A survey in the United Kingdom asked what the United Kingdom fear most, and spiders topped the list, with terrorist attacks only coming in second, followed by snakes.

In other words, this guy probably saw a spider about his size staring at him closely with countless tiny compound eyes, and could even see the hairs on its limbs that were longer than his own hair.

"... What the hell is this?"

The room was surrounded by a soundproof barrier. Kang De said in a deep voice, "I need you to answer a few questions—why were the surveillance cameras empty last night? Did you see the people who kidnapped those two China girls?"

The United Kingdom, who appeared to be at least thirty years old, trembled with fear, his eyes tightly shut. He cried out in a panic, "The surveillance cameras! The police took them! I didn't see anything, I swear I didn't see anything, because the cameras were broken! Even the street cameras were broken—that's what the police told me! Oh God, I knew something was wrong! Don't hurt me, don't hurt me! I really don't know anything else!"

He spoke incoherently, so much so that Horus took a short while to finish translating.

Kang De frowned.

Damn, that's just the right amount of bad—is this a common human trait, or a universal flaw in electronic products? Behind this, is it the decline of humanity or the inadequacy of technological development?

"The United Kingdom agents are definitely suspicious," Kang De said, frowning. "This is very strange."

He glanced at the trembling monitoring room staff member, his palm once again radiating a warm, holy light, and brushed it across the other's forehead. "Sleep."

The man fell to the ground and gradually began to snore evenly.

Since he didn't see Kang De, even if he woke up or was woken up, he couldn't remember the current situation. He only knew that he suddenly fell asleep and had a terrible dream in which a terrifying giant spider asked him about the surveillance, and he was so frightened that he told everything.

And he wouldn't tell anyone about it, much less believe it's real. This Britain guy will most likely attribute this terrifying dream to his suspicions and conjectures about the police. What else could he do?

Could it be that a giant spider infiltrated the monitoring room and interrogated him?

Horus retracted the mechanical arm and said, "Father, it's fixed."

The monitoring room also has surveillance cameras—but for Horus, who is already very skilled, it would be no problem to fake a video of him sleeping as if nothing had happened.

Let's go.

Kang De opened the Phase Gate, leaping from the White Mist World to the spatial beacon he had left in the outside world. He had come all the way from the London Eye to here, not to admire the scenery, but to place teleportation points in some inconspicuous locations.

The air was crisp and cool. Kang De emerged from his invisibility, glanced at the apartment building where An Youyi had been kidnapped, and turned to dial a satellite phone. "It's me. The United Kingdom took the surveillance hard drive, but claim the cameras are damaged... They definitely have something going on, at least they're hiding something."

Qin Mengjin on the other end of the phone took a deep breath. "If it's just for investigating a case, there's no need to take the hard drive; just copying the relevant videos would be enough... There is definitely a problem."

She asked, "So, what other discoveries have you made? What are your plans?"

Kang De thought for a moment, "Who is in charge of this case in the United Kingdom police? Send me their identification information, and their home address would be even better."

Qin Mengjin said nervously, "You... you'd better not do anything so strenuous."

Kang De said calmly, "I won't kill an entire family casually. I just want to have a quiet talk with him—besides, this isn't my primary choice, but a backup option. Don't worry, I won't make any substantial threats to the United Kingdom government officials right now; that would easily alert them."

"... Alright." Qin Mengjin seemed to have received permission, "Please, please restrain yourself."

After all, he couldn't refuse—this kind of thing wasn't a secret in London, and it wouldn't be difficult for Kang De to find out who was in charge; it would just take some effort.

After hanging up the phone, Kang De took a deep breath of cool air and slowly exhaled.

"What's next, Father?"

The surveillance footage was taken by the United Kingdom, and the cameras even happened to break down – this was an unexpected turn of events that needed to be addressed – the surveillance footage was crucial to identifying the kidnappers.

Kang De leaned against the wall, lost in thought.

There are two options.

One option is to continue monitoring the route. To do that, he needs to retrieve the hard drive that the United Kingdom cops took, or obtain the surveillance content within it. This would require him to make a trip to the London Police, or at least find a way to get Horus to hack into the police network—if the cops have already copied and saved the contents of the hard drive.

The second option is to abandon this approach and directly target the London mafia – a simple and direct approach.

After pondering for a long time, Kang De slowly said, "Let's try the second option first—dealing with the United Kingdom police is too restrictive; after all, we have to consider their feelings and the nation's sentiments."

His cooperation with the state has a promising future, and if it continues, it will be enough to make the Republic his strong rear base. Especially under the threat of the Star Palace, the significance of having a stable rear base is self-evident. This requires him to take the initiative to maintain relations with the state—just like this operation, the state has no way to interfere with or restrain him, but Kang De is still considering the state's feelings.

Taking the official route and using unconventional methods may be effective quickly, but it will provoke hostility from Britain and add to the hatred in the country—it's best to avoid doing such things if possible.

He said, "We'll go straight to the London mafia and dig up the Albania's dirt."

Horus asked, "Where to begin? Shall we find a street thug and start beating him up?"

Kang De countered, "Have you ever seen any petty thugs on the street?"

No, not at all.

"No is the right thing to do; it's early in the morning, everyone should be sleeping."

"So where should we begin?"

Kang De laughed and said, "Of course, you should ask someone who knows."

"Embassy, or back home?"

"Neither," Kang De replied. "The United Kingdom know best what's going on in their own affairs."

"Just tell me the answer."

"This person is someone we know," Kang De smiled. "Let's find out where the BCC headquarters is; we'll go meet an old friend."

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PS1: Damn... I'm having some writer's block today. Time for a nap. My sleep schedule is a bit dangerous again, I need to take it seriously!