The Day the Maiden Vanished, the Hour the Blade Descended

Su Yang held his breath and concentrated as he read the lines of tiny blood-red characters that appeared in the Dead Man's Book.

"Investigate the cause of her death and settle her karma, and you will receive a further gift of Fate..."

"He Tong, was it? If you've suffered an injustice, I'll do my best to clear your name!"

But when he saw the word "Fate," Su Yang froze.

"Fate? A gift?"

"Could it be that I awakened my Awakening Sequence Ability because of a gift from Fate?"

Did everything he had now count as a "gift of Fate"?

His parents had vanished for no reason five years ago, and he had suffered the torment of those eerie whispers for five years.

He had struggled on the brink of death the whole time, endured five years of hardship with his grandmother, and experienced countless acts of kindness and cold indifference...

Su Yang had never considered any of that a "gift"!

Whenever Su Yang saw the words "gift of Fate" written in the Dead Man's Book, he even felt like scoffing!

A gift of Fate? What kind of gift was that?!

To hell with this "gift"!

But just a few days ago, he had suddenly discovered that his parents were members of a mysterious organization, and that their status in it was far from low.

They were protecting this world from the shadows.

His parents might have left to carry out some important mission for the Soul-Reaping Bureau.

As for money, Su Yang had suddenly received five million in cash, solving his family's financial troubles in one stroke.

In the future, as a Sword-Bearer, he would surely never have to worry about money again.

Even Su Yang himself had just awakened a sequence ability, and the most powerful First Sequence Ability at that!

He had even shown off a little in front of those people from the Soul-Reaping Bureau!

Although Zhao Shengshen was sometimes unreliable, Su Yang remembered clearly that when they first met and introduced themselves, Zhao Shengshen had said he was a Fifth-Rank Sword Guardian.

The fifth rank couldn't be low, could it?

That Soul-Reaping Bureau bar in the city had to be just a branch, but the people there all followed Zhao Shengshen's lead!

So there was no doubt that Zhao Shengshen was a big shot!

And a big shot like him seemed to think quite highly of Su Yang.

Oh... right, there was also his rich, beautiful, and utterly charming deskmate at school, who had fallen for him.

Ren Yexue truly liked Su Yang. She didn't care whether he had money; she liked him for who he was!

She had even quietly made an effort behind the scenes, braving wind and rain to help Su Yang's grandmother for a whole year.

Even Su Yang himself hadn't noticed how much his life had changed before he knew it!

Apart from those eerie whispers, which remained unresolved, all the difficulties that had troubled Su Yang had vanished like smoke!

He should have been riding high with the spring breeze at his back!

He should have been holding Ren Yexue, who was as adorable as a cat, in his arms while displaying his talents at the Soul-Reaping Bureau and becoming its most dazzling rookie.

But at that moment, Su Yang couldn't bring himself to feel happy.

Sitting silently on the bed and looking at the line in the Dead Man's Book—"All gifts of Fate have their prices secretly marked"—Su Yang felt a restlessness rising from the bottom of his heart.

"What on earth is going on?"

"If only I had a cigarette!"

The moment he said it, even Su Yang himself was stunned.

A moment later, Su Yang couldn't help laughing.

"I'm not going to end up carrying cigarettes and booze everywhere like those people from the Soul-Reaping Bureau, am I?"

Su Yang remembered that when he first met Zhao Shengshen, Zhao Shengshen had said that just about everyone in the Soul-Reaping Bureau smoked.

At the time, Su Yang had been a little puzzled. Were the people in the Soul-Reaping Bureau all under so much pressure? Why did every one of them smoke?

Thinking about it now, the people in the Soul-Reaping Bureau were actually no different from ordinary people.

They liked smoking, drinking, and having fun too.

The people in the Soul-Reaping Bureau had even gone so far as to turn their branch into a bar and use a sequence ability to hide it.

"It's really hard to believe!"

Even now, Su Yang still found it ridiculous when he thought about it.

A Soul-Reaping Bureau branch was actually a bar? Nobody would believe it if he told them!

Thinking of those people in the Soul-Reaping Bureau who looked like they "didn't do any honest work," Su Yang felt much better.

"Ah! Look at me, complaining after getting a taste of the good life!"

"I just need to live tomorrow well! Why worry about Fate or no Fate?"

"I, Su Yang, don't believe in Fate! To hell with its gifts!"

The hour before dawn was the darkest of all.

That was even more true in the ancient forests deep in the mountains, far from the city!

This was an ancient palace in a dense forest deep in the mountains.

A colossal statue of a god stood in the center of the palace.

The statue was neither male nor female, neither beautiful nor ugly, neither joyful nor sorrowful, and its face had no features.

At that moment, quite a few people in white robes knelt on the ground, surrounding a man dressed in red.

This was the headquarters of the Soul-Reaping Bureau.

The man in red wore an auspicious expression, the corners of his mouth raised in a smile, but his eyes were tightly covered by a piece of gauze.

This man was blind.

"God says, on the day the maiden vanishes, the blade shall appear."

"God says, on the day the maiden vanishes, the blade shall appear."

After the man in red softly spoke the words, the white-robed people surrounding him repeated them.

"God says, a great calamity shall befall the Nineteenth Jurisdiction!"

"God says, a great calamity shall befall the Nineteenth Jurisdiction!"

"God says, humanity's enemy—the God of Fate and Reason—has descended upon the world."

"God says, humanity's enemy—the God of Fate and Reason—has descended upon the world."

A kilometer away from the statue, a group of armed and armored people kept watch over the place.

They wore resolute expressions and black combat attire, and their bodies were sturdy and strong. There were over a hundred of them.

If Su Yang had been there, he would have recognized the person standing at the very front of the group.

With sharp-cut short hair, a face as if carved by a blade, and eyes like lightning, this man was none other than Gai Fengyan!

Gai Fengyan stared at the man in red beneath the statue and murmured to himself.

"This is the fifth time this month! Using their sequence ability so frequently will cause the Omniscients to mutate..."

"What's happened to God lately? Why has he been sending down oracles so frequently?"

Gai Fengyan was the commander here. His duties were both to protect the Omniscients here, who were too weak to truss a chicken, and to protect the ordinary people outside...

Once the Omniscients here mutated, Gai Fengyan would become a merciless butcher's blade!

Shaking his head, Gai Fengyan stopped thinking about the Omniscients and asked someone beside him.

"Have the remnants of the Fierce Ghosts all been wiped out?"

"Lord Sword Envoy, we've wiped out most of them so far!"

"Mm, thank you for your hard work!"

"And don't call me lord. I don't like the way you people at Headquarters do things!"

"Yes!"