Blackthorn Security Company

Tingen City, Northern District, Zoteland Street.

A four-wheeled Police Carriage emblazoned with crossed swords beneath a crown slowly rolled into the parking area beside the Police Station.

"Do you work inside Tingen City's Police Station?"

Angel put on her hood before stepping down from the carriage. She looked around. The parking area stood beside the Northern District Police Station, where five identical black four-wheeled carriages were neatly parked, with plenty of vacant spaces between them. Clearly, there were far more than just these.

"Of course not. We merely borrow the police carriages. They can't handle Beyonder cases, so we often need to go out ourselves." Dunn Smith jumped down from the driver's seat as he answered. Seeing the stableman guarding the parking area approach to take the horses, he abruptly changed the subject. "Our 'company' is at Number 34, the three-story building diagonally across from here."

The stableman seemed well acquainted with Dunn and the others. He greeted the Nighthawks, gave Angel not so much as a glance, and went straight to tend to the horses.

The four left the parking area. Dunn led the way, followed by Daly holding her wineglass and Angel curiously looking around, while Leonard brought up the rear.

The Northern District truly deserved its reputation as Tingen's most prosperous area. It was also the busiest time of the morning, and carriages constantly passed along Zoteland Street. After waiting for a while, they finally found a chance to cross the road together.

The ground floor of Number 34 Zoteland Street was a storefront facing the street, but its doors were tightly shut and there was no signboard nearby. It appeared not to have opened for a very long time. Dunn and the others led Angel up the Stairs beside it, turned past a corner, and arrived on the second floor.

A vertical sign hung on the wall: "Blackthorn Security Company."

This was the name Dunn had mentioned before. So this was the Nighthawks' base. The name carried the air of an old-fashioned mercenary outfit. Considering the Church of the Night Goddess's long history, perhaps it really had been used for many years.

Dunn Smith pushed open the front door and only closed it again after the others had entered.

Before Angel was a rather spacious reception room. Compared with the plain sign outside, the interior was quite luxurious. On the reception desk directly opposite the entrance sat paper and pens for guest registration, along with scattered documents and newspapers. To one side stood a natural wood Tea Table surrounded by a set of sofas and upholstered armchairs. A large Gas Lamp overhead gave off a soft glow. If no one had been absent from the reception desk, she might have thought she had entered the lobby of some upscale hotel.

"It's Sunday today. Otherwise, someone would be on duty at the front desk." Seeing Angel staring blankly at the reception room, Dunn explained, "So you'll have to make your own tea."

He turned to Leonard, who was at the back. "Take the Sealed Artifact downstairs first. Then go to Fry and Luo Yao's homes and notify them. There's an operation tonight. Their leave has been canceled."

The young Nighthawk nodded, took the copper wineglass called a Sealed Artifact from Daly, bypassed the hall, and left through a side door.

"Daly, what are your plans? You don't need to take part in tonight's operation..."

"I'll keep watch here tonight, but I need a proper rest during the day. I don't have the privilege you Sleepless have of not needing to sleep." Daly, the Medium dressed in a Black Robe, yawned. Once she handed over the copper wineglass, exhaustion was written all over her face.

Dunn nodded in agreement. "Then go rest in the duty room on the third floor first. I'll wake you before the operation."

After Daly left through another door, only Angel and Dunn Smith remained in the hall.

"As for you..." Dunn seemed to have only just remembered there was someone beside him. He patted the police cap on his head and said to Angel:

"Before we carry out the operation to arrest Mrs. Sharon, you'd better not leave this place. That will ensure your safety to the greatest extent. Even if Mrs. Sharon escapes arrest, she won't dare come to the Nighthawks' base and cause trouble."

He pointed toward the partition in the middle of the hall. "Past that is a corridor. The room in the middle is the lounge. There aren't many people there on Sundays, so you can rest on the sofa bed inside. I'll have a Female Nighthawk come keep you company shortly. If you need anything, tell her. But don't wander into the other rooms. The other Nighthawks don't know you, and if they mistake you for an intruder, they may cause you unnecessary harm."

Keep me company? More like keep an eye on me, right?

Angel muttered to herself, but she still nodded to show that she understood.

Seeing that Dunn had nothing else to say, Angel prepared to leave the hall and head to the lounge he had mentioned, planning to catch up on some sleep during the day.

"Wait, there's one more thing!" Just as Angel reached the door on the left, Dunn called out from behind her.

"I nearly forgot. Tell me first about Mrs. Sharon's Beyonder abilities, everything you learned from Cole Granger. Say whatever you remember."

Dunn Smith took out a palm-sized notebook from his police uniform pocket and dropped onto the sofa in the reception room.

"Not discussing it in a dream? You trust me that much?" Angel returned to the center of the reception room and sat opposite Dunn. Leaning against the soft sofa, she relaxed her entire body.

Dunn's gray eyes fixed on her as he slowly said, "I do trust you. Besides, our interests align. You don't want Mrs. Sharon to escape justice either, do you?"

Trust me, or trust that Sealed Artifact from earlier? For now, I'm still in the dark...

From Leonard and Daly's reactions in the carriage earlier, Angel guessed that the copper wineglass called a Sealed Artifact likely had a function similar to a lie detector. It could allow its holder to determine whether the person before them was speaking the truth—or at least whether they believed they were telling the truth.

However, she had no intention of lying now. Dunn's judgment was correct. Mrs. Sharon was indeed their common interest, but there was one difference. For the Nighthawks, capturing Mrs. Sharon alive was certainly the best outcome. Not only would it deal with a Beyonder operating outside the law, it might also yield information about the Witch Sect from her. Perhaps they could uncover more of her accomplices and destroy all of the Witch Sect's schemes in Tingen.

But for Angel, Mrs. Sharon being captured alive was not a good thing.

The worst outcome would be Mrs. Sharon escaping the Nighthawks' encirclement. Though this possibility was extremely low with a Beyonder like Dunn Smith involved, if it happened, Angel would inevitably face endless retaliation from Mrs. Sharon and the forces behind her.

The second-worst outcome would be Mrs. Sharon being captured alive as the Nighthawks hoped. With only a little questioning, the fabricated identity of "Angel Granger" would certainly be exposed. What awaited Angel then would be a dark and uncertain fate.

The best outcome would be Mrs. Sharon dying while resisting arrest.

That was extremely common in conflicts between Beyonders. Once both sides stopped holding back and fully unleashed their Beyonder abilities, it usually ended with one side dead.

That was also why Angel wanted to participate in the fight. With Storm Convergence bullets and an Assassin's combat abilities, she could not control the course of the battle, but she could still find an opportunity to kill Mrs. Sharon when the fight was about to end.

Unfortunately, the Nighthawks did not seem to want her involved in the operation to arrest Mrs. Sharon. Perhaps they did not want the "witness" to get hurt, or perhaps they simply did not trust an outsider.

In that case, she could only settle for the next best thing: ensuring that Mrs. Sharon did not escape.

If she withheld information and caused the arrest operation to fail, not only might these Nighthawks fighting evil suffer casualties, but the retaliation lurking in the shadows afterward would be more than Angel could bear.

"I don't know whether she's withheld any of her abilities, so I can only tell you what Cole has seen." Angel gave Dunn a warning first, to keep him from relying too heavily on her intelligence and encountering an accident in battle.

Dunn Smith nodded, his expression growing serious as he listened carefully.

"First, she advanced from Assassin. She possesses all of an Assassin's Beyonder abilities, and they were strengthened during her advancement. That includes Dark Vision, enhanced eyesight, nimble limbs, a light body, and explosive close-combat power capable of killing with a single strike. If your Nighthawks do not have someone equally skilled at close combat, you'd better not try to engage her in hand-to-hand fighting."

Dunn carefully recorded everything in his notebook, occasionally asking questions about an ability and having Angel explain in detail.

"Next is Instigator. It doesn't provide additional combat ability, only strengthens the abilities inherited from Assassin. But Instigators excel at seducing and misleading others, stirring people's hearts through eloquence, drawing out the desires buried deep within them, and creating conflict between people. If she gets the chance to fully use those abilities, there may be discord among your team. Hmm... you're asking how to deal with it? You don't need to worry too much about that. It isn't very useful in a direct battle. Just keep her busy dealing with the fight so she has no chance to speak. Can't you enter other people's dreams? Just trap Mrs. Sharon in a dream, have your other team members sneak into the room, and put seven or eight bullets through her head. No amount of provocation or misdirection will matter then."

As they spoke, Angel recalled the many bloody cases Cole Granger had caused through his Instigator abilities. Her hatred for the dead Cole and the still-living Mrs. Sharon deepened once more, and some emotion inevitably entered her voice as she finished describing the Instigator's abilities.

"Ahem... a Nightmare's abilities aren't quite that powerful. Still, thank you for the suggestion. It gave me quite a few ideas." Dunn Smith wore an odd expression, as if he had remembered something unpleasant. He sat in a daze for a moment before picking up his pen to write. "Please continue."

So your potion is really called Nightmare... Is that Sequence 8 or Sequence 7 of Sleepless?

Angel thought for a moment before continuing her explanation of Mrs. Sharon's abilities under Dunn's urging.

During that time, the young Nighthawk Leonard Mitchell returned to the reception room from next door. He was very interested in their conversation and tried to listen in, but Dunn sent him away to gather the other team members. Leonard was full of energy, completely lacking Ms. Daly's exhausted appearance after staying up all night. He was much like Dunn, and Angel guessed that, like Dunn, he followed the Sleepless pathway. Pulling all-nighters to handle cases was probably routine for him.

"Then there's the Sequence 7 Witch. For the Assassin sequence, this stage is a qualitative transformation. You can tell from the potion's name alone that it provides all kinds of mystical offensive and defensive abilities. Mrs. Sharon has displayed the ability to create a frost lance in her hand and throw it using the physical enhancement of an Assassin. Its power was formidable. She also possesses invisibility and Mirror Substitute, though the method of using them remains unclear. We can only guess at their purpose from the names. Witches are also skilled at using other people's blood or hair to cast curses. That requires prepared materials, so it probably won't be very useful on a direct battlefield..."

By Sequence 7, Angel—or rather, Cole Granger—knew very little about Mrs. Sharon's abilities. After all, Cole had merely been Mrs. Sharon's apprentice and bedmate, not an evenly matched opponent. Mrs. Sharon rarely displayed high-level combat abilities in front of him.

Finally, Angel summarized, "That's all. But Mrs. Sharon was already a Sequence 7 Beyonder before Cole knew her. It's very possible that she has now approached, or even advanced to, Sequence 6. You'd better treat her as a Sequence 6 Beyonder. Don't take any chances. She's very dangerous. Bring a few more people..."

Dunn Smith swiftly finished writing the last few notes, closed the notebook, and said with a smile, "Thank you for the reminder. We'll be careful in battle. In fact, I intended from the start to use measures suitable for dealing with a Sequence 6 Beyonder against Mrs. Sharon. We'll deploy four Nighthawks and bring appropriate Sealed Artifacts. We will make every effort to bring her to justice. Please wait for good news with peace of mind."

Why does hearing you say that make me even less reassured?

Angel hoped that tonight's "good news" would be something like "Mrs. Sharon was unfortunately killed while resisting arrest." But she could not say such thoughts aloud, so she could only offer a bitter smile.