Serenity Gem

"That was... an explosion upstairs?"

Following the direction of the tremor, Kiana turned around and looked up at the ceiling above her in surprise. Her expression turned cold as she urged, "It's dangerous here, old man. You should leave quickly!"

"Mm." The white-haired elder cast a meaningful glance at the ceiling, casually setting his wine bottle aside. Without warning, he produced a syringe from somewhere and, while Kiana's attention was fixed upward, jabbed it directly into her neck.

"You..." Kiana clutched her neck, staring at the white-clad elder in shock and suspicion.

Whatever was in that syringe, within just a few breaths, Kiana felt her entire body go limp, and everything before her eyes began to blur.

Finally, she staggered back a few steps, her vision went dark, and she collapsed to the ground.

This scene happened to be witnessed by Xina, who had just changed into a new set of clothes in the staff locker room.

"Huh? Isn't that Fu Hua's companion? I think her name was Kiana..." Xina dodged the panicked crowd around her, huddling in a secluded corner as she watched the old man openly hoist Kiana onto his shoulder and head toward another direction in the hotel.

His calm, indifferent demeanor stood in stark contrast to the panicked crowd scrambling from the explosion.

"Something's off. With an explosion that loud, this old man doesn't run—instead, he takes advantage of the chaos to grab a girl. There's definitely some hidden secret behind this! He might even be in cahoots with that guy who pulled a gun from his waist."

Rubbing her chin in thought, Xina eventually reached a very solid conclusion:

Conclusion one: She follows him, rescues Kiana, and then tries to trade the gem with Fu Hua if she succeeds.

Conclusion two: Fu Hua fails, and she, the Apostle of God, takes out the old man and steals the gem.

Either way, she came out on top!

With that thought, Xina stepped out from her corner, tracked the direction the old man had gone, and silently followed him...

She tailed the old man like a spy from the movies, and even though she nearly lost him several times—despite the geezer carrying Kiana while moving at a brisk pace—Xina stubbornly kept a ten-meter distance.

Finally, under Xina's "legendary" tracking skills, the old man carried Kiana to a room and opened its door.

"This is the one?" Xina stood at the entrance, debating what line she should shout when she burst in, but she never expected that just as she lifted her leg to kick the door, the closed door before her swung open from the inside, revealing the old geezer.

"How exactly did you find me..."

Caught red-handed, Xina silently retracted her raised right leg and asked weakly.

"Uh, the TV in my room shows the surveillance feed for the entire building."

Xina: "..." Technology changes lives—no lies there.

The old man and the young girl stood across half the hallway, staring at each other in an awkward silence.

"Uh..." Dr. Mackie looked at the girl before him, who seemed... unusually frail, and finally broke the silence: "Little girl, are you also one of the Valkyries who came to Singapore with her?"

"Huh?!" Xina was stunned at first, taking a long moment to process his words. Her tiny head seemed to be filled with giant question marks.

Valkyrie? Who? Me?

Are you kidding? I'm the Apostle of God, how could I possibly be...

"Yes, I am!" Xina shamelessly accepted the identity, staring coldly at Mackie.

She planned to pretend she was Fu Hua herself, first criticizing this creepy old man who kidnapped a little girl from a moral standpoint, and while she was at it, fish for information about why that gem had inexplicably vanished from her senses.

"You look so weak—you must be heavily eroded by Honkai energy! If you trust me, let me inject you with a serum. This serum can neutralize the Honkai energy in your body and repair the tissue damage it's caused." Mackie stepped aside, clearing a path for one person to enter, and gestured for Xina to follow him inside.

"..."

Hearing this, Xina's gaze toward Mackie shifted slightly.

In her mind, expelling Honkai from someone's body was no different from taking money out of someone else's wallet!

This old man was no good!

"Um... what would happen if I got this serum you're talking about?" Xina decided to give the old man one last chance to see if he could realize his mistake.

"With continuous injections of this serum, it will cleanse the Honkai energy from your body and turn you back into an ordinary girl."

"Neutralize Honkai energy... turn back into an ordinary girl? But wouldn't that mean losing my power?" Xina imagined her fate after losing her power and felt her already cold heart grow even colder.

"Why should you girls be given this power? I followed Otto's orders for over forty years, transforming countless girls into Valkyries and sending them to the battlefield. They sacrificed themselves one by one, and in the end, even my own granddaughter died before my eyes! That was when I realized how sinful my actions were!"

"So I developed this serum and stole the gem. I will use everything I have to stop Otto!"

"This is my atonement!"

As he spoke, Mackie's face was streaked with tears, his hysterical demeanor resembling that of an old man who had lost everything.

But his mention of stealing the gem immediately caught Xina's attention.

So he does know where the gem is...

"Gem? What gem?" Behind Mackie's back, Xina's hands were clenched tightly together, her knuckles turning white from the force, but her face still wore a look of innocent confusion.

"You don't know?"

"Know what?"

Staring at Xina's bewildered face and her puzzled words, Mackie froze as well.

In his mind, the Valkyrie who had appeared in Singapore this time must have come for the Serenity Gem he had taken.

But now, this Valkyrie was outright claiming she knew nothing about the Serenity Gem.

If these Valkyries weren't after the Serenity Gem, then what was their purpose in coming here?

For a moment, Baki thought of many possibilities, but couldn't find an answer.

In the end, he chose the simplest method—asking directly: "Then what mission did your superiors send you here to carry out?"

"Uh..." Xina looked at Baki's serious expression and silently lamented to herself: How would I know what the Valkyries' mission is...

"That's classified, I can't say." Xina scratched her head, fabricating a nearly perfect answer.

Hearing this, Baki also breathed a sigh of relief. Only those stubborn little girls could come up with a way of answering like that.