Serenity Gem

"Was that... 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, Grandpa. Hurry and get out of here!"

"Mm." The white-haired old man gave the ceiling a meaningful look, casually set the wine bottle in his hand aside, then somehow produced a syringe. While Kiana was looking up, he jabbed it straight into her neck.

"You..." Kiana clutched her neck and looked at the old man in white with alarm and confusion.

No one knew what the old man had put in the syringe, but within just a few breaths, Kiana felt her whole body go limp. Everything before her eyes seemed to grow blurry.

In the end, she staggered back a few steps, her vision went black, and she collapsed to the floor.

Xina, who had just changed into a fresh set of clothes in the employee locker room, happened to witness the scene.

"Huh? Isn't that Fu Hua's companion? I think her name was Kiana..." Avoiding the panicked crowd around her, Xina crouched in an empty corner and watched the old man openly sling Kiana over his shoulder and head in another direction through the hotel.

His calm, detached demeanor stood in stark contrast to the people around him, who were panicking because of the explosion.

"Something's off. With an explosion that big, this old man isn't running. He's taking advantage of the chaos to snatch a little girl instead. There's definitely some hidden secret behind this! He might even be working with that guy who could pull a gun from his lower back."

After rubbing her chin and thinking for a while, Xina arrived at two very sound conclusions:

Conclusion One: Follow him, save Kiana, then try to trade the gem for Fu Hua after she got hers.

Conclusion Two: Fu Hua didn't get hers, so this Apostle of God would take down the old man and seize the gem.

No matter which outcome it was, she seemed to come out ahead!

With that thought, Xina stepped out of the corner and silently followed in the direction the old man had gone...

Like a movie spy, she trailed right behind the old man. Even though that old geezer, carrying Kiana, nearly shook her off several times with his surprisingly brisk pace, Xina stubbornly maintained a distance of ten meters from him.

At last, under Xina's "miraculous" surveillance, the old man carried Kiana to a room and opened its door.

"This is the one?" Xina stood outside the door, agonizing over what line she should shout when she kicked it in. But just as she raised her leg to kick, the tightly shut door before her was opened from the inside by that old geezer.

"How did you find me...?"

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

"Uh, the television in my room can access the surveillance feeds for the whole building."

Xina: "..." Technology really did change lives.

The old man and the young girl stared at each other across half the corridor, and the atmosphere became awkward for a moment.

"Uh..." Dr. Mackie looked at the girl before him, who seemed... exceptionally weak, and finally broke the silence. "Young lady, you're also a Valkyrie who came to Singapore with her, aren't you?"

"Huh?!" Xina froze, unable to process it for quite a while. It was as though a huge question mark had appeared over her little head.

A Valkyrie? Who? Me?

What a joke. I'm an Apostle of God. How could I possibly be—

"Yes, I am!" Xina shamelessly accepted the identity and stared coldly at Dr. Mackie.

She intended to pretend she was Fu Hua herself, criticize this strange old man for abducting a little girl on moral grounds, and then sound him out to see why the gem had inexplicably vanished from her senses.

"Looking as weak as you do, Honkai must have eroded you badly! If you trust me, let me inject you with a medicine. It can neutralize the Honkai energy in your body and repair the tissue damaged by Honkai energy." Maji stepped aside, leaving a path wide enough for one person, and gestured for Xina to enter the room.

"..."

Hearing that, the way Xina looked at Maji changed slightly.

In her eyes, driving Honkai out of someone else's body was basically the same as taking the money out of someone else's wallet!

This old man was no good!

"Um... what would happen if I took the medicine you mentioned?" Xina decided to give the old man one last chance and see whether he could realize his mistake.

"As long as you keep taking this medicine, it can clear 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 what would happen to her after losing her strength, and felt her already ice-cold heart grow even colder.

"Why should girls like you be given this kind of power? For more than forty years, I followed Otto's orders, transforming countless girls into Valkyries and sending them to the battlefield. They died one after another, and in the end, even my granddaughter died before my very eyes! Only then did I realize how evil the things I had done were!"

"So I developed this medicine and stole the gem. I'll use everything I have to stop Otto!"

"This is my atonement!"

As he said this, tears streamed down Maji's aged face. His hysterical appearance made him look exactly like an old man who had lost everything.

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

Just as expected, he knew where the gem was...

"A gem? What gem?"

Behind Maji's back, Xina clenched both hands tightly together. She squeezed so hard that her knuckles turned faintly white, yet her face still wore an innocent expression.

"You don't know?"

"Know what?"

Seeing Xina's innocent face and hearing her confused words, Maji was stunned as well.

In his eyes, the Valkyries who had appeared in Singapore this time had surely come for the Serenity Gem he had taken.

Yet now, this Valkyrie was plainly saying that she knew nothing about the Serenity Gem.

If the Serenity Gem was not these Valkyries' target, then what had brought them here?

In an instant, Maji considered countless possibilities, but he could not 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..." Seeing Maji's serious expression, Xina silently groaned inwardly. How would I know what mission the Valkyries were assigned...

"It's classified. I can't tell you." Xina scratched her head and came up with an almost perfect answer.

Hearing that, Maji relaxed as well. Only those stubborn little girls would answer a question that way.