Tommy: The Advantage Is Mine

After venting his anger with curses, Tommy Lloyd calmed down a little.

After much deliberation, he decided not to give Vice President Boca any time to prepare—after all, his situation was different from Boca's, and his time was extremely limited.

If he had to kill Boca but failed to capture Aleister, he would have to start the search from scratch; even if he could capture Boca alive, he might not be able to extract the correct information... and even if he obtained the correct information, it could change at any time.

There is also another slight possibility—that Aleister is indeed not Boca, but a member of the Noble Red Society.

"They are using this tactic to mislead us into killing each other..."

Tommy muttered to himself, "Is that even possible?"

After all, everyone knows that he and Boca have a long-standing feud. At this moment, their mutual suspicion is more like an excuse to persuade them to take action themselves.

But Tommy thought about it for a long time and still thought that the possibility was unlikely.

From the perspective of the Noble Red, although they want to cause trouble and have strong hostility towards Iver Moriarty, they will not use Shadow Fiend at this time—the danger of a Shadow Fiend outside of common knowledge is completely different from that of a Shadow Fiend that is known to exist.

Not to mention, Aleister is only at the Second Level.

If he continues to develop, he can further unleash the power of the Shadow Demon. When he reaches the Third Level or even Fourth Level, if the timing is right, he could even pose a life-threatening threat to Fifth Level superhumans.

Although their goal of restoring their kingdom was ridiculous, their attitude was very serious. If they truly had such a trump card, they should have kept it hidden until the very last moment.

Therefore, Tommy doesn't believe that the Noble Red Society Aleister just so they could kill each other—that makes no sense. There are many other ways they could have achieved that outcome.

He and Boca are ultimately different.

Boca was a corrupt judge who came to the profession halfway through his career, not a pure businessman.

He values logic more, while Tommy values motives... or rather, interests.

When anger hasn't taken hold, Tommy always considers whether doing this will benefit him. His judgment of people's hearts and motives is always very accurate, which is why he was able to succeed as the current Lloyd.

After all, there are too many Extraordinary Ability that can accomplish bizarre and unusual things. Following logic alone can easily lead to missing a crucial clue and getting stuck in a dead end, resulting in incorrect conclusions. Tommy believed his approach was correct—he would analyze things from the perspective of "who benefits from doing this," seeking an ultimate beneficiary.

He might make a mistake, but that's okay. Just kill the beneficiary and keep searching.

If everyone suffers a loss together, then it's the same as no one suffering a loss.

As long as no one benefits from it, their bloody game can continue.

Just in case, Tommy, whose mind had calmed down, carefully went through the clues again from beginning to end while he was still in the process of calming down.

The only suspicious point in this matter is that Boca sounded somewhat angry when he answered the phone.

Based on Tommy's understanding of Boca's personality, if Boca was behind this, his emotions should be very stable—he would be condescending and smiling as he says things like "Let's form an alliance," and then betray Tommy once Tommy truly believes him.

Given Boca's weak character—if his weakness isn't feigned—he probably wouldn't be willing to go head-to-head with Tommy.

Because Tommy is simply stronger than him. Whether it's his own strength, the power he wields, the money he controls, or the connections he can utilize, he is far superior to Boca in every aspect.

"But..."

Tommy frowned, deep in thought.

...never mind.

After much deliberation, he decided to abandon the possibility of making peace with Boca Juniors.

Because Boca's hostility towards him is genuine, regardless of the circumstances. Even if he's willing to cooperate temporarily to uncover the mastermind, it doesn't mean Boca won't betray him. In fact, Boca will definitely betray him; it's just a matter of time.

Then let's take this opportunity to eliminate Boca first.

If Boca were to somehow learn that he had been "sentenced" by Meg, given his style, he would undoubtedly try to create obstacles for himself and drag him down with him. From this perspective, their relationship is one of life and death—given the chance to ensure the other's demise, they would certainly take action.

So even if I've chosen the wrong person...

We'll have to cause trouble for Boca first.

The three days Meg gave him were not long at all; if Boca deliberately caused him trouble, it certainly wouldn't be enough.

If this matter is related to Boca, detain him and torture him, or have someone extract his memories—if it is indeed unrelated to him, then kill him.

Tommy made up his mind and started making call after call.

The most important one is Ms. Gray-Green.

If the Boca faction is considered the second most powerful force in Lloyd's's Lloyd's, then she is the third. She usually maintains a balance between the two sides, but now it's time for her to choose sides.

But thankfully...

After hearing the whole story, Ms. Gray-Green immediately declared that she would stand by him. This made Tommy feel a little better.

He didn't want to give Boca any time to prepare.

Therefore, Tommy didn't even plan to wait until night—which was usually when these people operated. Because visibility was limited at night, once they reached Lloyd District, it would be easy to escape through the various winding warehouses and back doors.

At night, the already slow-moving Bureau of Supervision becomes even slower... By the time the inspectors arrive, they have already run far away.

But the situation is different now.

One reason was that he didn't have enough time; he couldn't just wait a whole day for nothing, and he had to consider the possibility that Boca might not know the truth either. Another reason was that Boca was also familiar with their methods. If they waited until nightfall, he might have already taken precautions.

He might arrange a protective ritual, bribe his subordinates, or call on his old friends in the Law Court for protection. He might even simply run away—if he really escapes to Glass Island, Tommy really won't be able to do anything about it.

Therefore, the threatening phone call to Boca had only been hanging up for less than two hours.

Tommy and his group, fully armed, approached Boca's residence.

They used eight modified horse-drawn carriages as their means of transportation.

It wasn't that the carriage was running very fast, but rather that the carriage itself contained a complete set of Ritual Array that had been pre-carved inside.

This was Tommy's unique invention—he divided a complete Ritual Array into multiple parts without affecting its effectiveness, to counter the scrutiny of the watchdogs.

The only indivisible element in Ritual Array is the Ritual Circle. As long as all the circles are complete, the ritual will function correctly. Therefore, it's possible to create the ritual circles needed for different rituals separately and then nest them together when necessary.

While the overseer may have studied Ritual Studies, he certainly wasn't proficient. A complete Ritual Array, when viewed separately, would be difficult to immediately recognize as a magic circle for summoning demons.

When viewed separately, the outer ring looks like a wooden circle, resembling a spare wheel; while the inner ring can be hidden under the seat cushion, or simply trimmed with leather and hung on the wall as a decorative little round shield.

And they can nest them together on the spot while they are on the carriage.

By soaking the vessel in bottled human blood mixed with Sodium Phosphate Solution, one can summon their demon directly from the carriage.

Tommy's "creation" was scorned by the members of the Noble Red Society. This was because such a composite magic circle would inevitably be much weaker than a normal one, and could easily harm the person performing the ritual.

But Tommy is a complete pragmatist—using transcendence as a tool and authoritarianism as an end in itself.

Even if it explodes, it won't hurt him.

Perhaps it was the Serpent Father's blessing, but this inferior Ritual Array, which had a failure rate of about 5%, did not fail even once.

Their group of more than 30 people had already doubled in number before they even reached their destination.

Sixty-odd against two... Only a little over an hour has passed; even if he searches, he can't find many. At most, one or two. Even including Boca and his demon, they're still far from a match for them.

How could we possibly lose? — The advantage is in our hands now.

Tommy was full of confidence.

Chapter Two will be a little later! My human is coming home today, so my sleep schedule should be back to normal (sadly).

The days of casually ordering takeout are long gone—