Angel

"Sir... what just happened?" the coachman's astonished voice came from up ahead. "Are you still in a hurry to leave?"

Chaoyang looked at the unconscious woman before him, equally puzzled for a moment, but he had not forgotten the most critical matter at hand. "What did you see just now?"

"Uh... a girl ran out of the house, then jumped onto the carriage..." the man answered honestly. "But she jumped really far, like a cheetah."

So he could not see the storm-like waves of air, nor could he see that dazzling sword light. Chaoyang immediately realized that only he could perceive that power... or rather, it was similar to Wish Force and required Lingxi Vision to be seen.

That made Chaoyang relax slightly.

"Keep waiting here." He slung the woman over his shoulder and jumped down from the carriage.

"Oh... okay." The coachman replied blankly.

At that moment, Dane and Judy ran out as well. "Lord Chao, just now you..."

"We'll talk inside." Chaoyang casually tipped the brim of his hat and carried the woman into the house under their watchful eyes.

While inside, he had noticed that the furnishings in the entrance hall and corridor remained unchanged. It seemed the disturbance caused by her charge had little effect on physical objects; that storm-like presence was purely a mental sensation.

He found a room at random and threw the woman from his shoulder onto the floor.

"My lord, this person is..."

"She's an Evil Demon," Chaoyang said decisively.

"Ah! An Evil Demon?" Judy covered her mouth in surprise, though her eyes could not help darting toward the woman a few more times. "She looks so young... exactly like a human, except her clothes are a little strange..."

"That's normal. Before Evil Demons reveal their true forms, they look human."

"That sounds a little different from Cultists... Are you saying her true nature isn't really human?"

"Of course. Otherwise, how could she suddenly appear inside this house?" Chaoyang said calmly. "Not every force is happy to see Paradise grow stronger, because the existence of My Lord is inherently a threat to them."

"I understand." Judy immediately related to that. "Some people just enjoy seeing others suffer..."

"That's why she attacked you." Dane spoke thoughtfully. "Fortunately, you were prepared and dodged outside in the blink of an eye. Ordinary people could never possess such movement skills. My lord, you truly are no ordinary Detective."

"Of course! Lord Chao is a Divine Emissary!" Judy's admiration grew even stronger.

Chaoyang knew full well that was not what had happened. His duplicate had been destroyed in an instant, and from the beginning, she had targeted his true body. To outsiders, it looked as though he had teleported onto the carriage. Fortunately, he could alter his appearance in many ways, and he had been using the Detective identity before boarding the carriage, so no one noticed anything unusual.

In the end, it was his constant caution that had saved his life.

"Mr. Dane, please prepare a black cloth sack for me, large enough to hold her. Waterproof would be best," Chaoyang said slowly.

"I'll find one right away."

The reporter seemed to have guessed what would happen next. He took Judy's hand and led her out of the room, casually pulling the door shut behind them.

After confirming that the two had gone far enough away, Chaoyang reached out and pressed his right hand against the woman's neck.

Her skin was so delicate. The initial indomitable presence had completely vanished, as if a single twist from him could easily crush her throat and spine.

This person was an enormous threat. He ought to eliminate her himself.

But before that, Chaoyang wanted to understand exactly who she was and why she could open the passage without accepting his invitation and enter the otherworld alone.

Keeping his grip on her vital point, he sent his consciousness into her mind.

This was also one of a Demon's innate abilities—the Dream Entry Technique.

Aside from those who had signed contracts and could communicate with Chaoyang through their consciousness, he could also use the Dream Entry Technique to actively read another person's information. For example, Shi Dong, the contractor from the first game, had been guided to the Fortune Telling House through the Dream Entry Technique. But this ability had obvious drawbacks: it could not be used for communication, nor could it be performed while the target was awake. How much information he obtained depended on the sleeping person's willpower and the complexity of their thoughts. Simply put, careless and anxious people were easier to pry information from, while calm and composed people were much harder to break through.

Very soon, he felt himself sink into the woman's consciousness.

It was a grassland bathed in gentle sunlight, so flat that he could almost see its end at a glance. He could hear the breeze brushing past the tips of leaves, and even smell the faint, distinct fragrance of fresh grass.

Chaoyang was stunned himself. It was the first time he had ever seen such a wondrous state of mind, as though she did not possess a single dark corner she feared others might glimpse.

Is this person... really human?

Chaoyang soon received his answer—yes, but not entirely.

Her name was Elodie Capet. Like him, she was an unfortunate person who had awakened special abilities, though hers went in a completely opposite direction.

She called herself an Angel.

If this had happened before, Chaoyang would have merely scoffed. But now he could not laugh—Demons already existed, so what was strange about Angels appearing too? It also explained why she could see through illusions, break into the passage he had opened without accepting an invitation, and effortlessly lock onto his true body.

They were natural opposites!

He had never expected that after becoming a Demon, he would fail to find his own kind, only for his sworn enemy in every sense to come knocking first.

And he discovered that this person was a genuinely good person.

How good? So good that she had spent nearly her entire life running around for others. She had awakened much earlier than he had, at least seven or eight years ago, but even before that, she seemed to have understood the joy of helping others. Returning lost money and helping elderly women cross the street were routine for her. After awakening, she had taken her good deeds to an entirely new level, and the richness of her experiences left Chaoyang dumbfounded.

That was right. She had volunteered and donated to disaster victims. She had joined more than one environmental organization and animal protection association. She had marched through the streets of France, protesting monopolistic corporations. She had even spent time in the slums, all to better help unemployed people without a penny to their names.

It was hard to imagine a sixteen-year-old girl could have done all that.

Though the memories came in fragments, hazy enough that he could not make out the details, the overall direction could not be wrong. Memories were difficult to forge, after all; they could only be shaped through personal experience. Chaoyang could sense that Elodie had not done these things to pursue anything. She did them simply because she liked doing them.

Those experiences left Chaoyang speechless.

He finally understood what it felt like for someone to be so good that it made you want to throw up.

As for why Elodie had suddenly gone silent, leaped into the air, and fallen unconscious, Chaoyang had basically found the answer as well. He did not know what Angels relied on to survive, but it was certainly something directly opposed to Demons. Since Demons had declined to this extent, Angels could not be doing much better. She probably had not expected him to be outside the original world. Following the passage here had already exhausted more strength than she possessed, and once her whereabouts were discovered, she could only make a desperate attempt. Forcing herself to use her innate ability in that state would certainly shatter her energy balance and plunge her into immediate depletion.

In other words, even if he did nothing, Elodie did not have much time left to live.

She would meet death in her sleep.