A Bloody Offering

The smell of blood!

Not just a little—it was so thick that it felt as though a slaughter had just taken place outside the door!

The vicious expression on Oliver's face instantly froze. He thought of the worst possibility.

He charged toward the door, trying to pull open the heavy doors!

But the doors were gently pushed open from the outside.

There were no Muggle thugs he had expected.

Only a figure stood silently in the doorway, completely shrouded in black robes—

The figure held something round in one hand. Dark red liquid dripped onto the carpet, blooming into ominous stains.

Those were... heads!

The heads of the Muggle thugs Oliver had hired at great expense!

"Thud." "Thud"...

The figure casually tossed the heads into the center of the banquet hall like garbage. They rolled to Oliver's feet.

Then, more than a dozen figures emerged from the shadows around the banquet hall without warning.

They were all cloaked in specially made black robes, as if condensed from the darkness itself.

Most suffocating of all—

The moment they raised their heads, more than a dozen scarlet Sharingan lit up simultaneously in the gloom! Like stars opening their eyes in hell!

Even more horrifying was that the dangerous aura radiating from them had not weakened in the slightest because of the Anti-Magic Formation!

It was as though the ancient barrier that suppressed magic was completely meaningless to them!

"No... impossible..." Oliver collapsed to the floor, staring blankly at the familiar yet lifeless faces by his feet as he muttered unconsciously.

"An Anti-Magic Formation?"

Ryuichiro rose to his feet and walked toward the three people sprawled on the ground. He had long since removed his sunglasses, and his One-Tomoe Sharingan gazed calmly at them, carrying a trace of pity but far more cold mockery.

"You thought... that this incomplete formation would be enough to threaten the Uchiha?"

He crouched down and met Oliver's terrified eyes.

"How... utterly ridiculous."

The instant his words fell, the two Shadow Guard members behind Ryuichiro moved like ghosts! They used no magic at all, relying solely on terrifying physical prowess and combat instinct!

Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack!

A dense series of bone-shattering sounds erupted like popping beans, enough to make teeth ache!

They were accompanied by the sudden, piercing screams of Oliver, Alger, and Bellatrix, so agonized they barely sounded human!

The Shadow Guard members snapped their limbs into grotesque angles in an instant, their methods clean, efficient, and incomparably cruel!

"Ah—!!!" Their agonized wails echoed through the banquet hall. All their previous "dignity" and "pride" were ground to dust, leaving only the most primitive, beastlike cries of pain.

Ryuichiro stood up and took out a spotless white handkerchief, leisurely wiping away dust that did not exist from his fingers.

Then he turned his head, his gaze passing over the three people rolling and howling on the floor before settling on old Bosde and the other pure-blood representatives, who had long gone pale and were trembling like sieves.

"Thud!"

A representative of the Selwyn family's legs gave out, and he collapsed directly onto the floor. The wineglass in his hand shattered, spilling wine all over him.

When old Bosde met his gaze, he shuddered violently. His legs weakened so much that he nearly fell to his knees.

Kentaro slowly walked to the front of the Shadow Guard. His single eye swept across the terrified faces of the pure-blood representatives.

He said nothing.

But that gaze, as though he were looking at a pile of livestock waiting for slaughter, was more intimidating than any words could have been.

The scraps of "dignity" and "superiority" the pure-blood representatives had barely maintained were utterly shattered before this display of absolute power.

"It seems," Ryuichiro said in an even tone, though his voice carried the indifference of one deciding life and death, "that the shares in our 'Pure-Blood Alliance' can be redistributed. As long as..."

He paused, his gaze sweeping over the three heaps of wreckage on the floor.

"We purge a few fools who fail to recognize the times and think themselves clever... that will be enough."

A faint curve tugged at his lips, but it was enough to chill old Bosde and the others to the bone.

"I believe you understand what I mean, don't you?"

With that, he turned and calmly walked toward the door. Kentaro cast a contemptuous glance at the miserable scene on the floor and the crowd standing there in stunned silence, then followed him.

The Shadow Guard silently left with them like receding shadows, leaving behind only the suffocating stench of blood and three crippled wastes with all four limbs broken, still howling and cursing.

"You... you cowards! Traitors!"

Oliver screamed as he cursed old Bosde and the others with all his strength.

But the only response he received was deathly silence.

Old Bosde's hand, which gripped his wand, trembled like a dead leaf in an autumn wind.

The faint green glow at the wand's tip flickered on and off, illuminating his face, pale as paper and carved with deep wrinkles. He looked at the young man curled up on the floor in pain and terror, still glaring at him with venomous hatred—

That was his only son, Oliver, the Bosd Family's nominal heir.

Fragments of memory surged uncontrollably through his mind:

Oliver toddling toward him as a child, the proud little face he wore when he first successfully cast the Levitation Charm, even the way he had passionately spoken of restoring the family in the corridor not long ago...

And now, only twisted hatred and unwilling curses remained on that face.

Beside him, a representative of the Travers family shoved old Bosde's shoulder. His voice was shrill and urgent, filled with uncontrollable terror that the Shadow Guard outside might return. "Bosde! What are you hesitating for?! Can't you bring yourself to do it? For the Alliance! For all our chances of survival!"

Though the hand holding his wand was trembling as well, the green light at its tip remained steadily aimed at the heart of Alger, his own family's heir. "Do it together! Do you want the Uchiha lords to think we do not even have this much 'sincerity'?!"

Bellatrix Carrow, a representative of the Carrow family and a witch wearing a black veil, pressed her wand against Bellatrix's throat.

"Look! She is nothing but a worthless daughter! So what if she dies? We can always have another one! But if we displease the Uchiha, we will all die! We will not even have the chance to 'have another'!"

"For... the Alliance..." Old Bosde closed his eyes. Cloudy tears squeezed from the corners and rolled down the deep furrows of his face.

The last things that flashed through his mind were Ryuichiro Uchiha's cold backward glance as he left, the scarlet eyes of the Shadow Guard, and the thick smell of blood that lingered outside the manor. The continuation of the family, the ancient surname, the crumbling manor...

The weight of it all finally crushed the fragile balance called "father."

When old Bosde opened his eyes again, all the struggle and pain in them seemed to be swallowed and burned away by the faint green deathly light. A flicker of pain and struggle passed through them, and in the end, all of it turned into empty dead silence and profound coldness.

Slowly, step by step, he walked toward the three people rolling on the ground. The other pure-blood representatives exchanged glances, then silently followed, their faces carrying the same numbness of a decision already made.

"Oliver... Alger... Bellatrix..." Old Bosde's voice was low and hoarse, carrying an eerie calm. "I'm sorry."

"Fa... Father..."

Oliver's curses gradually faded. He saw the chilling resolve in his father's eyes, and he saw the wand tips in the hands of the other "allies" light up as well, all aimed at him and the others.

Overwhelming terror instantly crushed his hatred and pain. His broken body desperately scraped backward across the floor, trying to get away from the green glow that represented death. Tears and snot flooded his face as his voice broke apart:

"No... don't... Father! I was wrong! I'll never dare again! Please... I'm your son! The last of the Bosd Family..."

"Shut up!"

He crouched down and looked at his son's face, twisted by pain and hatred.

He no longer looked at his son's pleading, incredulous eyes filled with despair. His arm rose steadily, the tip of his wand aimed at the brow of the young man in whom he had once placed such high hopes.

"The Uchiha's power... is beyond our ability to resist."

"Your 'courage' and 'foolishness' will only drag all of us into hell."

"For the family's continuation... for the 'future' of the 'Alliance'... your disappearance will benefit everyone..."

"Avada Kedavra."

"Avada..."

Several beams of green light silently lit up in the banquet hall thick with the smell of blood.

Outside in the manor courtyard, beneath the cold night wind.

Kentaro listened to the faint, brief, muffled sounds coming from the building behind him. An undisguised mocking smile curled at his lips.

"Father," he said lightly to Ryuichiro, who stood beside him with his hands behind his back.

"Lord Madara truly saw them clearly. These pure-bloods are weak when dealing with outside enemies, but when it comes to purging their own people, each one is more ruthless than the last."

Ryuichiro looked toward the night sky above London, his expression completely unmoved.

"Even better," he said blandly, his voice blending into the night wind. "It saves us a great deal of trouble."

"Only when rotten branches know to prune away their dead parts can the entire tree... serve us better."

Under the night sky, Bosde Manor resembled a silent beast that had just completed a soundless, bloody act of self-devouring.

And the Uchiha's will had already taken root deep within the most rotten roots of this ancient land like the finest, most invasive poisonous vine.

This was only the beginning.