56: The Talon gets outplayed again (third update; the last update is still being written, out in about half an hour)

Not all the Talons had been sent to capture Qin Wei. Some were still carrying out their original mission: destroying evidence and assassinating Joseph, the "Joker" who had challenged the Court.

The leader of this Talon Force was William Cobb.

Compared with the younger Talons, who had been brainwashed so thoroughly that their loyalty to the Court bordered on the perverse, older Talons like him often had their own standards for how to do things.

The mission came first, efficiency second, and loyalty to the Court probably did not even make the top ten.

So when he received the Court's summons ordering the Talons to return to Wayne Tower immediately, he simply ignored it.

After all, the people he had sworn allegiance to had been stuffed into coffins decades ago. By now, even the fragments of their bones had probably nearly rotted away. As for the members of the Court of Owls who had succeeded their fathers, William had never liked them. They, after all, were deeply wary of him too.

When nothing needed doing, they locked these old Talons in frozen coffins. When something came up, they woke them with an injection of the compound and sent them on missions without explaining the causes or consequences.

No one treated like a mere tool could be expected to look pleased about it. Someone like William, who kept his complaints to himself, already counted as good-tempered.

Why didn't the old Talons defect, you ask?

Because the Electrum compound was highly addictive. After nearly a century of its effects eating away at them, the Talons led by William Cobb had long since become unable to live without it.

Back to the matter at hand: William had also solved Joker's three-letter puzzle. It had just taken him a little longer.

So when he