Where on earth did this kid pop out from?!
Elias crouched low, his dagger held in a defensive stance.
With his vision enhanced by 【Darkvision】, his eyes swept rapidly over his surroundings.
Only now did he suddenly notice that in a shadowy corner against the far wall of the cottage, a pine wood panel—originally disguised to perfection—was currently swung wide open.
Revealing a pitch-black hidden passage behind it.
Elias's eye twitched violently.
This kid... must have snuck up through this hidden door while the two of them were busy rummaging through the room and let their guard down.
But what the hell kind of place was this?!
He had lived in this wretched keeper's cottage for a full two months!
A full two months!
He slept here, ate here, and stared blankly at the walls here every single day, to the point where he could tell you exactly how many bedbugs were hiding in the cracks of the floorboards.
Yet now, he was being shown that not far from his bed, a hidden door had been concealed all this time without him ever noticing?!
Was this place really a lighthouse keeper's quarters, or some maliciously designed escape room workshop?
“Old man, why didn't you tell me about this?!”
Elias asked in his mind.
“Screw off. I didn't have this cottage back in my day.”
“...”
However.
Now was clearly not the time to fret over the illegal layout of this building.
The cold, sharp blade was already pressed firmly against the hostage's skin.
“Jack!”
“Wait!”
Elias quickly shouted at the top of his lungs.
Held hostage, Ophelia had completely gone limp from terror.
Her body was shaking violently, like a leaf in an autumn wind.
It made sense, though.
The girl's experiences tonight had been far too eventful.
From her perspective, just minutes ago, she had barely escaped the clutches of that ghost ship on the sea—the very same one she suspected she had seen as a child.
Then, in the blink of an eye, inside this pitch-black cottage, she had a dagger pressed to her throat by someone who had suddenly appeared out of nowhere.
No matter how strong her psychological resilience was, or how bold she was as a reporter,
after this series of frights, her mind had reached its breaking point.
Two trails of crystal-clear tears instantly welled up in her wide eyes, rolling helplessly down her deathly pale cheeks.
“You know me?”
Jack froze noticeably when he heard Elias's shout.
Along with that, the hand gripping the hilt of his dagger finally eased up just a fraction.
Ophelia's delicate neck was finally able to breathe, though a terrifying red mark remained.
Seeing this, Elias felt his racing heart calm down slightly.
He let out a deep sigh.
He tried to coax the young man in a gentle tone.
“Let her go first. Put the knife down, and I'll explain everything to you.”
“No!”
He clenched his grip on the knife tightly once again.
This time, his grip was even heavier and more resolute than before.
The sharp blade pressed close to Ophelia's carotid artery once more.
“Don't even think about tricking me!”
Jack roared at Elias in fury.
“You're with the Mist Veil Society!”
What the actual hell was he talking about?!
Elias flipped a hundred tables in his mind.
The Mist Veil Society?
He felt a surge of uncontrollable annoyance right now.
He even felt a strong urge to rush forward and kick this terminal-stage paranoid delusional into next week.
But he couldn't move.
He didn't want this unlucky young reporter to come all this way just to lose her life here for no good reason.
Besides,
even in the worst-case scenario, he and she were in the same boat now.
He still needed her to return to Hastings Port alive to expose Wayland's scandal!
That was currently his only bargaining chip to save his own skin.
He had no desire to die before he even had a chance to lift the troublesome dream demon curse on his body.
Especially not by taking a sudden, inexplicable hit from that blasted Octowin's naval cannons on this island.
If he died like that, it would be a complete and utter rip-off!
He would be losing out big time!
But the question was, why did this kid believe so confidently that the two of them were from the Mist Veil Society?
Where did he look like a cultist?
“Jack, calm down. Put the knife down first.”
Elias raised his hands slightly, palms facing forward, attempting to project a completely non-threatening posture.
He tried to slowly edge closer with extremely slow and cautious steps.
But Jack was clearly alert to the extreme.
Seeing Elias move, he immediately dragged the limp Ophelia back a few steps.
The dagger in his hand didn't waver in the slightest.
Elias could only stop in his tracks, throwing his hands up in a helpless gesture.
“We really aren't with the Mist Veil Society.”
“And the person you're holding right now, isn't she just an ordinary woman with absolutely zero supernatural energy?”
To Elias, facts spoke louder than words.
A transcendent's spiritual fluctuations couldn't be faked.
Since Jack knew about the Mist Veil Society, he should have a way to tell the difference.
As long as Jack wasn't blind or an idiot, once he heard this rational analysis, even if he didn't put down his weapon immediately, his attitude should at least soften enough for them to sit down and talk.
But.
Reality quickly slapped Elias right in the face.
It turned out he was wrong.
He was dead wrong.
“Heh.”
After listening to Elias, a chilling, sinister sneer rumbled from Jack's throat.
“Don't even think about lying to me!”
“An ordinary person?”
“What a lovely story. This woman must be the crucial sacrifice you brought!”
“If she dies here now, the ritual you've spent so long preparing will be completely ruined! She'd be useless to you!”
As Jack spoke, he stared down at the trembling Ophelia in his arms with a nearly manic look in his eyes.
“Let me guess, which family does she belong to?”
“The Sorensteins?”
Elias's eyes rolled so far back they nearly hit the ceiling.
A sacrifice?
The Sorensteins?
If this kid didn't write serialized pulp fiction for the port's tabloids, his imagination would be a tragic loss to the entire literary scene of Hastings.
He had even filled in her family background all on his own.
“Old Crowley is right outside on the dock!”
Elias was completely exasperated. He metaphorically threw his hands up in surrender.
“If you don't believe me, we can go outside right now and find him.”
“There's no way that old man is with the Mist Veil Society, is there? He can vouch for us!”
However, this attempt to prove his innocence seemed to be completely futile.
Hearing the name "old Crowley" didn't make Jack relax.
Instead, it seemed to trigger him immensely, and he pressed the knife even harder.
The sharp edge dug straight into her flesh.
Prompting another pained, desperate shriek from poor Ophelia.
“Hmph!”
Jack sneered.
“Do you take me for a fool?”
“Go outside with you? Only to walk straight into your trap?”
“I bet the moment I step out of this cottage, I'll be surrounded by your ambushing men and monsters!”
“You're something else...”
Elias held his hands in the air, his lips twitching, completely defeated by Jack's seamless, paranoid logical loop.
There were plenty of mentally ill people in the world.
But the thing was, this kid wasn't just suffering from simple paranoia.
He was one of those one-in-a-million geniuses who could single-handedly spin every flawed reality into a perfect, self-consistent loop of delusion.
Elias had absolutely wanted to keep his disguise intact.
After all, Ophelia, the young reporter, still had to return to Hastings Port.
Although, based on her current behavior, she didn't seem like a blabbermouth who would go around loudly bragging to everyone she met that she knew Elias Rockland.
But an extra layer of disguise meant an extra escape route; it was always better to be safe than sorry.
But the situation at hand left him no choice.
If he continued to maintain his disguise as Mr. Wayne,
Jack might actually slit Ophelia's throat at any second.
Choosing the lesser of two evils,
Elias grit his teeth.
“It's me!”
He suddenly barked in a low voice.
Under the shocked gazes of Jack and Ophelia, he yanked the Spy's Derby Hat off his head.
The middle-aged facial muscles of "Mr. Wayne" rippled and shifted like water under the restructuring of his spirituality.
His sudden, violent movement clearly startled the highly strung Jack.
“Damn it!”
Jack shrieked, instinctively moving to slice the dagger across Ophelia's pale neck.
However.
At that critical, hair-thin moment, as his eyes locked onto Elias's rapidly changing face,
he froze.
Because as his spirituality settled,
the person standing before him was no longer a mysterious, suspicious middle-aged stranger.
It was a young face he knew very well.
He still remembered that his sole purpose in coming to the lighthouse was to replace this gentleman.
Jack slowly, numbly released his grip on Ophelia's shoulder.
Having regained her freedom, Ophelia stared with wide eyes at the bizarre, shifting face of Elias, completely forgetting to wipe the tears from her cheeks.
“Sir?”
“It's you?”
Jack stared blankly at Elias, his voice incredibly hoarse.
His tightly wound body finally collapsed in exhaustion, and the dagger slipped powerlessly from his hand.
He had finally let down all his guard.
Like a deflated balloon, he slumped against the wall and exhaled a long breath.
“That's right.”
Elias wiped the cold sweat from his forehead, feeling a wave of lingering fear.
Just now, if his transformation had been even a tenth of a second slower, there would likely be a fresh reporter's corpse in this room.
That was way too close for comfort.
“Cough, cough! Cough, cough, cough!”
Collapsed on the floor, Ophelia coughed violently.
Surviving the ordeal, she took large gulps of the stale air inside the cottage, scrambling backward in a panic using her hands for support.
She didn't stop until her back slammed against the opposite wall, leaving her with nowhere left to retreat.
Only then did she raise her head, trembling.
Except,
this time, it was her turn to look at Elias with eyes full of unfamiliarity, horror, and wariness.
“You, you, you!”
“Are you a shapeshifter?!”
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