Jie

The expressions of the nobles who had been detected with dark green began to turn ugly.

Their initial panic—looking down at their shoulders with pale faces and utter confusion—gradually transformed into something else.

They began to look around at each other. The person next to them was dark green, the person opposite was dark green, and even the viscount in the back row who usually mocked them at balls had shoulders glowing with a light green light.

There were actually so many people polluted.

Slowly, some of their backs began to straighten.

A flushed old viscount stood up. He was in his early sixties with a white-flecked beard, and his voice was loud and red-faced with anger.

“Enough!”

The main hall fell silent for a moment.

“I’ll tell you what that thing is. It’s just a type of medicinal herb,” the old viscount’s voice boomed over all the whispers. “Someone sent it to us, saying that drinking it would extend our lives and even increase our eerie power. I drank it. I admit it.”

He swept his gaze across his colleagues in the hall whose shoulders were glowing green.

“But so what? Who else here drank it? Stand up!”

Silence followed for two seconds.

A voice came from the back row: “I drank it too.”

From the left side, another spoke: “It was delivered to my mansion six months ago. My health did indeed improve significantly after using it.”

A younger viscount stood up, clenching his fists, his face flushed. “There were no adverse reactions. I’ve had much more energy these past few months. How is this a crime?”

A fourth stood, then a fifth.

Then a voice came from the merchant association’s seating area. A merchant representative stood up; his voice was lower than the nobles’, but every word was clear.

“People in the association received it too, not just me. This thing has been circulating within the merchant circles.”

Herbert’s lips thinned as he heard this, his brow furrowed. Clearly, he hadn't expected the association to be corrupted to such an extent, but he didn't stand up, merely closing his eyes in helplessness.

More and more people stood up. They stood there with various expressions, but their message was the same.

There are so many of us. Do you plan to arrest us all?

If the empire-granted nobility and the backbone of the merchant association were all arrested on charges of “mutational infiltration,” the political and commercial order of the Bronze City’s inner city would collapse instantly.

Clearly, they were betting on this.

The Iron Guard commander’s hand rested on his saber as his gaze swept over those who had stood up. However, he did not draw his blade; he was waiting for an order. As long as the Count gave the command, the Iron Guard wouldn't care about any of that.

Hilde stopped her work, the silver needles still hovering in mid-air. The inscription light flickered in the main hall. She did not withdraw the needles, nor did she continue her operations. She turned to look at the Count; the inspector from imperial headquarters was waiting for a local lord’s decision.

Agnes from the Church remained expressionless, but the hands of the two monks behind her retreated into their sleeves—a movement indicating the Church’s combat readiness. The Church did not take a side in political situations, and she remained silent, but the monks were prepared.

The male representative from the Ascension Society sat with his hands folded on his knees, motionless. The young woman’s smile widened slightly before she pulled it back; a political crisis for the nobles was merely intelligence for the Ascension Society.

Calvin leaned back in his chair, his monocle reflecting the light, his expression indifferent. After all, the Polymath Tower had no one involved today.

The main hall was quiet for a few seconds. Those standing and those sitting faced each other across the silver needles floating in the air.

The Count stood in the center, not looking at the nobles who had stood up.

His gaze fell upon the head of his cane as if he were deep in thought. Then, he looked up at Kraus.

Kraus gave a tiny nod, his meaning clear: you make the decision, I’ll back you up.

After a brief silence, the Count spoke with a hint of fury in his voice.

“A bunch of ungrateful wastes. Take them all down.”

The crowd listened to the Count’s command, failing to react for a moment, and then the hall exploded.

“You can’t do this!”

“This is a frame-up!” someone cursed as chairs were pushed over.

Copper armrests slammed against the stone floor, the sound echoing off the vaulted ceiling. Someone knelt, their voice trembling: “Lord Count, my family has served the empire for generations...” Before he could finish, someone next to him yanked him up.

“I will appeal to the imperial center! You have no right to...”

The old baron who had led the stand shoved away an Iron Guard soldier who approached him. “You dare touch me?!”

The Iron Guard all rose, and the commander drew his blade. The sound of the saber leaving its scabbard drowned out all other noise. Simultaneously, flame patterns began to surface on their bodies, and waves of dry heat swept through the entire venue.

Two lieutenants grabbed the shoulders of the nearest noble and forced him back into his seat. Some noble attendants tried to step forward to protect their masters, only to be shoved aside by the Holy Armored Army.

Heinrich’s Holy Armored Army sealed all the exits, the holy armor inscriptions on their gloves and bracers glowing with a cold light.

The chaos in the hall reached its peak.

At that moment, Kraus moved.

He didn't stand up to participate in the suppression. Instead, he shifted Lu Yuan half a step behind him—a small but decisive movement. Lu Yuan hadn't even fully reacted yet.

Almost at the same time, the smile vanished from the face of the attendant who had been standing behind the Count.

He suddenly stepped forward, shielding the Count. A faint purple light emanated from him, seeping out from beneath his skin and spreading along the contours of his muscles like an extremely thin membrane of light.

In the next instant, he struck out suddenly, his palm thrusting toward the shadows on the left wall of the hall.

The pale purple power struck the stone wall. The tapestry exploded, fragments flying everywhere, leaving a clear palm print on the stone wall, but no one was there.

All the chaos in the hall stopped in that instant. The Iron Guard’s blades halted in mid-air, the nobles’ struggling ceased, and the Holy Armored Army’s inscription light flickered in the silence. Everyone’s gaze turned simultaneously toward the wall where the tapestry had been shattered.

Less than a second of silence followed.

Then, a voice came from the shadows on the other side of the hall—a woman’s voice.

It had a strangely alluring tone, sounding like she was acting spoiled yet mocking them at the same time.

“Oh my... why am I not being welcomed, dear brother?”

The source of the voice shifted from the right side to above the center.

“Such a violent strike...”

Everyone’s gaze followed the voice, but they couldn't find the specific source. The grey-white text in Lu Yuan’s vision jumped frantically at the edges, but no prompt appeared.

Lu Yuan already knew who had arrived. It was clearly someone from the Grey Covenant, as only they could bypass the prompts of the grey-white text.

But how did the Grey Covenant have the audacity?

Before Lu Yuan could figure it out, a figure emerged from the shadows of the vaulted chandeliers, as if stepping out from an invisible wall, walking through the air step by step.

Her form flickered constantly. With each flicker, her silhouette blurred for an instant before solidifying again, always in a position slightly offset from the last.

Lu Yuan saw her clearly now. The newcomer was a woman with proportions so exaggerated she didn't look like a normal human, resembling a meticulously designed shell.

She wore a vertical half-mask on her face, greyish-white, covering the right half. The exposed left half of her face was stunningly beautiful, her eyes curved and a smile hanging on her lips, but there was no warmth in that smile.

She landed in the center of the hall, standing ten paces away from the Count.

The attendant’s gaze sharpened, all expression vanishing from his face as the pale purple light on his body intensified several times over. He glanced back at the Count and made a gesture, signaling him to leave.

Her threat level exceeded his ability to both protect the Count and launch an offensive.

The Count’s face darkened, the lines of his mouth pulled tight, but he did not hesitate, following the attendant back two steps.

The woman tilted her head, half a smile showing beneath her mask.

“No need to be so nervous.”

Her gaze slowly swept across the hall, from the Count to Kraus, from Hilde to Agnes, from the Ascension Society to Calvin. Finally, it landed on the nobles being held down by the Iron Guard.

“Let me introduce myself...”

She raised her left hand and curled her fingers slightly, as if waving.

“Grey Covenant, ‘Jie’.”

She paused.

“You can also call me ‘10’.”

【Target detected: Jie (Eerie transcendent) (Polluted)】

【A strange human who seems to have embarked on a point of no return.】

Lu Yuan had barely finished reading when Jie’s form flickered again.

This time she didn't move; she just flashed, but everyone in the hall felt something—an extremely faint but omnipresent force spreading from her, resonating with something else.

【Environmental Perception: Large number of pollution sources detected... Please be careful.】

The first to react was the Sprout Baron, who had not yet been taken away. Before the two Iron Guard soldiers could haul him out of the hall, the baron’s body suddenly stiffened. The tender shoots on the back of his hand grew explosively in an instant, surging from three or four centimeters to the length of his forearm. The ends of the branches burst open, and dark green leaves unfurled one by one.

The two Iron Guard soldiers were flung back, but their reaction speed was not slow. The furnace fire within their bodies ignited suddenly, a violent heat instantly suppressing the growth of the branches.

Then came a second, then a third.

All the nobles who had been detected with dark green began to undergo changes simultaneously. Their skin cracked, and wooden patterns surged out from the fissures, spreading with extreme speed.

Someone fell from their chair, their twisted limbs knocking over a table. Another’s entire left arm was covered in a greyish-green woodenized shell. Someone let out a hoarse cry that changed pitch halfway through, turning into a tremolo that did not belong to a human throat.

The dark green member of the merchant association was not spared either. The fingers of his right hand began to deform, and woodenized protrusions at the joints tore through his sleeve.

He stared at his own hand, his lips trembling, unable to make a sound.

The Iron Guard were pushed back for a moment, but they quickly regained their footing.

A lieutenant used his saber to sever a surging branch, and new buds immediately sprouted from the cut. The commander shouted an order: “Those who resist are permitted to be executed on the spot!”

As his words fell, ash-like inscriptions surfaced on the Iron Guard soldiers, and a dark red light spread across their bodies.

The furnace fires were all ignited, entering a scorching state.

However, several thick branches had already burrowed into the stone floor and begun to extend downward.

The nobles whose shoulders had been silver-white were now caught in the middle of the rampaging mutants, their faces full of panic, looking as if they didn't know what to do.

Some simply cowered under their chairs. A noblewoman collapsed onto the floor, her attendant shielding her with his body.

The old baron who had been the first to pass the detection was brushed on the calf by a branch, tearing his trouser leg, but he did not retreat. He grabbed a nearby young noble and shoved him toward the wall: “Don’t just stand there, run!”