"I won! I touched it first," Leo declared triumphantly, gripping the telephone handle with both hands.
"No way, I grabbed it first," Ray replied, his expression turning dead serious as he tugged the handle back. A mini tug-of-war ensued between the two. Leo shook his head in defiance, neither of them willing to back down.
Watching them squabble like children, a clever smirk played on Chris's lips. Looking at Leo, he said casually, "Fine, you go ahead and call Helen."
Leo smiled victoriously and pressed the receiver to his ear. But the moment his eyes fell upon the telephone keypad, his mind went entirely blank. He froze. "Wait... how are we even going to talk to Helen? I don't know her number."
Standing right next to Leo's right side, Ray smirked. "I remember her telephone number."
Leo instantly whipped his head toward Ray and urged, "Tell me quickly then!"
"Only if you let me use the telephone," Ray bargained.
Leo scowled, but realizing he had no choice, he begrudgingly handed the receiver over to Ray. Ray's fingers flew across the keypad, the sharp click-click of the buttons echoing through the quiet room. He pressed the receiver to his ear. After a few rings, a familiar voice answered from the other end.
"Is this... Helen from the Morveth Times?" Ray asked.
The voice on the other side replied, "This is Helen speaking, but I don't work at the Morveth Times anymore."
"Listen, it's Ray," he introduced himself.
Helen's serious tone instantly melted into a normal, warmer cadence. "What's wrong, child? How did you get my telephone number?"
Ray let out a soft chuckle. "I saw it on a piece of paper inside your bag once, though I wasn't entirely sure if it was actually yours."
"You have a remarkably sharp memory," Helen praised, genuinely impressed.
"I have a question," Ray cut straight to the point.
"Go ahead, ask," Helen replied from the other end of the line.
"Aside from the Morveth Times, is there any other newspaper company active in Morveth?"
Helen fell silent for a brief moment before replying, "There used to be two companies, but one of them shut down due to a lack of funds. There is only one other company left now."
"I see... will you do me a favor then?" Ray asked.
Helen sounded a bit amused. "Are you ordering me around, child?"
"It might sound like an order, but it's a request," Ray replied calmly.
"Alright, I'll do it. Tell me what needs to be done."
Ray lowered his voice. "Tomorrow morning, you need to go to that newspaper company and give them a tip. Tell them that an assassination has taken place at the house of the famous Berkyo businessman, Anthony Ward, and that his wife was killed in the attack."
Hearing this, Helen, who had been sitting comfortably in a chair at her home, bolted upright. "Why would we do that? But—"
Ray cut her off smoothly, "It's part of our plan. And you must deliver this tip when no one is watching you."
Helen took a deep breath. "Alright, I'll do it."
She was about to say something more, but Ray abruptly hung up the receiver without wasting any time.
Leo breathed a sigh of relief. "Well, that's one task checked off."
The two began walking back toward their room. As they walked, Leo remarked, "Helen is definitely the perfect person for this job."
The moment Ray pushed the bedroom door open, they found Chris standing right in front of them. He let out a long yawn and said, "I'm feeling much better now. No more weakness."
Chris glanced at the wall clock. It was 7:45 PM. "Alright, we'll begin the operation in a little while."
Chris stepped out of the room, with Leo and Ray following closely behind him. Walking down the corridor, Chris gave a soft knock on Anthony Ward's door. Anthony emerged from inside, closing the door behind him to step out into the hallway.
Chris instructed Anthony, "The moment it strikes 8 o'clock, move your wife to the basement, and keep Felix there with her as well. Do exactly as we planned."
Anthony asked no questions. With a solemn expression, he simply nodded in agreement.
Time skipped forward. The clock now read 8:30 PM. Chris, Leo, and Ray were assembled inside Anthony's room. Anthony sat quietly on the bed.
Chris brought his hands together and took a deep breath. In the next instant, thick black smoke began billowing from his hands. The smoke gathered in the air, swirling until it manifested into a human silhouette—a perfect smoke clone of Anthony. The smoke double silently glided onto the bed, pulled the blanket over its face, and lay down, perfectly mimicking a sleeping man.
Chris glanced toward a wooden cupboard standing in the room and looked at Leo. "Leo, hide inside there so you can launch an immediate ambush."
Leo nodded and slipped quietly into the cupboard.
As Chris and Ray prepared to step out of the room, Chris gave Anthony one final instruction: "Act exactly as you normally do before going to sleep. Keep the door slightly ajar. The moment you see a flash of light, unleash everything."
Anthony nodded, turned off the room lights, and got into bed.
Outside in the dark corridor, Chris and Ray stood in absolute silence. Moments later, Chris's eyes narrowed. He sensed the presence of six individuals out in the yard, and two more lurking right by the window.
Chris immediately tapped Ray on the shoulder.
Receiving the signal, Ray snapped his fingers. A bright spark of fire crackled in the darkness.
Inside the pitch-black room, the moment Anthony saw the spark, he ripped his dagger out from beneath his pillow. With a fierce roar, he vaulted to his feet on the bed and lunged forward to attack. Right then—CRASH! The shattering of the window pane exploded through the room.
Anthony's dagger was barely above the blanket when drops of fresh blood splattered onto the fabric. Anthony looked up to see that his dagger had driven straight through the palm of a cultist who had just burst through the window.
In that exact split second, the cupboard door burst open. Leo unsheathed his katana, and in one clean, lightning-fast swipe, slashed the cultist across the chest.
But Leo wasn't done. He ripped the dagger out of the cultist's hand with blinding speed and plunged it directly into the chest wound he had just inflicted with his katana. Spinning on his heel, Leo delivered a powerful kick to the hilt of the dagger, driving it even deeper into the cultist's chest. Blood sprayed from the wound as the cultist staggered backward and collapsed.
Leo glanced at Anthony with a smirk. "Not a bad start." Without breaking his stride, he leapt out of the shattered window into the yard.
Outside in the yard, under the shroud of the pitch-black night, five cultists stood waiting. Chris and Ray had already landed, and Leo now flanked them.
Summoning a blade forged from dark smoke into his hand, Chris let out a dark chuckle. "Alright, the fun has officially started."
Chris burst forward with such terrifying speed that he became a blur to the cultists. In the blink of an eye, he tore through one cultist's midsection with his smoke sword, cutting him down instantly.
Right then, a third cultist lunged toward Leo, daggers gripped tightly in his hands. He hurled two daggers in quick succession. Leo deflected both effortlessly with his katana, but the cultist instantly fired a third. Leo whipped his head back to dodge it, but as the dagger buzzed past his face—BOOM! It suddenly detonated.
The explosion drew everyone's eyes to Leo's position. As the smoke cleared, Leo stood firm, his grip tightening on his katana. He took a deep, steadying breath. In the next heartbeat, a menacing Red Aura erupted from his blade, casting a sinister crimson glow across the dark night.
Leo charged at the cultist with blinding, ferocious speed. Terrified, the cultist raised his hands to shield his face, but Leo swept low, delivering a devastating cut that severed the cultist's legs. As the cultist began to fall, Leo vanished, reappearing behind him before the enemy could even turn around. With a single, brutal swipe, he severed both of the cultist's arms.
The limbs hit the ground, staining the green grass crimson. Leo didn't stop there. In a flash of absolute brutality, he executed a flurry of rapid slashes across the cultist's body. When Leo finally stood still in front of him, the cultist was bleeding heavily from countless wounds. He collapsed onto the grass, completely lifeless.
Simultaneously, while Ray's attention was momentarily fixed on Leo's fight, another cultist ambushed him from behind. The enemy's blade managed to nick Ray's cheek. However, Ray reacted just in time, dodging the fatal blow and grabbing the cultist's weapon arm in a vice grip.
Ray raised his left hand, which instantly ignited into blazing fire. He unleashed a barrage of savage punches straight into the cultist's face. The cultist's skin, which already looked slightly burned, began to melt and scorch further under the heat as blood erupted from his nose.
Ray stopped punching but didn't let go. Instead, he channeled a devastating shock of lightning straight through the cultist's body. The cultist's entire frame convulsed violently before he crumpled to the ground, dead.