# Chapter 8: Plan
The night was deep. In previous years on the day of the Divine Festival, even into the evening, High Wall City would be brightly lit and lively. But this year's Divine Festival, after the daytime celebrations ended, High Wall City imposed a long-unseen curfew.
During the day, the torrential rain of blood, and the fact that many had witnessed the Eternal God statue in Central Park come to life, made tonight's curfew go especially smoothly.
A demon hawk, using the cover of night, glided into the main courtyard of the Healing Institute and flew into the room that served as the Vice Dean's office.
"Damn it, you guys are having a midnight snack without calling me."
Baha landed on the desk, his feathers somewhat disheveled. It looked like he had been caught by some creature with sharp claws and thoroughly roughed up.
The truth wasn't far off. During the day's shocking turn of events at the Divine Festival, everyone originally thought the Duke was going to cause trouble. But then, among the four major powers, the Vardy Family directly threw out a nuclear bomb. Compared to that, what the Duke had been planning wasn't even worth mentioning.
From the current situation, the known plan of the Vardy Family was to first use the special nature of the Divine Festival day to steal part of the Eternal God's divine power, thereby summoning many extraterrestrial beings. This also caused the Vardy Family estate in the North District to become horribly twisted, already resembling a "danger zone."
These so-called extraterrestrial beings likely don't come from other Primordial Worlds or the Void, but exist in "crevices between realms" or "Abyss Erosion Zones" and similar dimensions.
Under normal circumstances, unless someone is utterly insane, no one summons extraterrestrial beings. Even the evil gods are unwilling to get involved with those things.
At the very least, evil gods are just wicked and malicious, but they can be negotiated with. Extraterrestrial beings are completely unknown. Some of them are combinations of negative abnormal energy, extremely dangerous existences.
And right now, within the Vardy Estate, there are quite a few extraterrestrial creatures. The good news is that one of the four major powers, the High Wall Council, took this opportunity to reveal a hidden card—the Silver Armor Brigade they had been secretly training.
The woman in the smoky dress that Su Xiao encountered earlier was named Anas. She is the commander of the Silver Armor Brigade. Few people know the name Anas, but if you mention Lady Smoke, there's hardly anyone in High Wall City who doesn't know her.
Among the four major powers of High Wall City, each has a combat powerhouse. On the Healing Church's side, it's Su Xiao; on the Steam Church's side, it's the Duke; for the High Wall Council, it's Anas, also known as Lady Smoke; and for the last, the Vardy Family, it's the successive heads of the Vardy Family.
It has to be said that the Vardy Family produces talented people in every generation. Each head of the family can uphold the Vardy Family's reputation.
Speaking of Lady Smoke, who now commands the Silver Armor Brigade, one must mention her relationship with the Duke.
When they met earlier in front of the Vardy Estate, Lady Smoke's hostility towards the Duke was undisguised. Some say the two were once lovers who fell out over interests. But that's not true. The Duke and Lady Smoke were once romantic rivals. The Duke's current wife was once the object of Lady Smoke's affection.
Su Xiao wasn't interested in this kind of gossip. He had Baha keep an eye on the Vardy Estate's movements. Now that Baha had returned, he must have some tangible gains.
After Baha wolfed down a few mouthfuls of food, he took out an object and asked, "Boss, is this thing valuable?"
With that, Baha placed a severely corroded pottery shard from his claw. Seeing it was a pottery item, Su Xiao instinctively became alert. He coated his right hand with a crystal layer before picking it up to examine.
As the pottery shard touched his hand, even through the crystal layer, the bone-chilling cold emanating from it was hard to ignore. This wasn't physical cold, but more spiritual, mental.
After a moment of thought, Su Xiao decided to take some risk. His current understanding of the Vardy Estate was too limited. If he wanted to find the Sanctuary Key inside, he absolutely couldn't fear risk.
The crystal layer receded from Su Xiao's hand. He used a faint fluctuation of mental energy to touch the pale pottery shard in his hand. The next instant, the scene before him changed dramatically.
Gurgle, gurgle~
Bubbles rose in the water. An iron maiden-like torture device sank underwater. This torture device was covered in holy white marks and wrapped in layers of cloth resembling holy relics, tightly imprisoning the victim inside.
Through the upper opening of the iron maiden, a stunningly beautiful face could be seen. But at this moment, that beautiful face was filled with the pain and despair of imminent drowning. Even more despairing was that this beautiful woman was immortal. Sometimes, immortality is a disaster. For instance, at this moment, after this beautiful woman drowned, she would immediately be resurrected, repeating the cycle endlessly.
And now, this beautiful woman, who had been imprisoned in the deep sea for who knows how many years, had been summoned by the Vardy Family's invocation to the Vardy Estate in this world. She would kill any living creature her eyes fell upon. Her heart was filled with the deep sea and hatred. This was the Pain Maiden.
Su Xiao released the pale pottery shard in his hand. The illusory scene before him dissipated. He couldn't understand why the Vardy Family had summoned these extraterrestrial beings. Unless the current head of the Vardy Family, Vardy Lifak, had water in his brain, he shouldn't have done this.
As things stood, the Vardy Family not only gained nothing, but all their clan members, including the family estate, had become twisted. This also meant that the four major powers of High Wall City had become three major powers in a single day.
At this moment, the other families in High Wall City were like sharks attracted by the scent of blood, tearing large chunks of flesh from the Vardy Family.
Su Xiao was now very confused. The plan the Vardy Family had schemed for years had suddenly died. This... was truly baffling.
It was precisely because of this "strange" situation that neither Su Xiao nor the Duke had entered the Vardy Estate immediately. Only Lady Smoke had gone in under pressure. This was a golden opportunity for the "Silver Armor" to rise and surpass the "Healing Institute" and the "Hammer Mechanism." Lady Smoke actually didn't want to enter the Vardy Estate now either, but she had no choice.
Su Xiao didn't care about other things. His core objective was to find the Sanctuary Key inside the Vardy Estate. This was the key item for his promotion mission.
There were both good and bad news. Now he just had to wait for Lady Smoke's side to either come out of the Vardy Estate or be wiped out there.
Behind his desk, Su Xiao extinguished the cigarette in his hand. He wasn't going to take the lead on this matter. With such a shocking turn of events in High Wall City, the other two major powers would definitely have to step in. So, having the Healing Institute, the Hammer Mechanism, and the Silver Armor Brigade join forces to handle this was the wise choice.
Of course, if he could find traces of two "good teammates" at this stage and trick them into going deep into the Vardy Estate with him, that would also be a good option.
Unfortunately, those two bastards were hiding better than each other, acting as if they wouldn't show their faces until Su Xiao's side discovered the Dead Silence City.
He checked the time. It was already 8:30 PM. Bubu Wang was snoring loudly nearby. Amu was still eating heartily. Baha was organizing the intelligence gathered today. And behind the desk against the wall opposite the office, the new Dean, Lisi, was reviewing documents one by one, occasionally sneaking a yawn.
"..."
Su Xiao frowned. Lisi had been unusually proactive today. In previous days, Lisi left promptly at 5:30 every day, accurate to the second.
Now it was already 8:30, and little secretary Lisi was working overtime without pay. This was very abnormal. Su Xiao pretended not to notice and continued leaning back in his leather chair to rest.
When it reached 9:30, Lisi stole a glance at Su Xiao. She was waiting for him to praise her for working hard, so she could take the opportunity to make her small request.
"Commander?"
Lisi tested the waters.
"Hmm?"
Su Xiao glanced at Lisi, then said, "You're still here? Hard work."
"Not hard, not hard."
"..."
Su Xiao said nothing more, which left Lisi, who was waiting to continue the conversation, nearly suffocating from holding back. After another half hour, Lisi took a deep breath, stood up, and came to Su Xiao's desk. Somewhat nervously, she said:
"Commander, I'd like to request an advance on my salary."
"..."
Su Xiao looked Lisi up and down. He had thought she was going to say something important, but it was just this.
He opened a drawer and took out a stack of banknotes, about 500 gold pounds. Su Xiao placed them on the desk, indicating Lisi could take them.
"Com... Commander, this might not be enough."
Saying this, even Lisi herself felt a bit guilty.
"..."
Su Xiao looked at Lisi again, somewhat surprised. A Healing Institute member's annual salary was just over 4,000 gold pounds. An advance of over 500 gold pounds wasn't enough? He knew that aside from the Central District, a very nice residential house in the other four districts cost only a little over 1,000 gold pounds.
Su Xiao opened the drawer again and took out another 1,000-plus gold pounds, tossing them on the table. To him, if Lisi was greedy for money, that was actually pretty good. Everyone has flaws. To Su Xiao, a subordinate being greedy for money was one of the less dangerous flaws.
Baha asked half-jokingly, "What do you need so much money for? Buying a house in the Central District?"
"Yeah."
Lisi nodded very seriously.
"Whoa~ Which property in the Central District is this cheap? Introduce me too?"
Baha was interested now. The Healing Institute's available gold pounds on the books were limited. Being able to make a profit was always good, to be saved for winning people's hearts later.
"There's only one property, so it's confidential," Lisi smiled at Baha, then turned serious and said to Su Xiao, "Sir, I might come in a bit late tomorrow morning. Do you think..."
"..."
Su Xiao waved his hand, signaling Lisi to leave quickly if she had nothing else. Seeing this, Lisi took the gold pounds and left contentedly.
Watching Lisi's retreating figure, Baha muttered, "A cheap house in the Central District? That's probably a bad omen."
Baha didn't know that his words were prophetic. Lisi wasn't just buying a haunted house; she was buying a top-tier haunted house. The unscrupulous merchant who sold Lisi the haunted house had said: "Three days ago, the owner of this house died at home from an accident, which is why it's so cheap."
As a Healing Institute member, encountering such a haunted house was like finding treasure to Lisi. However, that unscrupulous merchant conveniently left out that none of the previous owners of this haunted house had lasted more than three days.
After Lisi left, only Bubu Wang, Amu, and Baha remained in the office. Su Xiao prepared to begin refining his title.
Through the failure of his main mission, Su Xiao had consumed the eight-star title [Doom Monarch], obtaining five seven-star titles (no attributes). This meant that as long as he had a seven-star combat title now, he could refine it into an eight-star title in a stable manner.
And Su Xiao had long chosen this combat title. It was the existing five-star title, [Deep Blue Shadow].
Although this title was only five-star, its potential was enormous. Among Su Xiao's current nine titles, not counting strength, the only one comparable in potential was [War Lord].
Otherwise, with so many previous title refinements, Su Xiao wouldn't have kept a five-star title until now.
A title can only be refined a maximum of three times. That is, [Deep Blue Shadow]'s limit star rating is eight stars. But this is only under normal circumstances. Previously, Su Xiao had obtained a seven-star title in the Ser Star world, named [Holy Meal].
"Title Effect: Reverse/Forward Devour (Passive). Can select 1 three-star to six-star title for this title to devour. The devour result has two possibilities in total."