"I suggest you make your move soon, because it'll be too late in a moment."

Lin Ye placed the victim state stuffed toy into his loot space. He wasn't in a hurry to act. After all, none of these people could escape. This was the death they had chosen for themselves; Lin Ye was merely borrowing it.

"...You put that auction item away?"

The action squad captain stared at Lin Ye, trying to find a flaw or opening.

"Of course it's already been transmitted to another Plane. You don't think I'd keep something you gave me on my person, do you?"

This was also why Lin Ye hadn't tested that spiritual energy item.

"You are indeed very cautious, but you're still not cautious enough."

The young man spoke from another direction.

"If you're talking about the thing inside that little boy, then I'm afraid you'll be disappointed."

Lin Ye took out the Cross Scepter, stroking its smooth shaft. They simply didn't understand what they were facing. Traps and backstabbing were, after all, what he was most adept at.

"...You actually knew? Then why did you still take them in?"

The young man looked at Lin Ye with disbelief.

"Because none of that had anything to do with them.

I've given you such a clear hint, and you still haven't figured anything out?

Let me remind you again, I particularly dislike forgiving others. If you do something wrong, you must be punished. Apologies are meaningless. Otherwise, who would bother doing the right thing?"

Lin Ye tapped the ground with the Cross Scepter. The assassin behind the young man and all the guests behind the action squad captain simultaneously exploded. A massive swarm of red butterflies, transformed from flesh and blood, surged from their bodies, flying into the sky and spreading throughout the entire city.

The sky was stained red by the butterflies. The young man and the captain gathered together, barely resisting the spiritual energy shockwaves generated by the burning of the remaining flesh and blood.

Lin Ye didn't take the opportunity to finish them off. Instead, he placed his left hand on Cynthia's head, dispelling the mental influence she was under.

"Who... am I?" 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎

Cynthia looked at Lin Ye blankly. The false memories shattered, but the assassin organization's reckless and brutal methods had completely destroyed her original memories. She could no longer remember who she was.

"I don't know. That's something you need to figure out for yourself. No one can tell you."

Lin Ye only gave names to his own pets. For him, that was already troublesome enough.

"...You don't mind? Even though I wasn't aware, I was here to ambush you."

Cynthia said, sounding somewhat sad.

"To be precise, you were merely a decoy. The thing inside him was what was meant to deal with me... I don't mind, because only those who cannot see the essence of things would vent their anger on unrelated parties. If I got angry at you, it would mean my level is just that, a sign of incompetence."

Lin Ye inserted his left hand into the body of the little boy who had been standing silently to the side all along, then quickly pulled it out.

The assassin organization's methods were very crude, so dealing with them wasn't troublesome.

'Mental insertion and physical modification... The practicality is actually quite high.'

Lin Ye couldn't help but study the other party's technique a little. This technique seemed to have undergone long-term adjustment and refinement; it was a technology with extremely low safety yet surprisingly mature.

However, even Lin Ye couldn't learn this technique from just one or two samples. But it didn't matter. That young man was still in the city, and Lin Ye had recently obtained a ritual item that could be used in precisely this kind of situation.

During the time Lin Ye was chatting with Cynthia, the young man and the action squad captain had already fled the auction house. Lin Ye's previous actions had frightened them. They didn't believe that just the two of them could handle this third-tier spiritual energy user who claimed to be from the system.

They wanted to go out and rally the troops lying in ambush in the city and the remaining assassins. But when they escaped, they discovered that as far as the eye could see, outside, they could only see those red butterflies now.

Lin Ye almost never showed mercy, unless it was no longer necessary.

A massive swarm of butterflies surged toward the two men, wanting to lay eggs inside them. Neither of them was weak, so they forcefully carved a bloody path through the overwhelming tide of butterflies, gathering with the people in the city who were still resisting.

But they seemed to have forgotten one thing. These butterflies were just Lin Ye's minor trick. The ritual they themselves had conducted was the real big trouble.

Lin Ye actually didn't know the specific contents of this ritual either, because all the important parts were locked inside a sealed black box, impossible to glimpse from the outside.

But the ritual had already begun. Lin Ye couldn't forcibly terminate it, so he could only modify the ritual's range and link it with the Disaster Hazmat Suit. That way, no matter what happened later, he would have an extra layer of protection.

And if Lin Ye didn't do this, then the only person who would bear this ritual would be himself.

"Don't even know what the purpose of the ritual is."

Lin Ye found a relatively intact seat and sat down. Some red butterflies drifted into the auction house, landing on Lin Ye.

"What is this?"

Cynthia suddenly made a sound. She seemed to have lost her senses, reaching her hand toward the pitch-black box that had appeared in her field of vision.

The silent little boy made the same motion.

Lin Ye grabbed both of them, covering their eyes with his hands clad in the Disaster Hazmat Suit.

"What do you see?"

Lin Ye only saw them reaching their hands toward an empty space. He couldn't see anything at all.

"A pitch-black box. I must open it."

Cynthia uttered a voice like sleep-talking, continuing to reach her hands in a certain direction.

"No, there's nothing there. You don't need to open any box."

Lin Ye unfastened the seals and zipper of the hazmat suit, wrapping the two of them inside it. Only then did they regain some clarity, ceasing their forceful struggles.

Perhaps because he had undone the seals, a pitch-black box appeared in Lin Ye's field of vision. But he could still think normally, so naturally, he wouldn't touch this suspicious box.

Not long after, all three returned to a normal state, but the boxes in their fields of vision did not disappear.

Lin Ye looked outside the auction house. The butterflies that had been on him earlier were gone. He had also lost control over the red butterflies outside, as if all the butterflies had vanished at the same time.

'Is this something related to the system? How could there be idiots trying to snatch this kind of ghostly thing? And dare to use it casually without fully researching it?'

Lin Ye led the two children out of the auction house. The surrounding building debris would affect the range of his spiritual perception.

Outside was utterly silent. All the previous chaotic sounds had disappeared.

There wasn't a single person on the street, yet it was filled with pitch-black boxes of varying sizes.