From the moment he realized the Hunter team had failed—wiped out except for Poxman—to analyzing the situation, figuring the Baroness would trace it back to him, and scrambling to set up this whole “afternoon tea negotiation” with all his contingencies… less than two hours had passed.

  To pull off such a smooth, even brilliant countermove in that time…

  Who else but him, Raelf Pence?

  But…

  A sudden thought hit him.

  Who’d given the Baroness his exact address and details? His place wasn’t a total secret, but it wasn’t common knowledge either. Could it be…?

  A sliver of doubt passed through him, but it was washed away by the “smooth progress” in front of him. Didn’t matter. The situation was unfolding just as he’d planned…

  Just as Raelf was lost in his own satisfied calculations—

  The Baroness moved.

  It jolted him awake.

  She moved. Not to sit. Not to drink tea. Not to negotiate.

  Without any warning… she raised her arm.

  The black single-handed sword in her hand seemed to come alive.

  The glint of the sword flashed like lightning in the dark.

  Fast.

  Faster than Raelf’s reaction limit. So fast the “danger” signal in his brain only tightened, with no time to turn into a command or an action…

  That cold, dark-black blade edge cut through the air,

  drawing a simple, fierce, unadorned arc.

  “Wai—!”

  Raelf’s pupils shrank. His throat squeezed out a short syllable.

  He wanted to stop her. Wanted to call his hidden men. Wanted to trigger his plans.

  But everything was already too late.

  Thwump—!

  A dull, wet sound of a sharp blade cutting through flesh and bone. Not loud, but it cut cleanly over the intense, oppressive orchestral music still playing in the room.

  Time seemed to stretch forever in that moment, yet also compressed into a single frame.

  Raelf watched, helpless, as the Poxman who’d been kneeling on the floor a second ago, weeping and begging…

  His head and his body quietly… separated.

  From the severed neck, blood surged like a long-suppressed fountain under the heart’s final pump.

  Scalding, crimson blood splashed onto the polished floor, the pristine tablecloth, the exquisite pastries. A few warm drops landed on the cuff of Raelf’s crisp, classical suit.

  The cloying, nauseating smell of blood exploded, instantly filling the entire opulent room.

  The headless body stayed rigidly kneeling for a second, then collapsed limply to the side.

  And the head… rolled.

  It rolled across the expensive rug, over the polished hardwood, all the way to… Raelf Pence’s feet.

  Finally, it stopped.

  The eyes were wide open, pupils already unfocused, but still holding the last moment’s extreme terror, begging, and… a trace of confusion.

  It “looked” at Raelf, silently, fixedly “staring.”

  Asking… why?

  Crash—!

  The fine porcelain teacup slipped from Raelf’s slightly trembling hand, smashing on the hardwood floor, shattering to pieces.

  Amber-red tea and sharp shards spread in a messy wet stain.

  Raelf could no longer hide the shock and fury on his face. His eyes, once full of calculated calm, were wide. Deep in his pupils, besides rage, was a sliver of… uncontrollable dread.

  He pointed at Pandora, his finger trembling.

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  “W-why?!” His voice rose, sharp with disbelief. “He apologized! He said he was wrong! Why would you still…?”

  “And?” Pandora cut him off. Her voice was so calm it held no ripple, even carrying a hint of open mockery. “He apologized, so I can’t kill him?”

  The words were spoken so matter-of-factly that all Raelf’s following questions and accusations got choked in his throat. Not a single word came out.

  His mouth hung open. His face turned red, then white.

  “B-but he’d already…” Raelf’s gaze dropped to the bloodied head by his feet, then snapped back to Pandora’s face, searching for any hint of wavering.

  “He apologized, yes.” Pandora tilted her head slightly, like she was thinking over a simple question. “But so what?” Her tone held a kind of seemingly naive puzzlement. “Who said… I have to accept his apology?”

  “Aldrich?” She repeated the name, her tone flat, like reciting a stranger’s codename. “Who’s that? Never heard of him.”

  “I only know—” Pandora’s gaze shifted from Raelf’s face to the unseeing head. Her voice stayed steady, but held a cold, final edge. “He wanted to kill me. So, I killed him.”

  She looked back at Raelf, her eyes clear. “What’s wrong with that?”

  “You…!” Raelf’s mouth hung half-open. He found himself actually… unable to argue.

  The logic was simple. Direct. Brutal. And… irrefutable.

  In the living room, the intense, oppressive orchestral music suddenly… stalled.

  The melody cut off sharp, leaving only the monotonous, grating hiss of a phonograph needle scratching against a record.

  Without their master Raelf’s control, the servants and maids standing stiffly by the walls, wearing fixed smiles, didn’t move to fix this little “glitch.”

  They stayed in place, eyes vacant, like a group of exquisitely crafted but unwound clockwork dolls.

  The air fell into an eerie silence. Only the grating hiss of static droned on.

  Suddenly, Raelf’s gaze changed. The shock, fury, and dread drained away, replaced by a cold, vicious, cornered-animal ferocity. His eyes fixed on Pandora’s face.

  “You…” His voice was low, a gritted-teeth whisper. “You knew all along?”

  Hearing this, Pandora let out a short, light chuckle, like she found it amusing. She didn’t answer directly. Instead, she took a graceful step back.

  “Knew what? That you’d set a trap for me in this pretty house? That you used a toxin only Poxman could make perfectly, and that usually only he could spot and counter…?”

  “Or that…” Pandora’s gaze swept over the vacant faces of the servants, the edges of the oil paintings, the joints of the crystal chandelier. “…you had specially refined corpse puppets planted outside?”

  Her eyes returned to Raelf’s face, which was turning livid. The corner of her mouth lifted in a cold curve.

  “If you mean all that… then I’m sorry. I did know.”

  She paused, her tone holding a trace of mocking reflection. “He was shaking the whole way here. Then the moment he stepped through your door, he got much ‘quieter.’ Even adjusted his heartbeat and breathing to their calmest state… I suppose we should ‘thank’ him.”

  Pandora’s gaze flicked to the head on the floor.

  Then, without warning, she raised her arm. Not her sword hand—her empty left hand. The movement was elegant, fluid, like tucking back a stray hair.

  But her fingertip pointed precisely at the temple of the nearest servant standing beside her.

  Thump—!

  A dull sound, like a melon bursting.

  Red and white viscous matter exploded from the servant’s temple. The body stiffened violently, then collapsed straight back like a cut marionette, hitting the floor with a heavy thud.

  Almost at the same time, the black sword in Pandora’s right hand became a blur, sweeping horizontally faster than the eye could follow.

  Ssshk!

  The light sound of a sharp blade cutting flesh and bone.

  Another maid’s head, trailing a line of blood, left her neck and rolled to the floor. Her body slumped down beside the first.

  The whole thing happened in the blink of an eye. So fast it was suffocating.

  Seeing two of his “companions” instantly killed, the remaining servants and maids just stared vacantly, their faces still wearing those stiff, standard smiles. No reaction. As if this wasn’t a slaughter, but an unimportant mime show.

  Until—

  “Kill her!”

  Raelf’s voice, cold as if squeezed from between his teeth, cut through the dead silence.

  The moment the command fell, those mannequin-like servants and maids—their vacant eyes suddenly lit up with two points of crimson light.

  Their bodies emitted sickening creak-crack sounds. Joints twisted and reversed at unnatural angles.

  Sharp, pale, grotesque bone spurs—jagged and cruel—violently ripped through their clothes from elbows, knees, and shoulder blades.

  In a blink, these elegant “attendants” turned into pure instruments of death and decay. Combat weapons.

  They let out inhuman, metallic-grinding roars and attacked from all sides, from tricky angles, launching fierce, lethal assaults on Pandora.

  At the same time, a dense series of click-clack sounds came from around the room. Mechanisms triggering.

  The polished hardwood floor where Pandora had been standing a second ago suddenly collapsed downward.

  Under it were densely packed, high-speed rotating metal winches with barbs and serrations. The winches spun with a hair-raising buzz. Anyone caught would be ground to mincemeat.

  But… a split-second before the floor gave way, Pandora—precisely because of that “step back”—had shifted half a body’s length to the side.

  She narrowly avoided the trap. She even had time to glance down at the whirling mechanism, then look up at Raelf—whose face was now completely dark—and offer a faint smile that seemed to say, See? I knew.

  Since she’d detected the malice beforehand, noticed the toxin, sensed the hidden corpse puppets… how could she be unprepared?

  From the very start, she’d had no intention of facing the opponent head-on on their own prepared ground.

  And she’d come alone so Nicole and Elsa could stay outside… to make their own preparations.

  Why waste her own energy and time here?

  Pandora fought while retreating. Her figure moved like a wraith, weaving through the corpse puppets’ storm of attacks.

  The black sword in her hand swung with precise efficiency—severing tendons, parrying bone spikes. No wasted motion.

  She was already near the door. In a few breaths, she’d reached the ornate front entrance.

  A sword swing deflected a pouncing corpse puppet, the blade precisely cutting its tendons. Its momentum faltered, and it pitched forward.

  Pandora seized the moment, lifted her foot, and put all her strength into a vicious kick to its midsection.

  Thud!

  A dull impact. The corpse puppet flew backward like a catapult stone, crashing into the three or four puppets close behind, knocking them down.

  Brief chaos. An opening at the doorway.

  Without hesitation, Pandora backhanded a sword strike, severing the neck of a maid puppet lunging from the side.

  Then she yanked open the heavy, decorated door.

  And slipped out.

  Immediately after—

  BANG—!

  A loud crash. The door slammed shut from the outside, closing firmly.

  Sealing inside the roaring corpse puppets, the whirring mechanisms, and Raelf’s face, twisted with fury and foiled plans… locking them all in.