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Count Gina stumbled backward, a desperate cry tearing from his throat.
Before him, the two assassins silently fixed their gaze upon their prey.
‘Why? Why hadn’t the Snow Princess stopped them?’
He had heard tales of the Snow Princess’s astonishing prowess at the Sanctuary Academy. How could someone so formidable be defeated so swiftly?
‘Could the Snow Princess have changed her mind, deliberately letting these two through to kill him?’
But it made no sense.
Count Gina simply could not fathom it.
Jeanne Decker placed a hand on Alice Liddell’s shoulder, signaling that she would handle it. Alice offered no objection.
However, the Mad Hatter’s voice suddenly resonated from behind them. “Hold on, there’s no need to kill him just yet.”
Alice turned back in surprise, finding the Mad Hatter already standing right behind them.
“How did you manage it so quickly?” Alice couldn’t help but ask.
The Snow Princess was also a Fourth-Tier, and a mage at that—a profession well-suited for combat.
Without activating his Third-Tier abilities, the Mad Hatter should have found it difficult to overwhelm her. Yet, expending a red soul crystal on such a task would be far too wasteful.
“Good luck,” the Mad Hatter replied. “Someone else stepped in.”
“What?” Alice didn’t understand.
“Never mind. Let’s deal with what’s in front of us first.” The Mad Hatter gestured forward.
Count Gina’s legs had completely given out. He could barely cope with two assassins, and now another person had appeared.
“Why stop?” Jeanne Decker asked, bewildered. “Didn’t you say you wanted him dead?”
“He will die, but it doesn’t have to be now. Initially, I intended to eliminate him directly to avoid any complications, but this mission has gone more smoothly than expected…” the Mad Hatter explained.
“Smoothly where?” Alice frowned, recalling how the Snow Princess’s interference had nearly cost them their lives.
“Don’t interrupt.” The Mad Hatter raised a hand and lightly tapped her forehead with his knuckles.
“In any case, we now have the option to capture him alive. So, we can keep him for a while, extract some valuable intelligence and resources, and then… put him to good use. After all, this fellow is still a Blessed One.”
He suddenly grinned at Alice.
“What use could he possibly be?” Alice’s eyes widened as a realization dawned upon her.
“The Abyss, a Sixth-Tier advancement ritual, involves consuming souls while simultaneously sacrificing a complete, living person in a ritual to summon demonic power from the Abyss into oneself,” the Mad Hatter explained.
“The living sacrifice can be a single Blessed One, or ten ordinary people.” He continued, “It’s up to you, do you want to keep him as material? We can lock him up in the base’s dungeon for now.”
“This…” Alice hesitated. She wasn’t in such a rush to advance to the Sixth-Tier of the Abyss, especially since the most crucial advancement materials had yet to be acquired.
The most troublesome aspect of the Abyss’s advancement materials was that souls either had to be harvested by the advancer themselves, or obtained from rare, specific magical beasts, or by harvesting a Blessed One one tier higher than oneself.
Experienced Abyss cultists like Old Sheep remained at lower tiers without advancing further, partly due to being busy with various affairs, and partly because they genuinely struggled to obtain advancement materials.
Jeanne Decker looked back and forth between Alice Liddell and the Mad Hatter, then cast her vote. “If he might be useful to you, then let’s keep him for now.”
If he could benefit Alice, she didn’t mind postponing her revenge.
“With the Iron Warlord Army’s increasing activity, our Tea Party’s operations are gradually coming to the surface. There will be plenty of opportunities to cause trouble in the future. More battles mean you’ll eventually acquire advancement materials!”
The Mad Hatter patted Alice Liddell’s shoulder.
Alice realized that the Mad Hatter still remembered the prophecy she had once mentioned: that one day, she would touch the gates of the Abyss.
Count Gina stared at the three before him in terror. They kept speaking words he couldn’t understand—terms like ‘put to good use,’ ‘sacrifice,’ and ‘materials.’ It sounded as if they were discussing him as a dish on a table.
“Please, spare me! I have so much to offer!”
He struggled to force the words from his throat.
“If it’s not for money, why do you insist on killing me?”
“Don’t you have any idea yourself?”
The Mad Hatter walked over, grabbed his collar, and effortlessly lifted him, a smile playing on his lips.
“Excellent. Then let’s hold a trial.”
****
About an hour later, they escorted Count Gina back near the darkened villa.
The Mad Hatter pushed Count Gina, whose hands were bound, forcefully leading him to the villa’s backyard. The garden appeared to still be under renovation; half was planted with ornamental flowers and plants, while the other half was freshly turned earth.
Count Gina’s face instantly blanched.
“I see your unease and fear,” the Mad Hatter murmured behind him.
“When we scouted, I detected lingering souls of pain here, many of them. I suspect there might be some… dark secrets buried here, wouldn’t you agree?”
“What exactly is going on?” Alice Liddell asked, confused, looking at the Mad Hatter.
The Mad Hatter didn’t respond. Instead, he used his ‘Abyss Lord’ ability to conjure a demon servant.
Immediately, the demon servant lunged towards a corner of the garden, frantically digging into the freshly turned soil.
Count Gina’s face grew even paler. After working for a while, the demon servant finally stopped digging.
Alice Liddell and Jeanne Decker exchanged a glance, picked up their lanterns, and walked over, peering down into the pit.
A thick, putrid stench assailed them. The shocking smell and sight made Alice immediately cover her mouth, squat down, and retch.
She had seen dead bodies before, but the sight of several corpses in various states of decay, along with scattered skeletons, haphazardly piled in a single grave, was simply too much for her to bear.
Jeanne Decker, who had witnessed battlefields and the plunder of bandits firsthand, managed to hold her ground. Her eyes widened as she stared intently at the bodies in the grave, discovering that there were even children’s remains among them.
Moreover, several of the seemingly newer bodies did not appear to be from the Redlands people, but rather from immigrant races common in the Empire—especially prevalent in the North.
This place was brimming with wickedness.
“Stuffing slaves into cargo boxes and smuggling them all the way to the Imperial City. I presume the death rate… or rather, your ‘cargo loss rate,’ wouldn’t be low, would it?” The Mad Hatter remained remarkably calm, his icy gaze flickering towards the trembling Count Gina, who dared not speak.
“Or perhaps you privately executed some slaves who tried to escape or resist?”
Seconds later, Jeanne Decker’s face hardened. She spun around and charged at Count Gina, knocking him to the ground with a single punch.
“Stop hitting me! Stop! Have mercy!”
Amidst Count Gina’s shrill wails and pleas for mercy, Jeanne Decker mercilessly unleashed a barrage of punches and kicks, pummeling him relentlessly.
By then, Alice Liddell had finally recovered, rising to wipe her mouth.
“Are you alright?” the Mad Hatter asked, walking up to her, then gestured towards Jeanne Decker. “She seems a bit emotional. She might accidentally kill him. Shouldn’t you try to calm her down?”
Alice Liddell nodded, then silently walked over…
And together, she and Jeanne Decker began mercilessly kicking Count Gina, who was writhing and howling in pain on the ground.
“Like family, like home,” the Mad Hatter sighed, watching the scene unfold, and shook his head.
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