The Grey Fog's silence was a taunt.
The clean, brutal efficiency of the Xenoh group's "overdose" left no digital trails, no whispers on the street.
To find a thread to pull, Yuhon realized the Grinning Fox would have to patrol far beyond his usual, comfortable radius.
He needed to go where the bigger fish swam, or at least where the smaller fish who knew the bigger fish might be biting.
That evening, he told his parents he was going to a late-night study group for a "big exam."
His father had merely grunted, sharpening a hoe with a screech of metal on stone.
"Don't study so hard you forget how to weed," was all he'd said.
His mother had given him a long, unreadable look before handing him a container of roasted peanuts. "For energy, dear. And don't forget your manners."
Now, perched on a gargoyle of a bank building in a neon-drenched entertainment district miles from his quiet town, Yuhon felt out of place.
The air smelled of expensive perfume, spilled liquor, and desperation. He watched the crowds flow in and out of upscale clubs and seedy bars, his enhanced hearing filtering through the noise.
For an hour, it was just snippets of drunken arguments, bad pickup lines, and business deals he didn't understand.
Then, his focus snapped to a narrow alley beside a club called 'Ynox.'
A large man in a cheap suit that strained at the shoulders was half-carrying, half-dragging a woman towards a black sedan.
She was petite, with short, choppy black hair, and she was very, very unconscious.
"—told you, she's a lightweight," the man grunted to his partner, who was holding the car door open.
"One spiked drink and she's out. Boss'll be happy. Pretty thing like this'll fetch a high price from the special clients."
"She looks kinda familiar, though," the partner said, a note of unease in his voice.
"They all look familiar when you've had as many as we have," the first man laughed, shoving the woman unceremoniously into the back seat.
"Now quit yappin' and drive. The forest house. Now."
The forest house. A location. A thread.
The Grinning Fox became a shadow, leaping from rooftop to rooftop, following the sedan as it left the bright lights of the district and sped towards the dark, wooded hills on the city's edge.
The car eventually turned onto a dirt road and stopped before a large, dilapidated warehouse, its windows boarded up, looking utterly abandoned.
Yuhon settled on a thick pine branch overlooking a gap in the warehouse's roof, his presence masked by the night.
Inside, the scene was sickeningly familiar, but on a larger scale than the Xenoh den.
This was a processing center. And the merchandise was people.
The woman was dumped unceremoniously onto a dirty mattress in a corner.
Around her, ten men—all radiating the steady, confident aura of B-ranks—milled about. Two others, their energy sharper, more intense, stood apart. A-ranks. Overseers.
"Another one for the collection," one of the B-ranks chuckled, nudging his companion.
"The boss is gonna be pleased. We're meeting our quota early this month."
"This one's got some fire in her, I bet," another leered, looking her over.
"Fought like a wildcat before the stuff kicked in. Gonna break her in myself before we ship her out."
The two A-ranks were less jovial.
"Stop gawking and get her tagged and logged," one, a man with a scar across his throat, barked.
"The Grey Fog doesn't pay us to stand around making juvenile comments."
Grey Fog. The name was like a trigger. Yuhon's body tensed, frost instinctively gathering on the branch under his fingertips. This was it. A direct link.
"Ah, relax, will ya?" the leering B-rank said. "Let us have our fun. It's not every day we get a looker like this. Most of 'em are half-dead already."
It was at that moment the woman on the mattress stirred. A low groan escaped her lips. The men stopped and turned.
"Well, well, waking up already?" the leering man said, stepping closer.
"The special stuff usually keeps 'em under for hours. You must have a real high tolerance, sweetheart."
The woman's eyes fluttered open. They were clear, sharp, and held not a trace of fear or disorientation.
They blazed with an emotion Yuhon couldn't quite place. It looked like… utter contempt.
"Tolerance?" her voice was a low, smooth mockery of a slur.
"For that swill you call a sedative? Please. I've had cough syrup with more kick."
The men stared, stunned into silence.
She sat up, rubbing her wrists as if they were stiff.
"So. 'The forest house.' A bit cliché, don't you think? And the décor is atrocious. Really, exposed concrete and rusted chains? You could at least try for some ambiance."
The A-rank with the scar took a threatening step forward. "Who are you?"
"Me?" she smiled, a cold, terrifying thing.
"I'm your worst nightmare. Also, I'm incredibly disappointed. I was hoping for a bigger fish than a handful of B-ranks and two A-rank lackeys. I suppose the Grey Fog's middle management is as mediocre as their branding."
Yuhon watched, utterly dumbfounded. This wasn't a rescue. This was a predator who had willingly walked into a trap she'd set herself.
The leering B-rank recovered first, anger replacing his confusion. "You little bi—" He lunged for her.
He never reached her.
The woman didn't even stand up. She simply flicked her wrist.
A plume of fire, not golden like the Flame Demon's, but a deep, furious crimson, erupted from her fingertips.
It didn't just hit the man; it consumed him. There was no scream, just a brief, horrifying whoosh and then a pile of ash settling on the concrete floor.
The warehouse fell dead silent.
Then, all hell broke loose.
The woman was on her feet in a fluid motion.
Her body seemed to… expand.
It was an illusion of posture and power, just like his father had taught him, but perfected.
Her short black hair… lengthened, the color bleeding into a vibrant, fiery red that cascaded down her back.
Her facial features sharpened, became more severe, more powerful and really pretty. Even her height seemed to increase until she stood tall and imposing.
Yuhon muttered "She was S-rank. There was no doubt. But she kinda looks familiar and that incredibly powerful crimson fire, only Mei's family has that kind of power..." He fell in deep thought.
"Now," she said, her voice now a whip-crack of authority. "Let's talk about your retirement packages."
The remaining men roared and attacked as one.
Elements flew—ice shards, chunks of earth, jets of water.
The two A-ranks moved with blinding speed, one drawing twin swords that crackled with lightning, the other becoming a blur of enhanced strikes.
She moved through it all like a dancer. She didn't dodge; she annihilated.
A wall of crimson flame vaporized the incoming projectiles.
She caught the lightning swords between her palms, the metal glowing red, then white, before melting into molten droplets.
She drove a fist into the gut of the enhanced A-rank, and the man folded around it with a sound of rupturing organs, flying backward to slam into the far wall.
She sighed "Hah, too weak, doesn't even worth a warm up."
It was a massacre. A beautiful, terrifying, efficient massacre.
"Yes!" he grasped the point, "It must be her, aside from Mei's grandmother only she has that much power."
Yuhon watched, his mind reeling.
Mei's mother. This was Mei's mother.
The fight reached its crescendo. One of the B-ranks, in a last, desperate move, pulled a grenade.
Lara sighed, as if immensely bored. She pointed a single finger.
The blast that followed wasn't from the grenade. It was from her.
A concentrated sphere of crimson fire shot out, hitting the grenade, the man, and a large section of the warehouse roof.
BOOM!
The concussion wave hit Yuhon's perch.
The branch splintered. The roof of the warehouse shattered outward in a shower of splinters and molten metal.
A wave of superheated air rushed out, and this time, Yuhon's jacket—the replacement for the one he'd lost days before—instantly combusted, burned to ashes in a split second.
Caught off guard, Yuhon dropped from the now-shattered tree, landing in a smooth, silent crouch amidst the settling debris and drifting ash inside the warehouse.
The silence that followed was absolute, broken only by the crackle of small fires. The men were all down. Most were dead. A few were moaning, their wills utterly broken.
And standing in the center of the carnage, her long red hair stirring in the heated air, was Lara Xin.
She turned, her blazing eyes locking not on the remaining threats, but on him.
She looked at the grinning fox mask, his ash-covered, bare torso, and his clearly stunned posture. A faint, amused smirk touched her lips.
"Well," she said, her voice echoing in the ruined warehouse. "Aren't you a interesting little surprise?"