As the group prepared to leave, Fiona suddenly emerged from the shadows. Hugo stood silently at her side.
A few heads turned in mild surprise, but Henry was the only one who moved immediately. He walked straight to Hugo and stopped beside him without hesitation. There was no hatred in his heart toward the man. If anything, after Hugo had saved him from certain death, Henry felt something closer to respect even if he would never admit it out loud.
As for Kayden, he did not care much about Hugo's arrival.
At least, not as much as he cared about Fiona being there.
"What are you doing here?" Henry asked quietly.
"I don't want to die," Hugo answered plainly, without the slightest hint of hesitation.
"That's good," Ayrton replied, as if there was no reason to argue.
Fiona stepped away from Hugo and walked calmly toward Kayden. "I still can't believe that snake was a victim too. That's… unexpected. I wanted to punch him over and over again, but my abilities confirm he's telling the truth. I can't deny what I see… and somehow that feels unfair."
Kayden lowered himself slightly until he was at eye level with her. His tone was more serious than she was used to hearing. "He wasn't in his right mind, Fiona. I kept smashing my own head against things. I tried to kill myself. I hurt my brother without even realizing it. I wasn't thinking. I wasn't aware. It felt like something else was controlling me. He's the same. He must be more confused than any of us can imagine right now."
Kayden glanced toward Hugo, who was quietly talking with Henry and Colton. He wasn't entirely sure when Colton had joined the conversation. "But can we really blame someone for something they were forced to do? Something they weren't even aware of? It's like brainwashing. You don't even realize you're under its influence."
Fiona suddenly placed a hand against her forehead, as though trying to understand a foreign concept. "What's brainwashing?"
Kayden shrugged and took a deep breath before explaining in the simplest way he could. "It's a process where a person's thoughts, beliefs, and behavior are forcibly changed. Sometimes through psychological pressure. Sometimes through torture or prolonged isolation. The goal is to make you abandon everything you believe in and replace it with ideas someone else wants you to accept."
He paused for a moment 'Why am I explaining this? This doesn't feel professional at all.'
"And does it actually work?" Fiona asked, tilting her head.
Kayden folded his arms. "It's a broad term, and sometimes people use it figuratively, but yes, it can work. The results vary from person to person. Some people break completely and lose their old selves. Others resist, but the cost is always high. The psychological damage can last forever."
Fiona remained silent for several moments, her gaze distant, she was trying to come to terms with a reality she had never been prepared for.
After a slow breath, she walked toward Henry and began asking about the corpse's condition.
Meanwhile, Colton moved almost soundlessly, like a giant cat. He approached Kayden and stood beside him, his eyes gleaming with strange excitement.
"You know," he said, sounding genuinely impressed, "this is art. Just look at the corpse. Humans never stop amazing me. Every time, they find a new way to be insane."
Kayden shook his head, a faintly amused smile tugging at his lips. "The crimes in my world were more artistic. More refined, if you want to call it that."
Colton looked at him. "Soon, it'll be time to hunt."
"I know. You look genuinely hungry."
"I want to find this killer. I want to consume his soul."
With every word, his excitement grew sharper. Kayden could have sworn that the spark in Colton's eyes was a rare sight, as though something deep inside him had suddenly awakened.
Yet, for once, Kayden chose to extinguish that flame instead of feeding it.
"You'd ruin the art that way. Do you really think eating his soul would make you an artist?"
Colton froze , The words hit him harder than expected.
Silence lingered between them for several seconds before he finally muttered "You're right."
Then, in a calmer tone, he added, "I heard you talking about brainwashing earlier. I think it's very effective in this society. Everyone acts as though their thoughts don't belong to them."
Kayden nodded slowly, his eyes drifting across the crime scene as it gradually emptied. "It's everywhere. Just look around. All of this is carefully manufactured nonsense."
Before leaving the scene, the group split into two teams.
The twins, Colton, and Ayrton headed toward another location, while the rest accompanied Fiona to continue analyzing the evidence.
In a surprising decision, Ayrton refused to take Hugo with them.
At first, he had intended to, but eventually concluded that Hugo staying with Fiona would be better.
Ayrton understood that Fiona needed to grow accustomed to Hugo's presence.
If it doesn't happen now, it never will.
And so Hugo remained at Fiona's side despite the tension between them.
No one was ignorant of the history that separated those two.
But it seemed that time itself had decided to push them toward each other or at the very least, toward coexistence.
Inside Ayrton's carriage, silence dominated the journey. Only the rattling of wheels against the stone road disturbed the stillness.
Then Ayrton suddenly spoke. "Adam is in the south. That's bad."
Kayden answered calmly, though his reply struck Ayrton harder than expected.
"Why? He can just take the train back."
The simplicity of the statement felt like a slap.
Ayrton turned his gaze back toward the road and remained silent for a moment.
Then he asked, genuine curiosity in his voice,
"Have you never left the capital before?"
Kayden shook his head slightly. "Not often. But Adam took me outside the capital once for treatment. We traveled by train."
Ayrton let out a short laugh and ran a hand through his hair as if trying to organize his thoughts. "Spoiled twins…" he muttered with a faint smile. "In reality, trains are a fairly recent invention. We have inventors and scientists, and some of the Immortals contributed to creating those machines. One of them was lord Ron Feng. No one can deny that he's remarkable."
He glanced at the twins sitting across from him before continuing.
"But trains only exist in cities. They operate on strict schedules and never deviate. No delays. No sudden route changes. That was Ron Feng's philosophy. However, he either forgot or chose to ignore that not every village is close to a city. Sometimes, there simply isn't a train."
Henry nodded thoughtfully. "Time management is wonderful, no doubt about that. But the terrain doesn't help. Look around and you'll see intertwined rivers, dense forests, and mountain ranges that seem endless."
Kayden lightly clapped in agreement. "We could always clear the forests," he said with a playful tone, "but that would be a complete environmental disaster. Where would all the animals and snakes live?"
Henry nodded again. "Exactly. It's not that simple. Carriages already fill the roads, horses are readily available, and there's no need to destroy anything. Even the King expressed his opinion on the matter. My older brother George told me that His Majesty refuses to destroy forests or interfere with nature's balance."
Kayden added, "And Ron Feng has contributed a lot. But it seems he thinks a little too much like a city man. He's very civilized."
Then he stared out the carriage window and asked curiously, "Why does Ron Feng seem like a businessman pretending to do charity work? Wasn't he responsible for countless wars and catastrophe ?"
Silence filled the carriage.
The twins were exchanging ideas the way children did when left unsupervised, but to Ayrton, their discussion felt strange perhaps even concerning.
He quietly watched their questions escalate, sensing the conversation was drifting toward something deeper than the situation warranted.
Finally, he exhaled slowly. "He's… eccentric, that's certain. But don't forget that the revered Lord Edmenial helped build much of what we are today. The problem is that whenever Edmenial accomplished something, Ron Feng would immediately do something else, something louder and more impressive. It was as if the two were engaged in some hidden competition."
Henry lifted his head, his interest clearly growing. "And what exactly did Lord Edmenial do?"
Ayrton thought for a few seconds. "Look around you. The architecture spread throughout the cities the intricate details, the harmonious proportions that's his influence. The advanced weapons you use today may have begun with Ron Feng, but Edmenial established the principles behind their development."
"He introduced astronomy as a recognized field of study despite opposition from the Church at the time. He simply didn't care and continued anyway."
"The military strategies still taught today all come from his ideas and campaigns. Then he worked alongside the Lord of Fate to establish schools, and it's said he helped create the foundations of the trade system we still rely on. He was a man of law."
"But all of that angered Ron Feng. So he threw himself into supporting weapon development, constructing towering buildings, advancing medicine, and proposing theories on legal penalties and commercial fines. Some of those ideas have since been expanded upon. Ron Feng never seemed capable of sitting still."
Kayden muttered quietly, "It sounds like a children's rivalry… except on the scale of an entire continent. "
Henry slowly nodded. "They're far worse than we are."
Colton, who had spent most of the journey silent, suddenly spoke. "Edmenial wanted conquest, didn't he?"
Kayden found himself wondering who exactly Colton followed.
Ayrton nodded, though reluctantly. "He did. He sought organized conquest… but he suddenly stopped. No one knows why."
The conversation eventually drifted back to trains.
Kayden learned that the train they had once ridden ran on coal.
"Coal?" he murmured in surprise.
'Ron Feng… why didn't he imitate a more advanced invention here? He's accomplished so much already, yet he completely ignored that. Does this world simply not support it? Or perhaps the world isn't ready for it?'
'This world… is different,' he thought while watching his reflection in the window.
'It's not polluted like my world. No deafening cities. No skies hidden behind smoke. No light pollution stealing the stars from the night. No suffocating summer heat trapped between concrete walls. The air here is clean.'
Yet he soon bit his lip as a bitter thought surfaced.
'And still, the pollution here takes another form. You can't see it, but you can feel it. Spiritual essence saturated with impurities. Blood spilled for reasons nobody understands. Souls consumed instead of honored.'
'Human lives hold less value here, as if people are merely tools.'
'And demons? Bound, silenced, distorted… but not necessarily evil. Arlo alone is proof enough.'
'Prisoners.' Kayden lowered his gaze slightly, as though the weight of those thoughts had become too heavy to carry.
' catastrophe here… are valued even less. Less than demons, despite the fact that they roam freely while demons remain chained.'
'The entire hierarchy here is broken. Everything is built on fear, blind authority, and possession rather than understanding. Those above show no mercy, and those below aren't even seen.'
He let out a quiet breath, as if trying to force the feeling out of his chest. 'Maybe Ron Feng knew… that introducing electricity here would only illuminate the wrong things. Or perhaps he simply didn't want this world to be truly illuminated.'
The carriage finally came to a stop in front of a familiar house , Far too familiar for Kayden.
He stared at it for a moment before muttering with quiet annoyance, "This is Adam's house."
Ayrton pulled a small key from his coat pocket and waved it in front of them with a sarcastic look, one eyebrow slightly raised. "Adam gave me a spare key a long time ago. I suppose he never expected I'd actually use it."
Then, with a hint of amusement, he pushed the door open and stepped inside. "We're going to borrow a few things." The moment Ayrton entered, however, he stopped.
The house didn't smell the way it usually did , There was no scent of tea. None of the calm atmosphere that reflected Adam's personality.Only chaos.
Ayrton hesitated at the threshold. For a brief moment, he felt a childish urge to close the door and leave, allowing the house to fix itself the way Adam always somehow managed to do. The others entered one after another.
The moment they crossed the threshold, the disorder hit them.
Kayden stood frozen in disbelief.
He was used to seeing this house spotless and meticulously organized, almost to an irritating degree, as though Adam had built every corner as an extension of his own calm and disciplined personality.
He was used to Adam's peculiar hospitality. A cup of tea or coffee. A small dessert placed on a glass plate.
Never a genuine smile, yet somehow a welcome was always present in its own quiet way.
Now… No one was waiting for them.No scent of tea. Not even a shadow moving along the walls.
The house was empty. Cold.
As though it had absorbed its owner's absence.
As though the walls themselves missed him.
Kayden felt that the place which had once been familiar no longer was. It had changed , It felt foreign. As though someone else lived here now. Someone he didn't know.
Meanwhile, Colton focused on the signs of destruction.
His gaze moved across walls bearing evidence of violent impacts and uncontrolled explosive force.
He made his way toward the kitchen with light footsteps, though his eyes carefully examined every corner.
All sources of water had been destroyed. The pipes were broken.
Even the faucets themselves looked as though some savage beast had torn through them with its teeth.
Ayrton glanced into the kitchen and commented dryly, "He did that himself."