Chapter 61: The so-called "heart demon" [1] [Bonus chapter]

*SIGH*

Falling on the bed, Hong Li-Wei opened her eyes and looked at the room's starry ceiling.

'What do I do?' This question has been running through her mind for the past hour or so.

She knows the theory and the concept behind it but can't incorporate it to herself without having to compromise on things she doesn't wish to.

'…' Silently looking at the ceiling, Hong Li-Wei weakly smiled at how far she has reached.

Never would she have thought that one day, she would be learning about the so-fabled magic, something which her younger self could barely dream of seeing, much less using.

Although her life was full of ups and downs, she thinks her life was pretty good so far.

'Except for that…' She sighed when this memory returned again.

On that day, everything, everything she had worked so hard for, everything she and her friends built, all of it was reduced to dust.

All because of a snake's greed.

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(5th October, 3796 - Hong Kong, Northern Slums)

*PANT*

*PANT*

*PANT*

"Le-Leader. I think we lost them." A young woman of seemingly 18 years old remarked while panting and looking at a distant building.

"…" Not answering her, Hong Li-Wei with a solemn expression on her face, swiftly took out her phone and started to access all the cameras in the surroundings.

She could have done this way faster and even while doing something else if she had an implant on her like everyone else that allowed people to use the Nexus Net without external hardware, but she does rather not have such a thing.

Being a diver, she knows how those "helpful things" are just a mask to lethal weapons of mass control and she doesn't want to give herself to the big players like that.

"Let's run." She said after gaining access to the cameras and confirming where their pursuers were.

"Yes, leader." The young woman replied back before they both sprinted away from the alley they were hiding in.

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Arriving at an old house in a more distant part of the slums, Hong Li-Wei opened the door and was welcomed with guns being pointed at her.

"Leader, you are here." A black-haired woman lowered her gun and everyone else did the same.

With Hong Li-Wei and the woman behind her, there was a total of 18 people inside this old house; all of them wearing black tactical clothes.

"Sparrow, how was the extraction?" Hong Li-Wei asked while closing the door and pulling a wooden chair to sit.

"It was perfectly done, leader. We got in, caught the cargo, and left without anyone seeing us or being in the range of the cameras." The woman who was codenamed Sparrow answered Hong Li-Wei's question while motioning for two other members to bring something.

A few seconds after, the two members brought some metal cases that just the exterior screamed "something important is inside" and put it near their leader.

Lowering her upper body, Hong Li-Wei touched a case and slid her hand on it.

'It doesn't seem like a fake one.' She concluded while feeling the material and then put her hand on the lock that was a screen-like one.

*BEEP*

The lock beeped and a green light flashed on the screen before the lock clicked.

Putting her hand on the upper part of the case, she pushed it up and looked at what was inside.

"What?" Dumbly looking at the case's contents, Hong Li-Wei got up and then kneeled close to it to take a better look.

"Leader, what is the problem?" Sparrow asked after seeing how Hong Li-Wei was looking at the case's contents with a perplexed gaze.

"Mermaid, what did our contractor request us to extract?" Hong Li-Wei suddenly questioned after being silent for almost half a minute.

Then, another woman, one with blue hair stepped forward.

"He requested us to extract some metal cases which recently arrived from Europe and that were stored in a warehouse near the port."

Upon hearing her answer, Hong Li-Wei nodded.

"Yes, this much I understand. Now, what did we extract?" At her question, everyone got a bad premonition.

"The metal cases that were in that specific warehouse." Mermaid answered while also feeling that something was wrong.

"Were there any other metal cases in that warehouse?" Hong Li-Wei asked while bringing something from inside the case closer to her face.

When she brought it up enough for everyone to see, they noticed that it wasn't something they expected.

It was a glass container.

One containing a brain in it.

"A mage's brain..." One of the members unconsciously muttered upon seeing the container's content.

Although people know that magic exists, not everyone is able to use it. As such, many people throughout the years have developed the earn to be able to use it.

This led to the development of a new and darker area of science that is banned in most countries.

Mana user's biology.

This area involves studying a mana user's body and all the signs and effects of using magic to then, maybe discover how to allow more people to use mana and hence, magic.

The problem with this field of "study" is that besides being banned, it is an old field that surged during the great war when the other races arrived in this world, and since then, it yielded no tangible result aside from the anti-magical field, and even this is an unstable technology that sometimes doesn't work.

So, being banned and not having a tangible result, even the big companies stopped having business in this field as it eventually was made known that the number of mana users being killed or kidnapped didn't make up for the results.

This field got such a terrible reputation that even the Antarctica continent got involved and banned it at a global scale by threatening to cut all relationships and business with anyone that was involved in this field.

And just now, Hong Li-Wei encountered a clear hint of such field being explored by someone.

"The contract said nothing about it." Sparrow commented while holding in the will to curse.

"…" Hong Li-Wei didn't answer and put the container aside before she started to pull the case's contents out and put them aside.

"…" While their leader was doing this, everyone just quietly stood there while watching her actions and feeling the dread inside them increasing with every container being taken out.

The more she took out, the more the bad premonition in them grew.

*TACK*

Putting the last container aside, Hong Li-Wei blankly looked at the case's bottom and saw an emblem there.

"F*CK!!!" Abruptly getting up, she grabbed the case with a strength she didn't know she possessed and threw it at a wall.

*BAM*

*THUD*

"F*CK! Those f*ck cases are from Kallisto!" She screamed in frustration, desperation, and rage.

"Wh-"

*F*CK!" Not caring about Sparrow's confusion, Hong Li-Wei kicked her chair away and looked at the containers on the ground with fire in her eyes.

Seeing their leader's behavior, everyone noticed that she wasn't joking and their bubble burst.

"SHIT!"

"WHY THE F*CK WAS IT KALLISTO!?"

"LEADER! WE HAVE TO GET OUT OF HERE, NOW!" Sparrow screamed with her voice wavering due to her anxiety.

Kallisto wasn't just a name or a group. It was a corporation, and a big one.

Being one of the biggest companies in Hong Kong's medicinal field, Kallisto is a titan that Hong Li-Wei and her team can't even dream of fighting against.

And now, this same titan, this same big company had a rather dark secret landing on their hands.

Right in the hands of people from the less "trustable" line of work.

What would happen if the company were to get wind of this?

The result was obvious.

"Okay, here is the plan: we leave those things here, go back to the city, kill that f*cker that made this trap and then we zap out of this continent." Hong Li-Wei recomposed herself after almost a minute of raging and explained their next course of action.

She wasn't going to let the guy who set them up walk away scot-free like that.

"Yes, l-"

"Shh." Sparrow suddenly covered Mermaid's mouth and motioned everyone to be silent.

*TAP*

*TAP*

*TAP*

*TAP*

With the muffled sound of several footsteps, the group's faces hardened and everyone nodded.

"Now." Whispering this signal, Hong Li-Wei and everyone ran to the backmost part of the house that contained an escape route they made in case of need.

*BAM*

Hearing the door being kicked open, a few members of the group nodded and took out their guns before falling behind while turning around and pointing their guns at where they came from.

The other members of the group noticed this and gritted their teeth while they continued to run.

The ones who stayed behind got into position and started to walk backward while aiming their guns forward.

*BANG*

With one sudden noise and a flash grazing one of them in the cheek, the 5 members opened fire without thinking twice.

*TATATATATATATATATATA*

*TATATATATATATATAATATA*

*BANG*

*CRACK*

*SHATTER*

*CRASH*

Hong Li-Wei turned around after successfully getting out of the house with her team and looked at the house with a complicated gaze.

"Leader, let's go. They didn't let us go for us to die." Sparrow spoke from the side while also tightly clenching her fists.

"…" Not saying anything, Hong Li-Wei started to run while her team followed suit.

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Opening her eyes, Hong Li-Wei blankly looked at the ceiling before releasing a sigh.

She never really understood why that guy set them up but she stopped caring years ago.

'Ah, why did I have to think about this?' Due to thinking about that situation, Hong Li-Wei's mood considerably soured and she had more difficulty in even trying to concentrate on finding a solution to her current problem.

Raising from the bed, she raised her hand and used a simple magic she learned to splash water on her face.

*SPLASH*

With a bit of her clothes wet due to the droplets of water falling, Hong Li-Wei put her legs down and touched the floor with her feet before putting her elbows on her thighs.

Supporting her forehead with her hands, she closed her eyes again while trying to get rid of those memories that wouldn't leave her.

Although now she is more energetic than before and somewhat more sociable, Hong Li-Wei knows that no matter how she behaves or tries to pretend, she is still deeply scarred due to that mission years ago.

She lost almost everyone she trusted.

Her team and friends whom she grew up with and even got out of the hellhole that is the slums.

Everything.

Every single thing they built while working as mercenaries went down the drain after that accursed mission.

However, she doesn't care much about the reputation and all. What hit her the most was how she had to lose her friends just so she could barely escape.

And for what?

To almost die a dog's death right after.

Had it not been for Hai, she and the rest of her team would have died without being able to do anything.

Losing them, the people whom she trusted the most, and having the bad experience with her "boyfriend", Hong Li-Wei became scared of trusting people again.

Even though she knows this is wrong, she can't help it.

Her joyful and slightly teasing personality is the result of her fear. By developing those two traits which induce people to like her and want to approach her, she wouldn't have to worry about "accidentally" trusting someone as she gave herself the false assurance that they were just approaching her due to how sociable she was.

Even the members of her team which survived along with her noticed her behavior and tried to do something about it, as Hong Li-Wei was slowly starting to lose herself in her own despair and regret.

It was only after starting to interact more with Hai that her situation got a bit better.

And it was only after her date with him that she found out that she could still feel genuine joy.

However, as much as happiness is good and can improve one's mood and situation, regrets and despair don't disappear in a puff of smoke.

One needs to confront them head-on.

And Hong Li-Wei has reached the limit of how long she could run away from hers.

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A/N: Hello there, I hope you are having a wonderful day!

Once more, thank you all for the support guys! Here is the bonus chapter I promised I would post.

So, what do you guys think about this chapter?

Comment what you thought about this chapter. If you liked it or not, I want to read your opinions and interact more with you guys.

Another thing: Please give your feedbacks. I want to know what you guys think, if there are things that could be better or if I could have done something in a simpler manner. If you could also leave a review, that would help me to understand what you think about the novel in general, so it would be really helpful.

Also, join our Discord community, there you can interact with other readers or with me in case you have questions or ideas about/ for the novel.

Discord server: https://discord.gg/NZV2EtdJY8

(The link is also on the novel's synopsis).

...….

Power Stones' rewards:

100 Power Stones = 1 bonus chapter;

200 power stones = 2 bonus chapters;

500 power stones = 3 bonus chapters.

...….

That is all for today, thank you all for reading! 🍷😎