Victor stared at the S-level familiar in front of him, madness in his eyes. "Haha! If so many people can pay for my stupidity, I'll have no regrets even if I die!"

The Hydra's nine heads looked at Victor, each with a different expression—sympathy, concern, pity, mockery, and hatred.

Then one of the heads leaned forward toward Victor. "In that case, I'll let you watch their deaths with your own eyes."

As soon as it finished, strange runes lit up in that head's eyes. A huge surge of mental power flowed through the runes and stamped itself into Victor's mind.

"What is this skill? Are you going to enslave me? What are you doing!" Victor felt a sharp pain tear through him, but soon the pain faded, and his consciousness slipped away from this world.

When Victor opened his eyes again, the same rune mark as Hydra's flickered in his pupils, and his face twisted almost into a snarl. A voice like Hydra's spoke through him: "Humans! My revenge has only just begun!"

After that, Hydra stretched out its claws, cut its own neck on purpose, and let a drop of ink-green blood fall into the lake.

Victor, under its Enslave Mind, stared blankly. He slowly walked into the middle of the lake and quickly absorbed the diluted blood.

Only when the whole lake had dried up did Hydra, satisfied, shrink its body and slip back into Victor's familiar space.

In the RV not far away, Evelynna was still wrapped around Logan.

Her hands were around Logan's neck, her legs around his lower back, pressed tight against him. "Logan, you took everything from me. You have to take responsibility—marry me!"

At the word responsibility, Logan lifted an eyebrow. "Weren't you about to get engaged to Victor?"

At the name Victor, Evelynna bit down hard on Logan's shoulder.

She didn't let go until Logan took her over the edge again. Then she glared at him with a hurt look. "The engagement is canceled. Can't you tell I was using him?"

Logan didn't want to spell it out and pretended not to know, which made Evelynna angry enough to bite him again.

Even so, Logan still didn't agree.

He studied Evelynna's eyes and smiled. "Marriage shouldn't be a deal. Your eyes are full of calculation."

With that, Logan climbed off her.

Luckily, he had plenty of pants stored in his familiar space, so he got dressed fast and left Evelynna's RV.

Even as the RV door closed behind him, Logan didn't look back at Evelynna once.

That attitude made Evelynna bite her lower lip hard, her eyes going red. "Logan! You bastard! You really just pulled up your pants and ran?"

Still unwilling to accept it, she grabbed her phone and entered a passcode.

Soon, the footage of her and Logan getting intimate in the RV was saved.

Closing her phone, she started to get up and get dressed, but the moment she lifted a leg, a sharp ache hit her waist.

With one hand on her waist and the other pushing herself up, she slowly climbed out of bed, a stubborn look returning to her face. "Hmph, Logan! The more famous you get, the brighter you shine, the stronger these intimate records of ours will be! Either I get you, or I ruin you. Just wait!"

After leaving the RV, Logan sneaked toward the Genius Training Camp's site.

Halfway there, a night wind blew, and in the dark a burst of Inferno lit up.

A middle-aged man in a suit, a cigarette in his mouth and his hands in his pockets, blocked Logan's path. "Well, well, well. Young men sure have energy. How many pairs of pants have you changed today?"

Called out to his face about his flings, Logan frowned, and his guard went up.

Seeing that Logan kept quiet, the man took a drag and blew a smoke ring at him. "No need to be so tense. I'm Vincent, a private detective. I've been watching you since Twilight City."

With that, Vincent casually handed over a business card. There was no name on it, only a chalice stained with blood.

Seeing the familiar symbol, Logan instantly remembered the business card Principal Charles had given him—it was exactly the same as Vincent's.

Thinking the man in front of him might be the one who had subdued Principal Charles, Logan took a deep breath. "The Black Church also runs a private detective business?"

Since Logan had guessed his identity, Vincent didn't hide it. He got straight to the point. "The Black Church needs money to keep running. We can't do wicked, harmful things, so we have to do some money-making work."

With that, Vincent tossed Logan a box and gave a friendly smile. "Don't doubt my motive. The Black Church has always had deep reverence for the guardian Sacred Beast. I'm following you because Lord Kerparos chose you."

"So you showed up just to give me this?" Logan shook the box and opened it in front of Vincent.

A strong smell of blood spread out. Pinching his nose, Logan frowned at the green liquid inside, curious. "What is this?"

Vincent flicked away his cigarette and crushed it under his shoe. "A blood sample from an S-level monster. I collected it around your camp. You can ask Lord Kerparos what it's for."

After saying that, Vincent turned into a cloud of mist and faded away in front of Logan.

Logan gripped the blood-filled bottle tight and tossed it into his familiar space.

Before he could speak, Kerparos's roar shook the air. "Damn it, where did this come from? Master! Get in here, now!"

It was the first time Logan had seen Kerparos this worked up, so he didn't hesitate and went straight into his familiar space.

Kerparos's three wolf heads all stretched their necks, staring warily at the blood vial. "Master, we have to leave here at once—leave Saint Heart City!"

Hearing how serious it was, Logan tensed up too.

After Kerparos explained, Logan finally understood what the S-level monster blood does: it keeps releasing pheromones that make monsters within hundreds of kilometers go crazy and gather.

"S-level monsters are that scary?" Logan picked up the vial and, without thinking, started to open it.

Just then, a loud commotion rose—urgent messages came from both the Black Ant King and the Black Ant Queen.

The black ant army Logan kept in his familiar space suddenly turned aggressive and became very hard to control.

After Kerparos got the details, his eyes grew very serious. "Master, if you don't want the black ant army to level your familiar space, take that blood out right now."

Following Kerparos's warning, Logan left the familiar space at once with the vial.

Sure enough, without the constant lure of the blood, the black ant army quickly came back under control.

Then Kerparos sent another message: only familiars and monsters that have a contract with humans are not affected by the pheromones.

So if the nearby monsters gather, Logan won't be able to use the black ant army in battle.

Hearing this, Logan wasn't bothered.

He didn't plan to fight the monsters anyway.

He jogged back to camp and went straight to Sophia's tent.

It was already late at night. Sophia lifted the flap with caution and frowned at Logan. "What? Is something wrong?"

Logan raised his hand and held the vial out to her, his face serious. "I found this around the camp."

Sophia took the vial and sniffed it.

At once, her tired face turned to shock. "Where did you find this? Take me there, now!"

With that, she grabbed Logan's wrist, and the two of them rushed to Lucia's tent.

Soon, Sophia gathered the top fighters in the camp.

General Philip, Natalia, Lucia, and Saint Heart City's City Lord, Garen, stared at the vial in Sophia's hand, their faces grim.

"Everyone, move fast. We must clean up all blood contamination as soon as possible." City Lord Garen sighed and quickly gave orders.

"Damn it. Don't let me find out which bastard did this!" General Philip punched a tree and snapped it, then turned and headed for the barracks.

Natalia, Lucia, and Sophia each summoned their familiars and started searching.

Logan also summoned Kerparos and used its Super Smell talent to track the blood.

But after only an hour, they found a terrible truth.

The S-level monster blood had already been dumped into nearby water sources and spread.

According to the Human Federation's maps, the local water connects to a main river of the Lost World.

This means the water within 500 kilometers of Saint Heart City may be polluted by this blood.

Since the blood's pheromones reach at least 200 kilometers, monsters within about 700 to 800 kilometers of Saint Heart City will turn violent and bloodthirsty, and start to band together.

In the end, they will form a beast tide and hit Saint Heart City's defenses.

If the defenses fall, the beast tide will sweep across the Federation and cause large losses of territory.

Realizing this, City Lord Garen and General Philip quickly made and issued a response plan.

Sophia will lead the members of the Genius Training Camp to organize the relocation of local groups and villages around Saint Heart City, to protect Federation citizens as much as possible.

Lucia will lead the camp's instructors and help the army quickly clear the Blood Cultivation Realms near Saint Heart City, to prevent those realms from going out of control because of the beast tide.

Natalia, the Duke of Storms, and Uesugi Tora, Lord of Edo Castle, must return to the Federation at once to ask for aid.

City Lord Garen and General Philip will organize Saint Heart City's military and civilians to prepare for battle.

Logan then volunteered. "I can help clear master-level Blood Cultivation Realms. I request to act alone!"

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