51: Chapter 51 Ambush

The signing ceremony was held in the third reception room.

Su Bai had originally thought that "signing a contract" meant two people sitting face-to-face, exchanging documents, shaking hands, and taking photos—like the scenes in business news on television.

As it turned out, he had overthought it.

Chairman Lin had booked the entire floor.

A deep red velvet carpet was laid out from the elevator exit to the door of the reception room. On both sides stood two rows of Lin family bodyguards in black suits, each wearing a fresh white corsage on their chest. On the long table in the very center of the reception room, three neat stacks of contract documents were piled up, each accompanied by a gold-trimmed fountain pen.

"...Uncle Lin, is this a contract signing or a wedding?"

Su Bai stood at the door, feeling a bit hesitant to go inside.

"A signing! Of course it's a signing!" Chairman Lin welcomed him out of the reception room, the smile on his face so radiant it looked as if he had won the lottery jackpot. "Don't worry, the grandeur of a wedding is much bigger than this. When the time comes, I'll help you arrange it—"

"No need."

Lin Xiao stood beside Su Bai, expressionless.

But if one looked closely, they would find the corner of her mouth twitching slightly.

Lin Weiwei was also there—she had been dragged along by Chairman Lin today as a "technical advisor." At this moment, she was leaning against the window scrolling through her phone, pretending not to know her uncle.

"Alright, alright, everyone sit down."

Chairman Lin took the lead and sat down at the long table, pushing the contract, which had been revised more than a dozen times, in front of Su Bai.

"Student Su Bai, we have already agreed on the contract terms. A 70-30 split, seventy percent for you and thirty percent for us. The first batch of mass-production licensing is for one hundred cards. Buyers must undergo Mental Power screening and psychological evaluation. Each card comes with an additional anti-crime supplementary contract. Besides that—"

He took a deep breath.

"The Lin family will provide you with a lifetime guarantee of material supply. No matter what tier of card you make in the future, as long as the materials are in the Lin family's supply chain, they will all be provided at cost price."

Su Bai picked up the fountain pen.

"Then let's sign—"

Boom!!!

It wasn't a metaphor.

The windows of the entire building shattered simultaneously.

They weren't shattered by a shockwave—it was some weirder power. The glass shards did not splash into the room; instead, they all hovered in mid-air, as if time had been paused.

Then, a sickeningly sweet, rotting smell flooded into the room from the shattered windows.

The scent of the Abyss.

Chairman Lin was the first to react. He stood up abruptly, the smile on his face vanishing in an instant, replaced by a cold severity that Su Bai had never seen before.

"—Enemy attack!! Protect Su Bai!!"

The black-suited bodyguards simultaneously activated the combat cards in their hands.

And then, they all fell to their knees.

They hadn't been attacked. It was Mental Power suppression—an absolutely irresistible pressure that could only come from a higher tier to a lower tier. Every bodyguard's Mental Power rating was below the fifth tier, while this Mental Power flooding into this floor—

Was at least eighth tier.

"Don't panic."

A voice came from the end of the hallway.

The tone was calm.

So calm that it sounded like hosting a banquet.

The door of the reception room was pushed open from the outside.

Walking in was Li Chengyuan.

The head of the Li family.

In his fifties, wearing a sharp suit and with meticulously combed hair, he walked ahead of five black-robed figures. His pace was unhurried, as if he were inspecting his own property.

Li Haoran followed behind him.

Wearing that dustproof cloak that had exuded maximum style during the Monthly Exam, the expression on his face was exactly the same as it had been in the exam hall that day—elegant, restrained, with a perfectly measured sense of superiority.

"Chairman Lin."

Li Chengyuan stopped in front of the long table and nodded slightly to Chairman Lin, as if greeting a business partner.

"What a coincidence. You're also discussing a partnership? Why don't we do it together?"

There was no expression on Chairman Lin's face.

But his finger secretly pressed the emergency call button on the side of his phone three times under the table—that button connected directly to the Lin family's security headquarters, and pressing it could summon the nearest guard team within three minutes at the fastest.

"Li Chengyuan," Chairman Lin's voice was very low. "This is the Lin family's signing venue. You broke in without an invitation. Are you trying to tear off the mask of civility?"

"Tear off the mask of civility?"

Li Chengyuan chuckled softly.

"Chairman Lin, you overstate things. I merely heard that Student Su Bai was signing a contract with your chamber of commerce today, so I came specially to—cut in line."

He turned his head to look at Su Bai.

Those eyes were of the exact same model as the gaze he had used to examine the examinees on stage during the Monthly Exam—a butcher sizing up livestock.

"Student Su Bai. The Li family also has a contract. The terms are exactly the same as the Lin family's. A 70-30 split, seventy percent for you. Material supply. Lifetime system."

He paused.

"In addition, the Li family will gift you a three-story independent laboratory in the center of Jinghai City. Its market value is about twenty million. Consider it a small token of our goodwill."

Su Bai leaned back in his chair.

His right hand quietly slipped into his pocket—where Kyubey's Demon Sealing Card was kept.

"Such good terms?" Su Bai said.

"Of course."

"And what if I don't sign?"

Li Chengyuan's smile didn't change. But the five black-robed figures behind him simultaneously took half a step forward.

"Student Su Bai."

Li Chengyuan's voice remained gentle, but that eighth-tier Mental Power pressing down on everyone's minds in the room suddenly grew several orders of magnitude heavier.

Lin Weiwei let out a muffled groan and dropped to one knee.

The cold sweat on Chairman Lin's forehead had already dripped onto the table.

"I think you might not be very clear about the current situation," Li Chengyuan said. "So allow me to speak plainly."

He raised a finger.

"First—the reason you can stand here safe and sound right now is because no one wants to resort to violence. But if you refuse to cooperate, things will become very unpleasant."

A second finger.

"Second—the guards sent by the Truth Sanctuary to protect you should currently be handling an 'accidental' magic leak incident in the West District. I arranged that incident. It should hold them up for—"

He looked at his watch.

"Fifteen minutes."

A third finger.

"Third—"

"Third. You are courting death."

A voice rang out from behind Su Bai.

It wasn't Chairman Lin.

It wasn't Lin Weiwei.

It was Lin Xiao.

She stood behind Su Bai, her right hand gripping that Ice Bow Demon Sealing Card. Her hand was shaking—but not from fear. It was because a Card Creator apprentice who hadn't even reached the second tier was standing and speaking while directly resisting the Mental Power pressure of an eighth-tier powerhouse.

And she still had the strength to grip her bow.

Li Chengyuan looked down at her.

That gaze—it wasn't anger, nor was it contempt.

It was curiosity.

Like seeing a hamster baring its teeth at a lion in a zoo.

"The Lin family's daughter," he said. "Commendable courage. A pity your level is too low."

He raised his hand.

An invisible shockwave of Mental Power surged toward Lin Xiao's direction—

Bang!!

Chairman Lin blocked the way in front of Lin Xiao.

His entire body was smashed against the wall by the shockwave, a tear splitting open on the back of his suit, and a trace of blood oozing from the corner of his mouth.

But he stood.

"Li Chengyuan," Chairman Lin's voice was hoarse, but he enunciated every word clearly. "If you touch a single hair on my daughter's head, my Lin family will fight your Li family to the death!"

"Brother Lin."

Li Chengyuan sighed.

"We're doing business, why ruin the harmony? I only wanted Student Su Bai to see the situation clearly—"

"He sees it clearly."

A voice interrupted Li Chengyuan.

Su Bai stood up.

He pulled his hand out of his pocket—instead of taking out the Kyubey Card, he pushed the unsigned contract aside.

"Uncle Li. I've looked at your contract."

He paused.

"The terms are good. The three-story lab is also quite nice. But I have a question—does anyone in your Li family like turning into a loli?"

Li Chengyuan's smile froze.

Li Haoran's brow furrowed.

"No?" Su Bai tilted his head. "Then your terms aren't very appealing. Uncle Lin, however, promised me with his own mouth—if the cooperation goes smoothly, he is willing to personally transform into a Magical Girl to test it for me. Right, Uncle Lin?"

Chairman Lin, with blood still hanging from the corner of his mouth, froze for a moment upon hearing this.

Who?

Me?

But he nodded without the slightest hesitation.

"Yes! A mere Magical Girl, I've wanted to transform into one for a long time!!"

Li Chengyuan's smile finally vanished.

Not because he was insulted.

But because he realized one thing—this kid's mental fortitude was far better than he had anticipated. Under the pressure of eighth-tier Mental Power, he could still make jokes.

This was not a reaction a normal first-tier student should have.

Unless—

"Haoran."

Li Chengyuan took a step back.

"Time is running out. Start immediately."

Li Haoran raised his right hand and clenched his fingers in the void.

Five dark purple Abyssal runes simultaneously surfaced on his fingertips.

Then he gently clenched his fist.

Those five black-robed figures standing behind Li Chengyuan—simultaneously raised their heads.

Revealed from beneath the black hoods were five completely different faces. Young, old, male, female. But the same flame burned in their eyes.

The flame of fanatics.

In the next second—

They simultaneously began to burn.

It wasn't a metaphor. Dark purple flames began to erupt from the surface of their skin. The temperature of the flames wasn't low, but weirdly, the temperature of the entire room was dropping. The air was filled with a scent resembling a mixture of burning plastic and rotting molasses.

Lin Weiwei's face turned pale instantly.

"This is—a sacrifice!"

Her voice shook as she grabbed Lin Xiao's arm and pulled her back.

Five living people.

Burned into five piles of ashes in just a few seconds.

The moment the ashes hit the ground—

A pitch-black rift ripped open from the very center of those five piles of ashes.

It wasn't a spatial rift. The edges of spatial rifts were regular geometric shapes. The edges of this rift, however—were squirming. Breathing. Pulsating rhythmically. Like the internal organs of some giant creature.

Then, a pair of eyes peeked out from the rift.

They weren't human eyes.

They weren't even the eyes of a magical beast.

It was a clump of pure, probability-state darkness unsupported by any organs. It surged at the edges of the rift, its surface occasionally manifesting twisted eyeballs, half-open mouths, and some kind of finger-like appendages but with a completely incorrect number of joints.

Ninth tier.

Shadow Demon.

Third in the Abyss Lurker Sequence.

No one present could clearly see its full appearance—because its form was constantly shifting. One second it was a humanoid black shadow. The next second it was a reptile-like cluster of multiple appendages. The next second there was nothing at all, leaving only an impossible shadow sweeping across the wall.

It was a probability-state assassin.

And the probability of its appearance—had changed from zero to one.