Chapter 484 --484
He lunged forward, crossing the room in a blur of silk, and violently grabbed Heena’s wrist, yanking her away from the door. All the aristocratic grace and arrogant defiance were gone. He looked at her with wild, bloodshot eyes, his chest heaving with years of suppressed despair.
"Do you think I wanted to do this?!" he screamed, his grip bruising her skin. "Do you think I am not trying my absolute hardest to save them?!"
Heena didn’t flinch at his outburst. She didn’t even try to pull her hand away. She just looked at his desperate, broken expression with absolute, terrifying calm.
"Of course you are trying hard," Heena said smoothly. "I know you are trying your best."
She stepped forward, forcing him to look directly into her calculating, phoenix eyes.
"But let me ask you this," Heena challenged, her voice razor-sharp. "What are you actually getting from all this vast information you gather? You sell the secrets, you hoard the money... and then what? What about your ’protection’?"
The Master’s breath hitched, the fight slowly draining out of him.
"Do you honestly think that anyone in this capital—no, anyone in this entire empire—would actually stick their neck out to protect a brothel owner when the Imperial Army comes knocking?" Heena asked mockingly. "Do you think your wealthy patrons would save you? Do you think the corrupt ministers would?"
She ripped her arm out of his loosened grip and smoothed the front of her cloak.
"Except for me," Heena declared, the suffocating, absolute authority of the Vanguard heir flooding the room. "I am giving you my word. As long as the Marcuset family stands, we will protect you and your people from harm. We will act as your shield against the Imperial Court."
She tilted her head, delivering the final, undeniable truth.
"Can you get that exact same promise from anyone else in this world?" Heena asked quietly. "No. You can’t."
With that, Heena simply reached out and pulled the heavy door open, leaving her final words hanging in the oppressive air of the room.
"If you agree, you have until the evening. You know my address."
With that, she walked out, the heavy door clicking shut behind her.
Inside the silent room, the Master slowly raised his hands, burying his face in his palms. But if anyone had been standing there to see it, they would have noticed that the eyes glaring through the gaps of his fingers held absolutely no sorrow, grief, or despair. There was only utter, seething annoyance and a deep, burning anger.
Because no matter how much he hated her brutal, arrogant methods, he knew that every single word Heena had just said was the absolute, undeniable truth.
On the outside, Heena strode briskly through the dimly lit corridors of the Pavilion and stepped out of the back gate into the hidden alleyway.
The moment the cool morning air hit her face, her steps violently faltered.
She barely managed to reach the side of her discreet black carriage before a massive, blinding wave of dizziness crashed over her. Her skull throbbed so intensely it felt as though someone had just driven a rusted iron spike directly through her temples.
’’What the heck...’’
Small, swirling black dots began to aggressively swarm the edges of her vision, blurring the cobblestone street. Her knees buckled completely. She grabbed her head with both hands, sliding her back down the wooden frame of the carriage until she was squatting on the dirty ground, gritting her teeth against the sheer, agonizing hell erupting inside her brain.
She couldn’t even pinpoint the exact nature of the pain anymore. There were so many varying, horrific symptoms of a brain tumor, and without modern medical equipment, it was impossible to know exactly what the mass was pressing against in this specific moment. She only knew that it felt like her skull was splitting in half.
Beside her, the digital lion materialized, its glowing fur flickering with genuine, panicked anxiety. ’[Host! Are you okay?! Should I dispense a high-grade pain reliever from the system shop?]’
Heena squeezed her eyes tightly shut, her breathing ragged, and slowly shook her head.
’’No,’’ she communicated through their mental link, her mental voice tight and strained. ’’It’s fine. Just let it be. Don’t use them unless it is absolutely necessary.’’
It wasn’t just about saving system points or being stubborn. It was a strict, ruthless mandate actively enforced by the Transmigration Agency itself.
The Agency rarely granted their field agents access to high-tier painkillers or body-numbing buffs. In the cold, calculating words of the higher-ups: if an agent was allowed to constantly take painkillers and completely detach from physical suffering, what would happen to the real host’s body?
The Agency needed its people to suffer the exact same agonizing pain as the original host. They needed the agents to intimately understand the physical limits, the fragility, and the excruciating reality of the bodies they inhabited. Because if they didn’t—if every agent could just magically turn off the pain and feel a synthetic, breezy relief—they would inevitably become entirely reckless. They would treat the lives they were hosting as nothing more than disposable, indestructible meat suits, blindly endangering them just to complete their missions faster.
So, Heena remained huddled against the carriage wheel in the damp alleyway, her fingers digging mercilessly into her own scalp, forcing herself to brutally endure every single second of the suffocating agony.
For ten agonizing minutes, Heena remained huddled in the damp, shadowed alleyway. She focused entirely on her breathing—in through her nose, out through her mouth—anchoring her mind against the violent, sweeping currents of pain trying to drag her into unconsciousness.
Slowly, the blinding white-hot agony behind her eyes began to recede, settling back into a dull, heavy throb at the base of her skull. The black dots swarming her vision finally dissolved.
’"Host..."’ the System whimpered, its digital voice thick with distress.
’’I’m fine,’’ Heena cut it off mentally.
She placed her hand against the cold wooden wheel of the carriage and ruthlessly forced her trembling legs to straighten. She stood up, swayed dangerously for a split second, and then violently locked her knees. She took a deep breath, smoothing down the front of her crimson-black cloak.
By the time she stepped up into the carriage cabin, her expression was once again completely blank, her posture radiating absolute, untouchable authority.
"Back to the estate," Heena ordered the driver, her voice completely steady, betraying absolutely none of the hell she had just endured.
The driver, who had been too terrified of the young Madam’s aura to even look back and see her collapse, simply whipped the horses. The black carriage lurched forward, leaving the entertainment district behind.
Inside the cabin, Heena leaned her head back against the velvet cushions and closed her eyes.
She had successfully planted the knife in the Pavilion Master’s throat. By tonight, she would likely have the comprehensive intelligence network of the Su family in her hands. But her body’s sudden, catastrophic failure in the alleyway was a massive wake-up call. The timeline was accelerating. If the tumor was already causing her to lose motor control and suffer from partial blindness, she had far less time than the System’s original six-to-twelve-month estimate.