The Deceitful One

He then came out of the secret passageway and activated the closing mechanism. Everything now was just the way it was before.

Bryan then took out a signal flare gun from his pocket watch and walked towards the window. He pointed the gun at the sky and pulled the trigger.

BOOM!

After noticing the green firework blooming in the night sky, he exited the bedroom as he waited for the Strike Team to arrive.

According to Lara's memories, the scroll containing the details about the whereabouts of the ruins was kept in a hidden compartment on one of the shelves in her study.

Bryan straight away entered the study which was on the same floor. With great familiarity, he walked to the shelf on the left side of the study and pulled out an inconspicuous book.

Following that, a very small hidden compartment appeared behind the shelf. And inside this compartment, was the scroll that Bryan was looking for!

He opened the scroll and read the contents. After making sure that this was indeed the scroll from Lara's memories, Bryan nodded, "About 20 km northeast of Damascus…"

This scroll was crucial for the Silver Owls' investigation of the Holy Blood Sect. They were chasing after this evil organization for a very long time and only now did they find something conclusive.

Bryan closed the scroll and kept it inside his suit's inner pocket. He then walked toward the chair by the study table and sat down.

He closed his eyes as he started to recuperate while thinking about the previous battle. Although the battle got over quickly and seemed to be very easy, only Bryan knew how difficult it was.

'Mental warfare is very effective but equally harder to implement.' Bryan pondered inwardly.

Although he had prior access to all of Lara's memories, he still found it hard to play continuous mind games with her and render her useless in battle.

If at any moment, while he was pretending to be one of Lara's family members, he misspoke then it would give Lara the chance to gather her wits and prepare for a counter-attack.

Hence, even though Bryan wasn't that physically exhausted, he was severely drained mentally. He continued to rest with his eyes closed, however, his spiritual sense was constantly surveilling the entire house.

Bryan had shot the green signal flare which meant that all team members that saw this signal, would have to rendezvous at the point from where it was shot.

It would take them about ten to fifteen minutes to reach, unlike the red flare which was an emergency assistance signal where the team members had to reach the point as soon as possible.

And as expected, within fifteen minutes, Bryan's spiritual sense was triggered and he opened his eyes. He got up from the chair and walked toward the window in the study.

He saw a black steam car parked right outside the entrance to Lara's house. Four figures alighted from the car.

Bryan was slightly surprised as one of them was his captain, Robert. He wasn't expecting his captain to arrive as he was almost always busy with other Church-related work.

Other than his captain, there were Andrew, Emma, and finally Olivia. The group looked around and tried to find the origin of the signal flare.

"Here!" Bryan screamed from the window on the second floor as he waved at his team members. The group turned their heads in the direction of the voice in unison.

"Bryan!?" Andrew was shocked to see that it was Bryan who had shot the signal flare. After all, he didn't have any patrol duty tonight.

Ignoring Andrew's questioning look, Bryan walked down to the ground floor and opened the main door. He then let the group of four enter the house.

"What are you doing here?" Andrew asked Bryan the moment he entered the house.

Bryan replied with an awkward smile, "You see, I went out tonight to have some fun but things turned south really quick."

Emma inquired, "What do you mean?"

"It's better to show you guys first," Bryan replied as he led the group to the bedroom on the second floor.

They saw that the door to the bedroom had been broken and there was debris lying around the region in the hallway. When they entered the bedroom, they were greatly astounded. Especially the two girls, Emma and Olivia.

Seeing the headless corpse of the naked woman lying on the ground in a defiled manner, Emma and Olivia found it highly repulsive. Emma acutely observed the cum stains around the dead woman's crotch area as she turned furious.

She turned towards Bryan and grabbed his collar as she glared, "Bryan, what the hell is the meaning of this? What did you do?"

Emma raised her fist and it started to burn with fierce flames as she aimed it at Bryan's face.

Bryan calmly replied as he raised his hands in a show of surrender, "Emma, I know what this looks like but please hear me out."

Olivia also narrowed her eyes as she coldly stared at Bryan. Emma nodded her head, "You better have a good explanation."

Bryan then recounted all that happened from the moment he entered Rose & Thorn, to him flirting with Lara, to making love in the private carriage, and finally the battle that took place here.

He also explained to everyone in great detail about what happened inside the private carriage. Bryan didn't feel ashamed at all when he said this. He also told them that Lara had tried to Compel him in the carriage but she had failed and Bryan had simply played along.

He told them everything except for the fact that he had deliberately targeted Lara and his usage of his God-Level artifact, Deceit.

Bryan made it seem that he just happened to meet a beautiful woman at a bar and went to her place to have some fun. But coincidentally, the woman turned out to be a Blood Path Transcendent.

Everyone was greatly taken aback after learning what had happened to Bryan. Andrew looked at the corpse with wide eyes, "She's a fucking Blood Path Transcendent!?"