Shadow Slave novel Chapter 2523

2523 /2524

Sunny took the soju bottle and poured Mordret a glass. Of course, he made sure to hold it with one hand while doing so, since holding it with both would have been too polite.

Pushing the glass toward the Prince of Nothing, he leaned back and pursed his lips. “There was no Nihilist originally. It was just Mirage City hunting down the reflections of your vessels to erase an anomaly. Things have changed after the rest of us arrived, and now, these murders have an actual explanation. Funnily enough... there is still no Nihilist anywhere out there. The terrifying serial killer terrorizing the entire city does not exist."

Sunny shook his head with a resentful expression.

"He is just a cover story Madoc has concocted to direct everyone's attention away from the truth. And the truth is that these people were killed by professionals he had hired to silence them — to tie up loose ends. Just like he hired enforcers to kill his nephew and us. The missing eyes are just a red herring... whatever the hell a herring is... meant to distract the public."

He sighed.

"If you study the backgrounds of the victims, all of them have a connection to the Valor Group. The owner of a building company handling several contracts with Valor Construction, an archivist from an enterprise that provided outsourcing services to the Valor Group, a security guard who was recently reassigned from the renovation site... and so on. Each of them can be traced to Valor Construction and the Northern Dam contract it received from the city."

Sunny smiled faintly.

"So is Mordret. So are two detectives who were sniffing around both him and the supposed serial killer victims. So is Morgan, who must have known something about her uncle's shady dealings... and her psychiatrist. After all, who knows what Morgan let slip in her lengthy therapy sessions with Saint, confined in a mental asylum and pumped full of drugs?"

Mordret glanced at him with interest.

"That Saint... what an interesting person. I did not know that there was another human with the affinity to Nothing somewhere out there. Ah, I would not mind getting to know her better, if fortune allows."

Sunny stared at his smile for a few seconds, then reached forward and pushed his glass over without changing expression. Not paying the spilled soju any attention, he said in an even tone:

"Anyway, all of the people Madoc killed or tried to kill can be traced to the Northern Dam renovation project. Of course, that alone does not mean anything — all of them can be traced to a great number of things. Chocolate milk, for example. Or the Police Department... or Mordret himself. Human lives are like that. All of us share countless connections, and anyone can be tied to anything in this enormous web."

Unless some misguided fool went and met a nasty bird that severed all these connections. Then, a person would become untraceable... and easily lost.

Sunny smiled.

“Pinpointing a particular connection between all these threads as the reason for what is happening is nearly impossible in a short amount of time — let alone proving it. But I have the advantage of foreknowledge.” He moved his chair a little back to prevent the spilled soju from dripping on him. “Mirage City is not exactly Bastion, but it is clearly inspired by it. There is the Mirror Lake and the Castle... there is also Rivergate, even if it is situated a bit closer to the city. The northern dam does not exist in Bastion, though — in the false Bastion, at least. It does exist in True Bastion, turned to ruin. There is another difference between the two, as well: the drowned city at the bottom of the lake."

He let out a wistful sigh.