This aura is deadly

Chen Ke wanted to ask Heinard many questions, including the transaction a year ago, Lin Mo's sister's affairs, Xijin Building, Lin Mo's last night...

Perhaps, the question that worries Chen Ke the most: What is the countdown to life? You can also ask for an answer.

Is that something similar to the Curse of Silence?

If the life countdown is also a curse, then does the Si Consortium, or Asra, have the ability to lift this curse?

Traveling back in time, all the mysteries will be answered today.

"Give them some space," Pihom said.

Hall and Priskin nodded, walked past Chen Ke, and patted him on the shoulder.

Pihom walked past Heinard, wanting to say something, but restrained himself from saying anything. He slowly walked out of the safe house and closed the door.

Now, only Chen Ke and Heinard were left in the entire safe house. The fan of the computer case was whirring, making the entire atmosphere very depressing.

"What do you want to know? Chen Ke?"

Without looking at Chen Ke, Hainard took out a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. It was the best-selling brand of cheap cigarettes in the United Federation, and a pack only cost 5 francs.

He popped one out and handed it to Chen Ke.

Chen Ke waved his hand and said, "I don't smoke."

"What a good habit." Heinard said, biting one himself, took out a lighter and lit it.

There was a burst of smoke, and the room was filled with the pungent smell of tobacco. Chen Ke frowned, pretended to support his chin with his hands, and quietly covered his nose.

"Talk about what you and Lin Mo did a year ago and why they failed in the end." Chen Kedao.

"That's a long story." Heinard said quietly, looking at the smoke clouds in the sky.

"Then keep it short..." Chen Ke said simply. What he wanted to know was the truth, not the short story about his family.

"Well, you are as impatient as Lin Mo, so I will come up with a super-compressed and invincible simple version." Heinard said with a smile.

The floodgates of memories slowly opened, and the white cigarette was reduced to ashes by the red flame as he was sucked in, falling to the ground.

All things were caused by one woman, Heinard's wife Margaret.

Heinard was originally a sea smuggler who smuggled sacred diamonds in the inland sea, and he had been doing this for more than ten years before he met Margaret. When they met during a transaction, they fell in love at first sight.

Like dry wood meeting fire, on a small cruise ship drifting on the inland sea between Opportunity City and Freedom City, Lucina was born.

But the good times did not last long. Maritime smuggling is a very dangerous and illegal matter. The Administration's crackdown on the smuggling of sacred diamonds has not stopped.

When Lucina was 4 years old, Heinard and Margaret were captured by the Authority's maritime patrol and imprisoned.

However, Heinard was released by the Administration after being imprisoned for only 6 months, but his wife disappeared from the world. He took Lucina back from the orphanage, resumed his old business, and has been looking for Margaret's whereabouts.

During a transaction with a certain consortium, he found out about Margaret. It turned out that the Administration had been using prisoners to test the effects of unknown skill codes and sacred objects, or to use them as consumables.

They call those people "D-class personnel"

Margaret and the other two prisoners were used as "sacrifice" for the blasphemous dagger, which opened a door to the great void. As compensation, the Bureau released Heinard early.

Hearing this, Chen Ke shook his head.

You can regard this as a necessary evil in this world, because the original intention of the Authority is to better explore and utilize psychic powers for the benefit of society. But from the perspective of the person involved, the so-called necessary evil is bullshit.

Sacrificing oneself for the sake of the world is a heroic act, but voluntary and forced are two different things. Moreover, Margaret's experience is more like being treated as a guinea pig.

Heinard was unable to fight against the Authority and could not cheer up for several years. Until one day, a group called Asra told him that the contract demon's mutation could be reversed.

The sacrifice used as a key cannot be resurrected, but the sacrifice that becomes a contract demon can be resurrected through rituals. When the sacrifice becomes a human again, the corresponding door will be closed forever and can never be opened again in the future.

And that person will suffer from severe short-term amnesia, unable to remember what happened more than ten minutes ago, and will lose his past forever.

But for Heinard, this is a price he is willing to bear.

What Asra wants is the green diamond in the hands of the "company", which is the one Chen Ke and the others grabbed today.

The "Company" is a private organization formed by hundreds of large-scale spiritual enterprises in the United Federation. It has no fixed members and form, and no one knows who leads it.

The core members will never change, but other members come and go. It seems loose, but in fact it is extremely stable. It is currently known that the "company" is committed to researching psychic powers and the commercial prospects of the Great Void.

In a sense, it is a more profit-seeking business alliance than a purely academic organization like the Psychic Research Institute.

Asra wants Heinard to be their eyes and ears, searching for the diamond, and promises to use their power to find Margaret and transform her into a human.

A few more years later, Lucina had grown from a little girl into a mature and strong woman, and Heinard's temples had turned slightly white, and she joined the postman.

At this moment, he finally learned that the "company" had been transferring the green holy diamond back and forth, and the next destination was the Si Group.

Is it God's will or coincidence? None of this matters.

The killer in the consortium, Lin Mo, and his sister were also sacrificed as sacrilegious daggers by the people in the consortium.

Hainard took this as an opportunity to form an alliance with Lin Mo, working together inside and outside to steal the holy diamond.

But Lin Mo's sister was not transformed into a contract demon, but was used as the key to the door. Only contract demons can be transformed into humans, and the key is dead when it dies.

Heinard did not tell Lin Mo this because this was his only chance.

Asra and the Sri Lanka Consortium have been cooperating on and off. The consortium needs Asra's power to hold ceremonies for the new blasphemous dagger, and Asra also needs what the consortium brings back from the Great Void.

However, there were some rare items that even the consortium was unwilling to sell to Asra, so in the transaction a year ago, Heinard and Lin Moli cooperated and secretly exchanged the items in the box.

That transaction was just a preview of the subsequent diamond theft. The severed hand that Asra longed for came from another witch in the Great Void. The consortium sacrificed many people before cutting off her forearm with powerful magic.

Asra deliberately exposed himself that day, letting the alienated individuals who hated them follow, trying to steal the severed hand at a very small cost in the chaos.

Because the Si Consortium is a good partner, Asra does not want to ruin the chance of cooperation for a severed hand. They can blame the death of the consortium gunman and the disappearance of the severed hand on the alienated individual.

This was the real purpose of the deal a year ago, and it was also the first cooperation between Heinard and Lin Mo. And after that, only a few months later, they did it again...

This time Lin Mo stole the green holy diamond and mixed it into the trading items. Asra also repeated his trick and finally succeeded in stealing the holy diamond.

"We got the Holy Diamond, but Asra told me that after they performed the ceremony, they failed to summon the Contract Demon transformed by Margaret..." Heinard shook his head.

One contract demon corresponds to a pair of daggers. It seems that after Lin Mo died that night, the dagger he used was not the one Margaret sacrificed.