The silver hairpins had barely settled on the vanity before the temperature in the room plummeted. Mei Yilan slowly turned, her gaze sweeping over the shifting darkness. "Well," she said, her voice cutting through the gloom like a shard of ice, "you certainly aren't the ones who I killed back then."
A tall, spindly figure detached himself from the shadows. Wraith-043 stepped forward, the bone-white mask of the Syndicate gleaming. As he moved, a suffocating, heavy pressure flooded the chamber, the unmistakable aura of a Peak Golden Core master. He tilted his head, a wide, jagged grin visible beneath the edge of his mask.
"I truly didn't expect to see you here, Crimson Sword Master," he rasped, his voice a hideous sound like grinding bone. He let out a low, mocking laugh. "I am glad I accepted this contract. To think, I get to be the one to extinguish the woman who humiliated the Thousand-Ghost Syndicate and stained our record with the blood of my seniors."
