The whole world was silent.
It was as if even the light from the chandelier hanging in the apartment lobby had been frozen in place. Faced with such overwhelming power, Ian felt he should have realized long ago that this was not authority any ordinary reaper could possess.
Maybe it was all because his Intelligence stat still was not high enough, leaving him unable to fully support his own wisdom, which was why his intelligence kept suffering intermittent shutdowns whenever things were not quite critical enough.
Just as Ian was regretting this inwardly,
Fake Tessa narrowed her sharply defined eyes and fixed him with a stare. Her brows were drawn so tightly together that it looked as if she were forcing herself from an eighteen-year-old beauty into a twenty-eight-year-old beauty by sheer willpower alone.
Ian's heart skipped again.
Since he had already decided she was a major power, he paused for a moment before carefully probing her.
"You look like you're in a bad mood?"
Ian knew this definitely was not the time to expose her lies. No matter what age a woman was, getting caught in a lie could make her explode.
"Or is it that reapers also have a few difficult days every month?"
He understood very clearly that someone of his strength absolutely could not afford to provoke a powerful being who was already irritated. Fortunately, his emotional intelligence was high enough that he knew now was the time to act dumb.
Ian drew on the acting skills Madison had taught him.
However,
the expression on Fake Tessa's face stiffened.
"Do you think you're funny?"
Her voice sounded as if it had been squeezed out through clenched teeth.
"Huh?"
Ian blinked, looking blank.
Seeing that, Fake Tessa took a deep breath and tried to preserve her composure. She even lifted a hand and rubbed her temples.
Not because her head truly hurt.
But because if she did not occupy her hands somehow, she was afraid she might smack Ian to death with a single blow. And the idea of having this guy around her after that was honestly horrifying.
"It's only been a few hours, yet I've already sensed you coming infinitely close to death several times. You were only investigating. There shouldn't have been any danger at all."
Fake Tessa voiced her confusion. That was likely also why she had come looking for Ian again so soon. Every time he triggered the curse, she had seen something she could not understand.
"I live in Metropolis. Gotham is right next door. Of course danger is everywhere when I'm out and about."
Ian blinked, trying to bluff his way through.
However,
"You're not telling the truth. I can feel it. Yes, you're drawing strength from states close to death."
As expected, the older the woman, the sharper her eyes.
She had already more or less guessed Ian's condition.
At the same time,
perhaps the system's rank stood above hers. She could only make judgments by observing Ian, which was why there was still a bit of uncertainty in her voice.
"Well, how should I put this."
Ian realized that even a being like her did not seem able to see through his greatest secret. While turning that over in his mind, he offered a vague explanation.
"MacArthur once said, death never misses, but humanity can always find a loophole."
Ian spoke righteously, even pinching his voice a little to imitate the old general's tone.
"????"
Fake Tessa looked baffled again.
"Wasn't that Morpheus?"
She looked at Ian suspiciously.
"Oh, fine, you caught me. Then let's say Morpheus said it. The MacArthur collection won't miss this one sentence anyway."
Ian's expression of regret was completely undisguised.
"So you know about Death, and now you know about Dream too."
Fake Tessa narrowed her eyes meaningfully. Her gaze seemed like it wanted to pierce through Ian's soul.
Ian did not avoid it.
Even while enduring the dizziness that came with meeting her eyes, he still nodded.
"One day I'll figure out your secret."
Instead of getting angry, Fake Tessa suddenly smiled, as if she had discovered something genuinely interesting.
Her reaction also made Ian smile faintly.
To be honest, compared with those people who liked acting like prophets in front of ordinary people, only to instantly chicken out and start hiding everything the moment they met a real powerhouse, Ian preferred not to make too much effort to conceal himself.
Of course, he had actually thought this through.
If a powerful being wanted to know something, they could search a person's soul in an instant. No matter how careful someone was, could the soul of an ordinary human really hide from a being that had lived for countless ages?
Even his Reverse Blood Furnace had already been noticed.
At that point, whether there were tells or not no longer mattered. The more he bounced around, the more attention he attracted, and attention always came with danger.
And if he wanted to obtain a long-term death immunity buff, then there was no way he could avoid dealing with the powerful being in front of him.
Risk and reward always rose together.
That was exactly why Ian did not want to live in constant fear and timid caution.
Thinking back to his first meeting with this powerhouse, he had also brought up information he should not have known back then. Yet afterward, that same powerhouse had still failed to uncover his secret.
That meant one of two things.
Either she did not want to search his memories.
Or she could not search his memories.
Knowing that she would never have offered him a chance to save someone for no reason, Ian leaned more toward the second possibility.
And with that judgment in mind,
he had just gambled again with another small test.
And the facts proved,
the title of Metropolis's God of Gambling continued to rise in value.
Very few beings in the DC Universe knew Dream's identity, and a powerful woman who showed him no respect could only be one thing.
One of the ultimate concepts of the DC Universe, like Dream himself, a member of the Endless family.
Death.
With that small gamble, Ian had confirmed his own theory.
"The rougher the storm, the more valuable the fish. I really should slick my hair back."
Ian gave himself a little mental thumbs-up. His expression, meanwhile, only made the true big shot wearing Fake Tessa's face feel even more baffled.
Still,
she did not ask about it.
She had serious business to address.
"I remember telling you that you could only rely on yourself in this matter, didn't I?"
Whether Fake Tessa still did not know what Ian had gone through, or simply did not care whether he had seen through the truth, she acted as if she had noticed nothing about his performance at all.
"Boss lady, take a good look at my face. Does it or does it not look like the face of a loser?"
Ian was trying to express, in a roundabout way, that he could not possibly handle something Superman himself had failed to deal with.
"If you keep being this irritating, then soon you won't need to worry about whether you're pathetic or not."
Fake Tessa ground her teeth and glared at Ian in annoyance.
"Got it."
Ian chose to shut up.
Fake Tessa stared at him for several seconds, then turned to look at Kara, who was still frozen in place nearby after that brief abnormal moment. A trace of complexity entered her black-and-white eyes.
"You broke the rules. I originally wanted to teach you a harsh lesson, but you showed me something... unusual."
Her voice paused for a moment,
as though weighing something.
"You may ask her for help. But only her."
Fake Tessa made her decision in a tone that did not allow question or objection, leaving Ian stunned on the spot as if he had been struck by lightning.
"That's not safe enough, though. Let me ask one more. No, two more!"
Ian immediately tried to bargain. His entire plan had already been set, and now it was about to fall apart.
First ask Supergirl, because she would never harm Superman. Then use Supergirl's connections to get to the Flash, and use the Flash's connections to bring in Wonder Woman.
What a perfect networking strategy!
And the client had rejected it in one sentence.
Did she even know how to read a proposal or not?
Faced with Ian's unwillingness,
Fake Tessa did not react emotionally the way she had before.
"Believe me, even allowing this much is already very risky for me."
Her voice was low and carried a strange undertone. There was even a touch of weariness in it.
"Why is it risky?"
Ian was truly surprised and deeply confused.
To that,
Fake Tessa gave no answer.
"Our cards are very limited. Every loss would be irreversible."
She only sighed and became cryptic again, then turned and walked out through the front entrance, disappearing immediately.
Ian felt there had been heavy information hidden in her words.
But before he could sort any of it out,
the world resumed its movement once more.
(End of Chapter)
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