When the plot-skips players into the game world

After venting his anger with curses, Tommy Lohar calmed down somewhat.

After much consideration, he decided not to leave Vice Chairman Boka any time to prepare—after all, his situation was different from Boka's, as his time was extremely urgent.

If he had to kill Boka but failed to capture Aleister, he would have to start the search from scratch; even if he could capture Boka alive, he might not be able to torture the correct information out of him… and even if he obtained the correct information, it could change at any moment.

There was also another slim possibility—that Aleister was not Boka's man, but belonged to the Noble Red Society instead.

"They are using this method to mislead us into slaughtering each other…"

Tommy murmured to himself, "Is there such a possibility?"

After all, it was common knowledge that he and Boka had a longstanding feud. Doubts about each other at this moment seemed more like excuses to convince themselves to take action.

But after much thought, Tommy still believed that this possibility was unlikely.

Because from the perspective of Noble Red, although they wanted to stir up trouble and had strong hostility towards Aiwass Moriarty, they would not use Shadow Demon at this time—Shadow Demon outside of cognition and a well-known existing Shadow Demon posed entirely different levels of danger.

Not to mention, Aleister had just recently reached the second energy level.

If he could continue to develop, he could further manifest Shadow Demon's strength. Once he reached the third or even the fourth energy level, given the right opportunity, he could even pose a life-threatening risk to a Transcendent at the fifth level.

Although their goal of restoration was laughable, their attitude was serious. If they really had such an ace up their sleeve, they would likely keep it hidden until the very last moment.

Therefore, Tommy didn't think the Noble Red Society would sell out Aleister just to have them kill each other off—it didn't make sense. If they wanted to achieve this result, there were many other ways they could do it.

He and Boka were ultimately different.

Boka was a corrupt judge who turned to business mid-career, not a pure businessman.

He valued logic more, while Tommy valued motivation… or rather, benefits.

When not blind with rage, Tommy would always think from the perspective of "whether doing this would be beneficial for the other party." His judgment of human nature and motivation was always very accurate, which was why he was able to become the current "Lohar."

Since there were many extraordinary abilities capable of strange feats, starting from logic could easily lead one to miss a key clue and box oneself into a dead end, resulting in incorrect conclusions. Tommy believed his approach was correct—he would analyze events looking for whom the biggest beneficiary might be.

He might find the wrong person, but it didn't matter. After all, killing off the beneficiary and then continuing the search was the way to go.

If everyone suffered together, then it was as if no one suffered at all.

As long as no one gained from it, their bloody game could continue.

Just in case, Tommy, whose head had cooled off, carefully reviewed the clues from beginning to end while he had not flared up in anger again.

The only doubt in the matter was whether Boka sounded a bit angry when he answered the phone.

Based on Tommy's understanding of Boka's character, if Boka were orchestrating this, his emotions would be stable—he would speak to Tommy condescendingly and with smiles, suggesting something like "Let's form an alliance," then wait for Tommy to really trust him before stabbing him in the back.

With Boka's weak nature—if it wasn't an act—he would probably not want to confront Tommy head-on.

Because Tommy was stronger than him. Whether it was his own strength, the authority he wielded, or the money and connections he could mobilize, in every aspect, he was much stronger than Boka.

"But…"

Tommy frowned deeply, lost in thought.

…Forget it.

After much thought, he still gave up the possibility of negotiating with Boka.

Because no matter what, Boka's hostility towards him was real. Even if he was willing to cooperate with the other party temporarily to find the mastermind behind the scenes, he couldn't say for sure that Boka wouldn't betray him. Or rather, Boka was sure to betray him, it was just a matter of time.

It would be better to take this opportunity to eliminate Boka first.

If Boka could find out through some channel that he had already been "judged" by Meg, according to his usual style, he would definitely try to hinder Tommy and drag him down alive. From this perspective, their relationship was kill or be killed—if there was a chance to ensure the death of the other party, both sides would act.

Then, even if he had found the wrong person…

First, I need to deal with Boka.

The three days Meg left him were anything but long, and if Boka deliberately made trouble, there definitely wouldn't be enough time.

If this matter was related to Boka, he would either detain him for interrogation, or find someone to extract his memories—if it indeed had nothing to do with him, then he would just kill him.

Once Tommy had made up his mind, he began making one phone call after another.

The most crucial was Miss Grey Green.

If Boka's faction was considered the second force within the Lohar Society, then she was regarded the third force. She always maintained a balance between the two, but now it was time for her to pick a side.

But fortunately...

Upon hearing the full story, Miss Grey Green immediately declared her stance on his side. This somewhat lifted Tommy's spirits.

He didn't want to give Boka any time to prepare.

Therefore, Tommy didn't even plan to wait until evening—typically, that was when people like them took action. Because the field of view at night is narrow, one could easily escape to the maze of warehouses and backdoors in Lohar District.

And at night, the already slow Supervisory Bureau would become even slower... By the time the Inspectors arrived, they usually had already made a far escape.

But the situation was different now.

One reason was the lack of time; he couldn't afford to waste a whole day given that Boka might not even know the truth of the matter. The other reason was that Boka was well familiar with their style. If they waited until night, perhaps he would have already taken measures.

He might set up defensive rituals, bribe his underlings, call upon his old friends from the Court of Law for protection, or he might even flee directly—if he managed to escape from Glass Island, Tommy would really have no way to deal with him.

Therefore, it was less than two hours after the threatening call to Boka had ended.

Tommy and his fully armed men were already approaching Boka's residence.

Their mode of transportation was eight carriages modified for their needs.

Not that the carriages were particularly fast, but hidden inside their compartments were full sets of pre-engraved magic circles.

This was still Tommy's unique invention—he took a complete ritual array and divided it into multiple parts without affecting its efficacy, to circumvent the Inspectors' scrutiny.

The only part of the ritual array that couldn't be divided was the ritual ring. As long as all the rings were complete, the rituals would function normally. So, it was actually possible to produce different parts of the various necessary arrays separately, and when needed, assemble them together.

The Inspectors might have studied Ritual Studies but certainly were not proficient. The complete ritual arrays divided apart would hardly be recognized immediately as a demon summoning array.

When taken out alone, the outer ring looked just like a wooden hoop, seemingly a spare wheel, while the inner circle could be hidden under the seat cushions, or could even be brazenly rimmed with leather and hung on the wall as a decorative shield.

On the carriage, they could now piece them together on site.

By soaking them with human blood mixed with sodium phosphate solution, they could summon their demons directly on the carriage.

Although Tommy's "invention" was despised by the Noble Red Society, as such pieced-together arrays were always much weaker than normal ones and could easily harm the ritualist,Nôv(el)B\\jnn

Tommy was a complete pragmatist—using transcendence as a tool and authority as a goal. Stay connected with empire

After all, even if it exploded, the one hurt wouldn't be him.

Perhaps it was the Serpent Father's blessing, but this subpar ritual array, with an estimated 5% failure rate, didn't fail even once.

Their group of over thirty had not yet reached their destination when their numbers had already doubled.

More than sixty against two... Now, just over an hour later, even if he managed to find people, he couldn't get many. At most, one or two. Even adding Boka and his demon, that was still far from being a match for them.

How could they possibly lose?

—Now, the advantage is mine.

Tommy was brimming with confidence.