S.H.I.E.L.D.’s Needless Worrying

But an expulsion order was merely an expulsion order.

Until the sun rose the next day, New York’s assassins never received the sweeping purge order that should have followed the expulsion order.

This left many assassins baffled.

What was that supposed to mean?

They couldn’t kill anyone inside their rooms at The Continental Hotel, which counted as private space, yet the Black King could brazenly start killing in the bar?

Had the times changed?

Or…

Had the rules changed, and had The Continental Hotel, the universally acknowledged safe zone of the assassin world, disappeared as well?

Underlying currents surged through the assassin world.

This was a major matter. If it was not handled properly, the rules The Continental Hotel had spent countless years establishing would collapse. With the slightest misstep, even The Continental Hotel’s credibility could completely explode.

Every assassin who heard the news turned their attention toward The Continental Hotel. As time passed, if The Continental Hotel failed to give a response within a short period, the assassins would vote with their feet.

However…

Lake did not care in the slightest. Just as he had said before, the cash lottery was not giving Lake a beginner’s protection period. It was giving this world a beginner’s protection period.

Only those lacking strength would weigh the pros and cons.

Lake?

A truly uninhibited person cared about only one thing: having their thoughts flow freely.

The news that the Black King had brazenly opened fire at a New York hotel spread throughout the entire assassin world. It even reached S.H.I.E.L.D., an organization that previously had not even been worthy of possessing a name.

Barbara Morse!

Barbara Morse, who had been working undercover in the assassin world under an alias all this time, immediately reported the news to S.H.I.E.L.D. after learning about it.

Inside S.H.I.E.L.D.’s Three Feathers.

In the conference room.

Director Nick Fury, Deputy Director Maria Hill, and even Commander Victoria Hand were present.

S.H.I.E.L.D.’s New York Operations Center had already been frozen. The Black Heart Demon incident had directly led to the dissolution of the New York Operations Center, so Commander Victoria Hand had naturally returned to Three Feathers.

"This is consistent with our profile."

Nick Fury spoke first, throwing the intelligence from the assassin world onto the table. "Wherever there is Lake Edwin, there is the Black King. I originally thought the Black King would at least show some restraint, but I never expected him to directly kill Sandel inside The Continental Hotel."

Maria Hill crossed her hands. "According to the intelligence we gathered previously, someone once offended the Black King, but the Black King did not act inside The Continental Hotel. Clearly, the Black King had some reservations back then. Those reservations seem to have disappeared now. I think we must figure out why."

"The establishment of the Immortal Royal Family?"

"No."

Nick Fury looked at Maria Hill. "Before that, Emilia was already one of the three elders of the vampires, and Emilia was also in power at the time. If that was the Black King’s support, then nothing has changed between before and now."

S.H.I.E.L.D. was, after all, an international intelligence agency. Even things they had not known before had become fairly clear after dealing with Lake for so many years.

"I think we may have overlooked someone."

Commander Victoria Hand spoke up. "Lake Edwin was the cause of this incident. So, could the problem lie with Lake Edwin himself?"

The assassin Black King.

The whistleblower Professor X.

Gemini Saga.

And even…

Although there was no evidence proving that V for Vendetta, who had slaughtered an entire nation with twelve people on that island, was directly connected to Lake, Daniel Whitehall had been the mastermind behind the clone incident. Coincidentally, V for Vendetta had gone to that island to find Daniel Whitehall.

Commander Victoria Hand flipped through Lake’s thick dossier, listing the aliases with countless connections to Lake. "We knew of the assassin Black King long ago. But the whistleblower Professor X, V for Vendetta, and Gemini Saga, who claims to be a Saint Seiya, had never appeared on our surveillance radar before. They all appeared only after becoming involved with Lake."

Phil Coulson, who had been sitting to the side without speaking, addressed everyone. "As soon as these people appeared on our surveillance radar, we investigated them. Not only were they extremely mysterious, but there was also something interesting about them."

When the whistleblower Professor X appeared, Lake himself was also in Washington.

When V for Vendetta appeared, Lake was already on a plane, but geographically speaking, he was still in the same city.

The Black King and Saga needed even less explanation.

New York was Lake’s territory. Both the Black King and Saga had appeared in New York. The only exception was that Saga had once appeared in Afghanistan.

Coulson tossed out a photograph of a glass-covered desert in Afghanistan.

Everyone looked over.

Although they had all visited the site in person, the glass that had appeared in the desert—and the Gemini constellation shining within it—was still deeply shocking every time they saw it.

Maria Hill tapped the table. "I remember Gemini Saga once saying that he was Gemini Saga of the Twelve Zodiac Temples. Could it be possible that these people all belong to the mysterious organization known as the Twelve Zodiac Temples?"

Nick Fury said, "The only information we have on the Twelve Zodiac Temples that can be connected to anything comes from scattered records found in our written database."

The records Lake had found through Red Queen’s massive excavation of the internet had also been discovered by S.H.I.E.L.D. In fact, S.H.I.E.L.D. had found even more information than Lake.

After all, S.H.I.E.L.D. had an advantage Lake did not. S.H.I.E.L.D. possessed a massive archive containing countless handwritten records that had never been entered into a computer.

Those records were what S.H.I.E.L.D. had found in that archive.

The Twelve Zodiac Temples.

It had first been proposed by Leonardo Da Vinci during the late Renaissance. According to the information S.H.I.E.L.D. had gathered, the Twelve Zodiac Temples proposed by Da Vinci was, like S.H.I.E.L.D., a global secret intelligence organization. It could even be called the ancestor of all global secret intelligence organizations.

But S.H.I.E.L.D. did not know where its headquarters were or who its members were.

Only scattered records indicated that the Twelve Zodiac Temples had apparently experienced a rebellion. Afterward, the organization was completely disbanded, and there were no further records.

"Judging from the combat strength Gemini Saga displayed…"

Nick Fury shook his head. "He has no connection to that ancient Twelve Zodiac Temples. After all, the Twelve Zodiac Temples are also the names of the twelve constellations. Perhaps this is an entirely new Twelve Zodiac Temples."

Commander Victoria Hand said, "So, the root of all these problems lies with Lake Edwin. But compared with these people, Lake Edwin seems rather ordinary."

Viewed alone, Lake was undoubtedly the most dazzling star. But if all these people were gathered together, Lake seemed much less radiant.

Then what had caused Lake Edwin to become connected with people even more dazzling than him?

Equal status?

Common interests?

The same hobbies?

An assassin, a whistleblower, and an ascetic?

No matter how they looked at it, status and interests clearly did not fit. That left only the last possibility: the same hobbies. But that did not withstand scrutiny either.

Nick Fury tapped the table. Seeing the topic begin to drift, he pulled it back to its starting point. "Everyone, the relationship between Lake Edwin and these people is not what we need to focus on most right now. What matters is something else: how will The Continental Hotel handle this matter, and do we need to intervene?"

Maria Hill said directly, "We know about the Immortal Queen behind the Black King, and The Continental Hotel will know as well. Unless they are determined to fight to the death, they will never go to war with the Immortal Royal Family."

After all, the news that the vampires of the Immortal Royal Family did not fear sunlight had already spread. Although it had circulated mainly through the dark world, some ordinary people had learned of it as well. In the dark world, there was a vampire faction that did not fear sunlight. Those they transformed gained the vampires’ longevity without any of their other weaknesses.

Some wealthy people who no longer wished to remain human had even offered enormous sums in the hope of becoming members of the Immortal Royal Family. However, the Immortal Queen had declared long ago that she would not transform any ordinary human.

After all, with the advantages of eternal youth, immortality, and immunity to sunlight, the Immortal Royal Family could theoretically turn the entire Earth into a planet of vampires. But that existed only in theory.

No one would be willing to see that happen.

Commander Victoria Hand was not as certain as Maria Hill. "But if The Continental Hotel is afraid to go to war with the Immortal Royal Family, its own foundation will crumble."

For The Continental Hotel, this appeared to be a dilemma.

But for S.H.I.E.L.D., it was not a choice at all. As long as they did not simply pretend nothing had happened, neither option The Continental Hotel chose was something S.H.I.E.L.D. wanted to see.

If The Continental Hotel chose to uphold its rules and go to war, there was no telling how many people would die. But if it chose the latter, the assassin world, which was still operating within the rules, would undoubtedly collapse. The era would likely regress, returning to the bloody days when assassins acted independently, killing one another without restraint.

Nick Fury spoke up. "Actually, what worries me most about this is whether, if the matter continues to develop, Lake Edwin will also step in to help his friend."

If Lake Edwin stepped in, it would essentially foreshadow an outcome everyone could already see.