Chapter 173 You Betrayed the Noble Red

Tommy didn't stay in the interrogation room or go to the prison to hit the treadmill.

He was being held in a very cautious underground chamber in the Red Queen's Supervisory Bureau.

His hands were bound with glowing shackles, and a silver-white seal was branded on his bare back. He wore nothing but pocketless shorts.

The High Demon Tommy had contracted was chopped off by the Great Guardian in just ten minutes. After being imprisoned, he was searched to ensure he had no jewelry or materials on him—they even opened his mouth to carefully check for any false teeth.

As a demonologist, he should be considered disarmed... but even so, the law mages still sealed him firmly, preventing him from mobilizing his mana. The same light-attributed mana, in the hands of a priest, could heal others and dispel darkness; but in the hands of a law mage, it would become a bondage and seal.

Although Tommy knelt down and surrendered without hesitation in front of the Great Guardian - in fact, when he saw the Great Guardian, he already knew that he could not escape.

If Tommy had fled, he would have been caught up by the watching griffins. He might even have been chased by the Great Guardian himself, riding a griffin.

——He couldn't even defeat the Great Guardian without a griffin, let alone one with a griffin.

Even if he did escape... he would become a fugitive and be wanted.

After all, he wasn't some unknown figure; "Tommy Lloyd" was a well-known name throughout the Lloyds district, and his size clearly made him unsuitable for concealment.

Most importantly - he didn't want to die like this.

The coldness and anger in the Great Guardian's eyes frightened him.

If he didn't surrender in time, even if he wasn't killed, but was merely knocked down or injured, he would still be killed by Meg's Word Spirit. But the reason he surrendered wasn't because he wanted to die more easily... but because he was sure he could survive.

——Because he holds too many cards.

Tommy was 100% sure that Boca knew far less than he did, not even one-tenth as much as he did.

He usually takes on the most important part of the work himself, just to prepare for this moment.

He knew too much about other people: at least two-thirds of the knights in the entire Round Table Hall had directly or indirectly sought financial support from him, and he had carefully preserved at least 80% of the evidence.

He also knew the Noble Red Society's strongholds and codes across Avalon; he knew the current locations and duties of the spies who had infiltrated. He also knew which knights or knight families had ties to Star Antimony or Iris's spies, and which important figures had committed serious crimes... He also kept all this evidence in different places.

To put it another way, he is at least a demonologist at the peak level of the fourth energy level.

He only needed to complete the advancement ritual to reach the fifth level. He could also help designated individuals advance to the fifth level during the ritual—after all, failure at the fourth level would severely damage the soul and could even put one's life in danger. There weren't many fifth-level experts in all of Avalon.

However, he was physically strong and could withstand the backlash of the ritual. The birth of a large number of fifth-level transcendents was also meaningful; even if he advanced himself, it wouldn't matter, after all, as he was a demonologist without a contracted demon, and in a sense, he was harmless.

Regardless of whether he succeeded in advancing, he could serve as a living detector of the Dao of Transcendence. As long as the authorities sent the suspected person to him, he could tell whether the person had reached the Dao of Transcendence level.

——He is really useful, in every sense of the word.

Because of this, Tommy became even tougher after being locked up. He was convinced that if he told everything, the Supervisory Bureau would have to consider it carefully. And in order to keep him alive, they would have Meg remove the Word Spirit.

Although Tommy had been sealed, he could at least commit suicide to prevent the Law Mage from searching his memories. The Demonologist's last remaining power was to sacrifice himself to summon demons. Not to mention, he knew so many secrets that Tommy couldn't even remember many of them, relying on texts he had hidden somewhere and codes to analyze them.

Searching memories only searches for recent observations and hearings, but "thoughts" and "skills" are invisible. In other words, no one knows his password, and even if they get the encrypted document, it's difficult to decipher.

This was Tommy's special preparation for the lawyer's memory search.

——If he is killed, then these secrets will never be revealed. He threatened.

Thus, the situation entered a stage that Tommy was familiar with—game, or bargaining.

If he doesn't cooperate, he will be cursed to death by Meg; but if he dies, Avalon will lose a lot of valuable clues, and Avalon will not be able to find a more valuable source of intelligence than him.

And there are many secrets that only he knows, and even searching his memory will not reveal them all.

In other words, if Tommy died, it would be a situation that neither side wanted to see; but after all, he had a bomb strapped to his body that would kill him if it was not defused within three days, and the initiative in this matter was in the hands of the Supervisory Bureau.

The two sides were caught in a game of chess. The Inspectorate didn't want Tommy dead, but they had to use this threat to get them to give up more information. Tommy knew he was very useful and that the Inspectorate didn't want him dead, so he gritted his teeth and refused to give in, hoping to gain more benefits.

This was right in Tommy's comfort zone. Gambling was his forte.

Tommy did not ask for the removal of the Word Spirit, but instead requested at least a suspended sentence, with the duration extended to thirty days. If the Supervisory Bureau agreed, he would reveal three recent secrets, including the missing Aiwass, as their first deal.

As a sign of the sincerity of the cooperation between the two parties and to prove that what he said was true, he asked the Director of the Inspectorate who came to interrogate her if she had any knights she disliked.

After the other party reported the names of three knights who were quite hostile to the Queen, Tommy did not hesitate to tell their crimes and the location where the evidence was kept.

“This is a trial product.”

Tommy's eyes flashed with a cunning look: "You can try it and see if what I said is true or not.

"If it is possible, please, Lady Meg, loosen the noose around my neck a little... I will be more valuable."

The Supervisory Bureau was no pushover. They wanted more, so the initiative for cooperation couldn't fall into Tommy's hands.

So they locked him up in the absolutely safe basement, intending to leave him there for the time being.

A day had already passed, and Tommy only had two days left to live. By the time he had a day or half a day left, even if he knew what was happening, he'd undoubtedly be anxious. Don't underestimate Tommy's calm and cunning self now; once his blood pressure spiked, his giant blood would naturally cloud his mind... Then, it wouldn't be too late to discuss cooperation.

There was no food, no lights, no one to talk to.

Tommy was locked in a dark and silent little room.

This is a very effective method of torture.

Now that half a day had passed, he no longer knew what time it was outside. It even felt like three days had already passed, or that the time was almost up... The fear in his heart caused him to hallucinate, and childhood memories played like a slideshow.

The people he had seen and killed appeared before his eyes like hallucinations. Their voices, laughter, and dying cries echoed in his ears. Tommy curled up in his bed, eyes open but motionless.

Tommy is a hybrid giant from three generations ago.

At the same time, he is also a half-elf.

He has only one-eighth of giant blood in his body and one-quarter of elf blood in his body.

Logically, he should just be a half-elf with a bad temper.

But by the time of his generation, the giant blood in his body suddenly returned to its ancestral state and became unusually active...

His father disappeared before he was born; and his mother remarried after giving birth to him, but died of illness less than two years later.

When Tommy was three years old, his parents were no longer related to him by blood, but even so, his father still raised him.

——Until he was five years old, unable to suppress the raging blood in his body, he kicked his grandmother's knee and broke it.

He was beaten up by his stepfather, who had no blood relationship with him, and then abandoned to Lloyd's Quarter.

At that time, the Noble Red had not yet entered the Glass Island, so there were not so many demonologists in the Lloyds District who were in urgent need of materials. So at least he would not be decomposed on the spot into humanoid self-propelled materials.

Although the heart, bone marrow, liver, and kidneys of a half-giant could be used as rare alchemical materials to make giant strength potions, rage potions, potent pregnancy-preserving potions, and long-lasting stimulants, a five-year-old giant looked similar to an ordinary human child, and no one would notice he was a half-giant.

However, if an adult carrying expensive items were left in Lloyd's, it would be very likely to be in danger; but a child would be very safe in Lloyd's.

Because here, children are a commodity, essential materials for training assassins, especially strong, smart, and agile children.

At that time, Lady Gray-Green was only a high-ranking assassin, not yet a manager in this area. But her boss... the "mother" who raised her since she was a child, was.

Her "mother" picked up Tommy and trained him as an assassin. However, Tommy lacked the talent to adapt to the Tao - the rage roaring in his body made it impossible for him to remain silent and still, let alone stay in the dark and observe everything calmly.

So Tommy was abandoned again. It happened that the previous Lloyd needed more adopted sons, so he bought Tommy from her.

Including President Lloyd's own wife, Tommy had seven parents, yet he never felt any family affection.

——No one knew that Tommy was not actually chosen by his adoptive father to inherit the surname "Lloyd".

The person most likely to inherit Lloyd at that time was Tommy's sister.

There are seven brothers in the family, and Tommy is the fifth.

The fourth ranked "Lovetta" has the adaptability of a balanced path. She is smart, beautiful, and cold enough.

By the time she was fourteen or fifteen, she had earned a fortune selling overseas intelligence. At eighteen, she even became friends with a prince—if he hadn't been killed by a curse, she might have even had a chance to become his princess.

Even so, she used her status as a prince to blend into Avalon's high-class circles. With her graceful demeanor and profound knowledge, she quickly became a favorite in the social circle. By then, she was already the vice president of Lloyd's.

Tommy realized that he would definitely not be able to compete with her. Once the "Sons of the Serpent" ritual was completed, his potential on the path would be drained away.

So he planned and then, through ritual research, carried out a murder. He cursed his sister with zoophilia, causing her to have sex with a bull and be discovered by someone. She then committed suicide.

But she actually failed to commit suicide - Tommy used another female corpse to disguise her body. He raped "Lovetta" and sacrificed her, using her and his two brothers as sacrifices to summon the Labyrinth Demon.

His father, not realizing it was Tommy's doing, gave him the name Lloyd. To prevent him from realizing it later, Tommy dragged his father into the maze and starved him to death.

The inspector also suspected him at the time, but could not find any evidence.

Because their bodies are either in the labyrinth of the labyrinth demon or melted after entering the dream world. Their bodies are not in the material world at all, and they didn't even die in the material world.

Then, Tommy, who was only sixteen years old at the time, cleverly realized that he needed to complete the chain of evidence in order to clear himself of suspicion.

So he fabricated evidence that his two younger brothers had stolen the family property, bought boat tickets, killed their older siblings, and seriously injured him. After Tommy was willing to pay the price of being shot six times by a pistol, the disappearance of the two younger brothers became very reasonable.

As for his brothers and sisters who were killed - of course he did it himself.

He didn't think he had done anything wrong.

The ritual of the Sons of the Serpent itself allowed and even encouraged killing each other, but it was the law of Avalon that did not allow it. So he completed the ritual and circumvented the law.

As for killing people—

He wasn't human anyway. Tommy was quite calm about it.

He did not feel any discomfort when he killed someone for the first time, and even felt excitement and stimulation - he also comforted himself like this: since those people regarded him as a giant, there was nothing wrong with him killing people.

Because of this thrill, he would sometimes roam Lloyd's at night, hunting down those who dared to wander the streets of Lloyd's late at night, using them as ritual materials... and then curse those he wanted to kill during the day. He didn't stop wandering until he grew taller and taller than the average human height.

He was almost discovered at one point, but luckily there came a "Jack the Ripper" who generously took over the crimes he committed.

Later, Tommy was targeted by the Noble Red Society.

Speaking of noble red...

Tommy frowned suddenly.

...Speaking of which, has the Supervisory Bureau prepared any countermeasures for curses?

If he betrayed Noble Red, they would probably come and curse him. They could easily get his hair, and they could curse him even if they didn't know where he was.

So, his deal would have to include "having a priest accompany him for protection." If he was cursed, he would have to dispel it in time... Considering this, perhaps asking for a female priest would be a better option.

And just then, he suddenly heard the sound of faint footsteps.

This instantly made his stagnant thoughts come alive.

When a second person appeared in the small dark room, his first reaction was joy - but then he immediately felt alert.

Why didn’t the other party turn on the light?

Why did he just walk closer without saying a word?

Tommy closed his mouth cautiously, rolled over and sat up, tensing his muscles. Although his Dao power was disabled, his body was still healthy. He surrendered in time and was not injured. Even if he was sprayed with gunfire, he could use his giant muscles to block the bullets and survive.

"—The Honourable Tommy Lloyd."

A deep and hoarse voice sounded: "Really?"

“…It’s me.”

Tommy asked in a deep voice, "Who are you?"

The next moment, Tommy saw a flash of red light.

It was the ring he was familiar with, the "Noble Red".

Did they come to rescue me?

...No, that's not right.

"You're here to kill me."

Tommy sat on the bed and answered affirmatively: "You are Aleister - who are you? If you want to kill me, at least let me hear your real voice."

After a brief silence, a soft, sweet, honey-like female voice rang out: "Yes, I will kill you.

"—Because you betrayed the Noble Red."

As she finished her words, Tommy was pierced through by the shadow demon. However, he did not roar in pain because his neck was entangled by something.

At this moment, he wrote on the bed with his own blood: "Aleister", "Woman", "Noble Red".

——If I die, you won’t have an easy life.

Tommy thought bitterly.

A huge chapter of 4,700 words, and today’s update is over 7,000 words!

(End of this chapter)