10x God-Tier Stealing System: Pumping S-Rank SuperHeroines Daily!-Chapter 159- Stop Acting

Cruxius arrived at the shattered doorway of the office. He halted, his dark eyes scanning the ruined space. There was nothing but a cold, suffocating silence.

His gaze flickered across the carnage until it landed on the blood-soaked floor. Several guards lay motionless, their bodies twisted. Right before them sat a wet, mangled lump of raw meat.

It didn’t faze him—except for one glaring detail. It was a human heart.

Given his long, bloody history of slaughter, he recognized the torn muscle tissue and severed valves at a mere glance.

Following the thick, smeared trail of red, he found another body sprawled awkwardly on the expensive rug. A man dressed in a sharp, formal black butler’s outfit.

Ermond.

His uniform was ruined, his chest a hollowed-out, bloody cavern.

At that exact moment, something dark and jagged snapped deep inside Cruxius.

There was no lingering regret. Only a cold, raw flare of anger. His sharp gaze slowly turned toward the man seated nearby, slumped in his high-backed leather chair as if his entire empire had just collapsed.

It gave Cruxius a brief, calculated window to push his agenda.

It might not have been the most sensitive timing, but for Cruxius, this was the perfect opening. His father was emotionally compromised, sitting in the wreckage of having nothing left to lose.

Perhaps this sudden vulnerability would finally work in his favor. Bitter regrets only surfaced when a man realized he couldn’t undo his fatal mistakes.

Without a single shift in his stoic expression, Cruxius stepped forward.

His heavy boots squelched wetly against the soaked floorboards. His own tailored shirt hung in shredded, bloody tatters, exposing the hard, sweat-slicked ridges of his abs and the deep, rigid V-line dipping past his waistband.

He stood tall, an imposing, battered predator, right before the head of the Blac family.

"Where is mother’s grave?" he inquired quietly, his voice dangerously smooth.

The heavy question hung in the stale air. It was a missing puzzle piece Cruxius had never discovered in his past life.

It was the one nagging detail that had kept him teetering on the edge of utter confusion. He had always been unsure whether he could truly accept that the day he saw his mother die was actually the end.

He had been used as a helpless hostage back then. He had watched her get beheaded in a bizarre manner that felt staged—almost intentional.

Yet, no deep emotional trauma had ignited in him at the time. At least, not enough to fuel a blind, reckless vengeance against the royal families.

The only concrete truth he knew was that his mother was supposed to be virtually unkillable.

So the bitter fact remained: he wasn’t aware of the full truth. But perhaps this aging man—the proud head of the family—was.

Initially, Cruxius had a far more manipulative plan. He intended to find a gorgeous woman possessing the rare power of mind-reading. He planned to thoroughly seduce her, break her down with raw pleasure until she was hopelessly addicted to him, and then use her unique abilities to forcefully pry the secrets from his father’s stubborn mind.

But with the ancient curse acting as a mental vault, he had long since dismissed any hope that such an intimate infiltration would succeed.

Now, with the loyal butler dead and his father sitting in this broken, vulnerable state, a rare opportunity had opened up. A raw chance to finally get what he wanted.

"...Oh, son?"

The head of the family slowly lifted his heavy gaze. His tired eyes blinked, his dry lips parting as if his brilliant mind was entirely frozen by grief.

The brutal trauma, the physical pain, the sudden shock of the vampire’s assault—it all seemed to have shattered the iron mental fortitude that built the Blac empire. It revealed a fragile, broken man, far removed from the ruthless, untouchable business tycoon Cruxius had always known.

That cold, unapproachable aura had vanished. It left behind only a crumbling figure, someone looking like they were barely holding on at their deathbed.

’This old man...?’ Cruxius narrowed his dark eyes suspiciously.

The wavering voice, the overly defeated posture—all of it felt cheap. It felt like a stage play. His father was actively pretending to be broken.

Yes, he could clearly see the old man was acting out a pathetic role. But Cruxius didn’t understand exactly why.

"Where is mother’s grave?" he asked again.

The silence returned. Tense. Suffocating.

The older man across the desk did not respond right away. Instead, he just stared up at his half-naked, blood-drenched son with hollowed eyes. His expression was a blank, unreadable slate.

And then—he smiled.

It wasn’t born of joy. Nor was it a grimace of grief. It was a slow, stiff curve, crawling up his wrinkled face like something heavily forced.

Cruxius didn’t miss a single detail.

He tracked every subtle, deliberate motion. He watched the way his father’s manicured fingers gripped the edge of the mahogany table, trying to stand while faking a severe weakness. Acting as if the sheer weight of the tragedy had crushed his spine.

His body rose sluggishly, yet with entirely too much muscle control for a dying man. He extended a trembling hand slightly, as if desperately seeking his son’s physical support...

But Cruxius didn’t move an inch. He didn’t even flinch.

The offered hand awkwardly retreated. Quiet. Withdrawn.

The fake smile cracked at the edges.

Their gazes locked—and Cruxius saw the slip. A brief flicker of genuine frustration. The sharp disappointment that his smart son hadn’t blindly walked into the emotional trap he had so carefully prepared.

A faint, irritated frown touched his father’s brow.

Still acting.

Cruxius kept his handsome features entirely neutral, his dark eyes unwavering. He wasn’t emotionally moved. He wasn’t fooled in the slightest.

And his father... he saw the cold realization in his son’s eyes. His mouth twitched. The edge of his masterful control frayed for just a single, erratic heartbeat.

But stubbornly, the theatrical performance continued.

He slumped back heavily into the leather chair, playing the exhausted, grieving patriarch crumbling under the weight of his sins.

A total lie.

Cruxius saw right through it all. It was a broken mask that refused to shatter fully, held together by sheer ego. His father’s towering pride refused to let him be honest and vulnerable. Not even in a room smelling of fresh death.

Still, Cruxius knew the rules had changed. Now that the bloody invitation from the Lord had formally arrived, the magical restriction on the old man’s mind had lifted. He could freely speak. The suffocating curse that had prevented him from revealing the truth no longer applied.

Yet... he kept his mouth shut.

Not because he couldn’t speak.

Because he wouldn’t.

That damn, infuriating pride again.

It was one of the few logical reasons Cruxius could think of. It was stopping his father from revealing things in a straightforward, manly way. Rather, the old fox was trying to act out a pathetic scene to force a confession without hurting his ego.

But playing mind games with a time-traveler was harder than the old man had initially thought.

"I don’t know, son."

Cruxius just stood there, watching the sweat drip down his own muscular chest. He saw how that mask of pure stubbornness didn’t seem to waiver, but it had zero impact on his determination to hear the truth.

He let out a tired, heavy sigh.

"Stop acting, Dad. You know you can’t act well."