On the next day, the city fell into an uproar after several devils discovered the body of a devil inside one of the reporting posts. Not long after, news of the city lord's death spread throughout the city, causing the devils to heighten their alert and strengthen their defenses.

They knew the city had been infiltrated by an assassin.

It could even be a group.

From the marks left on the bodies, it was clear that the assassins were not devils. This meant someone from outside of the devils' force had entered this world without anyone noticing.

The discovery forced the devils across the city to begin searching for the assassins.

Perhaps they were still hiding among them.

While many devils were searching through the city, Aldrian was already on patrol aboard an interstellar vessel.

When the bodies were discovered, he was already in the middle of his patrol route.

If the bodies had been found before he departed, the city would have entered lockdown and no one would have been allowed to leave. All patrols from the city would have been halted to prevent the assassins from escaping through an interstellar vessel.

When the information about the assassination reached Aldrian's vessel, every patrol vessel that had departed from the city received orders to return immediately.

Although this would create a gap in the security around the central region of heaven, they had no choice.

Since the vampire king had taken many of their troops and interstellar vessels, the devils in this region were already short on both vessels and manpower to patrol the central region of heaven. If even one world withdrew several patrol vessels, it would create a weakness in the security surrounding the central region of heaven.

That moment could be used by outside forces to infiltrate this region.

When Aldrian returned to the city, he immediately noticed the difference. Many devils were patrolling throughout the city. The chaotic scenes full of fights and debauchery that filled the streets when he first arrived the day before had completely disappeared.

Every devil wore a serious expression, some even tense.

They made sure that no corner of the city escaped their senses.

Later, Aldrian received orders to patrol the residential area near his house. He simply followed the instructions given by the commander above him.

When night arrived, the security did not lessen. In fact, it became even stricter. The devils continued their patrols without stopping, constantly moving from one area to another. Their patrol routes formed something like a net across the city, ensuring that no one could slip through and escape.

However, unbeknownst to these devils, several of their higher ups had already been assassinated by that moment, increasing the number of corpses.

---------------------------------

Over the next two days, the situation in the city changed. Suspicion spread among the devils. Each night during those days, more devils were assassinated.

They found no traces of the assassins except for a foreign energy left behind at the scenes of the killings.

This led to many speculations. One of them was that there was a traitor among them who was helping hide the assassins.

Although it sounded ridiculous, since all of them cultivated the devil cultivation method which made them loyal to their god, many still could not dismiss the possibility.

It could not be helped that such suspicion appeared, because it was the most plausible explanation for how the assassins could remain hidden despite the constant patrols.

Seeing this situation, Aldrian inwardly smiled. It was easy to create disunity among the devils because each of them acted for their own interests. The only thing that united them was the god they served, yet they never truly trusted their fellow devil cultivators.

They could kill each other if it meant growing stronger or gaining benefits. In the harsh life of devil cultivators, one had to be prepared to lose their life the moment they lowered their guard.

That was why once the seed of doubt was planted among them, they quickly began to see each other as potential enemies.

Some devils even started fighting after accusing one another of harboring the assassins.

As the situation in the city continued to worsen and their unity kept deteriorating, the day Aldrian had been waiting for finally arrived.

At that moment, an interstellar vessel descended outside the city, drawing the attention of many devils. The vessel had clearly come from one of the worlds near the center of heaven. Its arrival meant that the higher-ups from that region had already heard about the incident and were taking the matter seriously.

After the vessel landed, a group of devil cultivators disembarked.

Aldrian stood among the devils who had come to greet them and quietly observed the group of ten. He ignored six of them and focused on the remaining four, two men and two women.

They were immortals.

The arrival of four immortals just to deal with the assassins showed how seriously the devils near the center of heaven viewed this matter. This was also the best situation Aldrian could have hoped for.

He smiled inwardly. He could not wait to see how those immortals would react when they sensed the energy he had deliberately left behind. 𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖

He also wanted to see what kind of expression Tarius would make and how he would react the moment news of this matter reached him.

He truly anticipated it.

"Ugh, to think we had to come to this place. Are the followers in this world so useless that they cannot even catch a few assassins?" One of the immortals said.

He was a black-haired young man with a skinny figure and pale skin.

"We don't know the situation here. Maybe we will find something interesting," another man said.

He was a young man with long brown hair tied in a ponytail. A spear was strapped to his back.

"You had better not cause trouble here, Ulsin. We came to investigate the assassin problem. We cannot underestimate anything after what happened in the first heaven. The higher ups already warned us about an existence that could threaten us. If even the vampire king could die, then you certainly could as well," one of the women said.

She had a beautiful face and wore a black robe that did not reveal the shape of her body.

The man called Ulsin clicked his tongue. "I am just saying. Nothing serious. To be honest, I wonder what kind of existence could make the higher-ups give such a warning."

He then looked at the woman leading them.

"What do you think, Miss Zeskia?" he asked.

The woman walking at the front was a young and beautiful woman with long blue hair. She wore a robe dominated by white, and a sword was strapped to her right waist. Her expression remained calm, and her gaze resembled the surface of still water, full of serenity.

"Just do what the higher-ups ordered us to do. There is no need to think too much about anything else," she answered in a calm voice.

Ulsin did not feel offended by her answer since he already knew her personality.

The four immortals attracted the attention of the devils lined up to greet them. None of them had seen these people before, but the fact that a group of pseudo immortal stage cultivators escorted them already showed that they held a high status near the center of heaven.

One of the devils who had become the temporary commander of the city stepped forward to greet them with great respect.

"Welcome to—"

"Get to the point. Bring us to the bodies. We want to inspect them," Zeskia said, cutting him off.

The man swallowed the rest of his words and forced a smile.

"Of course, my lady. Please follow me."

He then guided them toward the building at the center of the city. Inside the vast hall, the bodies had already been laid out for inspection. Their condition looked the same as when they had been assassinated, as the devils had preserved them as best as possible.

The devils here did not want to risk losing even the smallest clue they might have overlooked, since the clues they had were already extremely limited.

Perhaps with the arrival of these people, they could discover something from the corpses and finally find the assassins.

There were ten bodies, and each of them had a different fatal wound.

"Here they are, your excellencies. The only clue we have is that they were killed by the same group of assassins, as we can sense the same residual energy from their wounds. The assassins always act at night and then disappear. We tried to search for their traces, but like ghosts, we cannot find anything that leads to them," the man who guided the immortals explained.

The four immortals looked over the corpses.

However, even before they could inspect the bodies in detail, they had already sensed something that made their eyes narrow.

Still, they first observed the corpses physically before examining them more closely.

What they focused on was the same thing that had caught their attention.

When they entered the hall, they had sensed something faint yet strangely familiar, but they could not be certain.

After carefully checking the wounds on each corpse, the four immortals suddenly froze.

At the same moment, they looked toward one another.

Astonishment appeared on every one of their faces.

That was because they recognized the remnant energy within the wounds of these corpses!