Chapter 125

Chapter 125

Verity carefully picked up the necklace and examined it. No matter how she looked at it, it seemed like just an ordinary gemstone.

She shook her head. "I've never seen a real Celestial Stone in person, only in pictures. This one looks similar, but something feels off."

Verity felt embarrassed. As a member of the Mordell family, the guardians of the Celestial Stone, she couldn't even tell whether what was in front of her was the real thing.

Damien took the necklace and looked it over. He was already about eighty percent sure it was the Celestial Stone.

"Well, you at least know how to activate the Celestial Stone, right?" Damien asked.

But Verity shook her head.

Damien didn't push her. He told her to go rest. He thought of Kaida — she needed to be informed about this — so he had Ironclaw find a way to reach her.

In her room, Sophia was unwrapping the gift Eloise had sent her. Inside the box was a bracelet.

Sophia picked it up and noticed it was different from an ordinary bracelet. The inner structure had a high-tech feel to it, just designed to look like a bracelet.

Underneath the bracelet was a small note with instructions on how to use it.

Sophia closed the box and brought everything to Damien.

"This was probably left for you by your mother."

Damien looked over the items and the note. The handwriting wasn't Eloise's. In the bottom right corner of the note was a signature — "Cloud." Besides, even if Eloise had known Sophia's mother, she wouldn't have given away something this precious.

"Then Mom must have wanted me to protect myself. She even wrote down the instructions so carefully."

Sophia held the slightly yellowed note, her heart aching.

"Try putting it on then."

Damien took out the bracelet and gently slipped it onto Sophia's wrist.

He had Panther bring a lancet. Sophia pricked her finger, and a drop of blood fell into the bracelet.

The bracelet, which had looked dull and grey, immediately began to glow with a soft, translucent blue light. The inner structure seemed to come alive.

A moment later, the bracelet returned to its original appearance. At first glance, it looked no different from a regular bracelet.

"The note only explains how to use it, but says nothing about what it actually does?"

Sophia snapped out of her daze after witnessing the magical moment and said.

"Just keep wearing it. You'll figure it out."

Damien suspected it might be a defensive tool like the Electromagnetic Shield, or an offensive weapon like the lightning gun.

But either way, Sophia was better off wearing it.

A few days later, the Celestial Temple sent out a large number of people to track down the Mordell family member who had escaped. But the person seemed to have vanished without a trace.

Celestial Temple.

Bavich knelt on one knee in the center of the hall, his right hand placed over his chest, his head bowed low.

"You useless piece of trash. Not only did you fail to find out where the Celestial Stone is, you killed everyone. Are you an idiot? Without the Celestial Stone, what's the point of getting the Blood-Tear Manuscript now?"

White grabbed a nearby water cup and hurled it at him.

Bavich didn't dare dodge. The cup hitting him didn't hurt much, but the water splashing across his face was more humiliating than being slapped in public.

He kept his head down. The muscles in his face twitched violently, his chest heaving, but he didn't dare do anything.

At that moment, Mia walked over to White's side and offered him a cup of red tea.

"Please calm down, my lord. Bavich simply couldn't control his bloodthirsty instincts. This is the result of incomplete modification."

White stared coldly at Bavich. "If the modification wasn't enough, then let's fix his brain properly."

"Yes, my lord."

Mia gestured toward the door, and two people immediately came in and took Bavich away.

"Please calm down, my lord. I've recently refined my parasite cultivation technique, allowing them to extract the memories of a corpse from before death. As long as we use the bodies of the Mordell family members, we're sure to find some clues. He won't get away."

Mia curled her lips into a satisfied smile.

"Then go, now!" White snapped impatiently.

Mia immediately wiped the expression from her face, gave a slight bow, and left.

She brought her people to where the Mordell family had been, only to find the place had already been cleaned up.

Fortunately, her subordinates found a few graves. Mia had the bodies dug up right away.

Several days had passed. The bodies hadn't fully decomposed, but their abdomens were bloated, their skin had turned dark green, and they gave off a foul, rotting smell.

Mia covered her nose in disgust and released the parasites. She soon got what she was looking for. She shot a disdainful look at the bodies, then turned and walked away without hesitation.

What they didn't notice was that several hundred feet away, a figure in camouflage was hidden in the canopy of a tall tree, watching everything through a pair of binoculars.

Eloise soon received the report from her subordinate.

She didn't know what the Celestial Temple was after, but coming all this way couldn't be as simple as just looking at a few bodies.

"I can't believe they won't even leave the dead alone. What are they trying to do?" Eloise muttered to herself.

She immediately passed the information on to Damien.

"The Celestial Temple must still be after the Celestial Stone and trying to track it down. You need to be careful," Damien said.

"I will be. But I don't have what they're looking for. You're the one who really needs to watch out."

Eloise paused before continuing. "And Mona — I'll have to leave her in your care."

"Don't worry," Damien replied.

"By the way, Sophia asked me to pass along her thanks. We still don't know what her mother's keepsake actually does," Damien added.

Eloise let out a sigh. "Honestly, I don't know either. Her mother left it with me years ago and then disappeared. I was just keeping it safe."

"And her identity?"

"That's something you and Sophia will have to figure out on your own."

Eloise turned the question back to Damien.

Damien raised an eyebrow but didn't press further. He asked Eloise to pass along a blueprint of the arena to Jared.

Eloise agreed without hesitation.

Damien hung up and relayed what Eloise had said to Sophia.

Sophia looked at the jade bracelet on her wrist, then leaned in softly and rested her head on Damien's shoulder.

"Thank you for always caring about where I came from."

"We're husband and wife. No need to thank me."

Damien lowered his head and pressed a gentle kiss to her dark, shiny hair.

Ghosthand watched the two of them lost in each other, then held up his phone and gestured toward Damien. "Boss, message from Kaida."

Sophia noticed him too and smiled. "Go ahead, you've got things to take care of."

"I'll spend time with you tonight."

Damien leaned down and kissed the corner of Sophia's lips, then got up and left.

He walked over to Ghosthand and took the phone from him.