Shang reached the bottom of the stairs and slowly walked over to a small wooden platform above the lake but was interrupted before he could reach it.
"How was the mission, White Ghost?" a younger girl with silver hair asked Shang.
She wore a simple dress, and she didn't look special in any way.
That was the most dangerous part about her.
In truth, she was extremely dangerous and powerful, but due to a Spell she had created, no one truly took note of her.
Her codename was House Wife.
Her codename represented her perfectly. It was very ordinary, boring, and uninteresting.
Just like how she wanted to appear.
Due to her peculiar powers, she mostly focused on assassinations in public places and espionage.
Shang knew her, and he always paid special attention to her.
She was a pretty strong Early Archmage.
Her power was definitely greater than the Patriarch Shang had killed a couple of hours ago, but she was still weaker than Shang by quite a bit.
"Nothing special," Shang said with an emotionless voice.
"Really? Nothing?" the person beside House Wife asked.
The person beside House Wife was a middle-aged man with a full beard and spiky brown hair, wearing a set of expensive brown leather armor.
All in all, he looked like a hunter or mercenary.
However, he was a very powerful Archmage.
His Affinity was Earth, and he also dabbled in Darkness Concepts.
He was amazing at hiding his presence and staying in wait. His patience was nearly unmatched, and he stalked his target for a long time if they were quite powerful.
Eventually, he would wait at a place where the target would pass by and create several truly powerful traps.
Due to the required Mana and required set-up time, these Spells could release incredible power far beyond their level.
His codename was Trapper, and he specialized in taking down single but very powerful targets.
He was a Mid Archmage that had once killed a Late Archmage before they could attack him.
And the shocking part was that the Archmage had their Mana Shield active.
"Nothing," Shang answered Trapper.
Trapper snorted. "Are you trying to impress House Wife by saying that the mission was easy?"
"Are you dumb?" House Wife said from the side.
"House Wife, you don't know men," Trapper said with his deep voice. "Even though he refused your advances several times, it doesn't mean that he isn't interested in you."
House Wife only raised an eyebrow. "That sounds more like a woman thing than a man thing," she said.
Trapper snorted again. "You don't get it. Many men want to conquer something. We don't like getting something as a present, but we would enjoy the same thing if we took it with our own hands."
House Wife was very skeptical when she heard Trapper. "That's the rapist in you talking."
"It's called conquering," Trapper said with annoyance. "Please refer to it as such."
"Same thing, different word," House Wife answered.
Trapper spat to the side. "If it weren't against the rules…"
Everyone knew what Trapper was implying.
But House Wife only snorted. "You? Come on, stalker. You might be a level stronger than me, but you wouldn't even be able to find me. How are you going to use your little worm when you can't even track me down?"
Trapper narrowed his eyes.
He wasn't a fan of the nickname House Wife had come up.
Trapper didn't say anything for several seconds.
"You know, that's exactly why I was never interested in you," House Wife said with a derisive smile. "You look and act like a creep. Even now, you only look at me with narrowed eyes, thinking whatever creepy thoughts you have stashed in that misshapen head of yours."
Trapper gnashed his teeth.
"Why don't you learn more from White Ghost?" House Wife said. "He's distant, cold, and brooding. Many women think that's cool, mysterious, and sexy."
"Also, his dick is probably bigger than yours."
Everyone could feel Trapper's rage, and he even glanced at Shang.
At that moment, Shang's head turned to House Wife.
House Wife only smiled like an innocent girl, but her smile quickly faltered.
For some reason, the more time passed, the more scared she became of White Ghost.
After around two seconds, her pulse had doubled, and she felt a heavy mountain pressing down on her.
"I'm sorry, okay?" House Wife said with a slight grimace, glancing at Shang. "I won't do it again."
Shang kept looking at her for three more seconds, and House Wife felt even more pressured.
"Don't do that again," Shang said coldly before looking away again.
"I won't," House Wife said with a grimace, looking away from Shang.
Everyone knew that House Wife loved stirring up trouble and making different people mad at each other.
It gave her an intoxicating feeling of control.
However, everyone knew her very well by now, and House Wife's tricks didn't work anymore.
Of course, Shang was still quite annoyed by her attempt.
She hadn't tried that on Shang before since she had always been a bit nervous around him.
But after such a long time of none of her schemes working, she had probably grown frustrated and tried it for the first time today.
And she quickly decided that it was also her last time.
White Ghost had been part of this branch for over 80 years, but no one truly knew him.
In 80 years, several people had tried to get to know him more, but it was impossible.
There was this cold barrier around him. Whenever someone tried to create some kind of connection with him, they found their progress completely halted at some point.
No matter how much they talked with White Ghost, he never felt any closer than a stranger to them.
It was almost like White Ghost wasn't even a human but some form of machine that didn't have human emotions.
On top of that, nobody knew how White Ghost actually fought or what his abilities were.
They only knew that he had one of the rarest Affinities in the world, a Twilight Affinity.
His Twilight Affinity was also the reason why he had blinded himself and refused to heal his eyes.
Light and Darkness' biggest difference was related to vision, but White Ghost believed that he could learn more about them by blending out the most obvious difference.
That was why he had blinded himself.
He wanted to comprehend Light and Darkness on a more fundamental level.
Shang left House Wife and Trapper behind and approached the solitary wooden platform above the lake.
This was where the Keeper and Territory Lord stayed.
Shang wanted to claim his reward.
