The lingering scent of Don Marco's cigar remained in the air, mingling with the metallic stench of the black blood seeping from Lucian's pores. Ryu Shin, now inhabiting the frame of this frail youth, took a deep breath. Every inhalation felt like forcing an ancient, rusted machine to turn, yet he could feel a single drop of Qi—pure energy—beginning to settle at the core of his soul.
"This body is truly a piece of refuse," he murmured, staring at the grand mirror in the corner of the room.
The youth in the mirror possessed skin as pallid as a corpse, dark circles beneath his eyes, and limbs that seemed as though they might snap from a mere gust of wind. Yet, his eyes... those eyes were now as sharp as the edge of a newly forged blade.
Knock, knock.
The door opened slowly. It was not Silvio. This time, a young blonde maid entered, clad in a pristine uniform. Her name was Sofia. In Lucian's memory, Sofia was the most "attentive" servant; she was the one who consistently brought him warm soup every evening.
"Young Master, you are awake?" Sofia smiled sweetly, though her eyes quickly scanned the black stains on the sheets. "Oh heavens, what is that? Let me clean it. And I have brought the special herbal soup from Master Valerio."
Sofia placed the silver tray on the bedside table. Steam rose from the small ceramic bowl. The herbal aroma was exceptionally fragrant, masking a sharp, chemical undertone.
Ryu Shin narrowed his eyes. His instincts as the Heavenly Demon immediately detected something foul beneath the pleasant scent.
A low dose of Belladonna extract mixed with refined arsenic, he concluded instantly.
"Set it there, Sofia," Ryu Shin said coldly.
Sofia momentarily froze at the sound of Lucian's tone. Usually, the youth would thank her bashfully. "But Young Master, Master Valerio insisted you drink it while it is warm, so your heart does not fail you again."
Ryu Shin rose from the bed. His movements were slow but deliberate. He stood directly before Sofia. Though Lucian's stature was shorter than Ryu Shin's original body, the aura he projected caused Sofia to instinctively recoil.
"You are quite loyal to Valerio, are you not?" Ryu Shin asked, circling the maid.
"What do you mean, Young Master? I am loyal to the Moretti family..."
"Do not lie before me, little woman." Ryu Shin gripped Sofia's jaw with one hand. His physical strength was not yet formidable, but he pressed a pressure point beneath her ear that induced excruciating pain. "A poor spy is one who speaks too much. Tell me, how long have you been introducing this poison into my food?"
Sofia's face turned ashen. "Poi-poison? I do not know... Ahh! It hurts!"
"You have two choices," Ryu Shin whispered into her ear, his voice as frigid as polar ice. "Drink this soup in its entirety before me, or I shall use my fingers to tear out your tongue this instant."
Sofia's eyes widened with sheer terror. She knew exactly what the soup contained. If she drank it in a single draught, the dosage would be sufficient to stop her heart within ten minutes.
"Y-Young Master... please..."
"The wrong choice," Ryu Shin hissed.
STRIKE!
With a swift movement that the ordinary eye could not follow, Ryu Shin struck the back of Sofia's neck with his palm. The maid collapsed unconscious immediately. Ryu Shin gazed at the crumpled form without a shred of pity. To him, a traitor deserved only one thing: erasure.
Secrets Behind the Locked Room
Ryu Shin dragged Sofia's body into the large wardrobe in the corner. He needed to cleanse himself immediately; the foul stench of the toxins expelled through his sweat had become unbearable.
He stepped into the luxurious marble-lined bathroom. As the hot water touched his skin, he closed his eyes and began the initial stage of the Refining Bone technique.
In his former world, he could shatter mountains with a single strike. Now, merely to align his blood flow, he required absolute concentration. He forced the newly gathered Qi to incinerate the chemical remnants within his veins.
"Argh!"
Ryu Shin gripped the edge of the vanity until the marble faintly cracked. The pain felt as though acid were being poured through his insides. Yet, he laughed. Pain was a sign of life. Pain was the fuel for his hatred.
After thirty minutes, the water beneath his feet turned jet black before finally running clear. His body appeared slightly more dense, though still thin. Most importantly, the tremors in his hands had vanished.
He exited the bathroom to find Silvio standing in the center of the room, staring at the untouched soup tray and the slightly ajar wardrobe.
"Young Master," Silvio bowed, his gaze flickering toward the wardrobe. "Is there a problem with Sofia?"
Ryu Shin took a towel and dried his hair. "She requires a long rest, Silvio. Attend to her. Ensure that no one knows she has disappeared for the time being."
Silvio fell silent for a moment, then nodded in understanding. As a former S-class assassin, he understood the subtext. "It shall be done. However, Master Valerio will certainly inquire if Sofia does not report her duties tonight."
"Let him inquire. Should he come, I shall provide the answer myself," Ryu Shin replied. "Now, bring me proper sustenance. Raw meat, eggs, and forest honey. I require nutrition to rebuild this body's muscle mass."
An Unexpected Encounter: Bianca Moretti
That night, as Ryu Shin practiced his breathing techniques on the balcony, there was a soft knock at his door. Unlike Silvio's knock or Don Marco's intrusion, this was hesitant.
A teenage girl of about fourteen entered. She had large, beautiful eyes, but they were filled with anxiety. Bianca Moretti, Lucian's younger sister.
"Brother?" Bianca's voice was faint. "I heard from the other servants that you collapsed again."
Ryu Shin turned. In Lucian's memories, Bianca was the only person who wept when Lucian was beaten by Dante (the second brother). Bianca often set aside her own food portions for Lucian when the boy was sentenced to hunger by Don Marco.
Seeing Bianca, Ryu Shin felt a strange fluttering in his chest. It was not his own emotion, but the residual feelings of the body's original owner.
Regret... and a desire to protect.
"I am fine, Bianca," Ryu Shin said, attempting to soften his voice, though it sounded awkward.
Bianca approached, her eyes brimming with tears. "You are lying. Brother Valerio said your heart is getting worse. He said... perhaps you won't be here for my birthday next month."
Ryu Shin reached out, stroking the girl's head. "Do not listen to him. Valerio is silver-tongued, but he knows nothing of life and death."
Bianca looked up, shocked to see her usually weak brother speaking with such absolute confidence. "Brother... you feel different. Like... someone else."
Ryu Shin smiled thinly. "Perhaps I have just awakened from a very long nightmare, Bianca. And in that dream, I learned how to no longer be a loser."
"Truly?"
"Yes. So, cease your crying. From this day forward, not a single soul in this house shall dare touch you or me without my leave."
The promise was not mere words; it was the oath of a Heavenly Demon. In his previous life, he had annihilated an entire sect simply because they insulted his favored servant. In this world, he would dismantle the entire mafia order if they dared disturb the only light in Lucian's life.
Demonic Intuition: Identifying the Traitor
After comforting Bianca and sending her back to her room, Ryu Shin sat at his desk with a map of the Moretti estate before him. His eyes scanned every corner of the vast Sicilian villa.
He knew that Sofia's disappearance would only make Valerio wary. Tomorrow was the Moretti family's routine shooting practice—an event where Don Marco showcased the strength of his sons to the Capos.
The original Lucian had always been the laughingstock of the event, as he lacked the strength to even withstand the recoil of a handgun.
"Reverse-Flow Breathing Technique..." Ryu Shin began to circulate his Qi.
He had to achieve the "Iron Skin" stage in a short time. In a world of bullets, a fragile body was a liability. He began to perform strange movements within the room—motions that resembled a slow dance, yet every shift sliced through the air with a sharp whoosh.
Suddenly, he stopped. His senses caught a very faint radio frequency vibration from behind a painting on the wall.
"A hidden camera," he muttered.
He walked toward the painting, staring directly into the tiny lens concealed within the eye of the figure in the portrait. On the other side of the screen, wherever that might be, Valerio was undoubtedly watching.
Ryu Shin did not destroy the camera. Instead, he leaned his face close to the lens, offering a predatory smirk that revealed his fangs, and with a swift hand gesture, he mimed "slitting a throat."
Click.
Ryu Shin switched off the room lights, plunging himself into darkness. To others, darkness was a hiding place for monsters. To Ryu Shin, the darkness was home.
"Let us see, Valerio... who shall be the prey tomorrow morning."
A New Chapter: The Reverse-Flow Breathing Technique
That night, Ryu Shin did not sleep. He spent the hours in deep meditation, directing his Qi to augment his senses of hearing and sight.
In the silence of the night, he could hear Silvio's steady heartbeat downstairs, the scuttling of rats behind the walls, and most importantly... the heavy footsteps approaching his door in the dead of night.
The footsteps were not concealed; they were strides of pure arrogance.
Dante Moretti.
Lucian's second brother. A mountain of muscle who enjoyed torturing others for his own amusement.
The door to Lucian's room was kicked open. Dante entered with a mocking laugh, a bottle of liquor in his hand.
"Hey, trash! I heard you didn't die again last night? Damn, you really are like a cockroach that's hard to squash!" Dante bellowed, his voice echoing in the chamber.
Ryu Shin remained sitting cross-legged on his bed, his eyes closed. "You are loud, stray dog."
Dante's laughter ceased instantly. "What did you say?"
Ryu Shin opened his eyes. In the darkness, they glowed with a faint, baleful red. "I said... get out and bark elsewhere before I pull your teeth out."
Dante was stunned, then his face flushed with rage. "You... you really want to die sooner, don't you!"
Dante swung a massive fist toward Lucian's face. The punch was powerful enough to shatter an ordinary man's cheekbone. However, to Ryu Shin, the movement appeared agonizingly slow, like a snail crawling.
Ryu Shin did not dodge. He simply raised a single index finger.
THUD!
The finger landed precisely in the center of Dante's clenched palm. Instantly, Dante felt a sensation like a strike from thousands of volts of electricity. His entire arm went numb, and he was thrown backward, crashing into the dressing table.
"What... what did you do?!" Dante groaned, clutching his limp arm.
"That was merely a warning," Ryu Shin said, descending from the bed. "Tomorrow at the shooting range, do not stand too close to me. I fear you might become an easy target for a 'misdirected' bullet."
Dante stared at his younger brother with a terror he had never experienced before. He felt as though he were standing before a demon that had just crawled out of hell. Without a single word, he fled the room.
Ryu Shin sat back down. His body felt slightly faint from using unstable Qi, yet he was satisfied.
"The first step is complete. Tomorrow... this mafia world shall know that the Heavenly Demon has returned."