Midnight Prince: Empire of Sin

[Hunter Association]

After ending the communication with Tsubasa Hanekawa, Mark slumped in his chair with a complicated expression on his face.

While Mark was not as focused on justice as he was as a child, the Hanekawa family was one of the places that still made him feel leery even though they were quite efficient when it came to working as hunters.

For him, they were more of a religious cult than anything else and as such were very dangerous.

Tsubasa Hanekawa, or rather —The Ghost Spider was not an exception to this rule.

Her initial nickname had been Black Widow, a testament to how vicious she was when going on missions.

Even more so when the target of the mission was a man.

Just remembering the mission report about what those men had to go through made him shiver and clamps his legs

It wasn't someone he would wish even to his worst enemies.

And now, this renowned man-hater wanted to go on missions with Adam?

One didn't need to be some genius to understand that something fishy was going and in fact, Mark was already connecting the dots.

'This isn't something I can deal with.'

It was way above his pay grade.

Taking out his phone, he started calling the one who could deal with the problem.

—-

High in the sky, the moon was shining and bathing the world with its silver light.

The time for the sun to rise was slowly approaching but even now, in the darkness, people were going on with their lives.

One such person was someone who had more authority than many in this world but who was content to stay in her place and simply work on her experiment.

[Medusa's Laboratory]

In the depths of her laboratory in the isolated land that solely belongs to the eccentric and ancient Gorgon, Medusa, as always, was observing a set of Data that she had freshly gathered from one among her innumerable experiments.

The only difference right now was that, unlike her normal self, she was simply looking at the data that was being scrolled by her hands on the screen in an absentminded manner, as though completely out of it.

Her eyes were looking at them, yes, but her mind was completely elsewhere.

She was remembering that day. The day When the cursed life she thought would never end was ironically finished in the swiftest and most humiliating way possible.

The day when she died.

The day when she revived..

The day when her Fate changed for the third time.

A new lease on life, a new beginning, and an imperfect immortality that was bestowed on her by that 'man'.

Her mind flashed to that very moment, gazing up into his eyes that were shaped like stars holding the shades of the darkest night within them, revolving like black holes and sucking in her existence within their hues, and his ever-impassive expression.

She knew then, that the one who saved her was no saint. He was a man drenched in the blood of the uncountable, shunned by the world and everything in existence.

However, this day, the day that she met that cursed 'man', was forever stamped in her mind. For it was a day when… she realized that this was the ideal she had been pursuing all along.

'Heh…'

Medusa shook her head and her eyes finally focused on the set of Data she was observing, even as they moved along the tempo of her hands.

She finally chanced upon the data that she wanted to access and… started steadily deleting and destroying any traces of all the data she had gathered on the subject since this was something that she was unable to let anyone see.

'What a troublesome boy.'

The last few days had been very heavy on her heart. After all, no matter how many people she killed in the past, she was in no way a sadistic woman who liked torture and murder.

Having been forced to listen to the cries of pain and suffering of Adam for days on end had not been the least bit easy for her. The feelings amplified because the person going through the pain was someone that she had a moderate amount of care and goodwill for.

However, if there was one good thing she had chanced upon from this horrific experience, then it was the fact that this event allowed her to give birth to respect for the boy.

If in the past she simply saw Adam as a helpless young man who would be controlled by Fate's whims, now she had to admit that he was someone worthy of respect and admiration. Even from beings as ancient as her.

The sheer strength of will he had shown her on those days of horror was something beyond someone with his experience and life should have been able to display.

She knew very well that he had only awakened for a month, after all.

'Hahah. Should I say, as expected of the ### of ###?'

Her mind blurred for a moment and Medusa tilted her head in confusion. She looked blankly at the screen that was now completely dark as if the last few minutes had never transpired in the first place.

"Ah…I did it again."

She nodded to herself.

'I wonder what memory I sealed this time around…'

She didn't know what she had forgotten, but it didn't matter to her. This was a routine for her by now.

She stood up and stretched herself languidly, feeling tired. Hypnotizing her mind was tiring but this was one of the only ways to make sure her secrets were not leaked out to the innumerable eyes that were always trained on her.

After all, while she loved her family a lot, she knew that the objectives they had didn't always align in the same direction as her own. Hence, there was no reason to spill every important thing to them.

'I want to sleep.'

Just as she thought about going to her fluffy bed and taking some much-needed sleep, a yawn escaping her lips in the process, Medusa received a call.

"Who is calling me at this hour?"

She frowned, visibly unhappy at the sudden disturbing call. But she still took the call in when she realized that it was none other than Mark. She knew the man and also knew how sensible he was. He would have never called her at this hour if things weren't particularly important.

[Hello. Miss Freud, I am sorry for disturbing you so late at night.]

"Enough with the blabbering. What is the matter?"

[I apologize. Very well, a gold rank wishes to join the operation in France.]

"Hum? What is the matter then?"

The operation in France was very important and since it would be Adam's first mission, having an experienced Gold ranked Hunter on his team would be very helpful for him.

Furthermore, there was no way a Gold-ranked Hunter could overpower Adam without having something like a Divine Weapon at hand.

If they had a Divine Weapon then they wouldn't have been Gold ranked, after all. They would've already risen to the rank of an Executor.

It would be a good subordinate and a good test for Adam. So she didn't see what the problem here was.

[Well. It's the Ghost Spider.]

"Ghost Spider?"

Medusa tilted her head for an instant in confusion. The way Mark said it, it seemed like she was supposed to know who the hunter was.

She did not care about Gold-level Hunters as they were just not on her radar at all. Even Executors could barely interest her. There was no way she would keep the moniker of a Gold rank Hunter in her mind.

But the following words allowed Medusa to immediately remember the importance of this call and the identity of the person that was trying to add herself to Adam't team.

[The Heiress of the Hanekawa Family.]

"Heh. You mean that crazy bitch?"

[Cough! Cough!]

It was such a straightforward answer that even Mark was left speechless.

This showed how deep an impact Tsubasa had left on Medusa.

[Ahem~ Miss…]

Mark was visibly flustered by the way Medusa described Tsubasa and couldn't help but add in a small voice…

[You were the one who vetted her and said she was perfect as a hunter.]

"So?"

Mark could say nothing more.

Somehow, he had the impression that even Piaget Freud was not completely alright in the end.

Though of course, there was no way he would dare to say this.

(AN: https://www.patreon.com/posts/piaget-freud-mp-86382259 For those who want to see Illustration of Medusa. For those who don't know, I have illustrations on my Patreon here.

The illustrations are set to be visible to the Public so you can see them without subscribing. Some readers asked me about GoC on Patreon but sadly, GoC is an exclusively contracted book, unlike SHK which is non-exclu which allows me to put SHK on Patreon.

Anyways this is the last chapter of this month and the start of a new arc. I hope you liked the first arc of Vol 7. Started a little slow but it's showing more about Adam.

Thank you for supporting me and for liking my story. The number of Priv readers diminished after I took away the 99% off and it's understandable. What is surprising is that the fall was lower than I anticipated so I am truly happy. The start wasn't easy but we have come far together. I hope to see you again next month. Which is ironically in a few hours. Goodbye, everyone. See you soon.)