When the plot-skips players into the game world

June 18th.

Aiwass accepted an interview and met with Chairman Pierre, which was already three days ago.

Since that day, dramatic changes have occurred in Iris Flower—

The news of the previous assassination attempt on Aiwass finally stopped being suppressed and was released all at once. The Giant Tree Party leveraged its influence in the media to push the related news out with all its might. Under the threat of death, their work efficiency was astonishingly high.

For a moment, newspapers fluttered like snowflakes, spreading all over Iris Flower. Even those who rarely read newspapers would hear comments about this matter from various places.

In this era without the internet, many people didn't even know about the two previous assassination attempts—primarily because Chairman Pierre quietly suppressed the news. After all, he was the leader of the Hawkeye Organization and naturally did not want Hawkeye to attract too much discontent and hatred. But this time, he really couldn't protect Hawkeye anymore, so he had to cut ties and sell them out.

It was only then that people realized how close Iris Flower was to destruction.

This time, experts no longer covered up by exaggerating the country's military power but instead proclaimed the terrifying power of the Holy Nation and the New Empire—with Star Antimony serving as evidence. After all, the Irisflower People might not understand the Holy Nation, but they feared Star Antimony.

And with just one frigate, the Holy Nation could directly defeat the entire navy of Star Antimony; a year ago, the Holy Nation had only three such frigates, but now it has expanded to eighteen and continues to build more.

Simultaneously, the experts also explained that even though Aiwass stepped down from the position of Pope, it didn't mean he was dismissed or impeached. They detailed the second assassination attempt on the Pure White Saintess, finally clarifying why Aiwass had the opportunity to assume power back then—he was originally the "placeholder Pope" who replaced the assassinated Pure White Saintess. Once the Pure White Saintess recovered from her injuries, Aiwass automatically vacated the position, returning it to the original Pope.

In other words, he was a direct line of the current Pope.

Back then, Aiwass could become the Pope precisely by borrowing the authority of the current Pope. It was not that his power was stripped away; quite the opposite—his timely abdication elevated Aiwass's status in the Holy Nation to an extremely high level, being second only to one, while enjoying the dual privileges of the current Cardinal Archbishop and the outgoing Pope.

...Although this narrative still deviates from the truth to some degree, it is the most understandable explanation for the Irisflower People.

So when the Irisflower People thought about it, they immediately cried out internally—how come all three assassination attempts centered around Aiwass? Two assassination attempts on Aiwass, with one even targeting the Eternal Pope of the present—weren't they trying to crush us to extinction!

How can this behavior not look like deliberate provocation!

And when one attempt failed, they relentlessly pursued a second and a third!

What are their intentions!

People were furious beyond measure.

If you say Aiwass was assassinated, the Irisflower People would laugh nonchalantly—who cares about you, we have deaths every day, haven't you seen that, you bumpkin.

But if you say, should Aiwass truly die, Iris Flower would be flattened by Elf Warships with no means of resistance, and all neighboring countries would turn into unending enemies—that, the Irisflower People immediately understood.

——Understood, isn't it just about annihilating the entire Hawkeye family.

This is the Irisflower People's greatest merit... they truly have no sense of reverence.

After all, they dared to wipe out entire royal families, so eliminating others brings no psychological burden—after all, wasn't Hawkeye's original slogan about resisting the Son of the Moon? Now that the Son of the Moon is gone, they don't need you anymore, right?

So settling the score with Hawkeye encountered almost no resistance.

One young assassin after another was captured from sewers, safe houses, some residences, or warehouses, and batch after batch were beheaded.

Their names, true identities, and crimes were published in the newspapers the next day.

Who once murdered a family after breaking in for loot; who, under the command of some company executive, stole an individual inventor's patented technology; who kidnapped a rich merchant and boldly killed them, or who committed arson and murder, defiled wives and daughters...

Even though the Irisflower People have long understood the phrase "Hawkeye doesn't do humane deeds"... they still hadn't grasped it fully.

After all, the Son of the Moon was even less human. For sacrifices to the Blood Celestial Marshal and to heal the hunger and pain within, they cruelly tortured others.

Once they received the favor of the Blood Celestial Marshal, they could no longer satisfy their instincts through the myriad pleasures as the Banquet Master's Son of the Moon did... but rather, it turned into a negative feedback, akin to nicotine withdrawal meaning, "if they don't do it, they feel unbearable." They craved power and favor, yet they also envied humans and the "normal" peers among them.

Their hearts harbored a strong, abnormal desire, more radical than the Sons of the Moon during the late Helasal Empire.

Under such circumstances, being captured as a Blood Slave basically meant a gruesome death. Sometimes death might even be considered swift relief, forcing people to plead for Hawkeye to administer justice.

But what people didn't know was that Hawkeye members were also cowards. Contrary to their proclaimed stance of being "undying with the Sons of the Moon," many Hawkeye members even colluded with the Sons of the Moon!

They dared not mess with the blood-imbibed, powerful and malevolent Sons of the Moon possessing Divine Arts, so they, guided intentionally or not by those envious of their peers, killed the relatively gentle Sons of the Moon.

Those Sons of the Moon within the Constant Self Sect, who "only drank the blood of voluntary sacrifices," went extinct for this reason—exterminated by the joint slaughter of the Sons of the Moon and Hawkeye. Not all Sons of the Moon wished to curb their desires, and these pure Sons of the Moon, by existing, served as a reminder of the others' sins... and their harmlessness and weakness allowed Hawkeye's assassins to achieve merit by this virtuous act, further accelerating Iris Flower's sanguine spiral of pain.

One case after another, all crimes committed by these executed assassins.

Among them, there were not even those assassins who "merely killed in the line of duty"—if they only killed as assigned by the organization without harming any innocent outside the mission objectives, they were merely imprisoned for now. Regardless of how many they killed during this course, they were not sentenced to death for it.

——Everyone judged and executed was someone who killed innocents outside of duty or misused extraordinary abilities for malevolence.

And the sheer number of these individuals has already maxed out the city execution sites—

The guillotine blades required maintenance using Preservation Arts or Sharpness Skill more than six times a day; people even brought back old gallows, yet it still wasn't enough. Craftsmen were building new gallows every day. A string of hanged bodies bagged and thrown into underground cemeteries—that was also the old base of the assassins.

These assassins, no matter where they hid, could not escape.

——Because those capturing them were the upper-tier assassins of Hawkeye.

All the stealth techniques, counter-tracking techniques, stealth skills they had mastered meant nothing to these Assassin Masters.

They knew exactly all the methods of these deviant disciples under them.

And now, these Assassin Masters have a new name—

——The Watchers.