For a fleeting second, her gaze lingered, narrowing slightly in suspicion. But she shrugged, shaking her head, and continued on, as if dismissing a passing thought.

Meanwhile, Alpha let out a gasp of surprise. "Lin Fang, that lady, she is in your memories."

"Xuenyi? What about her? I know that she is an innate soul who has a Lord Tier wolf, very strong. There are a few things I suspect about her involvement in the recent assassination incident, but I know that I can't offend her either." Lin Fang replied, and taking a pause, he added as an afterthought. "By the way, she is my landlord."

Alpha replied in an unusually sharp tone instead of calmness, "I can see she was suppressing her mana, but according to my estimation, she has over 900 times your current mana."

Lin Fang's jaw tightened beneath the mask. "900 times, you say?"

Before Lin Fang could digest that fact, the atmosphere in the grand hall shifted in an instant once again, this time a bit more obviously.

The murmurs that had once been casual turned sharp, filled with awe and nervous laughter as the final group entered the auction.

Someone at Table 6 whispered under their breath as four men entered the grand hall.

"Is that—? No way. That's him."

Another voice followed, trembling in disbelief.

"The Demon of Southern Wu… Why the hell is he here!?"

The whispers spread like wildfire.

"He's the one who defeated the Class-Zero monster, Houlong Huangdi, in the Hangzhou instant dungeon incident. Isn't he?"

"No way, that beast wiped out three top guilds—how could anyone—"

"He didn't just defeat it, he soloed it."

"So, it is not a rumor?"

"Look at those three behind him… Three S-rank hunters, all in one team? What the hell… Are they trying to hijack the auction or something!"

Even some A-rank hunters subtly suppressed their mana instinctively as they walked forward.

The first to sit was the leader of the group, Alexander Han, the same man who snatched away Vivian's Presidential Suit and other premium suits in the hotel she booked in.

Tall, sharp-featured, and exuding an effortless authority, his dark eyes swept the room once before landing on the far tables. His expression seemed very calm.

At Table 3, Seongha rose gracefully from her seat, her earlier indifference replaced with a bright, almost childlike excitement.

"Oppa~!"

Her voice was smooth, lilting, and just loud enough to make nearby tables glance her way. She waved, smiling genuinely for the first time that evening.

Alex's gaze flickered to her—his expression softened for half a heartbeat. Then he gave a brief nod. "Seongha."

That was all.

He didn't stop, didn't walk toward her table. He simply acknowledged her and kept walking.

Seongha's smile faltered slightly, surprise flickering in her eyes. "Eh…?" she murmured, lowering her hand slowly.

The guards beside her shifted uneasily, but she waved them down, her lips curving again into a composed smile. "So cold as ever, oppa."

Meanwhile, at Table 9, Lin Fang's mind was already spinning.

He didn't even need Alpha's voice to feel the crushing power radiating from that group. The air itself felt heavier, like standing too close to a mana reactor ready to explode.

"Alpha…" he whispered inwardly.

"I retract my earlier statement," Alpha replied sharply. "Your biggest threat here isn't the girl—it's those four. Especially him."

Lin Fang clenched his jaw beneath the mask. "How bad is it?"

"Two thousand times your mana reserves," Alpha said, its tone no longer sharp, but instead, quivering slightly as if it was afraid of this new person. "If he even looks at you with intent, I'd advise immediate teleportation. Even if the heavens come down to help you, you will still not survive against him."

Lin Fang exhaled slowly, steadying his heartbeat. "Two thousand times?" His hand under the table unconsciously tightened into a fist. "I thought Zhi Yan and Master had very high mana reserves so far, and thought if he could become SS-rank, after obtaining his legacy, I might atleast become an S-rank with 2.5 million MP, but this fellow has over 2 billion mana particles? This is just…" He instinctively grabbed his head and looked down at his feet in mixed feelings, unaware of Vivian's expressions.

Vivian, sitting beside him, had gone unnaturally still. Her usually sharp eyes darkened as she stared at the man approaching. Her lips pressed into a thin line as he came closer, that familiar smirk of his cutting through the air like an old wound reopening.

He stopped right beside their table, looking down at her. "Vivian."

His voice was casual—too casual for someone whose arrival had just shaken the room.

Vivian's frown deepened, responding coldly. "Han Sungjun. What are you doing here?" Lin Fang was also instantly alerted by the presence of Alex nearby and the fact that Vivian and he seemed to know each other, except the fact that they didn't seem to have a good relationship. Did they use to date or something? As he wondered, his body tensed, fearing misfortune, because last time, Vivian, when she disliked Mark, used him to throw him out. He doesn't want to fight this guy, though.

However, Alex only chuckled softly, the smirk never leaving his face. "What else? It's an auction. I came to buy something." He replied.

Vivian scoffed at his reply, "The items in this auction aren't nearly valuable enough for someone like you to travel four thousand five hundred kilometers, all the way from Hangzhou to Peking. And you didn't come alone, either..."

Her eyes flicked toward the three men standing silently behind him, each radiating an aura dense enough to bend the air around them.

"So, forgive me if I find it hard to believe you're here just for a mere auction."

Alex tilted his head slightly, the corner of his mouth curving into a lazy grin. "You know me well, I guess," he said smoothly. Then, after a pause, his eyes glinted with something darker. "But then again, we aren't strangers either, are we?"

Vivian's pupils narrowed slightly, but she didn't flinch.

Alex's smile turned sharper. "You and your friends have been trying to kill me for months now, after all."

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