For everyone attending the public trial, what happened after Prosecutor Luo Hai drew his gun felt like a dream.
A surreal dream. A dream without logic. A dream that leapt from one scene to the next so fast that there was no time to react.
The moment Luo Hai turned his wrist and aimed at the executioner, gunshots rang out.
Two sharp, decisive shots. Two executioners collapsed to the ground without making a sound.
Luo Hai’s mind went blank for an instant.
He hadn’t pulled the trigger—he’d barely had time to turn his aim.
The shots had come from below the stage.
He whipped his head around. He didn’t need to look closely—because Eugene was already standing up from his chair.
For a moment, everyone was stunned. No one knew what was happening.
Then, Eugene pulled off his wig, tore away the disguise on his face, and strode onto the stage. Without hesitation, he fired two more shots at the venue’s speakers. A piercing screech filled the air before the music cut off abruptly, leaving only the terrifying echoes of gunfire hanging in the silence.
His blond curls were damp with sweat, one lock clinging to his forehead. His amber eyes reflected the sunlight.
It was a face that had appeared repeatedly in the news and on wanted posters. No one in Nantes would fail to recognize it.
Only now did the crowd begin to feel fear. Screams broke out, people surged toward the exits, but the space was too crowded. They pushed and shoved, unable to escape, only managing to tear coats and step on each other’s shoes.
Doyle shot up from his seat. The prosecution and police finally realized the gravity of the situation—Eugene Oddis, the leader of the Lightwing Society, the fugitive they had hunted for so long, had appeared, armed, at the very center of the public trial.
All the officers, detectives, and armed prosecutors stood, a dark mass of gun barrels aimed at Eugene’s head.
But at the same time, Eugene grabbed Luo Hai by the collar, yanked him into his arms, and pressed a gun to his temple.
The officers and prosecutors froze. The two sides stood locked in a tense standoff, neither daring to make a move.
“Eugene Oddis!” Luo Hai roared his name, his voice laced with real fury.
Eugene held the gun against Luo Hai’s head with one hand while the other clamped around his throat, keeping him firmly restrained.
As he moved across the stage, the surrounding guns followed him, aimed at his skull.
“If you kill me, he dies too,” Eugene said flatly. His tone was neither high nor low, but it was clear enough for the front-line officers and prosecutors—especially Colette Doyle—to hear every word.
Luo Hai, caught in his grip, could only tilt his chin upward slightly under the pressure. His breathing was quick and shallow, misting in the cold air.
Eugene Oddis was insane.
Not only completely mad, but an absolute fool.
Why expose himself in a place teeming with armed forces? Why abandon a perfectly good disguise to suddenly stand up and make himself a target?
“Let me go!” Luo Hai spat through clenched teeth.
“Not a chance.” Eugene’s reply was just as brief, his expression as icy as his grip, tightening even further as he held Luo Hai trapped in his arms.
The atmosphere had reached an unbearable level of tension. The armed officers and prosecutors hesitated, glancing toward Doyle for orders.
Doyle stared directly at Eugene. His expression remained unchanged, as if he were watching a play unfold on stage.
“Shoot,” Doyle said simply.
The officers hesitated. “But—”
“Shoot,” Doyle repeated, his voice calm with a hint of disdain. “He won’t kill Luo Hai.”
And so, the officers raised their guns again.
In this situation, they had no need to think. No need to hesitate.
They only needed to follow orders.
Since the chief prosecutor had already given the order, no matter what happened, it wouldn’t be their responsibility.
At the very moment Doyle’s words fell, Eugene moved faster than anyone else. Without hesitation, he lowered the gun and fired at Luo Hai’s leg.
Agonizing pain instantly shot through Luo Hai’s nerves, and tears burst from his eyes, but he clenched his teeth and didn’t make a sound.
He had endured too much pain in his life—enough to withstand a gunshot wound.
Blood soaked into his dress pants, trickling down the fabric and pooling at the feet of the Omega prisoner kneeling in front. The prisoner’s face immediately turned deathly pale.
Eugene raised his gun again, pressing it to Luo Hai’s temple, his eyes locking onto Doyle’s as he spoke calmly:
“The next shot will be to the head.”
Even Doyle hadn’t expected Eugene to be so ruthless, to shoot without the slightest hesitation. His pupils shrank sharply.
“If you kill him, you won’t make it out alive either.”
“Not everyone is as afraid of death as you are.” Eugene’s voice was low but steady. “If I have to die, I’ll die here with him. And none of you will leave either.”
As soon as those words fell, a wave of fear rippled through the crowd.
The prosecution office and the police department knew Eugene’s methods all too well. They knew how skilled he was at planting explosives unnoticed.
Even though the venue had been inspected a hundred times during preparations, this was Eugene Oddis—someone they had failed to capture time and time again. Who knew if he had a way to smuggle explosives into the venue? Who knew if there were Omega operatives, injected with inhibitors and artificial pheromones, disguised as Betas or even Alphas among the crowd?
Hadn’t Eugene himself just infiltrated the venue as a prosecutor’s assistant?
Suddenly, nothing around them felt safe.
Their colleagues, the police officers, the restless crowd—any one of them could be a Lightwing terrorist in disguise! Those people could be hiding anywhere, their fingers possibly already hovering over detonation switches, ready to blow up the entire venue at any moment.
The armed officers hesitated. And in that hesitation, Eugene, still holding the wounded Luo Hai, steadily walked past the dozens of gun barrels aimed at him, as if he felt no fear of the death that could come at any second.
Letting a most-wanted criminal waltz right into the heart of the trial, seize the trial’s host as a hostage, and walk away in front of the entire city’s citizens—it was an utter humiliation for the prosecution office.
But no one dared to pull the trigger. They feared the explosives that might be hidden somewhere. Feared that the moment they fired, an unseen member of the Lightwing Society would detonate a bomb.
And so, Eugene carried Luo Hai from the stage down to the crowd below. Then, all of a sudden, he spun around and plunged into the panicked masses, dragging his hostage with him.
Screams erupted. People scrambled in all directions, but no one could escape in the chaos. Within two seconds, Eugene’s figure had vanished.
Only then, to make it seem as though they hadn’t entirely failed their duty, the armed officers began shouting:
“Catch him! Where did Eugene Oddis go?”
“Search the venue! Check for explosives! Look for his accomplices!”
The venue immediately fell into a frenzy once again.
Two hours later, the patrol officers finally confirmed that no bombs had been planted in the venue, and there seemed to be no trace of any so-called Lightwing accomplices.
All that remained in the vast hall was a terrified crowd and the Omega prisoner, who should have been executed but was still standing on the stage.
This meant that Eugene Oddis had infiltrated the venue alone, single-handedly killed two executioners, kidnapped Prosecutor Luo Hai, and then vanished into thin air with his hostage—all in full view of thousands of people.
The thousands gathered in the square had been played for fools by this man.
And as a result, they had lost a prosecutor, failed to carry out the trial, and caused mass panic among the crowd.
Prosecutor Luo Hai was no longer just Luo Hai. He was the host of the trial, the adopted son of chief prosecutor Doyle. He represented the justice of the tribunal, the dignity of the Nantes Prosecutor’s Office.
By taking him hostage, Eugene had clearly issued a challenge—not only to the Prosecutor’s Office but to the very laws of the era, and to all Alphas.
So no one questioned anything. No one stopped to consider if Eugene had another motive behind his actions. Just as no one remembered whether, before Eugene fired his gun, Luo Hai’s own gun had been aimed at the prisoner before him.
….
Luo Hai didn’t know when he lost consciousness.
It could have been from the gunshot wound, from sheer exhaustion, or perhaps the moment his body collapsed into Eugene’s arms, when he instinctively allowed himself to let go.
He drifted in and out of dreams, a tangled mess of memories stirring restlessly in his mind. His brow furrowed subconsciously, but then a gentle warmth pressed against his forehead, slowly smoothing out the tension.
Gradually, he stopped resisting. He let himself relax, and after that, his dreams were peaceful.
In the end, he was jolted awake by a sudden bump.
Luo Hai opened his eyes. First, he saw the ceiling swaying above him. Then, he caught sight of the window below and realized—he was lying inside a van.
“You’re awake?” Eugene’s voice came from close by. “This road is rough, nothing I can do about it. Just bear with it.”
