Villainess X Villain: They are obsessed with each other!

Chapter 289: Chapter: 288 A big scheme.

Meanwhile, back in the Four Stationary Continents, the situation was no calmer.

Among the four continents, the Heartreach Continent had become the center of growing unease.

During the past month, influential leaders and powerful spell casters had begun dying one after another under mysterious circumstances.

Similar incidents had also occurred across the other three continents, but nowhere did the pattern appear as frequently or as openly as it did in Heartreach.

The continent served as the headquarters of the Zlycons, the very heart of their civilization, where the mighty Solarian Family ruled above all others.

Beneath them stood countless branch families that traced their bloodline back to the same ancestor.

Even the weakest of those branches possessed influence comparable to the greatest clans from the remaining three continents, while the higher generations stood as pillars that had protected the Zlycons for centuries.

Yet despite such overwhelming strength, assassinations had continued without pause, leaving behind confusion instead of answers.

The first victim had been an elder from the Kyroot Family, a respected Seventh Generation branch of the Solarian bloodline.

At first, many believed it to be an isolated incident, perhaps the result of an old grudge or a political rivalry that had finally reached its conclusion.

However, before the investigation into his death had even progressed, another prominent figure was found murdered.

This time it was the heir of the Moonrays Family. Soon after, the Head Elder of the Night Clan was assassinated, followed by the Patriarch of the Winter Clan.

Every few days another influential figure fell, each death sending greater waves across the continent than the last.

Fear slowly began spreading among the noble families as even the most heavily protected estates no longer seemed safe.

According to every surviving witness, the assassin responsible appeared to be a human.

That single detail had initially enraged the Zlycons, but before any large-scale retaliation could be organized, information gathered by their spies scattered throughout the Three Floating Continents revealed something even more disturbing.

The exact same pattern of assassinations was unfolding among humanity as well.

Immortal Valentina had been killed.

Cian Thorne had fallen. Duke Galo of the Fairyborn Empire had likewise been murdered, along with several other influential figures whose deaths were beginning to shake the balance of power across the human nations.

Yet according to the human witnesses, the assassin responsible had not been a human at all. They all claimed to have seen a Zlycon.

That was where the entire matter became suspicious. Assassination was built upon secrecy.

An assassin’s greatest weapon was remaining unseen, striking only once before disappearing without a trace.

Leaving witnesses behind contradicted that very principle. Yet in every single incident, witnesses had survived.

Some servants claimed they had watched their masters die right before their eyes.

Others insisted they had seen the assassin standing over the victim before calmly walking away without attempting to silence anyone.

If the perpetrator truly possessed the ability to assassinate leaders protected by countless guards and powerful spell casters, then eliminating a handful of ordinary servants, wives, concubines, or attendants would have required less effort than breathing.

Instead, they had deliberately allowed those people to live. Even more confusing was the fact that the assassin made no attempt whatsoever to conceal their race.

If a Zlycon had truly infiltrated human lands with the intention of throwing humanity into chaos, then openly revealing themselves made no sense.

The logical course of action would have been to eliminate every witness before quietly planting evidence that pointed toward another human faction.

There would not even have been a need to fabricate convincing proof. Hatred alone would have been enough.

Had Immortal Valentina simply been found dead without any surviving witnesses, suspicion would have immediately fallen upon the Hayes Family.

Considering the hostility between the two powers, neither side would have bothered seeking the truth before blood began spilling.

Matters would have become even worse after the recent rumors surrounding Rosalina Valentina and the heir of the Hayes Family.

Emotions would have overwhelmed reason long before diplomacy had the opportunity to intervene.

And everyone knew exactly how the Hayes Family would respond. Once provoked, they would not stop after claiming a single life.

They would continue until they believed the debt had been repaid in blood. Most terrifying of all was their Patriarch, Nathaniel Augustus Hayes.

Even among the Zlycons, a race that had not fought a full-scale war against humanity in more than seven centuries, his name still carried weight.

The title of the Butcher had not been earned through stories or exaggeration.

If Nathaniel truly believed another family had murdered one of his own, he would never remain idle until enough corpses lay before him to satisfy his wrath.

His enemies understood that all too well. For that very reason, if the assassin had genuinely been a Zlycon seeking to weaken humanity from within, openly revealing their identity was the last thing they should have done.

By exposing themselves, they had instead ensured that humanity would set aside internal conflicts and unite against what appeared to be an external threat.

The exact same logic applied to the Zlycons themselves.

Although every noble family ultimately descended from the same ancient bloodline, sharing a common ancestor and the blood of the Solarian Family, unity had never truly existed among them.

Rivalries between branch families stretched back centuries, while conflicts between clans often lasted for generations.

Pride, ambition, and old grudges had divided them just as thoroughly as humanity had been divided by kingdoms and noble houses.

Had the assassin disguised as a human quietly murdered those influential leaders before disappearing without witnesses, suspicion would have immediately fallen upon rival clans and branch families.

Retaliation would have followed almost instantly. Yet that had not happened. Instead, witnesses survived to identify the killer as a human.

Since those witnesses consisted primarily of servants, wives, concubines, and attendants who possessed little strength of their own, their survival could not possibly have been an accident.

Anyone capable of effortlessly eliminating the leaders they served could have erased every witness just as easily.

The fact that they had not done so could only mean the witnesses had been intentionally spared.

This identical pattern eventually led the highest authorities of the Zlycons toward a single conclusion.

Someone was deliberately trying to provoke a war between the two races by assassinating their most influential figures while simultaneously ensuring that each side knew the killer supposedly belonged to the other.

The plan was clever enough to create fear and suspicion, yet strangely careful not to trigger immediate civil wars within either race.

Unlike humanity, the Zlycons possessed one overwhelming advantage. Their spies had long been scattered throughout the

Three Floating Continents.

Thanks to their ability to disguise themselves as humans, they had gathered information that ordinary human intelligence networks could never hope to obtain.

Humans simply lacked the ability to infiltrate Zlycon society in the same manner, their appearance making such missions nearly impossible.

After comparing reports from both continents, the similarities became too great to dismiss as coincidence.

The leaders of the Solarian Family could no longer ignore the possibility that a hidden force was manipulating both civilizations from the shadows.

As a result, summons had been sent across the entire Heartreach Continent, calling every major clan, every influential branch family, and every significant power to gather at the headquarters of the Solarian Family for a summit unlike any held in centuries.

And the day of that summit was... today.