Chapter 146: Who is Cillian Forrest? The Imperial Marshal?

In the room.

Sophie Wexler turned the small box over and over in her hands for the longest time. "How do you open this?"

’There’s no switch.’

She couldn’t just wait for Cillian Forrest to come back and open it. She wanted to surprise him when he returned.

’Cillian Forrest would definitely be surprised then.’

Sophie Wexler’s eyes curved into crescents, sparkling as if she could already picture Cillian Forrest’s reaction.

’Oh well, I’ll just ask Evan Adler. He should know. After all, he’s the one who gave me this information in the first place, so he probably knows how to open it.’

With that thought, she picked up her communicator to message Evan Adler, but before she could do anything, a new message popped up.

"Who’s this?" It was from a completely unfamiliar number.

It had a large, compressed file attached.

Sophie Wexler looked at it in confusion. "Did someone send this by mistake?"

"Or is it some kind of junk file or a virus?"

Just as she was about to ignore and delete it, another message popped up.

"Miss Wexler, you still don’t know Cillian Forrest’s identity, do you?"

After that message, no others followed. Perhaps the sender was confident this single line was enough to pique Sophie Wexler’s curiosity, or perhaps there was another reason.

Sophie’s finger, poised to hit delete, froze.

She stared at the line of text, reading it again slowly.

’Cillian Forrest’s identity?’

’What identity could Cillian possibly have?’

Sophie’s gaze flickered back and forth between the message and the file at the top of the screen.

She instinctively felt the sender had malicious intentions. ’After all, what kind of decent person sends messages like this?’

At that thought, Sophie wanted to delete the message and pretend she’d never seen it.

’If there’s anything to know, I can just ask Cillian when he gets back, right?’

But her finger hovered over the delete button, hesitating.

’I’ll just take a look,’ she told herself. ’Just to see what this person is trying to do. It’s not like I’m going to believe it anyway.’

Then, her finger moved away from the delete key and slowly tapped on the file.

’Just one peek.’

Sticking to this principle, Sophie slowly lowered her gaze to the screen.

The next second, she froze completely, her fingers gripping the communicator going rigid.

In that instant, it was as if time had stopped.

After what felt like an eternity, Sophie blinked mechanically. She looked at the words again, suspecting her eyes were playing tricks on her.

But no matter how many times she looked, those four words were still there, blazing before her eyes.

Imperial Marshal Cillian Forrest!

Sophie Wexler: "???"

’Who?’

’Who did you just say Cillian Forrest is?!’

The Imperial Marshal!

Sophie’s first reaction was that it was impossible.

’How could it be? How could Cillian be the Imperial Marshal!’

’That’s the Imperial Marshal who killed the original owner of this body! No, the one who might kill *me*!’

How could that man possibly have any connection to Cillian?

’Impossible. I even brought it up with Cillian before. I asked him if he knew the Imperial Marshal, and he said he didn’t.’

’When I had that nightmare, he comforted me, saying dreams were fake. How could he possibly be the man from my dream?’

But... was it really impossible?

Sophie couldn’t even lie to herself.

In truth, she had suspected Cillian’s identity more than once. At first, she’d believed he was just an ordinary soldier.

But as they spent more time together, it became obvious that wasn’t true.

Her spiritual power had already reached 3S. She could clear ordinary 3S-level toxins, like those affecting Felix York and Shawn Thorne. She also had no trouble soothing the Disorder Periods of other 3S individuals, like Evan Adler and his men.

But even though her Level was so high and she could handle all of them, he was the one exception.

With his Spiritual Sea, she could only reach the inner layer; she still couldn’t access the core region, and she still couldn’t completely soothe him or clear away the toxins.

All the signs pointed to one thing: his Level was higher than any of theirs.

So how could someone with such a high Level be just an ordinary person?

Sophie had realized this long ago, but she had never asked him about his identity.

She believed that everyone had things they didn’t want to talk about, and she respected people’s secrets.

Or perhaps, she felt that one day, he would eventually tell her himself.

She had considered that his identity wasn’t simple, that he might be powerful and hold a high position.

But she never in a million years imagined he would be the Imperial Marshal who offed the original owner of her body!

Sophie stared at the dense wall of text in the file. It was basically his entire service record.

It detailed his rank, his position, the campaigns he’d fought in, as well as his swift, decisive methods and vengeful nature.

Beyond that, there was one other common assessment of him: bloodthirsty.

Reading the record, Sophie couldn’t help but shudder.

Her mind was now completely consumed by a single thought: ’Cillian Forrest is the Imperial Marshal!’

’The Imperial Marshal who offed the original owner!’

’To escape my fate as cannon fodder, I’ve worked my butt off and been a model citizen!’

’I worked hard to increase my spiritual power, helped people soothe the rampages in their Spiritual Seas during their Disorder Periods, and cleared Starbug toxins for them.’

’I’m practically the poster child for a model citizen of The Galaxy!’

’All of it was to escape the original owner’s tragic end! I thought I had completely sidestepped her fate!’

’And now you’re telling me that while I dodged everything else... ’

’...the biggest time bomb of all has been right beside me the whole time!’

’One that I brought here myself, no less!’

Sophie Wexler: Huh??

Sophie Wexler: Are you kidding me?!

’Back on Karath, I even had the nerve to boast about taking care of him.’

’How could you be so bold, Sophie Wexler? How dare you offer to support *him*!’

’You even put a Slave Collar on him! Okay, so the original owner did that, but he doesn’t know that! To him, what’s the difference from me having done it myself?!’

’Oh, and the original owner also drugged him at the very beginning.’

’So, thinking back on it now, he must have wanted to kill me from the very beginning!’

Looking around at her current surroundings, Sophie felt like she might just faint on the spot.

She was staying in his house, using his things, sleeping in his bedroom!

Ah!

This was a classic case of a lamb walking into the tiger’s den!

Was there any difference between this and serving her head up on a platter?!

’No!’

’I can’t stay here any longer. I have to run. Yes, run!’

Sophie’s mind was now completely possessed by one thought: Cillian Forrest is the Imperial Marshal, the Imperial Marshal who offed the original owner.

Her first, subconscious reaction was to run!

Of course it was! For as long as she’d been in The Galaxy, her guiding principle had been: Stay away from the Imperial Marshal, and save your own skin.

It was practically a core directive programmed into her brain.

How could she possibly remain calm after finding out that Cillian Forrest *was* that Imperial Marshal?

The moment that keyword was triggered, her conditioned reflexes kicked in with emergency protocols.

And as for what those emergency protocols entailed?

They could be summed up in one word: Run!