Heiress Unmasked: Shaking the World With Geomancy novel Chapter 2037

On the other side, the livestream had created yet another uproar online.

Dexter's name took over the trending topics, while the 29 victims whose names Shannon had publicized were compiled into a list.

Many Internet users began reaching out to the victims' families.

In a small town tucked away in Southview, Samara Culkin had returned to her neighbourhood from grocery shopping. A group of middle-aged ladies huddled together, chattering about something.

When they saw Samara, they quickly beckoned her over. "Samara, have you talked to Betty lately?"

When Samara heard her daughter's name, she appeared mildly resentful and even spoke sarcastically. "She doesn't think of us as family anymore. I haven't talked to her since she left home many years ago.

"You know, I really don't expect much from her. I've long regarded her as dead…"

She started cursing the moment she mentioned her daughter. Normally, the neighborhood ladies would chime in with a few words of advice or try to calm her down.

But this time, they just looked at her with complicated expressions.

It was a long moment before one of them finally said, "Why don't you contact her? They're talking about a Betty S. online, and her description is similar to your daughter's. You ought to know if she's alive, right?"

Samara didn't quite understand what was going on at first… not until she heard someone say that a mystic master online had just exposed a deranged serial killer, with one of the victims being Betty.

When she learned the killer was from Mondure, something in her heart lurched. She vaguely remembered that her daughter had said she was heading to Mondure before running away.

Still, she forced a scoff and waved it off. "That girl? No way something would happen to her. She's tough—probably tougher than me. I bet there's a million Betties with a surname starting with an 'S' out there."

With that, she turned around and went home.

When she opened her front door and shut it behind her, the bag of groceries slipped from her fingers and scattered across the floor.

Samara's hands trembled as she fumbled for her phone, pulling up the number she hadn't dialed in two years.

She pressed the dial button repeatedly, yet the silence on the other end grew heavier. She began comforting herself that the signal was bad, but her trembling body sold her.

Her voice cracked desperately as she yelled, "Pick up, you brat!"

Hearing the commotion, her son came out of his bedroom and was confused to see his mother collapsed on the floor, desperately making calls. "Mom, what are you doing?"

Samara looked up at the sound, her mind sluggish for two full seconds. When she saw him, a raw, wrenching sob tore from her throat as she cried out in anguish, no longer able to hold it in.

Though Dexter couldn't see it with his own eyes, it was as if he could hear every word—countless voices shouting their hatred, disgust, and revulsion.

From that moment on, the echoes of those voices never left him.

In the courtyard of Demon District, Shannon sat below the maple tree, attempting to draw a black thread from an emerald pendant into a blank talisman.

When Benjamin came over, he glanced at the faint black thread Shannon had drawn out between her fingers. Sensing its energy carefully, he lifted his brows in surprise. "Is that… Dexter's malice?"

She nodded. "I tried pulling a thread of it from within the domain," she said, her voice calm as she watched the black line twist gently in her fingers. "Didn't think it would actually work."

She paused, then turned to look at Benjamin, a quiet clarity in her gaze.

"You once said Vlad is an incarnation of human malice. So, I've been thinking… If there's enough of it, could we draw him in ourselves?"

Vlad had been missing for two years now—a lingering threat that hadn't truly gone away.

Though Shannon hadn't yet completed manifesting her tenth tail, it was about time she pulled herself away from other matters and dealt with him properly.