Chapter 97: The Masked One's Decree

In the heart of Kyoto, the city's most notorious mafia families gathered in a large private room of an upscale restaurant, the air thick with tension and anticipation. It had been a day since the news of Xiao Mingyuan's brutal slaying and the carnage that had unfolded at the Xiao villa, and everyone was on edge, their nerves frayed to the breaking point.

Most of them suspected that the elusive and feared 'Masked One' was behind the attack, for who else possessed the audacity and sheer ruthlessness to kill the Xiao family's patriarch with such brazen impunity?

Representing the shattered remnants of the Xiao clan, the still-shaken Xiao Mingliang sat among the heads of the other families – Zhang Wenlan, Liu Fengyi, Huang Zhuang, and Chen Jingfei. It was Chen Jingfei who broke the tense silence first, his voice laced with a razor-sharp edge that seemed to slice through the fraught atmosphere.