The night wind howled. He clutched the gunshot wound in his shoulder and ran forward with gritted teeth. Above the forest, the thrum of helicopter rotors drew closer and closer, blazing white searchlights sweeping across the sky. Behind him came the faint sound of dogs barking.
Blood kept pouring from the wound, dripping down. Half his body had already gone cold, and his steps grew heavier and heavier. But he knew he could not stop now. If he stopped, it would all be over.
He could not figure out what had happened. Years of planning, a carefully chosen moment—he had wagered his very life on escaping the organization. Yet the moment he made his move, he discovered that tonight was somehow the night with the tightest security at the base... What the hell was going on...?
There were two bullets left in his gun. One for the enemy, one for himself—he had already decided that. But before dying, he wanted to know why the organization had mobilized such a massive force against the escape of a mere assassin. Not only had they sent an elite assassin team, but even higher-ranking Ability Users had appeared.
Those mutated humans who called themselves "Evolved Ones" had always hidden in the deepest reaches of the organization. Having risen to his current position within the organization, he knew one or two of them and understood the domains they oversaw. There was no way someone like him, an ordinary assassin, should warrant their personal intervention. But why?
As he sprinted on, excessive blood loss steadily blurred his vision. When he reached the edge of the forest, a sheer cliff rose before him. With helicopters in the air, climbing it would be certain death. He ran along the cliffside, and at a bend ahead, a faint red glow seeped out.
The helicopters were racing toward him through the sky, while the barking and shouting behind him grew ever more intense. This was probably his last chance. He slowed his pace and secretly peered around the corner. Flames blazed fiercely there, yet gave off a strange sense of transparency. Trembling, he tightened his grip on his gun, and the first thing he saw was a man standing beside the fire.
He was an Evolved One from the organization.
Most Evolved Ones possessed strange abilities beyond those of ordinary people. He did not know how many Ability Users had gathered here, nor did he dare look too closely. In any case, he only had two bullets. He silently raised his hand and took aim. He knew this would be the last time he ever aimed in his life.
Within his sight, the Ability User faced the flames with his back turned outward, his arms spread wide in a rather peculiar pose. An assassin would never assume such a dangerous, defenseless posture, but... who cared...?
Gritting his teeth, he fired. The bullet struck the man squarely in the temple, sending his whole body flying. So what if he was an Ability User? A bullet still killed him. Thinking this, he abruptly swung the gun toward his own forehead. But in that instant, a strange, soul-shaking cry suddenly rang out. His hand trembled, and then an enormous wall of fire surged past before his eyes like a flood.
The flames melted gold and corroded iron. He had no idea how far they had burst out from the forest; every tree they swept over turned to ash in an instant. Since the flames had erupted from a hollow in the cliff face, they had swept right past him. Yet he could not feel even the slightest heat. Looking up, he saw a giant crimson bird soar into the sky with a soft cry. It was the Fire Phoenix depicted in Chinese legends.
Fiery clouds spread across the entire night sky. Several pursuing helicopters exploded and crashed the moment the flames touched them. Red light fell like rain, scattering through the forest. He stared dumbfounded at it all, then abruptly turned around. The pursuers behind him had already entered his view. Clearly panicked by the sudden turn of events, they stared into the air and forgot to fire for a moment. Then terror filled all their eyes, and they turned to flee.
When he turned back, the phoenix wreathed in flames was diving straight at him. Waves of air rolled forth, and the massive rock wall he had been using for support suddenly flew away. Then he saw the phoenix's eyes.
Boom—
The flames swallowed him whole!
There was no death, no pain. Once the terror passed, he could clearly see that he was standing within a clear golden sea of fire, as though surrounded by an immense mass of liquid, slowly floating up and down. There was no sound around him, a silence like the beginning of heaven and earth. He looked back. Beyond the firelight, everything in the world had become extraordinarily slow. The huge rock wall that had just flown away was caught by the flames and gradually stripped apart. The blast wave swept through the surroundings like a shockwave. Every tree burned, snapped, and turned to ash in an instant. Those trying to escape, along with the hunting dogs, had not even run a few steps before burning into ash amid wails of agony.
In an instant, he understood everything.
According to legend, every so often, a phoenix shed all its feathers and died, then ignited flames amid the ashes and was reborn through fire. The day he had chosen to escape happened to be the day of the phoenix's nirvana. All the people the organization had deployed were there to prepare for this Fire Phoenix. When the phoenix underwent nirvana, it was at its weakest, which was why the organization's Ability Users had been able to surround it. But his shot had opened a gap in the encirclement, allowing the Fire Phoenix to escape.
Somewhere beyond his perception, a voice asked him, "Thank you. What do you want?"
"I..." His eyes widened.
"...I want freedom."