Split in Two

The instant Wang Zhifan brought his blade down in a vertical slash, he felt an utterly terrifying surge of strength swell through his entire body. The Blade of the Wolf Fiend in his hand also gave off a faint hum. He knew that the Ape King's Rage ring's double-damage effect had just triggered!

In an instant, Wang Zhifan charged fiercely before the monster. His strike was like a hot knife through butter, his weapon cutting down from the enemy's head without the slightest resistance. It vertically cleaved through the entire wolfish head and neck, then flashed across its chest, sliced through its waist and abdomen, and fell between its two thick, hairy legs. It actually split the creature evenly into two vertical halves!

The towering enemy, over two meters tall, crashed heavily to the ground before Wang Zhifan. The moment its muscular body hit the pavement, it split apart to either side, exposing the brain matter, blood, and internal organs running vertically through its entire body. It was plainly dead beyond doubt.

"Pah! You mutt! If I'd had all my gear, you'd have died even faster!"

Having finally killed the monster, Wang Zhifan, whose clothes were already riddled with tears, viciously kicked the enemy's vertically split corpse. Then he flicked the Blade of the Wolf Fiend through the air to shake off the lingering fluids and quickly left the now-deserted street, returning to his rented room by way of an alley.

Not long after Wang Zhifan left, several official personnel dressed in black uniforms arrived at the scene. Their leader was a man around twenty-seven or twenty-eight, with a longsword at his waist and a sniper rifle in hand. His sharp gaze swept over the blood-scented street before he quickly approached the monster's split corpse.

However, it was slightly different from when Wang Zhifan had left. At that time, the corpse on the ground had still looked completely like a humanoid dire wolf covered in long hair. Yet after only a short while, the long fur on its body had grown shorter and sparser. The two halves of its vertically split head no longer looked entirely beastlike either. Its features had become somewhat like those of a white foreigner, and it even appeared to have been fairly young.

"A foreign Warrior-class werewolf player... Judging by his build and physical strength, he should have been between Lv20 and Lv23..."

The black-uniformed man in charge set the sniper rifle he was carrying aside, crouched down, and stared at the corpse before him for two seconds. Then he pressed it with his gloved fingers and gave his assessment.

The uniformed personnel beside him began their work. Some photographed the corpse on the ground, some took out notebooks to make records, and others ran directly into the buildings along one side of the street.

"Captain Li, can you tell what kind of player killed him?"

The person holding a notebook beside the leader asked him as he continued examining the corpse from his crouched position.

"At least a Lv30 player. Proficient in close combat, and he used a bladed weapon."

After a brief moment of thought, the man addressed as Captain Li answered.

"This player was most likely a close-combat class. His Strength stat was extremely high, and his weapon was probably no slouch either. Otherwise, he couldn't have so smoothly split him into two vertical halves in a single strike... When he killed this werewolf player, the target was still in his thick-skinned, tough-fleshed werewolf form. Even I wouldn't find it easy to pull off an attack like that..."

Captain Li, dressed in black with a longsword at his waist and a sniper rifle beside him, added.

A little while later, after finishing his examination, he stood and looked toward the side of the street. There, a uniformed officer who had run off not long ago was already hurrying back.

"Captain Li! The CCTV system here has been sabotaged! There's no street footage from the time of the incident!"

The returning officer reported some bad news to Captain Li.

"Mm... As expected."

Captain Li's expression did not change in the slightest after hearing it.

"This latest group of foreign criminals is very good at concealing their tracks. They make preparations before committing crimes, otherwise they wouldn't be so hard to catch... But fortunately, this one ran into a wall."

As he spoke, the man glanced again at the cold corpse split vertically in two on the ground, his tone calm.

Then he walked forward and looked over the other body on the street, the passerby who had been pounced on and killed by the foreign werewolf player at the very beginning. After confirming that the cause of death was the werewolf's claws ripping out the victim's heart, he instructed the others to cover the body with a white sheet and begin gathering information and contacting the family.

Afterward, Captain Li came to a sewer manhole not far from the passerby's body. Judging from footprints and other traces, he determined that the killer, now a corpse, had originally crawled out from there.

"Tonight, have Old Huang use his little darlings to thoroughly search everything below. Even if they don't find those criminals' hideout, they should uncover some clues."

He then instructed the notebook-holding officer who had been following him.

"Yes, Captain Li."

The officer with the notebook answered while recording his words. Then he asked, "What about the player who killed the werewolf? Do we need to investigate his identity as soon as possible?"

Captain Li fell briefly silent at the question, evidently considering and weighing the matter.

"We can conduct a simple preliminary check."

He then answered.

"But keep the focus on investigating the foreign criminals. There's been quite a bit of pressure from above lately, so we need to keep our priorities straight... Besides, this expert killed the werewolf and left immediately without even claiming the bounty. He's most likely the type who doesn't want to be disturbed. Even if you find out his identity, don't send anyone to his door directly. Many people like that have bad tempers, and things could easily go wrong... Players are becoming more and more influential now. The policy from above is mainly to recruit them. We absolutely cannot drive our country's experts overseas."

Captain Li was not especially old, but he apparently held a fairly high position and was familiar with upper-level policy. As he spoke, the officer beside him recorded every point in his notebook.

While the officials continued handling the aftermath in an orderly fashion, the close-combat expert Captain Li had guessed to be at least Lv30—Wang Zhifan, whose actual level was only Lv3—was showering in the cramped bathroom of his rented room, his brows tightly furrowed in thought.

I never expected the area where I live to have become this unsafe... For a peaceful life in the future, I need to move somewhere more stable as soon as possible... Maybe moving directly near the Dongjiang Second Bureau would be a good idea. There must be official experts stationed there... Mm... After I clear the dungeon tomorrow, I'll go look for a place.