I Will Face Him Head-On

Gaoxin stripped off his clothes and threw them directly over the courtyard wall.

Then, bare-chested, he quietly slipped into the lobby on the first floor.

Two people were lying there, wailing in agony. When they saw him enter, they hurriedly begged him to save them.

Gaoxin raised a finger to his lips, shushed them, and crept over.

"Quiet. Cat Collar is with me. As long as I don't get caught, neither of you will die."

The two weren't idiots. Hearing this, they immediately understood why Big Beard had only crippled them instead of killing them.

"Keep crying and keep wailing. Don't stop. Just pretend you never saw me."

As he spoke, Gaoxin dashed to the marble steps in the center of the lobby.

Sure enough, the section of steps that could hide a person had already been pried open.

The corpse inside was still lying there, only slightly more disheveled. A large patch of blood had been added to its chest.

Earlier, Gaoxin had deliberately left the carpet improperly arranged after inspecting the steps, exposing a flaw so that Big Beard would notice it and learn that a corpse was hidden there.

Aside from allowing him to pinpoint Big Beard's position through the sound of the panel being lifted, it had also been for this very moment!

The dead man had suffocated, yet there was a wound on his chest. Clearly, Big Beard had vented his anger by hacking the corpse with an axe.

Gaoxin smiled when he saw it. This was even better.

Without a word, he began stripping the corpse and putting its clothes on himself.

At the same time, he dug out a handful of flesh and smeared it over the corresponding spot on his own chest.

For a moment, he looked exactly like the dead man.

But he wasn't finished. Gaoxin dragged the corpse out, glanced at the fireplace beside him, and hurriedly dragged it over to hide it.

From above, Sule's pleading and negotiations occasionally rang out. He was saying things like he could give Big Beard the collar and asking whether Big Beard could guarantee that he wouldn't be killed.

Big Beard answered him too, saying that he agreed.

Yet the two continued their chase across the third floor, their voices constantly shifting.

Gaoxin understood. Sule was reporting his position to him, letting everyone in the house know where Big Beard was.

"Good work!" Gaoxin praised him inwardly.

Sule was incredibly agile, and he wasn't weak either. Combined with his familiarity with the terrain, that was proving useful now.

The time this bought him was absolutely crucial.

Gaoxin raced against the clock and soon buried the corpse beneath the pile of charcoal in the fireplace.

Black earth lay underneath. He scraped out some space, stuffed the corpse inside, then covered it with a thick layer of soil and charcoal. By then, the entire corpse was pressed beneath it, and from the surface, there was no sign that anyone was hidden there.

Actually, it was an excellent hiding method. Unfortunately, people needed to breathe. Wouldn't staying buried forever be courting death?

Dead people, however, didn't need to breathe.

After wiping his hands, Gaoxin rushed back to the steps and lay directly inside.

He covered his head with the red carpet, leaving most of his body exposed. The marble slab remained tilted to the side. In short, everything was kept exactly as it had been when he arrived.

Then he breathed slowly and carefully, keeping his entire body utterly still.

The two people in the lobby had watched the whole process. They were completely stunned.

He was disguising himself as a corpse? Right here in plain sight?

Could this really work? The last person to try hiding in plain sight was already dead.

Gaoxin slowed his breathing and remained motionless, while listening in every direction.

Sule persisted upstairs for quite a while, but in the end, he let out a scream and was caught by Big Beard.

"Bang!"

A tremendous crash followed, sounding like an axe striking a wall. Clearly, Big Beard had discovered that Sule didn't have Cat Collar and realized he had been tricked again, so he was venting his frustration by chopping at the wall.

"Ugh—aaaaah!"

Sule's screams gradually drew closer.

Big Beard carried him down from upstairs in great strides, passing right by the place where Gaoxin was hiding.

However, Big Beard had no idea that the corpse in the pit had been replaced. He took two steps in one and directly crossed several steps at once.

He actually stepped right over Gaoxin!

It worked!

Gaoxin remained perfectly still, secretly letting out a sigh of relief.

But he still didn't dare lower his guard, maintaining the slowest possible breathing rhythm.

If the lobby had been quiet, his method probably wouldn't have worked. But he had expected the lobby to be the noisiest place, filled with people's cries of agony. That made this form of hiding in plain sight possible.

But immediately afterward, Big Beard said, "What are you looking at?"

He was speaking to the two crippled rats in the lobby. Evidently, they had been staring at Big Beard as he came down the stairs, wanting to see whether he would discover Gaoxin.

They had even quieted their wailing, which had made Big Beard suspicious.

No way... Gaoxin felt miserable. I can't be this unlucky, can I? Surely no one could be stupid enough to do that.

Fortunately, the two quickly realized their mistake. They gradually raised the volume of their cries and begged, "Ugh... boss... please... spare us. We're both willing to give you our rewards. We only want to live!"

Big Beard said coldly, "You've already fallen into my hands. Once I become a cat, I can kill you and take the Redemption Vouchers. Why would I still bother collecting debts?"

He refused them. If everyone were still hiding and he was being hunted as well, he might have been happy to accept such a deal.

As long as he stayed alive, he would receive the reward in the end. Why wouldn't he?

But now the rats had fallen into his hands, like meat on a chopping board, entirely at his mercy. Unless he genuinely disliked killing people, why would he go through the trouble of settling accounts afterward? What if something unexpected happened?

"Wuuu..."

The two whimpered and groaned, seemingly resigned to their fate.

But they understood even more clearly that they absolutely couldn't let Gaoxin's presence be exposed.

Gaoxin was the lifeline of all the rats!

"Hmph!"

Big Beard dropped Sule, then went outside and carried Meimei inside.

There were now four rats captured in the lobby. Not counting Gaoxin, five were still missing.

Big Beard didn't stop for a moment and continued searching through the mansion.

He climbed up and down, searching every room on the first floor before moving on to the second.

Gaoxin lay in the central marble steps like this, without even a slab covering him, directly exposed to view. Big Beard passed him several times without suspecting anything.

After all, Big Beard had discovered this corpse himself and had personally stabbed it with an axe.

Unless there was an enormous difference or something felt obviously wrong, it was difficult for Big Beard to imagine that the corpse had been swapped.

Even if he looked straight at it, he might automatically ignore it.

Thus, time passed second by second.

Every so often, Big Beard captured another person.

One after another, he found three more rats.

That meant, excluding Gaoxin, only two rats were still hiding.

Judging by the voices, one of the two remaining rats was the bald man, and the other was Liu Xu.

Gaoxin secretly marveled that the two really had some skill. They were quite good at hiding. Had they found a concealed area?

"Fuck, where are they? Where are the other three rats hiding?"

"Or is the collar not around a rat's neck, but buried somewhere?"

Big Beard gradually grew irritated. In the end, he began destroying everything in sight, wielding the Mechanical Giant Axe and frantically chopping apart every furnishing.

Even if he had to dig three feet into the ground, he would find the collar.

And this method really was effective.

When he chopped apart a statue, a woman's scream came from inside.

It turned out that although the statue looked completely sealed around the outside, there was an entrance at the bottom.

After discovering it, Liu Xu had tilted the statue and crawled inside from below. Her petite frame fit perfectly.

To allow ventilation, she had also drilled several inconspicuous holes, allowing her to endure there until now.

Unfortunately, simply hiding gave her a terribly low chance of survival.

As long as no one restrained the Radiation User, he could search and destroy without restraint. He would always find them eventually.

"Fuck, no cat again!"

Big Beard carried Liu Xu into the lobby and continued chopping and smashing everything around him.

Gaoxin's heart suddenly tightened. He sensed that Big Beard was frantically hacking at every single step!

Clearly, after learning that someone could hide inside the steps, Big Beard suspected that a second staircase might also conceal someone.

He intended to use an exhaustive search, smashing every step on every staircase!

"Damn it..."

Gaoxin felt the sound drawing closer and closer and lamented inwardly. There was nothing he could do about this.

Bang, bang, bang. Each axe strike felt as though it were pounding against his heart. Closer and closer.

Suddenly, a furious roar came from the courtyard.

It was followed by a burst of violent commotion.

"Brother Dong Can!" the masked short man wailed. "Xi Ba, I'll fight you to the death!"

Gaoxin's heart stirred. Is it finally almost over?

It seemed that the sword-carrying strongman had died.

"Hahahaha!" Silver Hand's laughter was highly distinctive, wild and crazed.

Gaoxin thought to himself that two against one had still resulted in one being killed. That alone showed how formidable Silver Hand was.

With the sword-carrying strongman dead, the other one wouldn't last much longer either.

The four were probably on the same general level, but in terms of their specific strength, Silver Hand was likely the strongest, Big Beard was second, Brother Dong Can was third, and the short man was the weakest.

At first, the short man's darts had been quite powerful. But after he ran out of darts, he was clearly lacking in close-combat ability.

When coordinating with the sword-carrying strongman, he had mainly provided support. The sword-carrying strongman had often needed to protect him.

Thinking about it now, it was no wonder the two hadn't split up. They couldn't do what Gaoxin had suggested, with one distracting Silver Hand while the other searched for the cat like Big Beard.

They were probably extremely powerful when working together, but useless alone. The short man in particular couldn't defeat any of the other three.

"Die! Hahaha!" Silver Hand howled and laughed.

Clearly, Big Beard had also seen the battle in the courtyard.

Big Beard immediately stopped chopping the stairs and ran out to the courtyard, allowing Gaoxin to escape disaster.

"Heh heh. How much longer can your Organ Overclocking last? You look like you're about to die." Big Beard could tell that both of his opponents were exhausted.

Silver Hand sneered. "Is that so? You still haven't found the cat?"

"I'm done searching. I'll kill you first!" Big Beard had a violent temper too.

He couldn't find Gaoxin, and he had seen that one of the three people in the courtyard was dead while the other two were nearly exhausted. He therefore made up his mind to join the battle immediately and finish them both off.

Once those two were dead, he would be the only Radiation User left in the entire area. Wouldn't he be able to do whatever he wanted? He would have plenty of time to dig three feet into the ground!

Gaoxin secretly sighed in relief. One of the Radiation Users had finally died.

The situation had changed, and Big Beard had been drawn away.

The white man, Big Beard, was undoubtedly shrewd. After avoiding the battle for so long and seeing Silver Hand's strength after he killed the sword-carrying strongman, he finally couldn't sit still.

If the weakest one had died, he might have continued waiting. But now that someone roughly equal to him had died...

Big Beard naturally had to enter the fight. He would first join forces with the weakest one and kill Silver Hand. Once Silver Hand died, the remaining short man would pose no threat.

Before long, Gaoxin heard even more intense fighting coming from the courtyard.

The situation now was probably that Big Beard and the short man had joined forces to kill Silver Hand.

"What? You have Bloodthirsty Regeneration?"

Suddenly, Big Beard let out a shocked cry.

The short man was shocked too. "You dare drink my Brother Dong Can's blood!"

Silver Hand said hoarsely, "I don't just want to drink his blood. I want to eat his flesh too!"

"Fuck! This guy also has Flesh Assimilation!" Big Beard cried out again.

"Get the corpse away from him, or he can keep regenerating his injuries. He can even use your brother's flesh as fuel to sustain his Organ Overclocking!"

After hearing this, another bout of extremely fierce sounds erupted.

Big Beard cursed again. "Shorty, use Organ Overclocking too! Your big brother is already dead, and you're still holding back?"

The short man whimpered, "I'm not holding back! I... I can't use Organ Overclocking!"

"What?" Big Beard was stunned.

Apparently, being unable to use Organ Overclocking was an incredibly exasperating thing on the island.

"Fuck, where are you from? You can't even get the Gene Module for Organ Overclocking?"

The short man shouted, "I'm from the Kutou Alliance!"

Big Beard cursed. "What alliance? I've never even heard of it. What poor-ass gang are you from?"

Silver Hand recognized it, though, and laughed. "Heh heh heh. So you're those Korean bandits from East Mountain, the ones driven into the mountains by the Yakuza and nearly unable to afford food..."

Big Beard irritably cursed, "Fuck, a gang so poor it can barely afford food dares to have a name?"

"Don't insult the Kutou Alliance! One day, we'll have territory of our own!" the short man roared.

Big Beard cursed under his breath. He knew he could no longer hold back, so he shouted, "Harass him. I'll attack head-on!"

After that, a roar rang out. Big Beard had apparently activated Organ Overclocking as well, and the battle instantly grew even more intense.

Gaoxin lay silently inside the mansion and listened, hoping that they would both suffer heavy losses. That way, the rats would still have a chance of survival.

He knew about Organ Overclocking. Earlier, at the beach, Tianshe, Sasaki, and a hundred other Yakuza enforcers had all used it.

It should be a common genetic skill. It made one's entire flesh seem to burn, greatly increasing combat power with explosive force, but its consumption was tremendous.

Smoke rose from the body as it visibly wasted away.

This skill seemed to be essential for the strong individuals making their way on Sin Prison Island.

Without it, they might be too embarrassed to claim they were part of the underworld.

And Silver Hand truly was formidable. In addition to this skill, he also possessed Bloodthirsty Regeneration and Flesh Assimilation. It seemed that all of them replenished him through the flesh and blood of corpses.

"Ah!"

During the fierce battle, the short man suddenly let out a miserable scream. After that, Gaoxin could no longer hear a sound from him.

At this point, Big Beard and Silver Hand were having their final one-on-one fight.

Silver Hand had taken down two people in succession and was probably at the end of his strength. But he also had recovery abilities, so it was hard to say what condition he was in now.

Big Beard seemed to have conserved his strength, but in fact, he had also been surrounded and attacked outside the courtyard earlier. He had suffered heavy injuries and had nearly died.

So as for which of the two would win, it was truly impossible to say.

Gaoxin and all the rats in the hall were praying that the two of them would preferably die together.

Time passed second by second. The wait was agonizing.

Finally, the sounds of battle grew softer and softer until they stopped.

Is it over? Gaoxin's heart stirred.

But then he heard Silver Hand roar angrily, "Don't run! Coward!"

Big Beard cursed, "Fuck, you lunatic! You can have this game! I don't want the reward anymore, all right?"

Gaoxin's heart sank. It turned out the fight was not over. Big Beard had chickened out and no longer wanted to fight.

In essence, the Radiation Users did not really need to fight to the death. It was very simple for them to stay alive, especially the dogs: they only needed to state that they were giving up the reward and sit back to watch the show.

Of course, the others could refuse to believe them. As long as they remained alive, they were still a threat, and people might continue trying to kill them.

But with someone as strong as Big Beard, he only needed to avoid fighting. The courtyard was huge, and if a Radiation User wanted to hide or flee, he would be much harder to catch than a rat.

But this was not good news for the rats.

"Hahaha, you trash! You don't dare fight to the death on Sin Prison Island. You'll never amount to anything in your life!" Silver Hand mocked him wildly.

Big Beard shouted angrily, "Why are you chasing me? Go catch the rats! There are so many rats in the hall—I've already rounded them all up for you!"

Silver Hand rasped, "Idiot, you're... also a rat!"

"What!"

Big Beard fully realized how insane Silver Hand was. He was completely different from him. Big Beard had come for the Redemption Vouchers and would do his best to obtain them, but if he really could not, then so be it. He had no intention of throwing his life away.

Silver Hand, however, had fought three people at once, intending to turn them all into rats and obtain more rewards. He refused to accept surrender.

He was too arrogant, too greedy.

"It's only a hundred points! Why the hell are you fighting so desperately for it?"

Boom! The sound of a wall collapsing came from the second floor. Clearly, they were no longer confining their battle to the courtyard and had begun moving through the building as they fought.

Silver Hand said coldly, "If I don't fight for my life, I'll never grow stronger. If I don't squeeze every last bit of potential out of myself, how will I ever take revenge?"

It turned out that aside from wanting the Redemption Vouchers, he was fighting so desperately to challenge himself, intending to become stronger through life-and-death battles.

Big Beard said anxiously, "Revenge? Who's your enemy? I'll help you! How about I give you another hundred points after we get out?"

Silver Hand sneered. "Help me? A hundred points? Heh heh heh... My enemy is Tiger Shark, Fujiwara Tomotaka."

Upon hearing that name, Big Beard seemed dumbfounded. "Fujiwara Tomotaka? You want to kill him? He's an executive of the Black Hand Gang in Haiwang Port! Are you insane? That guy is an Elephant King! He's the backer behind all the Wa people's forces."

"So what? One day, I'll become an Elephant King too!" Silver Hand declared firmly.

"You lunatic. You're not SR-Class, so how can you become an Elephant King? No matter how crazy you are, at most you can... Wait, could it be that you..."

Silver Hand roared, "Who says I'm not SR-Class!"

Boom! The sound of metal striking stone rang out from upstairs. Clearly, Silver Hand had caught up with Big Beard, and the two had begun fighting fiercely once again.

Gaoxin was stunned. He had never expected Silver Hand's Radiation Type to be SR-Class.

This was the second SR-Class he had ever encountered. The first had been the newcomer, Xia Heng.

However, the difference in their strength was simply too great.

In Gaoxin's eyes, Silver Hand was not even as strong as Sasaki, let alone Tianshe.

And Xia Heng? Tianshe had led a hundred warriors on Sasaki's level to activate Organ Overclocking and surround Xia Heng. Seventy of them had been killed in retaliation, and Xia Heng had still escaped, leaving behind only one arm... And even that arm had been shot off voluntarily by Xia Heng himself...

The difference between them was like heaven and earth.

Gaoxin realized that combat power was combat power, while potential was potential. The former was described with wolves, tigers, and elephants, corresponding to the N-Type, R-Type, and SR-Class Radiation Types.

A high-potential Radiation User who had not yet grown was worthless. But without being R-Type, one could never become a tiger; without being SR-Class, no matter how hard one fought, one could never become an elephant.

"If I became a Radiation User, what would my potential be?"

Gaoxin murmured inwardly. He had originally only wanted to be an ordinary person and live honestly, but Heaven had not granted his wish.

After experiencing despair in which he could be crushed to death by someone at any moment, he yearned for power more and more.

"I'm thinking too far ahead. I should focus on surviving first."

"Unless they die together, I won't be a match for whoever survives... Relying on them to die together is far too much of a gamble."

Gaoxin quickly cast aside his distracting thoughts and suddenly sat up.

"Brother Xin Ku?" Sule was stunned when he saw a corpse suddenly sit up not far away.

He had never imagined that Gaoxin had been hiding right under his nose.

"Shh!" Taking advantage of Silver Hand and Big Beard having fought their way upstairs, Gaoxin decisively revealed himself.

He first checked the injuries of Sule and the others. He was somewhat disappointed. All the rats present were crippled.

The bones in both legs were broken, and some had also suffered severe injuries to their arms or shoulders. The only one whose arms were unharmed was Liu Xu, but she was too frail. On top of that, she had a broken leg—what could she possibly do to help?

"So I can only rely on myself..." Gaoxin murmured as he swept his gaze around.

Sule asked, "Brother Xin Ku, what do we do after they decide the winner?"

Gaoxin's eyes burned brightly. "What else can we do? We fight him."

"I'll face him directly!"

Everyone was shocked. A Glass Person was about to have the ultimate battle against a Radiation User?

Even if the opponent was seriously injured and he was in perfect condition, what use would that be? A seriously injured ferocious beast was even crazier and more terrifying.

They had seen Silver Hand's terrible injuries several times and felt that he might be close to death, but what had happened? He was still this fierce! Hadn't even Big Beard, who was at the same level, been frightened into retreating?

The eight rats present looked at Gaoxin with both despair and a trace of hope.

They did not believe Gaoxin could win, but even if they did not believe it, they had to believe it now. They had no other choice.

They were already deeply grateful that Gaoxin was willing to step forward. After all, in theory, Gaoxin could have continued hiding until the end, while they were certain to be slaughtered at the final moment to vent the others' anger.

"Br... Brother Xin Ku, right... Please... We're entrusting our lives to you." The rats all looked at him expectantly.

"You... You have to win!"

P.S. Sorry. I just entered Qidian's "new book library" intelligent distribution pool, and it feels like I'm about to be put on the shelves completely naked.