"Gurgle... gurgle..."
The sound of greedy sucking was horrifying in the silent surroundings.
Scarlet blood vessels writhed and rapidly swelled without restraint.
...And so, Deputy Han drowned with his so-called "ideals" and "righteousness."
--He was drowned with Bai Zhou's hand pressing down on his head.
Bai Zhou respected everyone's life, and had no intention of persuading Deputy Han of anything.
He merely wanted Deputy Han dead. It was that simple. Why go to such lengths?
--Those who eat people deserve to be eaten!
He turned to look at the Resting Mausoleum.
Every gravestone quietly watched Deputy Han's miserable wails.
The man who had been speaking grandly and flapping his lips just moments ago was gone.
It was clear that no matter how eloquent someone was, when faced with death and pain, they could only utter a few monotonous words.
They could not "convince themselves" that pain was a necessary part of the path of ideals, let alone give a speech before the Legacy of Blood Thirst...
At this point,
the first step of revenge, and the thing that had to be done before leaving--
had been accomplished.
His thoughts flowed freely.
It was as though his mental state had been sublimated. A faint glimmer of Spiritual Light suddenly appeared, just out of reach.
That was...
the power of the "heart."
Bai Zhou rubbed the Dark Golden Ring on his left hand. In the end, his gaze settled on Section Chief Liu's gravestone.
"Big Brother, did you see that too?"
"Gurgle..."
On the battlefield.
The smoke of gunpowder gradually dispersed.
Four heads rolled across the ground. One of them rolled to Major's feet.
Its wide-open eyes stared in terror, refusing to close even in death, as if they had seen something unbelievable and utterly terrifying.
A secret unit that had arrived late, an elite force personally affiliated with Major, surrounded the area. They were fully armed and on high alert.
"Go find Deputy Han."
Standing before the assembled officers, the impeccably dressed Major put his sunglasses back on, then pointed at the headless corpses on the ground.
"These materials mustn't go to waste."
"Deputy Han, he..."
Behind Major, an officer hesitated.
He carefully studied Major, his awe and fear even greater than before.
"Hm?"
The gaze from behind the broad sunglasses swept over, making the officer feel cold all over.
"Deputy Han has been unreachable for some time."
"He should be conducting a 'trade' at the Resting Mausoleum."
The officer hurriedly reported everything in one breath, only then letting out a sigh of relief.
Before today, he had thought that as a department supervisor and an officer, everyone ate at the same "table," meaning they were probably partners.
But today, he finally understood...
He was allowed to eat at the table because Major allowed him to.
"Unreachable?"
Major frowned at that.
Nothing could go wrong with the Resting Mausoleum. Could the Blood Worship Cult have another agenda?
"Move!"
Major swept out a hand and issued his order with ruthless efficiency:
"Go take a look!"
"Yes, Major!"
Several sharp cracks rang out, followed immediately by the synchronized stamping of military boots.
The secret unit set out.
This unit was an elite force Major had cultivated with his own private resources. They were not "outsiders."
Whenever Deputy Han recruited escorts for a trade, he selected people from among them.
At the head of the squad were five Level 3 Extraordinaries, along with the mysterious Major.
The air seemed to tremble.
The five officers' footsteps landed heavily on the concrete road like invisible sledgehammers pounding the ground.
Their figures were stretched long by the light. Every tall, burly silhouette radiated terrifying pressure.
Each officer held a pent-up force in his heart.
Their helplessness before the Blood Worship Cult's Elder made them eager to show themselves before Major.
Where one officer stepped, a charred, high-temperature mark remained. Another officer wore a military uniform overcoat, his gaze carrying a frigid, frostlike chill wherever it passed.
The Mechanical Briefcases at their knees lightly knocked against one another.
No matter whom they encountered at the Resting Mausoleum, they would blast the other party into scraps without hesitation.
Six terrifying Extraordinaries, like six moving mountains, headed toward the Resting Mausoleum.
The army behind them carried an even greater momentum, as if it could crush everything.
If nothing unexpected happened, they would reach the Resting Mausoleum in half a minute--
just in time to see Bai Zhou draw out the Legacy of Blood Thirst before Deputy Han.
Fortunately, Bai Zhou had not been unprepared.
"Tap..."
Just as the army passed an inconspicuous gray building,
an unforeseen change occurred.
"Whoosh--boom!!!"
As if welcoming Major and the others,
the entire base suddenly trembled.
It was as though the whole world were blossoming...
From every direction of the base, from the sky overhead, the drains beneath their feet, and even the windows of the buildings on either side, deafening roars erupted simultaneously!
--The base exploded.
Countless sharp shrieks rose from the ground, followed by indescribably splendid brilliance.
Countless tongues of flame blossomed from hidden, inconspicuous corners, shooting into the sky. The flying Flowing Fire and spraying chunks of stone streaked straight toward the bands of light at the top of the base.
The explosion points had deliberately avoided the Black Room and only involved some of the buildings.
On the frontline, everyone had just defeated the invading Blood Worship Cult and was standing on the open, spacious battlefield, so they escaped unharmed.
Even so, the sudden explosion that swept across the entire base left them dazed and confused about what had happened.
...But things were not so pleasant for Major's group.
They faced the explosion head-on. Huge fireballs bloomed layer upon layer, swallowing the entire street, along with the officers and army.
One officer near the source of the explosion was gravely wounded and collapsed on the spot. The secret unit fell into chaos.
"Don't panic!"
Major shouted calmly, a chilling killing intent erupting from his eyes.
The officers' lives were irrelevant, but this sudden explosion was the greatest provocation he had ever faced.
Someone had done all this right under his nose without him noticing--
It was practically jumping in his face and mocking him for his incompetence!
...But in the next moment, he no longer thought that way.
The earth beneath their feet suddenly bulged upward, as if a dragon were turning over.
"...?"
Major and the officers all looked puzzled.
"Not good!"
Suddenly, someone wore an expression of terror, even despair:
"The building beside us that exploded is a public toilet. Beneath us--it's the septic tank!"
The next instant.
"Boom!"
A filthy, destructive eruption arrived.
The concrete ground beneath their feet was as fragile as paper, and terrifying Biogas exploded upward.
Many of the elite soldiers Major had secretly cultivated were blasted into the air.
Filthy brownish-yellow and black liquid, carrying countless indescribable chunks, surged from the ground before crashing down in a vast, roaring deluge.
"No!!!"
Major's fury nearly set the entire base ablaze.
But in the next instant, he regretted opening his mouth...
Filth that seemed to have flown out of hell struck him from head to toe, carrying a stench fermented to the extreme that seeped into every opening.
This dignified, arrogant Major from a prestigious family, a man with severe cleanliness issues--
was the undisputed center of this storm's baptism.
"Who is it! Who is it!"
His suppressed roar no longer sounded human. Major had fallen into a frenzied state of Wrath.
No matter how composed and elegant he usually was, he could no longer maintain his dignity now.
Or rather, everything he was experiencing...
was precisely the most terrifying thing in the world to him, something even worse than death!
Fireworks filled the sky overhead, beautiful beyond compare, while this place had become an endless hell of filth and stench, forming a stark contrast with the heavens above.
Suppressing the violent urge to vomit, he forced several words through his throat, each one ground out through clenched teeth. His voice tore through the filthy air:
"Catch--him!"
"Whoever he is, I will hang him from the Federation Lover rocket launcher and execute him with my own hands!"
The casualties and cries of his subordinates did not enter Major's thoughts. Everything happening now was what had inflicted the greatest real damage on his proud, cleanliness-obsessed self.
He twisted his head, but just as he was about to move, he discovered mysterious liquid stretching in sticky strands between his five fingers...
--Major had successfully lost his reason.
He could not even bear to tolerate his current state. He only felt that he was filthy... and could never wash himself clean again!
"But, Ma-Major..."
"We must rescue the wounded immediately and organize people to save the base facilities..."
An officer reported to Major with a trembling voice.
"Some secrets must not be exposed. In particular, the Black Room cannot be allowed to be engulfed by the fire..."
Before he could finish, Major's blazing glare frightened him into silence.
Yet his reminder forced Major to regain control and calm down.
There were matters of varying urgency.
Events had followed one after another, and with such a huge commotion lasting so long, people from above would probably arrive soon...
Before, it would have been easy to explain away. They had all been living merits. But now, a pile of buildings had been inexplicably destroyed.
The Ordinance Hall might investigate...
He had to prepare in advance!
"Now, take people to find Deputy Han immediately and investigate exactly what happened."
Major immediately issued a new order to the officer before him:
"Perhaps another force from the Blood Worship Cult infiltrated the base... I need to go back and take a look."
--Of course, he also needed to take a bath.
Ten baths!
The officer led people away.
But their marching efficiency was only one-third of what it had been before.
However, because of this delay, the one waiting for them at the Resting Mausoleum would no longer be Bai Zhou.
--It would be Deputy Han's dried corpse, and the rampaging Legacy of Blood Thirst!
After a while, the explosion that had come from nowhere finally stopped.
The smoke slowly settled over the ruins in disarray.
Within this filthy air,
a fragment of the slogan that had originally been pasted to the wall spun as it slowly drifted downward.
It floated lightly through the rain curtain formed by the filth, avoided the scorched air, and landed like a mocking snowflake beside Major's boots, which were covered in grime.
Major lowered his head to look,
and saw the neatly printed words on it:
"No public urination or defecation!"
Major: "...?"
In the distance, before the rows of gravestones at the Resting Mausoleum.
"What beautiful fireworks!"
The fireworks had risen into the sky. Was it better to watch them from below, or from the side?
Standing at the entrance of the tomb passage, Bai Zhou was about to be "buried." His face was illuminated by the dazzling flames.
Bai Zhou grinned at the fireworks in the sky and raised a thumb from afar—
"Nice work!"
Although he had no idea what was happening over there, Bai Zhou had already handed Ya all authority to detonate the Demolition Ritual.
If nothing unexpected had happened, Ya should have seized the opportunity and successfully delayed the Major or the reinforcements heading there.
These dazzling fireworks were the signal that Ya had successfully created chaos and was now making her way back.
Then Bai Zhou looked at Deputy Han, who was almost indistinguishable from a dried corpse.
To prevent anything from going wrong, aside from his severed left arm, his other three limbs had also been pinned down by bullets.
—And the one who had done it was, of course, the "Arbiter-300" enchanted pistol left behind by Section Chief Liu.
"Gurgle, gurgle..."
The blood vessels had transformed into a Red-Refining Python over a meter long, tightly coiling around Deputy Han's body as it emitted a crimson glow with every breath.
But no matter how wildly it raged in its hunger and thirst, it did not dare approach Bai Zhou.
Especially when Bai Zhou waved his left hand bearing the Golden Ring, the Legacy of Blood Thirst would recoil in alarm, simply biting Deputy Han and dragging him away.
—Deputy Han, who liked playing with dolls, had now become the Legacy of Blood Thirst's doll.
Yet Deputy Han seemed to be holding on to some hope. He kept his protruding eyes wide open, clinging to his last breath.
Until the fireworks bloomed.
The tremors spreading throughout the entire base made Deputy Han understand what Bai Zhou had done.
He had no idea how Bai Zhou had managed it, but...
With such a huge commotion, was Bai Zhou trying to lure people from outside?
"Looks like the Major you were waiting for won't be coming anytime soon."
Bai Zhou waved at Deputy Han from afar.
A trembling hand rose and pointed at Bai Zhou. The python-wrapped corpse seemed to want to say something.
But in the end, he failed to draw another breath. His head tilted to the side, and his hand dropped to the ground with a slap.
—He had been unable to close his eyes even in death!
Those peach-blossom eyes he had always been proud of were now set into that dry, skin-covered skeleton, making him look more like a Toad.
Just then,
A familiar figure slowly appeared on the distant horizon.
Ya had returned.
Only, her expression was somewhat strange.
"How did you end up setting up the Demolition Ritual... in a place like that?"
"What kind of place?"
Bai Zhou did not understand what she meant. "They were all corners nobody paid attention to. What's wrong?"
"No, it's nothing." Ya shook her head expressionlessly.
"Let's go. Someone's about to catch up."
"Okay..."
After picking up the Briefcase, Bai Zhou stood at the entrance to the passage and suddenly turned back.
The familiar view of the base lay completely exposed, while the gravestones standing behind him seemed to be silently seeing him off.
At the end of the horizon, he could already make out a few blurry figures. For some reason, however, they moved extraordinarily slowly, every step seeming difficult.
But there was no doubt about it: the pursuers were coming.
In the short future that could already be foreseen,
once the Major regained his senses and had his hands free, he would never let Bai Zhou escape after learning the secrets and taking the Account Book.
The endless pursuers, whether from the base or from the financial consortium behind him...
would chase Bai Zhou to the ends of the earth.
Bai Zhou would pay the price for what he had done today. Perhaps starting tomorrow morning, he would be living a suffocating life on the run.
Those would surely be the most dangerous days of Bai Zhou's life.
—Yet Bai Zhou was prepared.
He had no regrets.
"...I'll be back."
He definitely would!
Finally, before the passage door slowly descended,
Bai Zhou said to himself in his heart:
...There was one thing he had never been able to let go of.
Since the Major was like this, and even the entire base treated people as less than human...
Had the Evening City townsfolk who had been carried away really been sent to hospitals for proper treatment?
After leaving, besides following the Account Book's leads and investigating the Major's industrial chain outside...
Bai Zhou had also made up his mind to find out exactly where the Evening City townsfolk had gone.
—So he had to become stronger!
Strong enough to uncover everything, then return in a completely different form.
No longer a stray dog fleeing for his life,
but someone who would personally kill every person who deserved to die!
—Including carrying out his final revenge against the Major!
"Actually, there's something I've wanted to ask you since the beginning."
At that moment, Ya's voice came from beside him.
"What is it?"
"That ring on your hand... where did you get it?"
Ya looked strangely at the Dark Golden Ring on Bai Zhou's left hand.
Twelve spikes adorned the circular band, its thorn-like shape tightly gripping the index finger of Bai Zhou's left hand.
—It looked awfully familiar.
"Yes, that's right."
Bai Zhou coughed lightly.
"It's exactly what you're thinking."
"But that's a long story..."
The two voices gradually faded away in the passage beneath the gravestones.
The passage was not as decayed as one might have imagined. Instead, it was clean and orderly, with faint yellow lights on both sides.
It seemed they used this passage far more frequently than Bai Zhou had expected.
"Where are you planning to go next?"
Ya casually asked Bai Zhou, who was studying a map in his arms.
"Do you have any plans?"
Still, Ya had never expected Bai Zhou to give her an answer.
Even this map of Tinghai City had been "picked up" by Ya from the base beforehand.
What did Bai Zhou know about Tinghai City? Could he even name a few places in it?
At a time like this, he would have to rely on Lord Ya to lead the way...
—But unexpectedly, Bai Zhou answered without the slightest hesitation:
"Dongxing Road."
Bai Zhou raised a finger and pointed to a location on the map as he said to Ya:
"Let's go here. I have a good feeling about this place."
Dongxing Road.
Yongning Life Care Center.
—The Dead Sea Scrolls!
Now was no time to rest.
Time waited for no one. Bai Zhou had to cherish every opportunity that might make him stronger.
He had missed his chance the last time he went to Tinghai City.
This time, if it was possible...
he wanted to go there and investigate tonight!
"..."
As they spoke, the two arrived at the end of the passage.
They climbed up an iron-welded ladder and pushed open a roughly circular metal cover—
Only then did Bai Zhou realize that it was a manhole cover.
"Whoosh..."
The roar of traffic outside immediately reached Bai Zhou's ears.
Outside the passage exit was a dim alley.
Unexpectedly, though, beyond the alley lay a bustling commercial district.
Even at one in the morning, traffic still streamed past, crowds surged like waves, neon signs shimmered with brilliant colors, and brightly lit shopping malls made the night seem like day.
The aroma of street food drifted over. The warmth and vitality of the human world rushed toward him, forming a stark contrast with everything Bai Zhou had just experienced underground.
A gentle night breeze brushed past, its touch faintly tingling against his skin. The clamor around him seemed to drift away with the wind, and the muscles throughout his body relaxed despite himself.
It was as if all the experiences of "eating people" and "being eaten" in the base had merely been a nightmare that had never existed...
His gaze rose unconsciously. Along the city skyline, the tallest building—both familiar and strange to Bai Zhou—once again entered his view.
Although he was standing somewhere completely different from last time, the landmark sign remained strikingly conspicuous whenever he looked up.
For the first time, it shone before Bai Zhou in the neon glow of night.
It said—
"Welcome to Tinghai!"
"..."
Standing at the mouth of the alley with the Briefcase in hand, Bai Zhou was inexplicably stunned for a moment.
"What are you standing there dazed for?"
Ya's voice came from beside him.
A pair of rainbow-colored eyes entered Bai Zhou's vision. They shone brilliantly, brighter than the stars in the sky.
She looked like a young beast that had just broken free from its cage.
She lifted her chin slightly, first pointing meaningfully toward the deep darkness of the alley behind them,
then toward the crisscrossing lights and maze-like streets deeper within the city.
Finally, her pale fingertip pointed at the surging, unfamiliar crowd nearby, people enjoying the nightlife.
"Are you ready?"
Her meaning was clear.
"To be honest,"
Bai Zhou blinked. "I'm unexpectedly not feeling very afraid."
Nervousness was unavoidable.
...But a synonym for nervousness could also be excitement!
Since fate and darkness were always pressing closer from behind, he would flee to the ends of the earth.
—At least he was not alone.
Ya neither approved nor disapproved of Bai Zhou's answer.
Then she and Bai Zhou raised their heads in unspoken agreement and looked toward the neon landmark in the sky.
"Caw—"
A hoarse crow's cry spiraled down from overhead.
August 29, 2030, 1:02 a.m.
Tinghai City, the metropolis cloaked in the guise of ordinary life, opened its arms to the traveler returning home.
"Flap, flap..."
A mysterious black Three-Legged Crow flew through the dark night sky.
It swept over the city, flying low above Bai Zhou's head and casting down a shadow of unrestrained freedom.
The mysteries hidden in the darkness were about to intertwine with the reality on the surface—
A grand adventure was about to begin.
Before you continue