Five Minutes and Fifty Seconds (Part 2)

First came a click, then a bang!

A storm of metal roared from the barrel, blasting the old woman out of the air in an instant and into the wall. Blood sprayed from her body as though she had been turned into a sieve.

But Liu Dongli did not stop. He worked the bolt, chambering a special round designed for Ascender traits.

Then he pressed in close and pulled the trigger.

Boom!

The old woman, her face obliterated and body nearly reduced to a lump of mangled flesh, slid down the wall. Her limbs twitched as though she still wanted to struggle—after taking two near point-blank shots to the face, she was somehow still alive!

But not for much longer.

Liu Dongli broke open the stock, pulled two bullets from his pocket and loaded them in. Then he aimed and fired twice more, followed by another two shots.

Until the barrel glowed red-hot.

The lump of flesh on the floor finally stopped moving completely.

Only that old face, shredded by steel, still bore an expression of terror and savagery that had not yet faded.

Liu Dongli had no time to catch his breath. He turned and strode toward the two men locked in combat ahead, swung the scalding gun barrel, and smashed the stock into Wang Hai's skull.

The old bastard rolled his eyes back and passed out, leaving only Huai Shi lying on the floor, gasping, with tears and snot still smeared across his face.

At that moment, Huai Shi saw that Liu Dongli's pupils... had somehow become double pupils!

Fifty seconds.

The battle was over.

Old Pond sealing countdown—2:40

"Take it. Move, we need to get out of the church at least..."

Liu Dongli picked up his pistol from the floor and tossed it to him, then stuffed a magazine into his hand. Turning around, he grabbed the box and hurried to retreat.

Huai Shi climbed to his feet, gasping violently as he staggered after him.

Then he saw the box tucked beneath Liu Dongli's arm.

That box. That familiar box...

He had seen it again.

It was definitely the box he had picked up. Huai Shi was certain of it, and that box should have been his...

Right. It should have been his.

Did Liu Dongli think he could just take his things and be done with it?

Fury surged through him. He raised the pistol in his hand, aimed at Liu Dongli's back, and pulled the trigger.

Bang!

The gunshot faded, and blood burst forth.

Liu Dongli's body jolted. He collapsed to the ground, turning back stiffly to stare at the boy behind him in disbelief... at that twisted, vacant face.

After firing, Huai Shi froze as well. Stunned, he lowered his head and saw the smoking barrel in his hand.

What was going on?

What had I done?

Why did I want to take that box?

And why was I here?

Hadn't he sensed the threat of death the moment he entered this place? Hadn't he felt that shadow of death growing heavier time and again?

Why had I come to the church?

Why had I fired at Old Liu?

And what the hell was I doing?

His thoughts instantly became a tangled mess. Then a powerful wave of nausea hit him, his stomach churning violently. He bent over and vomited.

Then he felt something come out with it.

It landed in the filth on the floor.

It was a... goldfish that seemed to still be flopping about?

A goldfish?

Another goldfish?

There had seemed to be goldfish in the eyes of the person who had brushed past him earlier. And at the very beginning, at the very beginning... that corpse had also vomited up... goldfish before it died?

"So it's a Stress Period? It hasn't even been six hours, and rejection has already appeared."

Behind him, an unfamiliar hoarse voice sighed. "Even second-generation goldfish can be resisted. No wonder the earliest third-generation goldfish couldn't parasitize you. What bad luck. Otherwise, the box would have been in our hands long ago. Why go through all this trouble now?"

With that hoarse sigh, the air slowly distorted. A thin figure stepped out of empty space, revealing a black trench coat and a cold, impassive face.

A pair of blood-red gloves.

And a fish tank cradled in his right hand.

Several slender goldfish fry slowly swam within the tiny tank.

"...Green Sun?"

From the pool of blood, Liu Dongli saw the green ring-shaped insignia on the man's hand and finally understood. He struggled to raise his gun. "Huai Shi, run..."

Red Glove glanced down at him and shook his head pityingly. "You can barely save yourself. How can you worry about anyone else?"

The chill of death suddenly emerged.

Then gunshots rang out from behind Huai Shi.

Bang! Then another bang!

One shot finished off Liu Dongli. The other was for Huai Shi himself.

Liu Dongli twitched once, then fell silent forever.

Huai Shi stiffly lowered his head and saw blood slowly spreading across his chest, along with a hole, as though someone had swung a sledgehammer into his back.

It hurt so badly he could die.

He dropped to his knees and began to cry helplessly.

But when he turned and saw the person who had fired, his hoarse cry of pain froze in his throat.

"...Old Yang?"

The stooped man with hollow eyes raised his head and looked at him. The traces of a smile still seemed to linger on the face that usually wore a shrewd grin.

Behind his eyes, a goldfish swam merrily back and forth.

As though it were in its own fish tank.

Under Huai Shi's stunned gaze, Old Yang bent down, picked up the box, stepped through the blood, and stood behind that man.

Waiting for orders.

"Go lock the front doors too. Then prepare the ritual. After waiting this long, we should at least get something worthwhile from it."

The stranger gave the order. Old Yang turned and left without looking back at Huai Shi even once.

"Did you know each other?"

The stranger looked down at Huai Shi and smiled mockingly. "He owed a great deal of money for someone else, so he could only use himself to repay it. Don't blame him, and don't blame me... blame your bad luck instead."

"..."

In his daze and confusion, Huai Shi suddenly understood something. Though rage nearly drove him mad, he could not help wanting to laugh.

To laugh at himself for struggling like an insect caught in a web for so long.

Everything had been decided long ago.

From the very beginning.

Back when he had received Old Yang's call and happily carried his instrument case to apply for a job at the male escort club, he had already stepped onto the road to death.

He would arrive at the designated place, furiously call Old Yang when he left, report his location and information, then take a shortcut home and encounter a corpse, a box, and a goldfish in the alley...

That goldfish should have been swimming happily inside his brain.

By some twist of fate, he had escaped disaster once, only to be forced back onto the original track by the hand behind the scenes, arriving at the predetermined ending.

Just as this man had said, his luck had never seemed to be good.

He always encountered inexplicable things for no reason, and his already messy life would get tangled into an even bigger mess. Poorer, more miserable, more hopeless, until now... he had finally charged headfirst into a dead end like a headless fly.

And reached the end.

"Why the fuck?!"

Huai Shi could no longer endure the agony. He vomited blood, tears and snot streaming down his face helplessly. "I just wanted to live a decent life! I wanted to make some money and live a little better, find a passable job, even if I had to work like a dog, find someone I liked and get married, have a home that wouldn't look down on me... Was that wrong too?! Why? Why the fuck can't you just leave me alone?"

The man in red gloves fell silent.

After a long while, he sighed softly.

"For a better world, there are always many things beyond our control." He took out a gun and aimed it at the boy's face. "Sorry. Your sacrifice is for a greater value."

He pulled the trigger.

Bang!

The bullet was deflected.

By a faint membrane of light.

Red Glove froze.

"Desperate Protection?" He stared in astonishment at the weak glow shrouding the boy. "That woman actually gave you her life-saving charm?

Are you really her old flame?"

This was the Astronomical Society's emergency protection granted to every supervisor, a literal life-saving charm. Once it encountered a fatal attack, it would activate automatically, preserving the user's life under the worst circumstances while they awaited rescue...

For three minutes, it was a barrier that would be nearly impossible to break unless struck head-on by a Stigmata of the fourth stage or above.

"Forget it."

He put away his pistol and gave Huai Shi's chest a mocking glance. Even if he did not finish him off, this fellow would bleed to death.

Time was precious now. He was only one step away from the end, and he had no time to waste on Huai Shi.

He turned and headed toward the chapel.

Things had gone completely beyond his expectations.

Although the operation against the Savior Society had been an impulse after seeing that box, it had still been carefully planned. To avoid alerting and drawing the attention of the group of masters behind Wang Hai, he had to begin with ordinary people. Using the power of his soul—Laughing Fish Tank—he had controlled an internal conflict, then used Old Yang to arrange for the completely unrelated Huai Shi to carry out the final transfer. Yet he had never expected Huai Shi to be a hidden Stress Period candidate Ascender, resistant to the third-generation fry derived from the parasites. The parasitism had failed completely, leaving the plan unrecognizable.

Fortunately, he had successfully remained hidden behind the scenes. Coupled with the immense pressure from the Astronomical Society, he had not let the Purified People behind Wang Hai catch the scent of anything abnormal—the people whose minds held nothing but the Savior were utterly insane, completely devoid of reason.

But since the plan could not be completed in secret, he could only change methods.

As far as he was concerned, as long as the final outcome did not go wrong, changing the process did not matter. Since he had drawn the Astronomical Society's attention, then... he might as well make a bigger mess!

He kicked open the door, casually fired twice, killing an old man who tried to pounce on him, then passed through the screaming, chaotic crowd and stepped onto the podium.

The front and rear doors had already been sealed.

He did not know how much time remained, but it was enough to complete the final descent.

Only...

"Using the Cauldron of Rebirth to make drugs? Did the god of those Purified People eat the brains of their subordinates too?"

He glanced down at the box before him and could not help sneering.

This container-type relic excavated from the hellish ruins of the Seventh Depth was indeed the finest vessel for Source Matter. It could easily convert the frenzied Source Matter of fanatics into physical matter. But perhaps even Wang Hai himself, who had been given this box, did not know what exactly he held in his hands.

The sacrifices were not only the believers he had deceived, but even Wang Hai himself—as long as enough Source Matter was gathered inside, it would become a womb capable of allowing an ancient spirit to be born into the Present Realm!

Once the Ranch Owner's messenger descended through it, every living thing in sight would likely become its meal.

Though what he intended to do was not much better.

"Let's put waste to use."

He swept his gaze over the believers being continuously harvested as sources of Source Matter, opened the box, and drew a test tube from his coat.

Under the dim lights of the church, he examined the flesh within it.

"Begin."

He murmured softly, "Lay a tiny foundation for our great undertaking."