Five Minutes and Fifty Seconds (Part 2)

Click, then bang!

A metal downpour erupted from the gun barrel, instantly blasting the old woman in mid-air away and smashing her against the wall, which instantly sprayed out a large amount of blood like a sieve.

But Liu Dongli's movements didn't stop. He pulled the bolt on his gun, chambering a special bullet designed for Ascendant traits.

Then, he moved in close and pulled the trigger.

Boom!

The unrecognizable old woman, almost a lump of rotten flesh, slid down the wall, her limbs twitching as if she still wanted to struggle. After taking two shots at point-blank range, she was somehow still alive!

But she wouldn't be for long.

Liu Dongli opened the gun stock, took out two bullets from his pocket, stuffed them in, and then fired two more shots, and then two more.

Until the barrel turned fiery red.

The lump of rotten flesh on the ground finally stopped moving completely.

Only an old face, torn apart by steel, still held a look of ferocity and terror that hadn't had time to fade.

Liu Dongli didn't have time to catch his breath. He turned and walked towards the two people fighting ahead, swung the scorching gun barrel, and smashed it into the back of Wang Hai's head.

The old man's eyes rolled back, and he fainted, leaving Huai Shi still lying on the ground, gasping, tears and snot un-wiped.

In that instant, Huai Shi saw that in Liu Dongli's eyes, his pupils... had somehow become double pupils!

Fifty seconds.

The battle was over.

Old Pond sealed countdown - 2:40

"Take it, hurry, we have to at least get out of the church..."

Liu Dongli picked up his pistol from the ground and threw it to him, then shoved a magazine into his hand. He picked up the box and hurried to retreat.

Huai Shi got up from the ground, breathing heavily, and stumbled after him.

Then he saw the box he was holding under his arm.

That box, that familiar box...

He saw it again.

It was the box he had found, Huai Shi could be sure, and that box should have been his...

Yes, it should have been his.

Did Liu Dongli think he could just get away with taking his stuff?

He was furious, raised the pistol in his hand, aimed it at Liu Dongli's back, and pulled the trigger.

Bang!

The gunshot dissipated, and blood spurted out.

Liu Dongli's body suddenly trembled and he fell to the ground, stiffly turning his head, looking at the youth behind him with disbelief... that distorted and blank face.

After firing the shot, Huai Shi was also stunned. He looked down blankly, seeing the still-smoking barrel in his hand.

What's going on?

What did I do?

Why did I grab that box?

And why am I here?

Didn't I sense the danger of death when I entered here? Didn't I feel the increasingly heavy shadow of death countless times?

Why did I come to the church?

Why did I shoot Old Liu?

And what exactly am I doing?

His thoughts instantly became a mess. Then, he felt an incredibly strong nausea, his stomach churning. He bent over abruptly and vomited.

Then, he felt something being expelled from him.

Into the filth on the ground.

It was a goldfish that seemed to be still wriggling... a goldfish?

A goldfish?

Another goldfish?

The eyes of the person who had brushed past him seemed to have goldfish too, and at the very beginning, at the very beginning... that corpse, before dying, also vomited... goldfish?

"So it's the critical period? Less than six hours, and the rejection reaction has already appeared."

Behind him, an unfamiliar hoarse voice sighed, "Even the second generation goldfish can resist. No wonder the earliest third generation goldfish couldn't parasitize. What bad luck. Otherwise, I would have gotten the box long ago, why would it be so troublesome now?"

With that hoarse sigh, the air slowly distorted, and a thin figure emerged from the empty air, revealing a black trench coat and a cold, indifferent face.

A pair of blood-red gloves.

and the fish tank held in his right hand.

Several slender goldfish fry swam slowly in the small fish tank.

"...Green Day?"

In the pool of blood, Liu Dongli saw the green, circular emblem on the back of his hand and finally reacted, trying to raise his gun: "Huai Shi, hurry and leave..."

The man in the red gloves looked down at him and shook his head with pity: "I can barely save myself, how can I worry about others?"

The chill of death suddenly appeared.

Immediately after, gunshots rang out from behind Huai Shi.

Bang, and then bang!

One shot for Liu Dongli, and one shot for Huai Shi himself.

Liu Dongli twitched and fell silent.

Huai Shi stiffly looked down and saw the blood blooming on his chest, a gaping hole like he'd been hit with a sledgehammer from behind.

It hurt like hell.

He collapsed to his knees, unable to help himself, and burst into tears.

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

"...Old Yang?"

The hunched man with the vacant expression looked up at him. Traces of a smile seemed to linger on his face, which was usually set in a shrewd grin.

Behind his eyes, a goldfish swam merrily.

As if in its own fish tank.

As Huai Shi watched in stunned silence, the man bent down, picked up the box, and stepped through the blood, standing behind the other man.

Awaiting orders.

"Lock the main entrance too, then prepare the ritual. We've waited so long, it must have some value."

The stranger gave the order. Old Yang turned and left, not even glancing back at Huai Shi.

"Are you two acquainted?"

The stranger looked down at Huai Shi and chuckled mockingly. "He owes a lot of money for others, so he can only pay it back with himself. Don't blame him, and don't blame me... Blame your bad luck."

"..."

In his daze and confusion, Huai Shi suddenly understood a little. Although he was furious enough to go mad, he couldn't help but want to laugh.

He laughed at himself for struggling like a fly caught in a web for so long.

Everything had been decided long ago.

From the very beginning.

The moment he received Old Yang's call and happily carried his guitar case to apply for a job at the host club, he had already set foot on the path to death.

He would reach the designated location, then angrily call Old Yang to report his position and information when leaving, finally taking a shortcut home, where he would encounter a corpse, a box, and a goldfish in an alley...

That goldfish was supposed to be swimming happily in his mind.

He had narrowly escaped death by chance, but the hands behind the scenes had pulled him back onto the predetermined track, leading him to his fated end.

Just as the stranger had said, his luck had never seemed to be good.

He always encountered inexplicable things out of nowhere, and his messy life would become even more chaotic, leaving him poorer, more miserable, and more dejected, until now... he had finally plunged headfirst into a dead end like a headless fly.

Reaching the end.

"Damn it, why!"

Huai Shi couldn't bear the intense pain anymore. He vomited blood, tears and snot streaming down his face. "I just wanted to live a decent life, earn some money to make things better, find a tolerable job, even if it meant working like a beast of burden. Find someone I like to marry, have a home that wouldn't despise me... Is that so wrong?! Why?! Why couldn't you people just leave me alone?"

The man in the red gloves fell silent.

After a long pause, he sighed softly.

"For a better world, there are many things we are powerless to change." He took out a gun from his pocket and aimed it at the young man's face. "I'm sorry, your sacrifice is for a greater value."

He pulled the trigger.

Bang!

The bullet was deflected.

By a faint, shimmering film.

The man in the red gloves froze.

"Desperate Protection?" he exclaimed, looking at the faint light enveloping the young man. "That woman actually gave you her life-saving charm?

Are you really her old flame?"

This was an emergency ward granted to every supervisor by the Astronomical Society, a literal life-saving charm that would automatically activate upon encountering a fatal attack, preserving the user's life in the worst-case scenario and awaiting rescue...

For three minutes, this barrier was almost unbreakable, unless subjected to a direct impact from a Stage Four or higher Holy Mark.

"Forget it."

He put away his pistol and glanced mockingly at Huai Shi's chest. Even if he didn't finish him off, this guy would bleed to death.

Time was precious now, and he was just a step away from his goal. He didn't have time to waste on Huai Shi anymore.

He turned and walked towards the auditorium.

The plan turning out like this was completely beyond his expectations.

Although the action against the Savior Society was a spur-of-the-moment decision after seeing the box, it had been meticulously planned. To avoid alerting the Overlords behind Wang Hai, he had to start with ordinary people. Using his soul—the power of the "Sneering Fish Tank"—he manipulated a civil conflict and used Old Yang to arrange for the completely unrelated Huai Shi to complete the final transfer. He hadn't expected that Huai Shi would be a hidden, pre-ascension Ascendant, resistant to the third-generation fry derived from the parasite, causing the parasitic implantation to fail completely and the plan to fall apart.

Fortunately, he had managed to hide himself behind the scenes. Coupled with the immense pressure from the Astronomical Society, the Purified People behind Wang Hai hadn't detected anything unusual. Those guys, whose minds were only filled with their Savior, were complete lunatics with no rationality whatsoever.

However, since the plan couldn't be completed covertly, he had to change his approach.

For him, as long as the final outcome was achieved, the process didn't matter. Since he had already attracted the attention of the Astronomical Society, why not make a bigger scene!

He kicked open the door, fired two shots, killing an old man who lunged at him, and walked through the chaotic, screaming crowd to the pulpit.

The front and back doors had already been sealed.

He didn't know how much time was left, but it was enough to complete the final "birth."

However...

"Using the Cauldron of Rebirth for drugs? Have the Purified People's gods eaten the brains of their subordinates?"

He looked down at the box in front of him and couldn't help but scoff.

This kind of container-type relic, excavated from the hellish ruins of the Seventh Depth, was the best container for origin essence. It could easily transform the fervent origin essence of fanatics into matter. However, even Wang Hai himself, who was bestowed with this box, probably didn't know what he was holding.

Not only were those believers he had tricked used as sacrifices, but he himself was also included. As long as there was enough origin essence, it was an embryo capable of bringing an ancient spirit into the mortal realm!

Once the Ranch Owner's envoy descended through it, it was likely that all living things in sight would become its meal.

Although what he was about to do wasn't much better.

"Consider it making use of waste."

He glanced at the believers who were being harvested as sources of origin essence, opened the box, and took out a test tube from his pocket.

Under the dim light of the church, he examined the blood and flesh within.

"Let's begin," he murmured softly, "contributing a negligible part to our grand undertaking."