Divine Justice

Huai Shi froze for a moment, sniffing the hand-rolled cigarette. It did not even have a filter, and seemed to contain some kind of spice. The scent left him feeling refreshed.

"Metal reinforces the body; incense nourishes the soul," Crow said calmly. "You'll get used to it eventually, but don't use it to get high for no reason. Addiction would be troublesome.

"Other than a very small number of Thousand Year Fragrances, most incense achieves its stimulating effects by provoking Source Matter—like upgraded Red Bull and cigarettes. Abuse it, and you could easily turn into an idiot."

Huai Shi nodded without saying anything else.

A moment later, he looked at the Source Matter flames fading from his fingertips and rolled his neck. "Again."

Then darkness descended.

Soon, he opened his eyes again and sighed. "Keep going."

Crow nodded.

The long afternoon passed in endless repetition. By the time he opened his eyes for the last time, night had fallen, and everything was silent.

"Want to rest for a while?" Crow asked. "You've reached your limit, after all."

"One more round."

Huai Shi finally understood the anguish of hardcore gaming addicts. Rubbing his brow, he yawned. "I'm about to get the hang of it."

"Alright, then. One last round?"

"One last round."

Huai Shi nodded.

Then, amid a wave of dizziness, he opened his eyes in the truck compartment and silently listened to the orders coming from the front.

He even made use of the final moments to close his eyes and sleep for a while.

"Wake me when we get there."

He patted the teammate beside him on the shoulder, warm and friendly.

Not long afterward, the vehicle stopped outside the village.

He was rudely kicked awake.

Huai Shi smiled unconcernedly, got up awkwardly, and followed behind his teammates. During their brief ambush in the grass, he suddenly patted the person in front of him on the shoulder.

His teammate turned around irritably.

Then he saw Huai Shi expressionlessly extend a hand, gripping a dagger, and drive it into his throat before slashing sideways.

"Goodbye."

Huai Shi murmured softly.

Blood soaked into the parched earth and the wild grass.

On the barren ground, he crawled toward another teammate, moving quickly. He used all four limbs as he crawled.

Like a spider creeping through thorns.

One after another, following the location reports over the radio, he reveled in the pleasure of beating up his teammates.

The experience of being a traitor stabbing people in the back was unexpectedly delightful. Huai Shi even felt himself becoming more proficient at it.

That wonderful time lasted until gunfire from Team A's engagement sounded ahead.

He sighed. An alarm came over the radio—someone had noticed something was wrong. After all, four or five people had gone unanswered for more than five minutes.

It seemed he could not keep blending in any longer.

Shaking his head, he sat down, pulled the pins from several small grenades, weighed them in his hand a few times, then hurled them out with all his strength.

Explosions boomed continuously in the distance.

Gunfire erupted. The bushes beside him trembled incessantly under the bullets, like wild grass in a rainstorm.

Huai Shi sighed, wiped the blood from his face with his sleeve, and rose from among his teammates' corpses. His uniform had been dyed scarlet by friendly blood.

Even his ass had a huge red patch on it.

"Why does it look like a monkey with hemorrhoids?"

Huai Shi mocked himself, raised his rifle, and walked toward the gunfire, shouting loudly, "Don't shoot! Friendly!"

Then he pulled the trigger at those stunned faces.

Without hesitation, he emptied one magazine, then another. A bullet struck his shoulder, as though a chisel had punched a hole through it. Amid the agony, he seemed unable to feel his left hand anymore.

"That's too much, bro. Why did my hand break again?"

Huai Shi sighed helplessly. "I haven't learned how to reload one-handed yet."

He tossed aside the automatic rifle, drew his pistol, and headed toward the village.

"7794! What are you doing?!" an enraged roar came over the radio.

"Obviously beating up my teammates. Don't you know, friend? I picked Black Lily, you picked Hanzo. Together, we can rebuild the Empire."

But the radio fell silent. There was only grim stillness, until the instructor's cold voice rang out. "Mission change. Eliminate 7794."

They were focusing fire on him.

"Don't decide so quickly."

Huai Shi sighed. Before the channel was cut off, he raised the radio and ventured, "I think I can still be saved."

Bang!

Huai Shi instinctively tilted his head and watched the radio he had tossed into the air explode into a cloud of debris.

A sniper's bullet.

Under Death Sense's intense warning, he crawled rapidly into the village's tangled alleys, hearing footsteps approaching from every direction.

He silently counted in his heart.

In the original truck compartment, there had been seven people from Team B on the left and six from Team A on the right. Including himself, that made thirteen.

After the traitor's backstabbing, six of Team B's seven had died. They had been completely wiped out. Logically, after Side B of the tape finished playing, Side A should have started. But Side A had not even begun, and Huai Shi felt like he was about to get played by Side A instead.

Fortunately, he was already close.

He checked the direction, raised his pistol, and called out the reckless man who poked his head out ahead. After the man fell, Huai Shi casually gave him two more shots. He ejected the magazine and checked it. Six bullets left—exactly one per person... yeah, right. He was no sharpshooter. In a chaotic fight like this, hitting even one person with six shots would be absurdly lucky.

Maybe he could try blindly spraying five shots. If those five shots did not happen to kill all six people on the other side—with one bullet conveniently penetrating two of them—then he could use the last bullet to give himself a quick end.

A fierce death, unhumiliated. It sounded so romantic...

The footsteps in the distance drew closer. He took two steps, vaulted over the wall, and leaped out of the alley. After going through death's cycle so many times, he had grasped some patterns.

Compared to the malicious level design of modern VR games, a setup whose difficulty could be lowered just by memorizing the script was practically merciful.

Then, in the courtyard behind the wall, he saw those terrified eyes again.

That hunched woman was still staring at the sky.

Her gaze was vacant.

In vain, she tried to hide two thin, tiny children behind her.

But they were already dead, lying on the ground with bullet holes and blood on their bodies. Dust fell from the wind, covering those hollow eyes.

"Why is it you again?"

Huai Shi froze for a moment and scratched his hair. He wanted to say something more, but had no idea what to say. He knew this was a recording, that they were all fake NPCs, yet he still felt an indescribable shame.

This was not a game.

"I'm sorry."

Huai Shi lowered his head, unable to look at those dust-covered eyes again.

"I'll head out now," he said.

He rammed the gate open with all his strength and charged onto the road, shoving the barrel of his gun into an opponent's eye socket. "Die—"

Bang!

A burst of gore exploded from the back of that man's head. Huai Shi had no time to look around. Like someone fleeing for his life, he stumbled away, trying to put more distance between himself and that courtyard.

But he could never forget those eyes.

When he began treating all this as a game, the countless deaths in the recordings jolted him awake from his dream again. This was not a game. It was a record—history that had once happened.

History that had occurred in some corner of this world.

Insignificant massacres and insignificant deaths.

They were all dead.

Those dull eyes were gradually covered by dust, buried, forgotten, not even deemed worthy of being remembered...

Huai Shi staggered forward in a mad sprint, exhausted as he pushed through narrow gaps. After kicking open a door ahead, he finally reached his destination.

Inside the room, the old man curled up in the corner seemed frightened. Instinctively, he clutched the thing in his arms tighter.

"Let go."

Huai Shi leaned against the doorframe, panting as he raised his pistol. "Give me that."

The man said something, hesitated, then loosened his grip. Under Huai Shi's threat, he crawled onto the ground.

"Thanks."

Huai Shi panted, hoisted the thing onto his shoulder, staggered back two steps, and turned to leave. But after taking two steps, he could not help looking back and calling out, "Don't worry. I'll save you."

No one answered.

The people in this village had probably died long ago.

He had not been able to save a single one.

Fuck...

Huai Shi raised an arm and rubbed the corner of his eye, cursing softly. "Fuck..."

Then he heard the thunderous crash of the courtyard gate breaking apart. Automatic rifle fire erupted like a storm, plowing through every inch of space.

Huai Shi curled up behind a stone millstone, listening to chips of stone spray overhead.

He took a deep breath and tried to calm himself amid the smell of gunpowder. Then Huai Shi stood, raised the RPG on his shoulder, and did his best to show his teammates his brightest smile.

Hey, how are you?

Then he pulled the trigger.

"—Justice rains from above!!!"

Boom!

Amid the violent tremor and impact, flames and thick smoke surged into the sky. Boiling blood mist spread through the air, dancing with the dust before turning into a fine rain that fell onto the walls and ground.

And onto Huai Shi.

Silence returned.

Huai Shi threw down the launcher, crossed the wrecked courtyard and street, and walked toward the center of the village.

Toward the man waiting there.

Seemingly stunned by this outcome, the instructor standing there with his hands behind his back paused for a moment. Then he raised a hand, removed his sunglasses, and tossed them to the ground.

"They were all just half-finished products, but they were wiped out here... I really didn't expect you to have this much guts, 7794."

Those gray eyes stared coldly into Huai Shi's face. Then he crooked a finger at the youth. "Looks like I need to teach you another lesson."

"Likewise."

Huai Shi rolled his neck, tossed away his holster and the quick-response vest that was getting in his way, drew his military knife one-handed, and assumed a stance entirely unlike the other man's.

Unlike Roman military combat techniques, it was unmistakably a classic stance from East Xia—such a basic beginner's form that even the instructor had nearly failed to recognize it.

"Come on."

Huai Shi grinned. "Watch me beat the crap out of you with Military Boxing."

"Very good."

The instructor seemed to understand something. His face gradually turned livid, and his joints ground together with a low sound. "Very good, 7794.

"I guarantee that before you die, you'll learn—what hell truly is!"

Sorry, I did not get home until one or two last night, so I did not have time to update.