One Punch

"Whoa! It's lively over here."

A young man with explosive hair crouched steadily atop a tent.

He gazed at the chaotic District 7 in the distance, looking more and more excited.

Inside a tent, a man sleeping in the corner sat up.

Listening to the dense gunfire outside, he muttered a curse.

"Who the hell is making such a racket? Which idiot doesn't know when to quit?"

That night, more deathmatchers noticed the disturbance in District 7.

Whether they were excited, displeased, or simply wanted to watch from the sidelines,

not one of them chose to step forward and stir up trouble. They all stayed hidden in the shadows.

As time passed, more and more deathmatchers arrived at this temporary shelter.

They all knew perfectly well that a massive slaughter would eventually take place.

But it wouldn't be now. The timing was all wrong.

The chaos in District 7 tonight didn't even count as a prelude.

Quite a few deathmatchers were even puzzled about why some fool had revealed himself so early.

The gunfire never stopped completely. At most, it grew a little less frequent out of consideration for the civilians.

Cui Qing sprinted forward, his arms swinging. It was just possible to make out that every one of his fingernails had grown considerably longer.

His nails were about five centimeters long. Together with the messy streaks of blood on his body, they gave him an eerie air in the darkness.

When the panicked civilians along the way saw what he looked like, their faces filled with terror, and they hurriedly moved aside.

Thanks to that, Cui Qing's escape went fairly smoothly at first.

But if he'd looked back now, he would have seen a berserk figure rapidly closing in on him.

Within a few breaths, the figure easily overtook him.

It swept past like a gust of wind, so quickly that he couldn't even make out what it was.

"Such a petty trick, and you dare show it off in front of a master?"

The mocking laugh from up ahead instantly drew Cui Qing's attention.

Lu Bai stood in front of a tent, wearing a smile that Cui Qing found utterly hateful.

Cui Qing's relatively calm mood sank rapidly.

His opponent was much faster than him. Especially with people hunting him down, his chances of getting away were bleak.

Cui Qing made his decision at once: he had to take Lu Bai out quickly.

He didn't slow down, charging forward with the resolve of someone who wouldn't regret his choice.

The distance between them rapidly closed. During that time, gray-black patterns appeared on Cui Qing's face and quickly spread.

Watching this, Lu Bai remained expressionless. He merely raised a hand and slowly clenched it into a fist.

Under the effects of [Blood Rage], his skin flushed red, and it felt as though his insides were burning fiercely.

Cui Qing could sense the grave threat, but since he was charging at full speed, he couldn't stop.

He steeled himself, turning his hand into a blade and aiming his lengthened, razor-sharp nails at Lu Bai's heart.

But what happened next was completely beyond his expectations.

Lu Bai neither dodged nor retreated. He took Cui Qing's stab head-on.

Then a crimson fist slammed into Cui Qing's head with unstoppable force, catching him before he could pull back or dodge.

Bang!

One punch was all it took.

Cui Qing's head visibly caved in, and his body spun through the air.

He crashed through two military tents before finally coming to a stop.

[Ding!]

[Points +1, Current Points: 13, Current Rank: 1/149]

"Phew~"

Lu Bai's body temperature quickly returned to normal.

He shook the hand he'd used to hit Cui Qing and let out a long breath. "Didn't think I'd have to handle it myself after all."

"You're saying you were in your tent the whole time and never left?"

Zhou Zongming stood in front of Lu Bai with his arms crossed, looking as if he thought Lu Bai had to be joking.

Lu Bai nodded. "That's right."

Cui Qing was dead. Once the Rapid Response Force began maintaining order, the disturbance caused by the gunfire quickly subsided.

Aside from around a dozen unlucky people who'd been injured while running around, everyone else had suffered little more than a fright.

Considering the population density of the shelter, Zhou Zongming was honestly quite satisfied with the outcome.

It was Cui Qing's death that stuck in his craw.

Anyone with eyes could tell from Cui Qing's corpse that he'd died from a blunt-force blow to the head.

That was precisely the problem: they had no idea who had dealt the blow.

And with Cui Qing dead, many questions—including what had happened to the other bodies—could no longer be answered.

"Who can prove it?"

"Just because everyone else in the tent is dead doesn't mean you can assume I'm lying, right?"

Lu Bai smiled, looking utterly harmless. "I was the one who helped you find Cui Qing, the killer."

By now, Lu Bai had also realized why Cui Qing had chosen to target the tent where he was staying that night.

Going by normal logic, if everyone else in the tent had been killed and Cui Qing was the sole survivor, he wouldn't have been able to explain how he'd escaped the killer.

Even if he'd always acted timid, he would still have become a target of suspicion.

But he'd gone ahead with it anyway. Clearly, he'd been trying to frame Lu Bai.

As for his chances of succeeding, they'd actually been quite good.

After all, in Zhou Zongming's eyes, one of them was a frail young man who needed help to avoid being bullied, while the other was a strange fellow who'd looked unfazed at a bloody scene. It was obvious which one sounded more credible.

Just like now: even though Cui Qing, the publicly known deranged killer, was dead, Zhou Zongming still considered Lu Bai a prime suspect.

Of course, he didn't think Lu Bai and Cui Qing had been working together.

He only suspected that Lu Bai had taken advantage of the chaos to kill Cui Qing.

"Cui Qing isn't dead yet. When we arrived, he still had a breath left. We just don't know if they can save him."

As he said this, Zhou Zongming stared hard at Lu Bai, watching for even the slightest change in his expression.

In the end, Zhou Zongming was disappointed. He couldn't tell what Lu Bai was thinking at all. All he saw was a silly, meaningless smile.

Lu Bai was quite relaxed.

After all these days, he'd more or less gotten used to his strange condition.

As long as he didn't consciously control it, a harmless smile would naturally appear on his face.

"If you feel unwell anywhere, you can come with me to the infirmary for a checkup."

Zhou Zongming seemed to set aside his suspicions and put on a strictly businesslike expression. "By the way, when you spoke with Cui Qing, you said you had a gun on you, right? Hand it over."

"Yes, I have a gun."

Lu Bai pulled a Shuangying pistol from his clothes and openly held it up. "But it's just a replica. Look, it doesn't even have a magazine."