One Step Too Late

"The source of the intrusion point is inside the room." Wang Baihu glanced at the indicator on his wrist and spoke softly. "Be careful."

Honglian nodded. Holding her guns in both hands, she slammed the door open and swept the muzzles across the empty room.

"Hey, what's going on?"

After waiting a long while without hearing anything, Wang Baihu, who was hiding in the hallway, could not help asking.

"She's dead."

"Dead? Who?" He froze for a moment, then followed her into the room.

A withered woman lay sprawled on the floor, her eyes wide open. One hand reached toward the intrusion point, as though she had been trying to flee back to another world.

Honglian crouched beside her, pressing her right hand to the woman's neck. "There's still a little warmth left. She's been dead for no more than two hours. Xiao Jiu, can you confirm her identity?"

"Give me a moment, I'm coming." The person called hurriedly panted her way up from downstairs, removed the equipment from her backpack, and began scanning the corpse.

"Could this person be the Wanderer we were looking for?" Wang Baihu frowned. "How did she die?"

"I don't know." Honglian examined the body. "There are no obvious external wounds. There are signs of impact on her face, but they wouldn't have been fatal." She scanned the surroundings again. "There should have been a fight here, but it wasn't particularly intense either. Taking those two points together..."

"She was killed by an ability," Wang Baihu finished.

"The bone, blood, and retinal data have all been checked. There's no record of her." Xiao Jiu finished her scan as well. "She isn't from this world."

"Then she's most likely the Wanderer." Wang Baihu's expression grew grave. "This intrusion point is quite well hidden. The intelligence team only recently listed it as a suspicious fluctuation. I didn't expect someone to move before us."

"Did another Wanderer kill her?" Xiao Jiu asked timidly.

"Hard to say." He shook his head. So-called Wanderers were merely a more unusual type among people who had acquired abilities. Any degree of intrusion damaged the world's stability, and its outward manifestation was that some people awakened strange and unusual powers. Both he and Honglian belonged to that group. There were also many people in the city whose fates had converged through different paths. A considerable number had never been registered by the Dimensional Limit Organization. Those people were not Wanderers, but that did not mean they could not use their abilities to kill.

"If it weren't for the previous Mirage Incident, the intelligence team might have been able to investigate who did it. Now it definitely won't work." Wang Baihu sighed. "Even dogs were affected. I don't dare imagine how many ability users appeared in the city after that day. This job is impossible."

Though they were not responsible for cleanup, everyone worked in the same place. If the operations team performed poorly, or if an incident grew too big, complaints from logistics would make their way into the office.

"So what do we do now? Contact the logistics team to clean up the scene?" Xiao Jiu asked.

"That's all we can do for now." He agreed. "Although the mission went wrong, it may not be a bad thing for you. Who knows what kind of ability a Wanderer might have... If we got into a fight, one careless mistake could mean the difference between life and death."

Then he could not help complaining again. "God knows what the higher-ups are thinking. You only joined the organization recently and have no real combat experience, yet they shoved you straight into an operations squad. They really don't care whether rookies live or die."

"Hehe, it's not that bad... The organization is short on people right now, and I wanted to join the operations team too." Xiao Jiu smiled playfully. "I may be pretty weak, but I'll definitely work hard and won't hold you back!"

"Wait. Don't call anyone yet." Honglian suddenly stopped them.

"What is it?"

Her gaze remained fixed on the dead woman's hand. Wang Baihu tilted his head to look and saw a conspicuous bruise on the woman's wrist, with a handgun lying beside it.

Even if Wanderers did not belong to this world, getting their hands on a gun was nothing unusual. Or rather, that was precisely their advantage. Since they frequently traveled through multiple worlds, they found it easier to acquire unknown weapons and abilities. Such people were often harder to deal with than ordinary ability users.

"The murderer was initially standing at the entrance of the private room." Honglian followed the trampled marks on the floor with her eyes. "But after only one exchange, he switched positions with the victim and blocked the intrusion point. It doesn't look like it happened by accident. It was extremely decisive. The victim was dragged out before she could react."

"You mean... this woman wasn't reaching for the door to the intrusion point, but for her enemy?"

"More than that. She fired during the switch," Honglian said, pointing to two inconspicuous holes in the wall. "Unfortunately, not a single shot hit."

"Maybe she wasn't good with guns?" Wang Baihu spread his hands. He did not understand what his colleague was dwelling on.

"But according to Sister Honglian, the two must have been very close, right? It was practically a point-blank shot," Xiao Jiu muttered.

"Cutting off the victim's retreat from the start means the murderer knew that door was the physical manifestation of the intrusion point. This wasn't a chance encounter that turned into a fight. The murderer had planned it long ago—he discovered this abnormal intrusion point before the Dimensional Limit Organization did." Honglian closed her eyes as she spoke, and a figure emerged in her mind. It had also been gunfire at close range, yet that person possessed extraordinarily sharp vision. He could see even the path of bullets with perfect clarity...

The victim had drawn her gun immediately. But if her enemy could know exactly when she would pull the trigger beforehand, then even from an arm's length away, she would not have found it easy to hit him.

Then came a fist striking her face, rather than those translucent blades floating in the air.

Why?

Did he not want to leave conspicuous wounds from sharp blades?

Because he knew someone would come looking soon.

A chill rose along Honglian's back. That was it. This was what had felt wrong to her ever since entering the room: why had the murderer not disposed of the body? Since he already knew that another world lay beyond the bathroom door, tossing the corpse inside would have taken only a few minutes. Yet he had done nothing, simply leaving the scene exactly as it was... This was not a provocation aimed at the Dimensional Limit Organization. It was bait deliberately laid out for them!

If there truly was a group of people in this world secretly handling the anomalies caused by ability users, how could they determine who those people were?

The answer was simple: see them with their own eyes.

"Stay here! Keep watch!" Honglian abruptly stood and ran toward a window.

"Huh? Where are you going?" Wang Baihu had yet to react when he saw his colleague climb out through the window.

She planted a foot against the wall, leaped upward to grab the eaves, and sprang onto the roof like a cat.

Where would that person hide?

On the mountain behind the clubhouse, in a farmhouse near the fields, or on the elevated bridge not far away!?

Honglian swept her gaze around, finally settling on the ring highway in front of the clubhouse—the only road linking the clubhouse to the city. Traffic streamed endlessly across the bridge, and every vehicle looked suspicious. The murderer might be sitting in the driver's seat, watching this place through darkened windows.

"Hey, did you find anything?" Wang Baihu's voice came through her earpiece.

"...No. Maybe I'm overthinking it." Honglian shook her head, yet a dark cloud lingered in her heart, as though someone were watching her from somewhere beyond sight.

Chen Xuan did not return to Tianlu Residential Area immediately. Instead, he had the driver circle around the city twice.

He sat in the back seat with his eyes seemingly closed in rest, but he was actually calming the effects of Coin Toss—aside from the ability he had won from Fei Wuniang, he had also gained several fragments of her past life. Those memories drifted vaguely through his mind like misty clouds, as though they were scenes from one dream after another.

Fei Wuniang was not her real name. She had lived in a brothel since childhood. From the window of a second-floor room, she could see the bustling street below.

It was an ancient town much like Zhang Wei.

As she grew into adulthood, she became increasingly popular and met many patrons from all over the land, including the foreign man who liked Coin Toss.

The man taught her the Union Technique, then died in her bed.

At the moment he drew his last breath, there was no fear on his face, only the ease of liberation. His body also turned into a pool of black water, staining the flower-embroidered sheets. Fei Wuniang clutched his empty clothes and wailed as if he had been the lover she could least bear to lose.

After that, she became unstoppable on her path of seizing abilities, and her appearance grew ever more charming and alluring.

As for how she had found the intrusion point and what she had done in this world, the memories mentioned none of it.

For several moments, Chen Xuan had the illusion that he was Fei Wuniang, as though he had suddenly gained another lifetime.

It took him a long time to shake off that influence.

Why had the Dimensional Limit Organization's intelligence not mentioned this ability's side effect at all?

Could it be that they did not use Coin Toss to obtain all of Fei Wuniang's information?

For the overwhelming majority of ordinary people, they did not know whether they possessed abilities. Before Chen Xuan became a shopkeeper, for example, he had no idea that being able to eat well and sleep deeply counted as abilities.

In other words, the Dimensional Limit Organization must have other ways to detect abilities.

It would be fine if captured people were willing to obey the organization's orders. But if they refused to cooperate no matter what, did the organization also have methods to strip them of their abilities?

Chen Xuan temporarily buried that question in his heart.

Although some unexpected side effects had appeared, this trip had truly been highly rewarding. He had obtained as many as six abilities from Fei Wuniang. They had all entered his inventory, with the only regret being that they did not add any performance points.

Opening the Ability Butler app made everything perfectly clear. They were:

"Dance Prodigy" LV2.

—"An artist who controls the body, until neural takeover technology emerged."

"Innate Charm" LV3.

—"The moment you say hello, the other person has already thought of names for your children."

"Immunity to Poisons" LV5.

—"You rarely fall ill and will not be harmed by toxins. One component of a longevity ability."

"Union Technique" LV5.

—"A major obstacle on the road to reproduction is when pleasure exceeds responsibility. This goes even further. It not only seeks the utmost pleasure, but also absorbs the other party's essence to nourish oneself. The question is... is that really yours?"

"Strong Seize" LV1.

—"If you can't buy it, steal it. An inferior ability; permanent sealing is recommended. Warning: any ability obtained through non-transactional means constitutes serious infringement."

"Coin Toss" LV1.

—"Taboo +5."