Round 17: Bad

Foreword:

What you don't understand will always scare you.

--Christopher Nolan

[Part 1: The Pursuit of Happyness]

Banner knocked on the door of the general store.

He was quite certain that a militia uniform was hidden at the front desk of the grocery store.

His clothes were stained with blood, and judging from his shoulder insignia and name tag, the militiaman was from the city center. After a long, long time passed without anyone opening the door, Banner pressed his gun against the lock and pulled the trigger.

As they forced their way through the door, Little Four Eyes turned on his police radio, preparing to call for backup.

"FDH Traffic Control Group calling Militia Center, FDH Traffic Control Group calling Militia Center."

Militia Center: "Received from headquarters, please proceed."

"I am Banner Ibge, temporary auxiliary police officer, sergeant number 121101502—I have been located at 101 Knights Drive, near the border of the Northland Granary in the South Westbrook district, at the railway gate leading to the freight station."

The sudden psychic shock caused Banner's soul to leave his body.

--An inexplicable supernatural phenomenon has enveloped all living beings in the entire Lieyang Fort.

Banner saw another "self," and he felt himself floating in mid-air, blasted out of his body by a tremendous force. A deafening tide of psychic energy emanated from the direction of the city center, a divine power that affected almost everyone.

His spirit, along with most of his senses, pulled him out of his body. He could see straight threads radiating outwards from all directions of the street, like golden light that had taken on a physical form.

This is the power of the [Icon], and Lord Maddes of Cinder continues to try to complete the final step of the ascension ritual.

There were a few pedestrians on the street, but the moment their souls left their bodies, their legs went weak and they collapsed to the ground.

The militiamen who originally stayed along the railway line were the same; their spiritual energy transformed into the form of spirits, which lingered beside their physical bodies. Circular strands of sticky, fluorescent spiritual energy pulled them, preventing them from straying too far from their bodies.

This mysterious and powerful force severed all radio communications, and the fierce psionic storm caused power outages in three-quarters of the city's buildings, including underground pipelines and circuits along the railway line.

Sparks flew from the utility poles in the residential area, and it took Banner about ten seconds to barely return to his body.

He felt a tingling sensation all over his body. At the moment his soul left his body, he felt the external environment was cold and biting. When his soul and body were reunited, he shivered from the cold.

"This is the headquarters."

Cell phones have stopped working, and radios are completely broken.

At this moment, Four-Eyes had no choice but to bite the bullet and walk into the general store.

With no one else coming to help, should we run along the railway line to find militia members to investigate this matter together?

No, these useless colleagues only care about their own tasks and don't care about emergencies.

For these people, being a militia member is just a job; they just need to do their job well.

Unless the headquarters can dispatch additional patrol and guard forces, according to procedure, Banner shouldn't be meddling in this matter; his main responsibility is to be a traffic cop.

"Are we just going to leave like this? No, no, no, no, no!"

Banner had already backed down once. When Clark decided to meddle to the end, he had already distanced himself from the matter. He still had parents and a family, and he didn't have the guts to the White Shark Association.

Are we going to ask him to run away again? What will happen to Fosis if he just leaves like this?!

Yes, the name on the police uniform's identification card is that of Fosis —a young man from downtown.

"Damn it!" Banner saw the blood-soaked uniform on Fosis's uniform, and fear took over. "Is this some kind of black market operation? These bastards dare to attack a cop? What the hell happened? Damn it!"

"If I can't beat the White Shark Association, am I not afraid of these thugs?"

It seems they are unwilling to admit defeat and refuse to concede.

People don't want to just go back to the highway to check for speeding and drunk driving; they always need to find a reason to leave their comfort zone.

Banner still stepped into the store without hesitation. In that instant, he overcame his fear—even though he didn't know how many people were in the store or how many guns were inside. Even if the store manager was targeting militiamen, Banner was just another militiaman, and could very well become the next prey.

He went inside anyway, past the reception desk, scrutinized Fosis's police uniform, and carefully searched for clues.

The mangy dog, carrying the fat manager's severed arm, was cornered by the menacing Banner by the trapdoor in the basement—the place where Ms. Joshua's scent vanished.

After checking the police uniform, Banner finally used his gun flash to illuminate the arm inside the mangy dog's mouth.

--I never expected it to actually be a corpse!

The broken arm bones were all lacerated, and there were bone fragments with lead fragments attached, clearly indicating that they were broken by a bullet!

"Good dog!" Banner grabbed a sausage from the deli shelf at the grocery store, tore open the packaging, and tried to negotiate a cannibalistic deal with the mangy dog. "Good dog, you eat this! Give me what's in your mouth."

The mangy dog refused to cooperate. It recognized the gun; the stranger's deadly weapon could unleash the flames of Death God. It tucked its tail between its legs, terrified, and cowered behind the basement hatch, refusing to leave or give in.

The psionic storm triggered by the [Icon] caused the three people in the basement to experience a brief out-of-body experience.

The sudden Spirit Calamity allowed the three to see each other's spiritual features.

--Heisenberg was an ordinary person without Inspiration; his spirit was perfectly normal.

The situation is different with Radish. He still possesses the holy blood that Manager Todd inherited, and Manager Todd's holy blood comes from George Joshua, which is another kind of intergenerational affinity.

When Ms. George Joshua, who had been modified by B·Side, left her physical body along with Radish, two harpies appeared at the same time.

The two harpy sisters exchanged a glance in mid-air, and felt inexplicably awkward when they returned to their physical bodies.

The characteristics of a spirit don't lie; this woman really is George Joshua —Radish finally became certain that the disheveled woman hanging alongside him on the meat drying rack was the supreme leader of the White Shark Association.

"Heisenberg! Did you see that?!" Radish shouted. "It really is George Joshua! She's not lying to you!"

"Holy blood flows through my veins! Manager Todd bestowed upon me George Joshua's Soul Power!"

"I can feel the holy blood within me wanting to return to its ancestral home. Don't do anything foolish anymore, Heisenberg!"

"If you dare to lay a finger on her, White Shark Association..."

Before Joshua could say anything--

--Heisenberg, however, showed an expression of extreme horror.

The bald old man stood up without wearing any clothes. His expression became increasingly frenzied, hysterical, and terrifying.

If what Radish said is true, George Joshua is a woman.

So were all those boastful words from the White Shark Association Gang's leader just empty talk?

How can a woman teach a man how to achieve success, how to weather storms, and how to conquer the world?

Is a woman going to spout such outrageous nonsense, instructing us middlemen on how to eat human flesh?

And

And

"I've already brought this woman here!" Heisenberg pointed to his index finger, tears streaming down his face, utterly terrified. He had already walked down a dead end. "Do you think Joshua will forgive me?! Do you think she's someone easy to talk to? Her new secretary just said a few nonsense words in the office, and she got shot, her brains splattering all over the ceiling!"

"And I"

Heisenberg had completely abandoned peace talks, leaving no room for maneuver—it was George Joshua's brutality and cruelty that destroyed all of this.

"The moment I grabbed her by the neck, dragged her to the basement, stripped her naked, and hung her up, I was already dead! Radish! Do you think... do you think there's any room for negotiation?"

Radish was covered in sweat and glanced at Ms. George Joshua's face beside him.

Joshua cursed, "If you look at it again, you'll die too!"

The atmosphere became tense.

--Heisenberg, having recovered from his extreme panic, was desperate and determined to find a way out.

He came up with the worst idea: to tear open the packaging of the aphrodisiac.

"Boss! My dear George Joshua, boss!"

"Although I don't know what happened, you seem to have lost your majestic male form and become this weak and powerless female form. It seems that even your soul power no longer favors you—otherwise, how could you have fallen into the hands of a nobody like me?"

"I have no choice but to resort to this to save my life; I'm going to rape you!"

"You once taught us that if we have a powerful rival that we can't defeat, then we can only try to woo her!"

In that instant, George Joshua felt a chill that went deep into his bones.

Her pupils contracted slightly as she saw Heisenberg's deranged appearance—

--This is a demon she personally trained, who now seeks to survive by defying his superiors.

"Fuck you! What do you want?!"

[Part ②: Justice]

Heisenberg dipped a finger into the powder from the medicine packet and put it in his mouth.

"Of course, I need to test the medicine for you myself."

The bald old man's face immediately turned flushed, and then he squeezed closer to the radish.

George Joshua's pupils dilated sharply; a painful memory seemed to resurface in his mind.

She could have forgotten all of this, forgotten how she obtained her position in the core power circle of the United States of America; she was a powerful minister who rose to power by associating with others.

Unable to bear the humiliation, Radish Bro tried to summon the power of the spirit to break free of his restraints, but even George Joshua himself could not summon a spirit to assist him. As a disciple and grand-disciple, the holy blood within him would not respond to him at all.

Radish Bro could only watch helplessly as his body was pulled by the chain mechanism and gradually laid flat on the floor.

He could only watch as that perverted bald old man continued his relentless march towards self-destruction.

"--No! No no no no no! No no no no no!"

"I'm going to use you as a test subject!" Heisenberg's face was flushed. Under the control of the hormone drugs, he had become a wild beast breathing heavily and exhaling hot air, ready to ravage the delicate flower that was Radish, and then go and defile George Joshua.

Radish's legs and hands were tightly bound, as were the muscles in his torso. Heisenberg's binding technique was extremely skillful, preventing the victim from harming himself and rendering him powerless, turning him into a lamb to the slaughter.

He had already moved behind Radish, preparing to attack him.

Banner kicked open the basement door and poked his head out.

"What the hell are you doing! Put down your gun! Put down your gun!"

Almost instinctively, Banner couldn't see clearly from the dark basement, so he could only shout a threat, "I'm a militiaman from Lieyang Fort, put down your gun!"

Heisenberg was stunned for a moment--

George Joshua and Roberts were so frightened by the madman that they turned pale, and seeing Banner was like seeing a family member.

They twisted and screamed, hoping to be discovered by the militia as soon as possible.

Heisenberg panicked. If the militia discovered the ledgers and organ harvesting tools in the basement, he would be like Hydra, with not enough heads to go around.

He was filled with rage and his mind was clouded by the aphrodisiac. He grabbed a scalpel and strode forward, intending to preemptively stab the ungrateful militiaman to death.

Banner fired without hesitation, the continuous flashes illuminating the entire basement. The air was thick with the stench of decay, and the walls were stained with all sorts of shocking bloodstains, mostly last words written in blood by the victims before their organs were removed.

Heisenberg was shot four times in the torso, but the effect was minimal. Under the influence of steroids, he lost his mind, his body stiff and his brain in a state of extreme agitation. He still lunged at Banner with howling cries.

Banner then emptied the magazine, and two fatal bullets shattered Heisenberg's skull, breaking his hypothalamus between his eyebrows, killing Heisenberg instantly.

Banner was too frightened to speak. This was one of the few experiences in his life where he faced a fearless criminal at such close range.

He finally dared to turn on his gun flashlight. He had previously turned off the lights when searching the house because he was afraid that criminals would be lying in wait with guns, and the light source would give away his position.

The light shone on George Joshua, and Banner immediately turned around. "Oh my God! That's fucking bizarre. Excuse me, ma'am."

George Joshua: "You can put me down first and then apologize."

Under Heisenberg's madness, Radish was so frightened that he lost his ability to speak.

Banner rescued the two seemingly harmless hostages, but couldn't find any clothes anywhere. He could only promise the two hostages that he would try his luck at the nearby supermarket. This grocery store sold everything except clothes—it seemed that the store manager, Heisenberg, had destroyed the victims' clothes to eliminate evidence.

After the militiaman Banner left, Radish carefully retrieved the aphrodisiac from the lab table, rewrapped it, and crawled on his knees to Ms. Joshua, offering the "sacrifice" he had painstakingly obtained to the deity of his life.

"President Joshua, my mission is complete."

"Screw your mission!" Ms. Joshua was furious. "Useless trash! What use is it now?!"

George has absolutely no memory. With Heisenberg as an example, she's not afraid of being betrayed at the last minute; she's utterly unrepentant.

Radish Bro was also a complete coward. He was beaten, scolded, and humiliated by the chairman, but he didn't complain at all. He even talked about the background of the militiaman from earlier.

"Boss, we need to find a way to get out of here. I have a criminal record; this Four Eyes ruined my drug trafficking operation for you."

Radish said in a very serious tone--

"--A full five hundred kilograms of high-purity heroin all ended up in the militia's pockets. If it weren't for this kid and Clark Sean, those two ungrateful bastards, the White Shark Association n't have suffered such a huge loss."

Hearing the names Banner Ibge and Clark Sean made Ms. Joshua grit her teeth in hatred.

They're clearly just two greenhorns without any Soul Power, yet they keep ruining her important business plans. She doesn't know where these bastards get the courage to the White Shark Association. Did they really think they were invincible War King after just a few years of studying gunsmithing?

But circumstances are beyond her control. Joshua has no Soul Power to help her, no warriors to recognize and support her, and these audacious middlemen even dare to rape her—all of this is her own fault for being a useless woman.

It's a weakness, so how do we turn a weakness into a strength?!

Having said that, Banner had already returned to the basement with two sets of clothes.

In that instant, Radish Bro was searching for a weapon to kill him and silence him. He couldn't afford to fall into Banner's hands again. He had to protect the chairman's safety, preserve his own position, and safeguard his future. Banner Ibge had to die!

Even though this Four Eyes had just saved their lives, he was their savior! This guy was stubborn and incorrigible, just like his older brother Clark, both of them hated evil as if it were their enemy!

Radish is still a criminal, still firmly believing in George Joshua's teachings. One second he is the savior who saved him from dire straits, the next he is the enemy who cuts off his path to wealth.

"Mr. Banner!" Ms. George Joshua exclaimed, feigning panic. "Mr. Banner! This man is a drug dealer!"

She pushed aside the radish next to her and ran into the arms of the four-eyed man.

She understood that the body could be a weakness, or it could be a weapon. She finally needed to reconcile with this physical body and achieve a state of unity between spirit and flesh; otherwise, she would never be able to summon the power of her soul.

Four Eyes hesitated for a moment, then, upon seeing Carrot's face clearly, he recalled the detailed pictures and texts in the archives about missing persons in drug trafficking cases, and suddenly realized what was going on.

At that moment, Radish tasted the bitterness of betrayal. He watched helplessly as the once valiant and strong guild leader now whined and threw himself into the arms of a militiaman. He was a naked, shameless, filthy whore! A slut who used her delicate beauty to gain a chance to survive, and who would use his head as a bargaining chip to exchange for her life!

"Banna Ibji! Listen to me!" Radish raised his hands high, offering no resistance.

George Joshua was kicked away, his stomach stomped on by Banner's boot, and he was violently pushed back to the spot.

Banner remained remarkably calm. He first followed the fundamental principles of knightly combat techniques, as outlined on the same page of the table of contents, to maintain distance from any suspicious targets during law enforcement, ensuring the safety of his firearms.

"You."

He threw off his clothes, instructing the two to slowly transform from naked beasts back into humans.

One at a time.