"Amitabha Buddha."
A Buddhist chant rang out, calming everyone's anxious hearts.
Despite wearing clothes that looked completely out of place, Tang Luo still had the bearing of an enlightened monk.
"Don't worry, benefactors. In my view, we're in a position of strength."
Tang Luo spoke.
"A position of strength?"
"Exactly." Tang Luo nodded. "Whether Benefactor Chu's analysis is right or not, there's one thing we can be sure of: Jack the Ripper has been targeting us all along."
"So we don't need to exhaust ourselves looking for him. We can conserve our strength and wait for him to come to us."
"When he appears, I'll find the right opportunity to smash his head in, and then we can complete the mission."
It made perfect sense. There was no way to argue with it.
Chu Chongtian's eyes widened.
The Ripper moved like a specter, killing people and stealing corpses. His frigid aura could freeze a person solid. He was strange and dangerous.
But...
Thinking carefully, he had always operated in the shadows, like a venomous snake lurking in the dark.
Did that mean Jack the Ripper wasn't as powerful as they'd imagined?
At the very least, he was no match for Master Xuanzang!
The events of the past three nights had all shared one thing in common.
They had happened when Master Xuanzang wasn't around!
Only tonight had Jack the Ripper truly come face-to-face with Master Xuanzang—and even then, he'd been using Old John's body.
And what happened?
Master Xuanzang had cut him "in half," and he'd fled.
What did that mean?
It meant Master Xuanzang was the real BOSS.
Jack the Ripper was just a shady bastard hiding in the shadows, afraid to show his face.
If he had any guts, he'd face Master Xuanzang head-on!
Master Xuanzang could smash his head in in no time!
Chu Chongtian suddenly saw the light.
In the God and Demon Game's mission worlds, everyone instinctively thought of themselves as "players" and fell into the fixed mindset of "clearing dungeons and taking down BOSSes."
Naturally, they'd imagined Jack the Ripper as an insurmountably powerful foe.
And they weren't wrong.
Jack the Ripper, who radiated an ominous aura and had left them unable to move, was indeed beyond their ability to resist.
He was a BOSS.
But now, an even stronger bald BOSS had suddenly appeared among the players. That spelled disaster for the original BOSS.
He'd been demoted to an elite monster, forced to skulk in a corner and cause trouble from the shadows.
With the right backer, it felt like he could finally hold his head high.
Chu Chongtian thought they had this mission in the bag.
By the way, why couldn't the God and Demon Game let them team up?
He'd be doomed if he couldn't rely on someone stronger in the future!
"But if he doesn't come after us again, we'll fail the mission," Zhou Zhenguo said.
Waiting for their opponent to show up sounded fine.
But what if Jack the Ripper didn't come?
"It's only our first time. What's there to worry about?" Li Liang said, fully embracing his slacker nature.
He even looked at it from the bleakest angle.
If everyone failed the mission together, he wouldn't be the only one in trouble. That thought gave him a great sense of relief.
"..."
Zhou Zhenguo said nothing.
It might have been everyone else's first time, but he'd already failed several missions.
If they made no progress this time and failed the mission in the end, he might disappear.
And disappearing was almost the same as being erased.
People called it "going missing" or "disappearing" because they clung to a sliver of luck and hope.
Everyone knew the odds that someone who disappeared hadn't actually died were tiny. Very, very tiny.
"Get some rest first,"
Tang Luo said. "We'll decide what to do tomorrow."
As their excitement ebbed, waves of exhaustion washed over them.
Their eyelids grew so heavy they felt as if they had weights hanging from them.
The night passed without incident.
Early the next morning.
"Xiao Zhou's gone missing too. Is Jack the Ripper really that interested in our 'bodies'?"
Chu Chongtian gave a self-deprecating laugh. "Are we God and Demon Walkers basically Tang Seng's meat to the 'locals'?"
"Eating Tang Seng's meat would break their teeth."
Tang Luo said it casually.
Xiao Zhou, who was practically an empty shell, was undoubtedly an excellent host for Jack the Ripper.
That was why Zhou Zhenguo had left him alone, keeping his distance to avoid getting caught off guard.
By morning, Xiao Zhou had vanished.
Old John's corpse was still there. To avoid unnecessary trouble, Zhou Zhenguo and the others had disposed of it.
The owner of the inn returned that morning.
Chu Chongtian asked around and found out the owner had gone to bed early the previous night... He didn't even know why.
It seemed he'd fallen asleep and woken up to find it was already morning, with his memories blurred.
Jack the Ripper had probably possessed him and made him go to sleep.
That would give him enough room to hunt the God and Demon Walkers.
As for why he hadn't simply possessed the owner and attacked, they couldn't say.
They could only guess that possession had its limits—that he couldn't possess just anyone at will—or that Old John was simply a more convenient host.
Now that Li Liang realized only Master Xuanzang could save him, he no longer lay on his bed like a salted fish.
He followed right behind Tang Luo, step for step.
After all, Jack the Ripper had probably possessed him too. If he was planning another attack,
Li Liang was undoubtedly the most vulnerable.
"Actually, you don't have to follow him so closely." Chu Chongtian felt threatened.
"What if I leave a gap and Jack the Ripper takes advantage of it?" Li Liang said.
No one could truly care for you except yourself.
Chu Chongtian patted Li Liang on the shoulder and said solemnly, "What if—I'm just saying, what if—"
"What if what?"
"If you get possessed, keeping your distance might give you a chance to survive," Chu Chongtian said. "But if you're right next to Master Xuanzang, you're really done for."
"Master can save me right away!"
Li Liang said, forgetting entirely what he'd told Xiao Zhou.
"No. I think Master Xuanzang would smash your head in on the spot, given his style," Chu Chongtian said.
"...Isn't he a monk?" Li Liang said. "Whatever happened to compassion?"
"You don't understand Master Xuanzang," Chu Chongtian said. "Even monks can have the fierce aspect of a Wisdom King."
Li Liang swallowed, remembering the fear he'd felt that night when Tang Luo had held him in thrall with a candlestick.
His pace slowed at once, putting some distance between himself and Tang Luo.
"Hmph!"
Chu Chongtian gave a smug little snort to himself.
Zhou Zhenguo gave him a speechless look. The kid had gone downhill fast. Then he turned to Tang Luo and asked, "Master, is it all right for us to go straight in and attack?"
They'd said they would conserve their strength and wait for Jack the Ripper to come to them.
But that didn't mean they would do absolutely nothing.
With almost no leads about Jack the Ripper, starting a "side quest" might not be a bad idea.
Their current target was one of the organization's members.
It was time to lead everyone in punishing evil and promoting good!
For three days straight, Tang Luo led the others in sweeping up the organization's remaining members.
They gained a fair amount of merit points.
As for Zhou Zhenguo and Chu Chongtian, their tangible rewards came in the form of various weapons.
The most common were revolvers and bullets.
Two "sword canes," with blades concealed inside their walking sticks.
Brass knuckles, bowie knives, and the like.
Oh, and a small amount of explosives.
Zhou Zhenguo, a seasoned veteran, finally showed that he had some impressive combat ability of his own.
Besides Binding Chain,
he also had another skill—Powerful Strike.
He could gather his strength and unleash a powerful blow in several different ways.
He could smash someone with his head, punch them, slap them, kick them, or even bite them.
He could also use it on other objects and throw them.
It was easy to use, responding almost entirely to his will. It was a fairly typical combat skill.
In simple terms, it was a sudden burst of strength.
Zhou Zhenguo used Powerful Strike to throw a small stone with force equal to a firearm in this world.
He successfully took out a dangerous enemy.
But afterward, he was left weak and exhausted.
Zhou Zhenguo didn't hide anything from Master Xuanzang.
Powerful Strike currently had a two-hour cooldown. After using it, he was left in a weakened state for thirty minutes.
In that state, it felt as if he'd just sprinted several kilometers. He could barely keep walking, and only by sheer willpower.
It was the kind of skill he'd save as a last resort.
He wouldn't use it unless he had no other choice.
Chu Chongtian was a little disappointed.
He hadn't expected the skill's cooldown to be so long.
Binding Chain was one thing, but Powerful Strike was a straightforward combat skill, and yet its cooldown was a full two hours.
It couldn't be used repeatedly in battle.
In ordinary fights, they still had to rely on basic attacks.
Spam skills?
Not a chance.
Of course, that didn't mean all skills had such long cooldowns.
At first, they generally wouldn't be short, but as a person mastered a skill and its level increased, things would change.
Some skills could eventually be used as often as ordinary attacks.
But for Chu Chongtian and the others, that was still a long way off.
Even Zhou Zhenguo was only just getting started.
Night fell.
Outside a vast estate, Tang Luo and the other three stood in the shadows beside the road.
"Count Leo Thorndike, the organization's biggest benefactor," Tang Luo said. "His security is tight."
Three days had passed.
The organization's remaining members had naturally caught on.
And Tang Luo and the others had been acting as cleaners, sweeping up the organization's remnants.
Count Thorndike couldn't have failed to react.
His estate was now heavily guarded by bodyguards and hounds.
Interestingly, he was also hosting a banquet tonight.
He was probably using it as an excuse to gather the organization's remaining forces and deal with the newly emerged "dangerous enemy," then resume their research.
The banquet had drawn in nearly every prominent figure in the small city.
Its stated purpose was for everyone to work together to stop the city's worsening crime problem.
These past few days...
Besides the "cases" caused by Tang Luo, Jack the Ripper had also fallen into a state of madness and begun killing indiscriminately.
In just three days, the number of victims had reached nine.
At dawn, people would wake to find three more bodies, disemboweled, in some unknown alley—or even inside a house.
Fear spread, impossible to contain.
Like dark clouds pressing down, it shrouded the entire small city.
No one could remain untouched.
Before you continue