Baldy whipped around, his bloodshot eyes fixed on Scarface beside him.
His features, usually made faintly sleazy by greed, were now twisted beyond recognition.
The command delivered after the system forcibly changed the mission objective burned into his not-so-bright mind like a red-hot brand.
In his eyes, the man beside him—the brother he had always called his friend—had become a walking money pouch, a glaring "100 Points" on the System Panel.
Scarface raised his broad-bladed cleaver, his face twisted into a grimace as he prepared to attack Su Yu.
He had no idea his partner was behind him.
The moment Scarface took half a step forward, a beastlike growl rumbled from Baldy's throat.
He gripped his cleaver with both hands and raised the rusty blade high. Without the slightest hesitation, he brought it down hard on Scarface's right shoulder!
"Thwack!"
The dull sound of a blade slicing through flesh erupted across the wasteland.
Blood sprayed everywhere.
Dark-red blood gushed from Scarface's shoulder like a fountain, splattering Baldy's head and face.
The hot blood ran down Baldy's gleaming scalp and into his eyes, turning his vision completely red.
The blow was vicious. The blade sank straight into Scarface's collarbone, and the crisp crack of breaking bone rang out.
"Argh—!"
Scarface let out an unbearably shrill scream.
The sudden agony made him stumble forward, nearly pitching face-first into the mud.
He had no idea what had happened.
One second, they had been plotting how to divide the belongings of the two children in front of them; the next, his sworn brother had struck a deadly blow from behind.
"Have you gone mad?!"
Scarface turned around, his features contorted by pain.
Seeing Baldy's blood-soaked face and crazed eyes, anger and confusion surged through him.
Baldy paid no heed to Scarface's accusations.
There was only one thought in his mind: complete the system's robbery mission and get those 100 points to exchange for Gold Soul Coins.
"Points! My points! Hand over the money!"
Baldy roared incoherently. He tried to wrench the cleaver out of Scarface's bone so he could strike again.
But Scarface had been a ruthless cutthroat who'd spent years surviving in the wasteland.
After a moment of shock, his vicious instincts as a bandit flared to life.
He endured the searing pain in his shoulder and clamped his left hand around Baldy's knife-wielding wrist to stop him from pulling out the blade. Then he abruptly flipped his right hand, driving his broad-bladed cleaver toward Baldy's stomach with a gust of bloody wind.
"Thud!"
Another muffled impact.
Scarface's cleaver punched straight through Baldy's abdomen. Its tip emerged from his back, dragging out a string of bloody entrails.
Baldy's whole body stiffened. His eyes bulged, the eyeballs protruding from their sockets.
But he didn't fall.
The system's forced mission command had stripped him entirely of his fear of pain.
He let go of the cleaver, then opened his yellow-toothed maw and clamped down on Scarface's neck like a maddened wild boar.
The two men fought and bit at each other like beasts in the mud, driven by the system's 100-point reward.
Blood sprayed. Flesh tore.
The waist-high weeds around them were trampled flat, and the once-dry earth soon soaked up the warm blood, turning into a nauseating dark-red quagmire.
Scarface punched Baldy's head again and again, trying to tear his frenzied partner off him.
But Baldy clung on like a snapping turtle, refusing to release his bite as his hands tore wildly at Scarface's wounds.
The scene was both bloody and absurd.
Tang Wu was hiding behind Su Yu. The moment she opened her eyes, she saw a scene straight out of hell.
She was only six years old. How could she have ever seen two grown men slaughtering each other with such abandon?
The gushing blood, the fallen intestines, and the beastlike snarls rising from their throats shattered her composure in an instant.
"Argh—!"
Tang Wu screamed in fright. All the color drained from her little face, leaving it as pale as paper.
Her body shook violently, and her legs went weak. She nearly crumpled to the ground.
Su Yu immediately turned around and swiftly but gently reached out with both hands.
He covered Tang Wu's eyes with his left hand and her ears with his right, pulling her thin, trembling body tightly into his arms.
"Don't look. Don't listen."
Su Yu's voice was low and steady, carrying a soothing warmth.
Tang Wu clung tightly to Su Yu's waist, burying her face against his chest. Her body still trembled uncontrollably.
But with Su Yu blocking her view, the terror of facing the bloody scene eased a little at last.
After comforting Tang Wu, Su Yu turned back and calmly watched the farce unfolding nearby, two dogs tearing into each other.
There was no trace of pity in his eyes, nor any fear—only aloof indifference.
Through the Eye of Truth, he could clearly see the two green System Panels above their heads.
The quest progress bar on Baldy's panel flickered with each attack he made on Scarface.
Scarface's panel, meanwhile, frantically flashed the red warning: [Betrayed by a companion. Defense mechanism triggered.]
Two puppets controlled by low-tier systems were burning through the last of their life force for a paltry reward.
Su Yu sneered inwardly.
So this was what a system-backed cheat looked like?
Without the strength to back it up, a so-called system was nothing but a death warrant.
Even with a higher-tier system, if its host was an idiot, his fate wouldn't be any better than these two bandits'.
The fight in the mud didn't last long.
They were ordinary people without Soul Power to protect them. With such grievous, mortal wounds, they were staying upright on little more than sheer will.
In less than half an incense stick's time, their movements began to slow.
A huge chunk of Scarface's neck had been bitten away, his windpipe severed. All he could manage was a hissing, breathless rasp.
His arms fell limp into the muddy water, his eyes rolled back, and he went still.
Baldy fared no better.
The gaping wound in his abdomen had drained nearly all his blood.
He slowly let go of Scarface's neck, swayed twice, then collapsed into the pool of blood.
In his final second, Baldy still glared unwillingly at the panel floating in the air.
Su Yu clearly saw the last message flash across the panel above Baldy's head: [Target deceased. Property not obtained. Mission failed. Deducting 50 points. Current points are negative. Unbinding system...]
A last flicker of confusion and despair crossed Baldy's cloudy eyes. Then they lost all light.
The two men collapsed in a pool of blood, becoming a pair of cold corpses.
A thick smell of blood hung in the air.
Just then, a breeze drifted past.
The ragged pockets on Baldy and Scarface had turned inside out when they fell.
"Clink."
Several crisp metallic chimes rang across the quiet wasteland.
A few bloodstained Gold Soul Coins rolled from their tattered pockets, gleaming invitingly in the sunlight.
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