Theater of Domination, Act Six / Chris

Otto nodded, approving of her idea. "The uploader of the photo calls himself Gray Serpent. After investigating, we found that he is a well-known intelligence broker in Sky City."

"He possesses a technology capable of monitoring information exchanges across nearly the entire city. Although he may not have taken the photo himself, the fact that he located its source in such a short time proves that the Herrscher of Void truly is in Sky City."

"Additionally, someone seems to have observed signs of activity from the traitors of the Far East Branch. For Theresa to be unable to remain calm and be willing to expose herself just to investigate the lead, the information is highly credible."

Rita immediately nodded. "Understood. I will find the source of the intelligence before Lady Theresa arrives."

Beep—

The call disconnected. Rita took a deep breath and swiftly headed for Schicksal's combat center, where she would board a dedicated aircraft to Sky City.

Sky City, Shencheng Technology.

The hall was empty. Only the Ouroboros emblem had been branded into a concealed corner. The tall man standing in the darkness had his face completely covered by a mask, while an unusual emotion glinted in his crimson mechanical eye.

"Interesting. Someone actually dared to impersonate the Serpent. Then let me see whether you still possess that courage when the Serpent devours you."

Anti-Entropy.

"Lady Theresa, the armed helicopter is ready." The door to the operations room opened, and Dr. Einstein, with her dark blue curls, walked in. Waiting in the room were the students of St. Freya—and also the traitors of Schicksal's Far East Branch—Theresa, Mei, and Bronya.

"Is the source of this intelligence reliable?" Though she was already impatient, Theresa still had to ensure the information was trustworthy as principal.

Facing Theresa's question, Einstein remained calm as she brought up her intelligence panel. "According to Anti-Entropy's investigations from multiple sources, Sky City has suffered repeated Honkai Beast attacks over the past month. During that time, survivors occasionally claimed that a white-haired girl had saved them. While such rumors are unreliable, combined with this photograph, we can basically confirm that Kiana is in Sky City."

She continued, "This is Gray Serpent, the intelligence broker you will be dealing with. He has sold confidential information more than once and possesses a certain reputation among major organizations. There is a strong chance that he has information on Kiana."

Theresa nodded and looked at the two students beside her. "You both examined that photograph, right?"

"Mm. There are no signs of alteration." As a top-tier hacker, Bronya could naturally distinguish whether the photo was genuine. That was precisely why they recognized the importance of this transaction.

Mei, who had been staring at the photograph in thought, frowned tightly. "I wouldn't mistake Kiana's appearance, but who is this boy beside her?"

"Prepare to move. Schicksal should be making a move as well. Bring Kiana back before they do." At Theresa's command, everyone boarded the armed helicopter bound for Sky City.

At the ranch, when Su Jue woke up, he was the only one left in the room.

There was no surprise, because Kiana's departure had been part of his plan from the beginning. He had controlled a puppet to secretly take the photo before uploading it. Given Kiana's personality, she would never be willing to burden those around her. Her departure had therefore been inevitable.

He unwound the bandage around his arm. The wound beneath had already healed by more than half. At his gesture, Tread Snow, who had been gone for quite some time, ran in from outside with a bottle of disinfectant clamped in his mouth. Then came the familiar process of cleaning the wound, applying medicine, and bandaging it.

Only after everything had been dealt with did he rise from the floor bedding.

Kiana's bed had been folded neatly. It seemed she had deliberately tidied it up before leaving.

Su Jue's phone lay beside the pillow at the head of the bed. In the end, she had not taken it with her.

Beside the phone was a star-shaped hair ornament. It was Kiana's favorite, the one she had always carried with her.

There was a message on the phone. Su Jue's finger hovered over the play button, but in the end, he did not watch it. He did not dare to.

Because he was afraid that if he watched it, he would no longer have the heart to deceive that pitiful girl.

He placed the hair ornament into the pocket close to his chest.

He tossed the phone into the Theater of Domination.

He opened the door and left. With a soft snap of his fingers, the hundreds of animals and the ranch owner who had been controlled all night finally regained consciousness.

In an instant, the formerly silent ranch grew noisy. There were no insects chirping, no evening breeze, no whispers between a boy and a girl.

One photograph. One piece of bait.

Schicksal, Anti-Entropy, World Serpent, and everyone at St. Freya—begin your hunt for Kiana.

The boy pressed a hand to his chest, where his heart was beating slowly.

"I'm sorry."

The Sixth Act of the Theater of Domination

After clearing away every clue at the ranch, Su Jue quickly returned home using the spatial transfer ability of the Theater of Domination. Sky City would likely become somewhat chaotic for a while, and it was not something his current self could interfere in.

It was worth noting that aside from the ongoing Stigmata Awakening Project, World Serpent also possessed a human modification technology.

They used young children as vessels, implanting mechanical and electronic components into them to create one emotionless modified body after another, responsible for monitoring the entire city. Among them, one would serve as the core hub capable of controlling all the modified bodies.

At the same time, that core modified body was responsible for integrating all surveillance footage from the other bodies. This was why World Serpent could obtain intelligence so freely.

If possible, Su Jue still wanted to try snatching her from World Serpent's hands. After all, that child alone was equivalent to a high-performance Quantum Computer. To Su Jue, who possessed no technological foundation whatsoever, she was undoubtedly of great significance. If he could control the surveillance network covering Sky City, it would make both concealment and causing trouble far more convenient.

However, his combat strength was still far too weak. He simply could not confront them head-on. He could only pray that Kiana would grow up quickly and become a qualified Herrscher of Void.

In truth, keeping Kiana by his side would undoubtedly have been the better option. Not only would he gain another bodyguard, but he could even use her directly as a hostage in critical moments. Unfortunately, besides the consciousness of the Herrscher of Void, there was an even more threatening presence within her—Fu Hua of Feather Dust.

Although, judging by the girl's current state, she had not yet accepted Fu Hua's consciousness, Su Jue would definitely expose some weaknesses if he stayed with Kiana for too long.

He was not a god, after all. He could not arrange an entire Theater for her across the whole world.

Once Schicksal noticed, the fate of the Herrscher of a Thousand would be obvious enough.

After briefly sorting out his next plans, Su Jue chose to head outside. He still needed to continue disguising his current identity.

His next-door neighbor, Jian Yun, was already waiting at the intersection. During the days he had been away, he had relied entirely on puppet control to attend school for him. He wondered whether any flaws had appeared.

"Huh? Brother Su Jue, you seem pretty energetic today." He had just been wondering whether there had been any flaws when she noticed the difference the moment they met.

"Uh, maybe I slept better today?" Su Jue scratched his head and gave a vague laugh.

"Is that so? So you hadn't been sleeping well these past few days. I was wondering why you were acting like a wooden doll. Lots of times when I called you, you ignored me." The girl looked a little angry as she stared at Su Jue in reproach, seemingly sulking.

"..."

"..." He did not answer.

"Hey! Can't you at least comfort me?" Jian Yun had originally thought Su Jue would apologize to her, so her eyes widened when he once again became as absentminded as usual.

Unfortunately, Su Jue had not noticed her reaction at all. Before Jian Yun had even finished speaking, an ancient, resonant wolf howl sounded, and his consciousness had already entered the Theater of Domination to continue controlling his split consciousness.

Darkness. Coldness. Only a puppet tightly entangled in threads hung its head low, like prey caught in a tangled spiderweb.

"Welcome to the Theater of Domination."

As a Westerner, Chris felt that he should count as one of those patriotic young men.

Even with the endless gang conflicts, the undisguised underground dealings, and the sheer number of murders reported in the news every day—enough to make him write detective novels—he still believed that those were merely the consequences of gang forces bringing disaster upon themselves.

He was just an ordinary person, a law-abiding citizen.

Just as he had said himself, Chris truly counted as a unique person in this district.

He neither smoked nor drank. He did not spend money at nightclubs, nor did he take pills.

Like a soul utterly out of place in this country, his only hobby was having time to play games after returning home, spending a little time watching the latest anime from the Island Nation, and, of course, occasionally reading manga—those spicy kinds of manga.

He felt there was nothing wrong with that. Humans always had desires that were difficult to avoid, and occasionally releasing the filth within one's body was beneficial to one's physical and mental health.

That was normal. Violence had never been the only way to relieve stress.

Growing up, he had almost never fought. The only time he had ever kissed someone's cheek with his fist had been in middle school.

It had rained heavily that day. By coincidence, the girl he had a crush on had been standing beside him, sheltering from the rain as well. It had been a rare opportunity, and excitement filled the boy's heart.

—Until he learned that the girl he liked was pregnant with the school bully's child. To him at the time, it had been simply unbelievable. In his mind, middle school students should not have been worrying about children. They should have been studying.

So he went to reason with the school bully and was naturally beaten up—but he did not lose out. That crew-cut bastard had taken one solid punch from him. Whenever he thought of it, he would smile proudly.

—If he had not been expelled the next day.

Knock, knock—

The sound of someone tapping on glass brought Chris back from his memories. He looked at the young traffic officer beside him in confusion.

"Hey, friend, I didn't run a red light." Chris slowly explained while looking at the red signal ahead.

The uniformed officer was very young, seemingly only recently appointed. Young people like that had usually just come out of the police academy; they were rigid and stuck to the rules.

"I know, but your tires crossed the traffic warning line. If you studied traffic laws, you should know that is illegal."

"What kind of joke is this? I pass through this road every day on my commute. No one has ever cared before." Chris was somewhat unconvinced. He had lived here for over twenty years, and if nothing unexpected happened, he would spend the next several decades here as well.

The young officer did not care about Chris's shouting. With a mocking expression, he slipped the ticket into the car. "Citizen, the law doesn't care how long you've lived here. No one caring before was only because they were incompetent."

"Shit!" He picked the ticket up from beneath the seat cushion. Seeing the 3,000 fine written on it, he felt annoyed. He had planned to use that money to top up the game he had recently started playing, but it was now going down the drain because of one sentence from that young cop. "Motherfucker!"

After issuing the ticket, the young officer showily adjusted his cap. Looking at the cursing Chris as though he were watching a clown, he said, "Have a pleasant day~"

Chris ignored him. He was still mourning his money.

Through the rearview mirror, he saw the young officer had begun checking the car behind him. Chris could only accept his bad luck. Seeing that the light was about to turn green, he hurriedly placed his foot on the accelerator.

The next second.

Bang—!

The police cap flew high into the air like a bird set free.

The young officer's blood and brains splattered across Chris's rear window. The headless body still maintained the posture of writing a ticket.

"Where did this blind idiot come from?"

Hearing the angry curse from the car behind him, Chris's heart pounded wildly. Before the green light had fully turned on, he slammed his foot down on the accelerator.

Chris

"I must be crazy. I must have watched too much anime and started hallucinating." Chris kept repeating it to himself. He did not even notice that his speed had already soared to 120 km/h. Driving at 120 on a road with a limit of 60 would probably earn him another 3,000 fine if a camera caught him.

But he could no longer care about any of that. It seemed only this breakneck speed could make his memories fail to catch up with him, could make him forget that bloody scene. Yet the more he wanted to forget, the more vividly that cruel sight surfaced in his mind. Especially the young officer's arrogant expression—it remained crystal clear.

Through the rearview mirror, Chris noticed the bloodstains on his rear window. He quickly turned on the wipers and frantically pressed the washer fluid switch, rinsing away the blood bit by bit.

Yet even when the stains had completely disappeared, the blood still lingered in Chris's mind like a nightmare, haunting his heart.

He felt that he was probably sick and needed to see a psychologist. He did not know whether psychological clinics were expensive. Chris had never visited one before, and he had heard that many psychologists were frauds who had no effect at all.

Chris's thoughts ran wild.

But before that, he needed to wash his car properly.

"It's fine. No one will come after you. The cameras clearly recorded that the gang did it. It has nothing to do with you, nothing to do with you." He kept giving himself psychological suggestions, and Chris gradually calmed down.

He slowly lowered his speed back to 60. His wildly pounding heart returned to its usual rhythm. Everything seemed to have gone back to its original track, and just as usual, he headed home after work.

Perhaps because today's events had been too intense, Chris, with his nerves stretched taut, kept feeling that his peaceful life was somehow different from before.

Woof, woof—

The neighbor's dog barked. That was perfectly normal. He had known for a long time that his neighbor owned a dog, though he had never seen what it looked like. Still, the barking that often came at random hours was ultimately irritating. He had once gone over to complain, and afterward it had indeed been quiet for several days, with no barking at all.

But when the dog barked again today, Chris could not help wondering whether it had smelled the blood on his car.

He felt a little irritated and prayed that the neighbor would not call the police because of it.

Fortunately, even after he opened his front door, no police officers suddenly burst in to arrest him.

He tiredly took off his shoes. Two or three unfamiliar pairs of leather shoes lay scattered across the floor by the shoe rack. Chris sighed and neatly arranged them one by one.

"They're probably my sister's coworkers again." He muttered softly, then glanced at his sister's tightly shut bedroom door with some helplessness. His sister's new job was far too demanding. Not only did she often work late shifts, but she occasionally brought coworkers home.

Whenever extra people appeared in the house, Chris felt extremely uncomfortable. Even if he locked himself in his room and played games alone, he often made mistakes.

"I hope they leave soon." After changing his shoes, Chris went to the kitchen and casually made something to eat. Some snacks and unfamiliar little candy tablets were scattered messily around the kitchen.

Chris did not like candy. Compared to sweets, he preferred the legendary Shenzhou dish he had heard so much about in anime: mapo tofu. He had heard that it was numbing and spicy, like an erupting volcano in his mouth. Yet he had never eaten authentic mapo tofu in his life. The Chinese restaurants he had occasionally visited out of curiosity were all run by locals.

What they served was mostly fast food like chicken wraps. The flatbread was dry, the chicken was tough, and the prices were far higher than ordinary fast-food restaurants. Chris had wanted to loudly accuse them of defrauding consumers, but as someone who never liked making trouble, he felt that spending time on that would be better spent playing a few more rounds of games.

At the thought of gaming, all of Chris's irritation from the day vanished.

He had a reasonably well-equipped high-end computer, and later he had scrimped and saved to buy a PS4. His salary was not high; after paying for games, he could barely support himself, and nothing more.

Those two devices were nearly his entire life, satisfying most of his entertainment needs.

After shutting himself inside his small room, Chris felt the entire world grow quiet. There was no endless work, no boss who loved picking faults, no gangs, and no chaos. The only thing accompanying him was the wonderful world of anime.