Doom Knight

The gunman had not shown his face, wearing a mud mask. A single shot had pierced his torso, yet there was no muscle or blood inside the wound—only several snapped wooden slats. Chu Hengkong crouched and lifted the camouflage jacket. Beneath it was plainly an empty frame twisted together from wooden strips and iron wire. The one who had assassinated Grandma Sang Jia was, unbelievably, a crudely made puppet.

Beneath the mud mask, the gunman's head was a ball wrapped in rubber and sheet metal. Its maker had a sense of humor, even painting a comical smiley face on it. Wooden blocks and iron wire alone could not operate a gun, so the puppet's arms had been made with great care. The prosthetic hands, white porcelain at the base, relied on ball joints for nimble little movements, and moved almost no differently from real hands.

The gunman was not even human. No wonder Chu Hengkong had sensed no killing intent earlier. He carefully searched every part of the puppet, but found nothing resembling a transmitter or strings.

Using a puppet as an assassin would still require some kind of medium. Could AI from another world run on such a crude frame? Or perhaps...

Something had attached itself to this puppet?

"Urgent report. I failed. The target was more troublesome than the intelligence described. The puppet did not last half a minute."

"Worthy of the great chief inspector." The man on the other end of the communication sounded impressed. "What is Chu Hengkong doing now?"

"Meticulously destroying the puppet. I cannot possess it a second time." The sniper paused, then added, "Its tentacles are strange. Familiar, yet not quite."

"He has a mind of his own and secrets besides. Testing him was indeed the right choice." The man pondered briefly. "Withdraw first, Besen. Find another chance to retrieve the puppet later. Leaving evidence behind is never good."

"I'll watch a little longer," Besen said. It drifted with the wind into a withered tree, observing the settlement's movements from afar. One puppet was insignificant, but what came next was worth watching.

It truly wanted to know whether this fledgling "Skillful Hands" could defeat an established "Cornerstone" and twenty-one "Glimmers."

Chu Hengkong added one final kick, crushing the puppet's head into fragments.

His battle with Tina and the dog had happened not long ago. In a world with spirits and demons, possession was by no means some absurd fantasy. So he had carefully destroyed the puppet's head and limbs, preventing any third-rate act of returning the soul to a borrowed corpse.

During this process, fearful gazes came one after another from behind the windows. The earlier sonic boom had alerted people to the battle in the settlement. They had not seen the details, only a man tormenting a mangled "corpse," so naturally they were frightened.

Chu Hengkong noticed it as well. He raised his identification high with a tentacle, proving his identity to the crowd. "I am Senior Inspector Chu Hengkong, currently pursuing a dangerous suspect... Residents, lock your doors and windows. Do not go outside!"

Halfway through, Chu Hengkong suddenly raised his voice. The Sha Qi in his announcement made the swampfolk immediately draw their curtains and tremble in the dark. He had no interest in frightening civilians; he had issued that warning because he had noticed something was wrong. The swamp was dimly lit. Even with the commotion, the residents should not have found him so quickly. They could see Chu Hengkong because light was seeping out around them.

Glug. Glug. Glug. Thick bubbles sounded in succession as patches of light appeared around the wooden houses. Chu Hengkong heightened his vigilance. He had thought he would see glowing corpses from head to toe, but the new enemies were not even human. Clumps of mud surged up from the swamp, the light patches clinging within waist-high masses of sludge as they formed a filthy army and closed in around him.

There were twenty mud Glimmers in total. Their movements resembled those of small insects as they rampaged through the wet swamp. Chu Hengkong bent his knees and lowered himself, his tentacles turning into long whips as they lashed out. With one strike, he cut ten mud monsters in half at the waist. But the instant his whip hit, he knew things were bad—the mud bodies gave almost no sense of impact.

Sure enough, the scattered mud gathered again, and the light patches stabilized after swaying for only a moment. Simple strikes were useless against these things.

Chu Hengkong immediately withdrew his attack and leaped away, running toward the edge of the settlement. This time, he did not spring onto the rooftops. That would have been safer, but the mud monsters might destroy the houses and hurt innocent residents. The mud Glimmers all turned and pursued him. These things really were being controlled by someone. The mastermind had flown into a rage this time, willing to expose their power within the settlement just to strike.

Chu Hengkong carefully maintained the distance. After more than ten seconds, he ran out of the settlement and began circling along the wooden fence that served as its boundary. Blunt strikes and piercing attacks should both be useless. The Charge bracelet was of no use, and firing Water Bullets into mud was not a solution either... He truly had no way to deal with them at the moment, but Ji Huaishu was still here. He just needed an opportunity to scatter them all, then quickly meet up with Ji Huaishu—

[Thud]

A low, heavy note sounded in his mind, as though a scepter had slammed down upon his heart. The echo it caused reverberated endlessly within him. Chu Hengkong stopped abruptly in mid-run. The inexplicable sound brought his thoughts to a halt, leaving only one cold command echoing in his mind.

Stop.

Stop. Stop moving. The bright patches of light enlarged in his vision. Do not act. Obey his command. The light is about to touch you. You cannot deal with so many "Glimmers." Rest for a moment. Light. The light is gathering together...

No!

Flowing mud knocked Chu Hengkong down. He stiffly rolled his eyes and saw mud Glimmers crawling over his legs like venomous insects. An indescribable hollowness struck him in an instant. The heat in his body was draining away. Countless past experiences suddenly flashed through his mind, memories replaying like slides at lightning speed, but the important scenes grew blurred. No matter how he tried to recall them, all he could see was blinding light. And that Glimmer was growing brighter and brighter...

Chu Hengkong realized he was being "gnawed away." He would lose things that absolutely could not be taken from him. He screamed desperately in his mind, trying to drown out that damned heavy note. His stiff legs kicked, flinging the mud Glimmer away, but his body still could not move.

He would need at least one more second before he could move, perhaps even longer. Chu Hengkong stretched a numb hand forward. At that moment, the swamp before him churned like waves, and blinding patches of light erupted amid an enormous torrent of mud. Rotting sludge and decay were gathered together by the light, condensing into a rough body and transforming into a filthy giant more than ten meters tall!

It stood taller than every house in the settlement. Taking just one step forward, it smashed a wooden house apart. The residents' screams rose without end, but the giant ignored the panicked civilians. It raised a palm bright enough to sting the eyes and hurled it down at Chu Hengkong with tremendous force.

This was the true killing move. Everything before had merely set the stage to force him away from the others and make him fight alone. That heavy note and this giant that had suddenly emerged were the fatal blow meant to take his life. Chu Hengkong's heart sank. He could not move at all right now, much less defend himself. He could only take the hit and see whether his bones could withstand a blow that shattered houses. But if this thing also possessed that bizarre "erosion" ability, if it could gnaw away memories too...

Light completely swallowed his vision. He prepared himself for the worst. Yet in that instant, Chu Hengkong thought he was hallucinating. Within the light, he saw dense shadow. Black as the night, gloomy as storm clouds, the shadow forcefully overwhelmed the patches of light, forming a massive weapon that blocked his view!

He had not been mistaken. It was a weapon—a giant sword forged from shadow. It was longer than an ordinary person was tall and nearly as thick as a shield. Shadow boiled along the blade's edge, violent as dark flames. The wielder stood before him. Her hood had fallen away in her rapid movement, and her fluttering hair shone like golden light. She raised the greatsword with both hands, deeply twisting her body as though she were carving all her strength into the motion.

The next instant, Ji Huaishu swung the greatsword. Dense shadow tore through the blazing light, and the wind from the blade snarled like a roar!

Mud scattered, and the giant body collapsed. That single strike severed the giant's palm along with half its body, the cross-section smooth as a mirror. The lights within the monster were brutally cut apart by shadow. The twenty surrounding mud Glimmers were shattered by the sword wind before they could even approach. That frenzied slash was like an imperial decree from a tyrant—not a trace of light survived beneath its blade.

Chu Hengkong stared blankly. His eyes were utterly seized by that strike, and for a moment, he even forgot to think. Then the greatsword dispersed like smoke in the girl's hands. Ji Huaishu turned, crouched down, and vigorously patted his shoulder. "Hey! Are you hurt?"

Control over his body returned at that moment. Chu Hengkong took a deep breath. "...I owe you one."

"What do you mean, owe me? We're fucking brothers." Ji Huaishu supported him as he stood, carrying his arm over her shoulder while warily scanning their surroundings. No new mud Glimmers appeared. The mastermind had probably given up on this attack. The swampfolk stood amid the wreckage, staring at them in a daze.

"It's good that you're all right. Grandma Sang Jia is fine too." Ji Huaishu quietly pulled up her hood. "Now let's get out of here first..."

"...Huh?"

Chu Hengkong questioned his own ears. Turning his head, he found her wearing an awkward smile. Not the sort of awkwardness caused by bad manners, but the smile of a child caught by their parents after making a terrible mess. Then he noticed that all the swampfolk were staring at Ji Huaishu. Their pupils shrank and their faces twisted. The dazed looks on their faces became panic, and panic became terror.

"The Doom Knight is here!" "Enemy of the gods!" "We can't live here anymore! Everyone, run! Run!!" "Great shaman, save me!!" "She's going to eat people!!!!"

Then screams pierced through the settlement as men, women, young, and old fled shrieking. If the mud Glimmers were messengers of fear, then Ji Huaishu at this moment was the sovereign of fear. It could not even be said that these people looked as though they had seen a ghost—they looked as though they had seen the King of Hell himself.

Chu Hengkong was dumbstruck. "What exactly did you do in the swamp?"

"I just, um, upheld justice..." Ji Huaishu said softly. "You know there are lots of charlatans and thugs in places like this, right? So it was only natural for me, as a law enforcement officer, to give them the punishment they deserved..."

"Just tell me how many you killed," Chu Hengkong said.

"...Quite a lot."

Chu Hengkong stared at her sidelong. The blonde girl's voice grew even smaller.

"Just a tiny, tiny, tiny bit too many..."