"You're impressive... You're a great warrior. I look forward to meeting you again. You're an opponent I must defeat..."
Splat. Abel watched helplessly as the terrifying bullet reached him.
The instant the bullet touched his forehead, Abel's skull burst apart like a watermelon struck by a hammer.
Bone fragments and brain tissue sprayed outward, coating the trunks of three oak trees behind him in a slurry of grayish white and crimson.
The shockwave created a cavitation effect inside his skull. His right eyeball, not yet flung away, popped from its socket under the pressure difference, its optic nerve trailing behind it in an arc through the air.
Abel's body was instantly blasted to pieces.
That immense force bent his body backward with it, tearing his spine apart at the third lumbar vertebra. The two halves of his mangled body slammed into tree trunks in opposite directions, dragging fan-shaped streaks of blood across the bark.
Drip. Drip.
Terrifying chunks of flesh fell everywhere.
Smoke curled from Xiao Huasheng's gun barrel. Looking at Abel scattered all over the ground, she covered her mouth.
Blue, red, yellow, black—there was stuff everywhere.
One shot, instant kill. What was there to say?
Abel, you spilled out.
"Huh? How did you die?!"
She had originally thought that even if the bullet hit Abel, it would not do much to him.
She had even planned to turn herself invisible next, then frantically break Abel's bones.
After all, whether it was SCP-682 or Entity 096, they had been perfectly fine after taking her bullets.
Even if they went down, they recovered quickly.
But Abel showed no signs of recovering at all. His parts were everywhere.
Faced with an Abel who had been able to suppress her in battle, Xiao Huasheng had naturally assumed that one shot would not accomplish much.
Yet it had sent Abel off on the spot, without even leaving scraps behind.
"I'm sorry! I didn't mean to kill you!"
Xiao Huasheng hurriedly spoke as she tried to use her Reality-Warping Ability to bring Abel back directly.
The chunks of flesh on the ground, about to rot away into ash, began to tremble.
Some of them had already started moving backward toward their original positions, about to gather together and reassemble the pieces.
But very quickly, those chunks of flesh lost their strength and fell back to the ground.
The next moment, they immediately rotted away and turned to ash.
If it had been an ordinary person, she probably could have pulled them back the moment she had that thought.
But Abel was different. Just thinking about it instantly drained Xiao Huasheng's energy, leaving only 10% remaining.
It consumed even more energy than her indiscriminate bombardment or enhancing her own physical abilities.
She immediately felt an overwhelming wave of exhaustion.
With a thud.
She immediately collapsed onto the ground, shut her eyes, and fell asleep on the spot.
She held on for only a moment before dropping off to sleep.
Good night, Makka Pakka.
Seeing this.
The squad responsible for cleanup quickly rushed over with a stretcher.
They immediately lifted the unconscious Angel onto the stretcher, and the squad members reported back to the facility.
"Codename: Exusiai. Fell unconscious after eliminating Entity 076-2. Medical support will now be provided."
At this point, the Foundation had gained a rough understanding of Xiao Huasheng's capabilities.
Having fallen asleep, she naturally arrived at Lobotomy Corporation.
Angela soon covered her forehead. "Don't directly use Reality Warping on those things anymore. Our energy has bottomed out. We only have 20 units left—we're at the line between life and death."
"I-is that so?" Xiao Huasheng said, lowering her head and not quite daring to meet Angela's eyes.
In fact.
Angela had originally been about to use the surplus energy to create an antimemetic department, but this battle had interrupted her.
Her fight with Abel had consumed only 5% of Xiao Huasheng's energy, and she had utterly crushed him.
But trying to reassemble Abel afterward had drained their energy to the warning line in one go.
Sure enough, no matter what kind of anomaly it was, directly applying Reality Warping to it consumed an enormous amount of energy.
After chatting with Angela for a while, Xiao Huasheng joined the work as well.
Her main task was working with the Silent Orchestra.
The Silent Orchestra shut its doors to everyone else, doing nothing but compose sheet music.
Therefore, while it stayed here, it could only provide Lobotomy Corporation with energy when Xiao Huasheng was present and working with it.
Fortunately, the Silent Orchestra was quite willing to interact with Xiao Huasheng and provide her with all kinds of energy, on the condition that she continuously learned its Song of the Apocalypse.
So she became its student and studied hard for quite a while.
Since their energy had truly run dry.
Xiao Huasheng stayed a little longer and studied the Song of the Apocalypse for almost an entire day.
The others continuously worked with Queen of Hatred and One Sin and Hundreds of Good Deeds to supply energy.
Even so, energy remained quite scarce—not nearly as plentiful as imagined.
They could produce only 80 units of energy per day in total, which was merely 40%.
After deducting the 15 units consumed by Angela's research, the 10 units needed for daily operations, and the 10 units paid to the temporary worker, Quack Doctor.
At best, they had a net gain of only 45 units of energy per day.
It could not exactly be called pitifully little; it was just barely enough to keep them alive.
Thankfully, the Silent Orchestra was reliable.
After Xiao Huasheng joined in and pushed the energy to 100%, Angela adorably rubbed her face against hers and said there was no need to worry for the time being.
After enjoying Angela's affectionate cuddling for a while, the slave-driving Angel finally returned to reality.
At this time.
A day had already passed since she had fallen asleep on the ground.
When she came back to her senses.
She found herself lying on a pristine white bed.
This time, she did not run away. She merely wrapped herself in the blanket, her mind filled with the image of Abel being blown apart by her.
That must have hurt terribly.
"I didn't mean to... I killed you in one hit..."
The red-haired Angel pitifully hugged her head and began to regret it.
If she had known, she would not have hit him so hard. She had thought Abel could take it.
Yet one blow had sent him away.
"I didn't mind."
Abel stood to one side, peeling an apple as he looked at her gently.
Xiao Huasheng's eyes widened as she looked at him.
Now it was Xiao Huasheng's turn to be surprised.
"I hit you that hard. How are you still alive?"
Foundation Captain, Use the Speed Force!
Xiao Huasheng's voice caught in her throat, because something else had captured her attention.
She stared at Abel's hands. Those fingers, capable of easily crushing a skull, were currently holding a small knife, its bright silver blade spinning steadily along the apple's peel.
Just one second later, the apple had been perfectly peeled.
The peel formed a perfect spiral strip, hanging down onto the medical tray.
"This is the first time I've seen someone peel an apple so quickly."
"I've peeled enough people. Naturally, this is nothing."
"Hahahaha... uh." Xiao Huasheng truly had nothing left to say, realizing that the person before her was not exactly a good guy.
But after remembering that this person had just been blasted all over the ground by her and was now perfectly fine.
She understood that he really did have some ability.
Xiao Huasheng complained.
"I thought you died because you were showing off. You looked so strong, after all."
A faint smile rested on Abel's lips, making him seem like an entirely different person from the berserker in the forest.
When the final strip of peel fell, he flicked his wrist and held the apple out to her on the tip of his knife.
"I won't die." His voice was low and steady. "No matter how many times it happens, I'll always start over."
"Want some?" Abel asked. Xiao Huasheng frantically shook her head.
Hearing Abel's words, she suddenly lost her appetite.
Footsteps sounded in the hallway, and Abel had already retreated to a safe distance.
At that moment, someone walked in and spoke bluntly.
"The O5 Council has approved your squad application. You may begin training all squad members. This is your squad, and you will have full authority over it from now on, though others will still supervise this task force."
Then, the man noticed that Xiao Huasheng was awake.
He said in surprise, "You're awake?"
The red-haired Angel nodded slightly.
"If I didn't wake up soon, would you have sent me to the crematorium?"
The man chuckled and waved his hand. "You sure know how to joke. Of course not. Since you're in such good spirits, let me introduce myself while I'm here. I'm Klaus, the liaison for this task force. From now on, I'll personally relay all your missions."
Klaus, a Class B personnel member, spoke up. He looked refined and scholarly, as if he had never weathered any storms.
Surprisingly, Abel did not attack him upon seeing him.
Abel respected the strong—anyone who was even slightly stronger than him.
Whether in games or anything else, as long as someone was stronger than him, he would respect them.
Otherwise, no matter what the person before him was, he would strike without hesitation.
The place where Xiao Huasheng had awakened was not inside the facility, but in a specially constructed infirmary exclusively for Pandora's Box Squad.
Since most members of Pandora's Box Squad would be humanoid entities, this infirmary was theoretically useful to them as well.
Few people came here. Apart from those acknowledged by Abel, no one was permitted to enter.
Xiao Huasheng looked at Klaus, muttered something, and slowly sat up.
"Is that so? Then you must be here to... assign a mission?"
Was the Foundation going to use her again so soon?
It really was the Foundation's style.
"That's right. You could call this your first mission."
Before you continue