Empty-Handedly Stopping "Time Zero"

Although the 18th Street Gang's influence covered the entire Alameda Street neighborhood, true gang members mostly operated around core facilities connected to illegal dealings or criminal evidence.

The dental hospital Li Lin was in was a three-story building well known in the area, but that was merely the 18th Street Gang's public-facing disguise. In reality, it concealed records of all kinds of inhumane organ surgeries and also provided medical aid for gang members, as well as space for various criminal activities.

At that moment, Professor Schneider was in the temporary command post set up at the Texaco Building. As he monitored the somewhat chaotic communications of the first operations team, he suddenly broke into their channel and took command.

"Do as he says. Norma will hack the surrounding gang members' phones and send out false orders, luring them into the hospital amid the confusion. The first operations team will leave behind two sniper positions for support. Everyone else will immediately redeploy signal jammers around the area and stop any enemies trying to approach the hospital."

"Received."

"Li Lin, can you still talk?"

The channel first filled with complicated sounds of air tearing and impacts, then the boy's voice rang out. "Reporting, Professor, I accidentally used my Word Spirit to stick a Black man into a wall. Uh, approximately forty years old by visual estimate, one point nine meters tall, weight—"

"That isn't important. Abandon the mission to control the neighborhood immediately. You have only half an hour to take down or eliminate every hostile target in the hospital. In half an hour, the Equipment Department's alchemical bomb will crash into the hospital and destroy all evidence."

"Understood."

Li Lin, who had been stalling the enemies at the hospital counter, cut off the voice channel. He grabbed an attacker by the collar, threw him beneath a desk, and kicked him unconscious.

Schneider was still issuing orders over the channel.

"Aki Shigede, you have fifteen minutes to enter the hospital and investigate. Li Lin will draw all enemy attention. You do not need to maintain your Word Spirit the entire time. Preserve your strength and make sure you can withdraw."

"Received!"

Aki Shigede, waiting near the hospital, pushed open the car door, drew the sidearm at her waist, and activated "Word Spirit: Netherlight." She rushed into the hospital's front entrance, where only the threshold and shards of glass remained, alongside more than a dozen gangsters carrying knives or firearms.

Aki Shigede carefully avoided the sharp glass shards. Li Lin seemed to be toying with the gang enforcers and had barely used his Word Spirit, apparently afraid of accidentally scaring them all away. Fierce gunfire and the sounds of pursuit could be heard upstairs.

She had no time to worry about whether Li Lin was in danger. Racing against time, she searched the hospital for the passage leading to the underground clinic.

According to the clue Jon had provided before losing contact, the passage was...

Aki Shigede slipped into a pharmacy and quickly discovered stairs hidden between the medicine cabinets. A thick stench of blood washed over her, warning her not to cross into this forbidden domain of life.

She swallowed. As she deactivated "Word Spirit: Netherlight," she switched on the camera and recorder installed on her collar. If she failed to bring back useful samples and information, then the audio files uploaded in real time to the Executive Department would be the operation's only gains.

The walls within sight were covered in dark handprints, as if someone had once been dragged downstairs while desperately clutching the walls, their fingernails scraping fine grooves into the surface.

As she continued down the stairs into the depths, the handprints on the walls gradually became huge claw marks. The wall plaster had been torn away, exposing the dark gray concrete beneath, and through her shoes she could gradually feel something damp and slick underfoot.

Upon reaching the bottom of the stairs, Aki Shigede shakily raised her pistol and gently pushed open the iron gate ahead with its muzzle.

The sight beyond the gate made her skin crawl.

The place that should have served as a treatment facility had become a slaughterhouse. Torn restraints, scraps of flesh and bone, surgical tools, and stacks of paper documents all lay soaking in pools of blood, their writing completely illegible.

Aki Shigede suddenly noticed something glowing beneath the operating table before her. She carefully bent down and picked it up.

It was a Half-Rotted World Tree shoulder badge, while farther away, scraps of torn black fabric littered the ground.

A powerful wave of fear instantly pierced Aki Shigede's entire body.

Jon was dead?

When she had first enrolled, she had heard countless stories about him—how he had ranked first in both shooting and cold weapons classes for the entire year, how he had repeatedly been a candidate for president of the Lionheart Society...

Although his Word Spirit was Serpent and his registered bloodline rank was not particularly outstanding, Jon had always seemed at ease before high-risk Dead Servants. He was an elite Executive Department agent capable of handling missions on his own.

She realized the crushing weight of sacrifice.

Aki Shigede looked painfully at the shoulder badge in her hand. At the same time, the danger that even "Word Spirit: Serpent" could not detect was rapidly closing in on her like a ghost.

Everything she saw and heard was transmitted in real time to the command post through the camera.

Schneider learned of Jon's death immediately, but he had no time to mourn. Instead, he frantically pounded the table and roared hoarsely into the communications channel.

"Aki Shigede, activate Ghost Illumination immediately! Hurry!!"

The camera lens and the shield-shaped shoulder badge's surface suddenly caught two strands of dim golden light.

Even though Aki Shigede instinctively activated her Word Spirit, it was already too late.

Ghost Illumination created an effect of "optical invisibility" within its generated field. Information such as smell and sound could not be blocked by Ghost Illumination...

Her position had long since been exposed. Activating Ghost Illumination now could achieve nothing.

The mortal danger completely robbed Aki Shigede of the ability to think or react. All she could see was an iron-blue hand with dagger-like claws rapidly filling her vision.

But someone was faster than it.

Almost one second before that hand could tear open Aki Shigede's throat, the ceiling above her sank down!

To Aki Shigede's senses, a foul, hot gust blew her hair and collar open. Darkness covered her vision for an instant, and the thunderous crash of a heavy object hitting the ground jolted her muddled consciousness awake.

The boy, stripped of his disguise, descended from above on a massive slab of broken concrete and stood in front of her. The enemy, which had been close at hand, was forced back and began darting through the underground clinic at extreme speed, as though observing its prey.

Li Lin threw a straight punch. The building materials beneath his feet immediately softened and lashed out like long whips in the direction opposite his punch, but all of them missed, producing only vague whistling sounds through the air.

But the surrounding pools of blood suddenly erupted in large sprays.

Li Lin immediately thrust both palms forward. The movement of his body guided his mental force in drawing upon the elements, and four rows of powdery sand burst from the cracks in the floor tiles before him. They solidified in midair into spear-like shapes and stabbed from different directions toward the black shadow moving too fast for the eye to track.

The instant that attack missed, Li Lin stepped forward and clenched his right fist. The building structure at his feet deformed again. Half a ton of concrete wrapped around steel reinforcement bars, concealed by the sand's cover, whipped toward the empty space directly to his right with overwhelming force!

That ghostlike shadow seemed to crash into it of its own accord. It was instantly sent flying backward, and amid an explosive crash of shattered tiles, it slammed heavily into the floor. A young face covered in scales was revealed.

He was the underground boxer Norma had previously discovered, the one whose bloodline had awakened after being injected with a Molotov Cocktail.

Far away at Cassel College, the Executive Department's decision-makers watched the S-Rank freshman casually halt a high-risk Mixed-Blood suspected of possessing "Word Spirit: Time Zero." They exchanged looks, unable for a moment to tell which side on the screen was the monster.