See the Whole from the Smallest Sign, the Power of Probability!

Black Market Island was even more prosperous and bustling at night than it was during the day.

Many killers, assassins, and prostitutes were nocturnal creatures. Gone was their daytime listlessness; every one of them was brimming with energy.

Hawkins and Mark suddenly appeared on the crowded street. The previously lively street fell abruptly silent, followed by an unending chorus of blades being drawn.

The seemingly ordinary pedestrians and vendors all transformed in an instant, each becoming a cold-blooded killer.

The killer closest to Hawkins and Mark was a passing woman. The second the two appeared, she drew a serrated dagger and spun around, stabbing straight at Mark's waist.

Although Mark had once been severely wounded by Rook's Meteor Hammer and sent flying by George's staff,

he was actually very strong. At the very least, dealing with ordinary killers like this took no effort at all.

Before the female assassin could touch Mark, Silver Wolf's claws had already slit her throat. Her eyes widened, and she collapsed to the ground.

Her fall was like the blast of an attack horn. Killers began closing in on the pair one after another, wielding every conceivable weapon, but Mark blocked them all, and they died beneath Silver Wolf's claws one by one.

"You really think holding a Cursed Relic means you can do whatever you please?"

Suddenly, a bald head emerged beneath Mark's feet. Baldhead sneered, seized Mark's leg, and dragged him straight underground.

Seeing Mark pulled beneath the earth, the other killers began stirring restlessly again.

Hawkins glanced up at the several killers on the rooftops, then looked at those before him and asked, "Do you really think I'm weaker than my own subordinate?"

"What's so strange about a boss being weaker than his subordinate? You don't think a few words can scare us off, do you?" A mocking laugh came from the crowd.

At that moment, a throwing knife shot in from outside Hawkins's field of vision. He raised his hand and caught it perfectly, smiling. "Then let's find out!"

With a flick of his wrist, the throwing knife pierced through the crowd and struck the killer who had just spoken.

In an instant, several killers charged out from the crowd. Before they could touch Hawkins, their own bodies suddenly exploded. If it had been the old Hawkins, he might truly have been caught off guard. The problem was that Mother Hawkins's thought speed was synchronized with Mother's.

Simply put, he was equivalent to being in a constant state of cerebral overclocking—and at a hundredfold rate.

To everyone else, one second passed in the blink of an eye. But in his perception, a second was stretched infinitely long, equivalent to hundreds of seconds.

So when flesh and blood burst apart, he could clearly see a bone stabbing toward him. He calmly avoided its attack, shifting sideways and retreating without even a drop of blood touching him.

In other words, a cold-blooded killer carrying a Cursed Relic was operating within the crowd. This was definitely not going to be the last attack.

Hawkins's eyes darted rapidly up, down, left, and right before locking onto a dwarf. Far shorter than an ordinary person, the dwarf mingled with the crowd, deliberately avoiding everyone's gaze with every step while threading his hair into other people's clothes.

The hair was long and thin. With the right technique, it could easily pierce through clothing and reach the target's skin.

"Now that's more like it."

Hawkins smiled faintly. Rather than killers, this group was more like bandits.

Granted, their numbers gave them an advantage, but more importantly, this world's civilization was far too backward. These so-called killers were really just a bunch of reckless brutes who dared to kill.

Hawkins had already noticed that almost none of them possessed any real skill. They were all self-taught wildcards, and even their sneak attacks were exceedingly crude.

The only one who had surprised him even slightly was probably Baldhead, the one who had dragged Mark underground.

Right!

What was going on with Mark now?

Inside Eternal Space, Mother opened the chat group in her mind and asked, "Mark, are you dead?"

No one answered. A moment later, Ai Miye sent, "Hawkins, Mark is fighting someone underground. He started a video."

So Hawkins opened the video. Sure enough, Mark and Baldhead were clashing beneath the ground.

Baldhead was quite strong. Though he possessed no Curse Power, a layer of soil covered his body, somehow allowing him to withstand Silver Wolf's claws.

The soil was not forced aside by their presence, nor were they injured by the soil's existence. If Baldhead could do this because of his Cursed Relic, then what about Mark?

Mark himself had no ability to burrow underground. Hawkins was certain of that.

Baldhead had dragged him underground. Under normal circumstances, the moment Baldhead let go, Mark should have been trapped in the soil, perhaps even crushed until his body exploded.

Yet the truth was that he was neither trapped nor crushed. Instead, he was fighting Baldhead fiercely underground.

What was protecting Mark?

Curse Power?

Mother's thinking ability was beyond what humans could imagine. From a single phenomenon, Mother could see through to the essence behind it.

At that moment, because of Mark's battle underground, Hawkins realized the true nature of Curse Power—the power of probability.

Probability, in other words chance, reflected the likelihood of a random event occurring.

A random event was something that, under identical conditions, might happen or might not happen.

For example, Mark had been dragged underground. If the total probability of the event was 100%, and there was a 99% chance that he would be injured, there would still be a 1% chance that he would not be injured. When Curse Power covered his body, the chance of remaining unharmed was amplified by Curse Power to 99%, while the probability of injury, rising and falling in opposition, was naturally suppressed to 1%.

As long as his luck was not so terrible that it dipped below zero, he definitely would not be injured.

Hawkins immediately thought of George's Negative Curse Power. If the Curse Power they possessed was Positive Curse Power, which increased probability, then Negative Curse Power should decrease probability.

One increased while the other decreased—the Great Dao was simple in its utmost form!

But Hawkins quickly developed another line of thought. Since the essence of Curse Power was the power of probability, why had Mark been unable to enter the ground before, yet could now move freely underground?

He dodged a killer's sneak attack and tried covering his own body in Curse Power, controlling it with his mind in an attempt to sink into the ground. The result, however, was failure.

"No, Mark's Curse Power isn't helping him enter the ground. It's an expression of Curseguard. Mark doesn't actually have the ability to burrow underground."

Hawkins suddenly understood why his attempt at burrowing had failed.

Although Curse Power was the power of probability, it had no inherent target. It merely increased a certain probability. If an object did not possess the relevant traits to begin with, it could not create the corresponding probability out of thin air.

It was like someone wanting to run a little faster. With Curse Power's blessing, there was a certain chance that he could run faster. But if that person wanted to fly, with neither wings nor propellers, he still could not fly even with Curse Power's blessing.

Furthermore, Curse Power was not sensitive to matter in the real world and could barely affect real-world substances.

Other than the Curse Caster himself, Curse Power could only bestow enhancement effects upon Cursed Relics.

Hawkins rapidly organized his discoveries while absentmindedly killing the assassins who tried to attack him one after another.

Knowing the essence of Curse Power was a leap forward in discovery, but it also gave rise to countless questions. For instance, why did the Dream Realm possess the power of probability? What was the Dream Realm's true essence?

And without enough information, even with Mother's thinking ability, Hawkins could not derive an answer.

Reasoning was not imagination conjured from nothing. It was gathering information, summarizing it, and making reasonable judgments.

Without information, there could be no judgment.

Hawkins put aside his thoughts. It was time to quickly finish the task at hand.

"Blinded by profit—you've watched so many people die, yet you still don't know fear. Isn't being alive good enough?"

Hawkins looked at the killers around him and sighed softly. The air around his body compressed slightly, then blew outward carrying the Masha Virus.

Where the wind passed, the killers infected first staggered like drunkards. They struggled to stand firm but could not, while their breathing became increasingly ragged and their vision blurred into a haze.

Before long, they fell one after another, completely ceasing to breathe.

The killers farther back in the crowd, who had been eager to make a move, all changed expression at the sight. They immediately turned and fled like mad, every one of them beginning to run.

Gold coins were good, but only if one lived long enough to spend them.

Hawkins did not pursue the killers. Instead, through the faint vibrations in the ground, he quickly found where Mark and Baldhead were fighting.

He slowly raised his hands, and Ball Lightning appeared in both palms.

A massive current spread out from his body, forming an enormous electromagnetic field.

The surrounding soil began floating upward. Then an earth dragon drew in huge amounts of soil and shot rapidly into the sky, while Mark and Baldhead were also affected, pulled from underground to the surface even as they continued fighting.

Baldhead kicked Mark, sending him flying into the air, where Hawkins—who had floated up—caught him perfectly.

"Damn it, I'm running!"

Seeing the earth dragon in the sky, Baldhead's expression changed drastically. He glanced at Hawkins and tried to burrow away, but before he could jump underground, his body floated uncontrollably into the air.

Like a mongrel that had fallen into water, he frantically paddled and flailed with all four limbs, but he could not break free from Hawkins's magnetic field.

Mark asked in surprise, "Captain, what ability is this? Can it be exchanged for?"

"It's just ordinary Electromagnetism, merely an application of magnetic fields," Hawkins answered flatly.

Mark froze, then asked, "So... Electricity-Generating Cells?"

"More or less. I'll post some knowledge on the forum later. Study it properly," Hawkins replied with narrowed eyes.

Though he brushed it off in a single sentence, achieving control on this scale actually required an immense amount of calculation. If Hawkins relied solely on his own brain, even overclocking it twice would not have been enough.

But now Mother was handling the calculations. Hawkins only needed to control the process, and everything became simple.