The Flesh-and-Blood Ghost God had twice come under Fate's gaze. His wounds could only heal with an infusion of Willpower Energy from the living.
The Blood City Lords represented Fate. They had arranged the lives of every citizen in Hanhai. Anyone who wanted to change their fate would need vast amounts of Willpower Energy to conceal their actions until they became a Blood City Lord and truly broke free of their shackles.
The path Gao Ming had to take was now perfectly clear: collect Willpower Energy, change the fate of everyone in the city, kill or imprison the other candidates for Blood City Lord, and become Blood City's new master before Fate erased him.
This path was fraught with danger, but it was not entirely hopeless.
When Gao Ming first met A Fang, the will of the Shadow World within the child had run wild, drawing numerous gazes. At the time, Gao Ming had discovered something crucial: the twelve Blood City Lords were not a united front. There seemed to be irreconcilable conflicts between them, too.
"I'll have to be extremely careful with every step from now on. Until I collect enough Willpower Energy, I can't let the Flesh-and-Blood Immortal get hurt again." Following Gao Ming really had been hard on the Flesh-and-Blood Immortal. Every day was a cycle of getting injured and healing himself.
The wind rose before the storm. By holding this mass screening, the General Bureau had effectively acknowledged the disaster's existence. The black fog in the city's distant outskirts pressed ever closer, spreading toward the urban center. They could no longer control all of Hanhai, and the disaster had entered a new phase.
Everyone began fighting desperately to survive. The existing order was already on the verge of collapse.
The third floor of the Mystery Analysis