Several days later.
Inside a partitioned room in an abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of Magic City.
The air smelled of dust and rust. Only a few faint strands of moonlight slipped through the broken windows, barely illuminating a small patch of the room.
Clang-!
A shrill metallic crash shattered the deathly silence.
A tall, thin man in a hoodie kicked away an empty drink can that had landed at his feet.
The poor little can tumbled through the air, struck the distant sheet-metal wall, and rang out with a sharp, piercing echo.
"Goddammit! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!"
The hooded man couldn't help swearing.
"Are those cops fucking dogs?! How are their noses so damn good? Wherever I run, they track me down!"
He hadn't had time to use his ability these past few days.
Every time he prepared to commit a crime, the authorities' countermeasures team showed up at his hideout with a whole squad of police officers, forcing him to flee from place to place like a stray dog.
FBI, OPEN THE DOOR! (Shenzhou edition)
Being hunted with pinpoint accuracy wherever he went, with practically nowhere to hide, had driven him to the brink of a breakdown.
It wasn't as though someone had stuck a chewing-gum tracker on him.
"This is fucking unreal!"
The hooded man abruptly stopped and slammed his fist into a nearby wooden crate with a dull thud.
Just as he finished venting his anger, his chest heaving as he gasped for breath, an indifferent voice came from the shadows in the deepest part of the room.
"Calm down. It isn't that their noses are good. The wind has changed."
The hooded man whipped his head toward the shadows.
"What's that supposed to mean, Old K?"
The person he called "Old K" remained hidden in the shadows. Even in the face of the hooded man's somewhat aggressive tone, his voice remained steady and emotionless.
"The countermeasures team has a new face. Supposedly transferred from the capital. Even Liu Yaowen treats her with courtesy."
"A new face? Who?"
The hooded man frowned.
"I don't know her military code name. All I know is that her surname is Huang, and she's a woman. But for that fox Liu Yaowen to take her so seriously, and for them to pick up your trail so quickly and efficiently... I suspect they've brought in a Diviner."
"...A Diviner?"
The hooded man felt the hood on his head, then asked a question of his own.
"What the heck is that?"
Old K: ...
"A superhuman with something like a divination ability."
The hooded man wouldn't understand a complicated explanation anyway, so he simply explained it using something similar.
"..."
The hooded man fell silent for a while, then his voice abruptly rose, filled with outrage and disbelief.
"Are you fucking kidding me?! Isn't that cheating?! The authorities can do that? I bust my ass hiding everywhere, and they just get some female fortune-teller to count on her fingers and call it a day? How the hell am I supposed to play against that?!"
They weren't even pretending anymore-straight to blatant hacks, huh?!
Why not just declare themselves the winners?!
"I quit!"
The hooded man panted, his tone firm.
"Whoever wants this job can fucking have it! Doesn't matter how much money there is if I'm not alive to spend it! If those bastards keep chasing me, they'll catch me sooner or later! Right now, I'm-"
"One last job."
Old K interrupted him from the shadows.
At the same time, a thin document envelope flew out of the darkness and landed precisely at the hooded man's feet with a slap.
"...Huh?"
The hooded man stared at the envelope on the floor, then glanced back at the deep darkness. His chest rose and fell a few times before he finally suppressed his anger and resentment and bent down to pick it up.
He roughly tore open the envelope and found only a sheet of paper and a photograph inside. In the dim light, he read the target information printed on the paper.
Name: Chen Xiao Age: 22 Address: Villa XX, Jinjing Yayuan villa district Notes: Explicitly declined admission to Shenzhou Nova Academy. Meets the mental stat requirement but has not awakened. Lives alone.
The photograph showed a somewhat handsome young man with a touch of melancholy in his eyes. It seemed to have been snapped through a café window.
Chen Xiao had just turned down his childhood friend's attempt to persuade him. How could he not look melancholy?
"Huh?"
After reading the information, the hooded man froze, then let out a mocking laugh as though he had heard the greatest joke in the world. His laughter sounded rather eerie as it echoed through the empty warehouse.
"Declined admission? Hahahaha! There are still idiots like that these days? Giving up a secure meal ticket... No, a golden meal ticket! Turning down a golden meal ticket and the chance to awaken superpowers? Did a donkey kick him in the head, or did a genie already grant his wish? Does he really think he's somebody?"
He pointed at the photograph and sneered at the mysterious man in the shadows. "Old K, you're targeting useless losers like this now? Does he even count as a 'Nova Academy student'?"
"A target is a target."
Old K's voice showed no change.
"He was left off the list, but the 'demand' hasn't changed. His mental stat meets the standard. Besides... he lives alone, which makes him easier to deal with. Finish this job, and your assignment is over for good. Your final payment will be doubled. After that, whether you want to head to the Alabachia Federation and become a supervillain or a superhero is up to you. I guarantee no one will stop you again."
"The Federation..."
The hooded man quietly rolled the word around in his mouth, a flicker of longing and greed crossing his eyes.
That country, with its small government controlled by corporate giants, where superheroes and villains shone like celebrities and order intertwined with chaos, was better suited to an unrestrained superhuman like him doing whatever he pleased.
Compared to being hunted by the authorities like a rat in Shenzhou, it was practically paradise.
He looked down at Chen Xiao's photograph and information again. The young man who had abandoned his "bright future" seemed even more ridiculous to him now.
But the hooded man soon remembered that he still had an unresolved problem.
"Old K, the second I activate my ability, that whatever-it-is Diviner will notice. The cops might kick down the door before I even make my move... You've gotta help me with that."
"Naturally."
The mysterious man readily agreed to the hooded man's request.
A red talisman drawn with blackish-red "paint" then floated in front of him. Before he even took it, a nauseating stench hit his nose, and he nearly slapped it to the floor.
"Urgh... Holy shit! What is this thing?! That fucking reeks!"
"This talisman can block the authorities' 'divination.' It lasts half an hour at most, enough to satisfy your twisted little tastes."
As he spoke, glass bottles clinked on Old K's person, sounding as though he was searching through a pocket full of potions.
Then he tossed a glass vial containing a scarlet liquid at the hooded man, sending him scrambling to catch it just after he had pinched his nose and put away the red talisman.
"Whew... What, a freebie too?"
The hooded man held up the vial and examined it carefully in the moonlight streaming through the window.
"Is this blood?"
"No. This is the latest ability enhancer developed by the Federation's Albenst Company. It's ten times more potent than those on the market. Even an ordinary person who drinks it can briefly gain enough strength to lift a tank with ease."
Old K explained.
The only problem was that the extreme scarcity of its raw materials made it extraordinarily expensive to produce.
As for the side effects...
Those didn't matter.
Of course, the hooded man didn't understand its value, but he knew certain people were very fond of things given the flattering name of "enhancers."
"Hmph! I'm not using this shit! Better to save it and auction it off on the Federation's black market~ Those superheroes probably need it more than I do."
The hooded man snorted and put away the vial, then crumpled Chen Xiao's information into a ball and stuffed it into his trouser pocket. A cruel smile appeared on his face.
"I've given you the items. How you use them is your business, not mine."
"All right! Just this one last job! For money this easy, I'll treat it as a little workout before I leave. Arrange my departure the moment I'm done. No funny business, Old K!"
"Rest assured."
Old K's voice remained steady in the shadows.
"I know the rules. Here's wishing you... a successful operation. See you in the Federation afterward."
"See you in the Federation!"
The hooded man licked his slightly cracked lips, his eyes glinting with yearning for freedom and a new stage. Then he turned and disappeared into the darkness at the other end of the warehouse, as though he had never been there.
Deathly silence returned to the abandoned warehouse, with only the cold moonlight still spilling inside.
A little later, the mysterious man, who had not left, took out another file. It contained far more detailed information on Chen Xiao, even clearly documenting his family circumstances back home.
"Are you truly a worm content to wallow in degradation, or a young dragon concealed in a pond...? Chen Xiao, as Chen Shifeng's grandson, both your older and younger male cousins have achieved success in cultivation. Yet you alone chose to hide amid the mundane world in this age of great contention... I don't believe you, the one between them, could be so mediocre."
"Of course, if you really are mediocre, that works just as well... Let me repay your grandfather for that 'arrow' he shot at me all those years ago!"
With that, the mysterious man's body shook slightly as he let out a terrifying laugh that seemed cold enough to lower the temperature of the air.
"Hss-!"
Chen Xiao suddenly shivered while watching television.
"What's wrong, Xiao?"
Feeling his body suddenly tremble, the girl nestled in his arms watching television with him looked puzzled.
"No, nothing..."
That momentary pang of unease had been so brief that Chen Xiao assumed it was because he had been sitting on the sofa for too long.
But the girl in his arms was not reassured.
She thought of the recent superpower-related crimes in Magic City. Although Chen Xiao had acted unconcerned in front of Mahiru Shiina that afternoon, anyone would feel afraid of something that could endanger their life...
With that thought, the girl immediately climbed up from his lap. As her thin skirt swayed, the pale skin above her knees slipped in and out of view like the strip of bare thigh known as the "absolute territory."
As she stood on the sofa and shifted her feet to steady herself, her dainty toes alternately drew together and spread apart.
"Little Sora?"
This time, Chen Xiao looked puzzled.
"Call me Sora. Don't add 'little'!"
The girl puffed out her cheeks as though she were angry.
Her identity was now obvious: Sora Kasugano, the two-dimensional little sister who, in Chen Xiao's previous life, had inspired the phrase, "If only my little sister were Sora."
Sora Kasugano then spread her arms, gently hugged Chen Xiao's head, and lightly patted his back.
Her silky silver-white hair spilled down like moonlight before Chen Xiao, carrying a faint fragrance into his nose. Two playful tufts stood upright above her forehead, lending a touch of childishness to her cool appearance.
Her silver-gray eyes narrowed slightly, shimmering with barely perceptible ripples of tenderness.
Beneath her small, straight nose were thin lips, pink but rather pale. They had flushed slightly when she pressed them together in anger a moment earlier, but now their corners secretly curved upward, overflowing with sweetness.
Yet rather than comforting Chen Xiao, she seemed to be treating his head like a catnip ball. All she was missing was a contented purr.
"I'm not a little kid."
Having his head stroked and his back patted left Chen Xiao unsure whether to laugh or cry.
Still, being cared for by his "little sister" kept him from even wanting to push her away. Nor did he dare turn his head to look at Sora, even if she didn't have much up front.
Because...
He shouldn't look where he ought not.
"I don't believe you. I clearly felt you trembling."
Sora pursed her little lips in protest.
"Trembling...?"
Chen Xiao finally realized it too.
Although the comparison wasn't quite right, he really had felt the same fear as that time he had courted death in his dorm room by replacing cola with vinegar, only to be attacked by his roommates from two sides.
This was Jack's first time fighting two monsters at once.jpg
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