Coup de Grâce, a god-slaying slash.

Chen Mo struggled to his feet and heard Red Hare's telepathic voice.

Right! Something was wrong!

Shopping, buying nonstop, six arms... These clues kept flashing through his mind.

The silver transcendent power throughout his body surged toward the Surgical Knife in his hand.

"Moo-!"

Having recovered, Big Niu flew into a complete frenzy. He grabbed a sofa from a nearby shop and hurled it at the Six-Armed Weird with all his strength.

At the same time, ocher transcendent power erupted from his entire body.

Black hair instantly burst from his enormous head. In the blink of an eye, his whole head transformed into that of a gigantic black bull.

The two horns on his head grew thicker and darker.

With a roar, he charged straight at the monster, horns first.

The sofa knocked the monster off balance, and Big Niu's horns were already at her chest.

They plunged deep inside!

The Six-Armed Weird grabbed his horns with two hands and actually lifted Big Niu clean off the ground.

Her middle pair of hands shot out like lightning, seizing Big Niu's large hands as he tried to struggle and fight back.

Her other two hands blurred as they pummeled Big Niu's abdomen.

Dull thuds rang out without end, and Big Niu let out muffled groans of pain.

He kept coughing up pieces of his shattered organs.

Dull thuds rang out without end, and Big Niu let out muffled groans of pain.

Xiao Ya instantly appeared behind the monster. Her long leg swept sideways, driving her foot into the side of the monster's enormous head.

The monster recoiled in pain, holding Big Niu in two hands, his fate unknown.

Her other four hands became streaks of afterimages, clashing with Xiao Ya's attacks as she flickered in and out of sight.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

At that moment, Chen Mo slowly closed his eyes.

Fragments of memories in the air slipped into Chen Mo's mind.

A sickly woman with a haggard face was frantically grabbing goods from the shelves and throwing them into a shopping cart.

Madness covered her face, as though she wished she could grow several more arms.

She muttered to herself, "Mine. It's all mine."

To fund her shopping, she had sold her house and borrowed from every loan shark she could. Her husband and child had left her.

She knew this twisted urge to shop was wrong, but she couldn't control herself!

After the apocalypse broke out, monsters descended from the sky, and the people in the supermarket fled screaming.

Only she still clung tightly to her shopping bags, refusing to let go.

Until a monster swallowed her body in a single bite.

Only when her head fell to the ground did a trace of peaceful release appear on her face.

But after the Tide Cry energy arrived, that frenzied soul found no release.

Instead, she became a monster with an enormous head, a body made of shopping carts and shelves, and six arms.

Rules bound her to this sunless mall, and her soul was locked inside this steel shell.

Extreme suffering warped her mind completely. Slaughter and fury consumed her every thought.

Chen Mo slowly opened his eyes. He understood.

It was "buying." A compulsive shopper's obsession.

Chen Mo looked up at the Six-Armed Weird, who was still holding Big Niu while exchanging blows with Xiao Ya.

For now, Xiao Ya was keeping the Six-Armed Weird occupied with her incredible speed.

Then everything changed! The Six-Armed Weird anticipated Xiao Ya's attack.

One hand shot out like lightning and clamped tightly around Xiao Ya's ankle.

The instant her ankle was caught, red light flashed rapidly in Xiao Ya's glass eyes, and she fired a searing crimson laser.

The laser pierced a hand raised to block it, knocking the Six-Armed Weird off balance.

Now!

Chen Mo abruptly vanished from where he stood.

The silver Surgical Knife in his hand shone with dazzling white light, illuminating the entire mall.

"With so much suffering, why not find release?"

"Coup de Grâce!"

Dazzling white light erupted from the silver Surgical Knife, instantly illuminating the entire second floor of the shopping complex.

The light wasn't harsh. Instead, it carried a gentleness that soothed the heart.

It was like basking in the midday sun in a courtyard, warm and peaceful.

Wherever the blade passed, even the bloody stench in the air seemed to be cleansed somewhat.

The Six-Armed Weird, still gripping Xiao Ya's ankle, suddenly froze.

She looked up toward the source of the light, and silver-white radiance filled the pupils in her enormous head.

At that moment, on the faintly recognizable woman's face upon that head,

some of the murky, savage madness faded, and a fleeting moment of clarity flashed in her eyes.

The Six-Armed Weird no longer saw the dark, cold mall.

She saw home.

Red paint and filth covered the front door, along with the words, "Pay back what you owe."

Her husband sighed in utter disappointment and slowly took out the divorce papers.

Her child wailed in fright, hiding behind his father and staring at her with terrified eyes.

Finally, she saw her husband walking away with their child.

Neither looked back even once.

"Perhaps... this will finally set me free..."

A sigh sounded in the Six-Armed Weird's mind.

But a second later, endless savagery and her sick obsession with shopping swallowed that brief moment of clarity again.

The instinct to survive overpowered everything!

"Roar!"

The enormous head let out a roar.

She abandoned Xiao Ya, whom she held by the ankle, and Big Niu,

and flung them away!

Xiao Ya and Big Niu were hurled more than ten meters away, knocking over a row of shelves.

Six arms made of metal shelving crossed above her, forming a shield of hands and arms over her head.

The silver-white blade light drifted slowly down, as light as the snowflakes fluttering outside the mall.

Crack.

The clear clatter of falling metal rang out.

The uppermost arm slowly slid off, its severed surface as smooth as a mirror.

Next came

the second.

The third.

Three of her six arms had been severed with a single slash.

The smell of rust wafted out as dark red, rusty fluid gushed from the cuts.

The light faded.

Darkness returned to the second floor.

"Holy shit..."

"Is he even human?"

"Boss, didn't Chen Mo only awaken recently?"

Hiding off to the side and watching by flashlight, the others stared in horror at the devastating damage that single slash had inflicted.

Then their horror gave way to wild joy.

With such a powerful Transcendent leading them, their chances of survival had just improved...

Chen Mo's legs went weak. The transcendent power in his body had been drained dry, and weakness swept through him.

He hurriedly braced himself against the nearby wall to keep from collapsing.

That slash had been called "Coup de Grâce."

It was the ability he had awakened after advancing to sequence one, "Blade Wielder."

But without any instructions, Chen Mo had never known how to unleash it.

Only before entering Prosper City, after repeatedly poring over Wen Li's resentment and memories, had Chen Mo roughly figured out how to use it.

At the cost of exhausting all his transcendent power and forcibly enduring the source of the pain in his opponent's mind, he could unleash an unavoidable slash that ignored both rules and defenses.

It was a life-or-death move. If it failed to kill his opponent, he would be the one to die.

It was his only trump card at present.

Now that he had played it, he was the weakest person there.

"Die!"

Xiao Ya seized the opening left by the Six-Armed Weird's grievous injuries, her oddly proportioned body once again blurring into afterimages.

She flickered around the badly wounded Weird, now missing three hands, in a series of movements too fast to follow.

Her long, straight legs, gleaming with a plastic sheen, darted and swept without pause.

Each time, she appeared at one of the Six-Armed Weird's joints or severed arms.

Bang!

Bang! Bang!

The Six-Armed Weird struggled to defend herself, staggering again and again under the kicks.

She flailed her three remaining arms wildly, but could only reach Xiao Ya's afterimages.

With the Six-Armed Weird's body gravely injured, the energy sustaining her surroundings weakened.

Nearby, the escalator that had vanished earlier flickered between illusion and reality.

"Kid."

The donkey raised his head and jerked his chin toward the stairs to one side.

Brother Dao and the other ordinary people were still shining their flashlights on the center of the battlefield.

They hadn't noticed the change over here at all.

Chen Mo slowly edged toward the stairway.

Big Niu's fate was unknown.

His own transcendent power was exhausted.

The donkey couldn't act.

If Xiao Ya could finish off this Weird, that would be the best outcome. His slash had already made a major contribution.

If... if Xiao Ya couldn't win, or the Weird lashed out in her death throes, he would just have to let the others take the fall...

The donkey quietly followed behind Chen Mo, ready to retreat at any moment.

Ten meters.

Five meters.

Just as Chen Mo was about to place his hand on the railing,

Thud, thud, thud, thud!

A flurry of hurried footsteps came from downstairs...