I See You

Amor cautiously backed out the door, watching Li Qing's movements with his full attention.

By now, Li Qing had charged straight into the crowd with the high-speed dash of Echoes Act. Not only had he killed one of the black-clad men on the spot, he had also kept his three companions tangled up and unable to disengage.

Li Qing's figure was locked in a fierce brawl with the three men, while Amor, standing nearby, could never find an opening to shoot him from behind.

With firearms proving ineffective, it came down to fists and feet.

Li Qing seized this rare opportunity and, relying on his physical abilities far beyond those of ordinary people, engaged the three black-clad men at close range.

Though the three men were physically inferior to Li Qing and lacked his tireless, pain-free digitized body, they were still large, strong men with some fighting ability.

They traded blows with Li Qing for several rounds before gradually beginning to show signs of defeat.

During that precious stretch of time, Amor neither chose to flee nor rushed in to help.

He simply stood quietly outside the door and observed, gathering intelligence from Li Qing.

At that moment, in order to focus on sensing the movements of the three people around him at once, Li Qing instinctively closed his eyes—which had never been able to see in the first place.

A black-clad man threw a punch from behind Li Qing, but before the strike could even land, Li Qing had already dodged it.

Amor immediately drew a conclusion:

"This baldy really can't see."

"But his hearing is incredibly sharp—sharp enough to predict his opponent's movements."

Then—

The three black-clad men attacked Li Qing at the same time, their assault so dense that there was no room to evade.

After a brief judgment, Li Qing quickly avoided the fist aimed at the back of his head and took the kicks aimed at his abdomen and legs head-on.

Then, without the slightest hindrance, he threw a counterattack punch and shattered one black-clad man's ribs with a single blow.

"This baldy prioritized dodging the attack aimed at his head when he had no choice just now. That means—"

"He has vital points."

Amor stared intently at the health bar above Li Qing's head.

"Attacking his brain, throat, or heart will definitely make him lose more health."

At this point, only two black-clad men remained capable of fighting, and both were injured.

They had completely lost their advantage in close combat. Even stalling for time was becoming difficult.

One of them realized their disadvantage. Taking advantage of the moment his companion tangled with Li Qing, he suddenly stepped back, drew his gun, and tried to blow off Li Qing's bald head with one shot.

But Li Qing had heard everything long ago.

The instant the black-clad man raised his gun, Li Qing threw a punch and unleashed Sonically Enhanced Wave, repeating the same trick to claim another man's life.

By this point, the line formed by the four black-clad men was on the verge of collapse.

Yet there was not a trace of panic in Amor's murky blue eyes.

"Good."

"So that blindingly fast dash ability can't be used continuously."

"Otherwise, he could have used it to kill them all just now. Why bother fighting with his fists and feet?"

"Then—"

As Li Qing used Echoes Act to take the life of one of his men, Amor calmly lowered his head to check his watch.

"The time since he last created that 'marked orb of light' is approximately—"

"Eight seconds."

"The actual interval might be shorter, but not by much."

At that moment, the last black-clad man also fell victim to Li Qing, about to crumple limply to the floor.

Amor took the chance to raise his gun at Li Qing, but Li Qing seemed to have eyes in the back of his head. He repeated the same maneuver, slipping away from the muzzle and dodging sharply to the side.

"This place is too cramped to create distance for shooting. There's no noise interference, either. It's far too favorable for this baldy."

"I need to change locations."

After probing him for a while, Amor decisively turned and fled.

Li Qing's Sonically Enhanced Wave was on cooldown, and he still had a half-dead black-clad man to finish off. He could not catch Amor at all.

Thus, Amor fled all the way from the third floor to the first, then easily blended into the dense crowd on the street.

Pedestrians came and went. Everyone was breathing, walking, talking, producing a chaotic mass of noise.

They had not heard the muffled gunshots dampened by silencers, nor did they know what kind of tragedy had occurred in the inn beside them.

Even Li Qing, with his extraordinary senses, could not identify the enemy he was looking for from among so many people in such a short time.

Having escaped here, Amor was safe.

However, he did not use this opportunity to flee somewhere truly safe. Instead, with a determined expression, he remained by the inn's exit and casually grabbed a passerby from the street.

"Sir."

Amor quietly pressed his gun against the unlucky pedestrian's waist and abdomen, threatening him softly.

"If you don't want to die, do as I say."

Upstairs, Li Qing had already defeated the fourth black-clad man.

"Did he run?"

He heard the creaking of the old wooden stairs and naturally formed a vivid image in his mind of Amor fleeing all the way downstairs.

"Am I just going to let him go?"

"No."

Li Qing immediately rejected that thought in his mind.

If Amor returned alive, important information such as Li Qing's appearance, abilities, and fighting style would be completely exposed to that terrifying Passion Organization.

Li Qing did enjoy chasing thrills and savoring the high-difficulty quality of life.

But at level 1, with the map completely black, utterly lacking enemy intelligence, and no confidence of victory, deliberately going easy—

That was not seeking excitement. That was seeking death.

"I have to make him stay!"

Li Qing made a decision steeped in bloodshed, yet his heart did not stir in the slightest.

Digitization had not only given him an unbreakable body and strange skills. It had also completely changed his state of mind.

Just as a gamer would not show mercy to NPCs, after entering Digitization Mode, he not only felt no fear, he had even lost his reverence for life.

All he felt was the focus, calmness, excitement, and strange pleasure born from tension and stimulation that came with playing a game.

"I have to win this game."

Even knowing that life was the stake in this game, Li Qing could not help throwing himself into it.

So he closely followed Amor's fleeing footsteps downstairs, then went out the door and onto the bustling street.

By then, Amor had already blended into the crowd.

Shielded by the dense flow of people and the chaotic noise, he was hidden perfectly.

"Where is he?"

"Where exactly is he?"

Li Qing focused, devoting all his attention to sensing Amor's presence.

But there were too many pedestrians and too much noise on the street. Even after carefully listening for several seconds, he could not pick Amor out of the crowd.

"Being blind is such a hassle... Then, should I exit Digitization Mode?"

Li Qing could not help falling into hesitation.

Just as a game could be logged into and out of at any time, his Digitization Mode could also be activated and deactivated whenever he wished.

If he chose to deactivate it, he could return to an ordinary human body and observe the battlefield with his vision.

But after a brief moment of thought, Li Qing quickly rejected the idea.

"No, I can't exit."

"That old man's shooting is incredibly accurate. If I return to a normal body, he'll blow my head off with one shot."

"Then... what should I do?"

Just then—

Before Li Qing could think of a way to find Amor, Amor's gun fired first.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Three muffled gunshots rang out in quick succession from roughly five meters away at Li Qing's side.

He had been listening intently to the movements around him, guarding against Amor's sneak attack.

Thus, Li Qing heard the faint clatter of the pistol's internal mechanisms at the first instant, predicting his opponent's shooting motion and the direction from which the bullets would come.

Amor, however, seemed extremely nervous.

Li Qing could hear his ragged breathing, racing heartbeat, and the violent trembling of the arm holding the gun.

That trembling affected his aim.

Li Qing barely had to make any effort to dodge. Of the three consecutive shots, only one barely grazed his shoulder.

One of the other bullets missed and struck the ground, while the other went wide and shot down a pedestrian.

"Ah!"

"There's shooting! Someone's been killed!"

A silencer was not a mute button. At close range, the gunshots could still be heard clearly.

What was more, an unlucky pedestrian had taken a bullet and collapsed into a pool of blood on the spot.

Piercing screams immediately erupted across the street.

Some pedestrians stood frozen in place, trembling helplessly, while others fled in panic in every direction.

The surrounding sounds became even more chaotic, but Li Qing had already followed the gunshots and precisely locked onto the attacker's location.

"Found you."

Li Qing clenched his fist, and a brilliant white light glimmered over it.

The next second, Sonically Enhanced Wave would howl from his fist and leave a fatal targeting mark on that attacker.

But at that very moment—

Li Qing suddenly turned more than forty-five degrees to the side and spoke in a direction completely different from the shooter.

"You think I'd do that?"

"Amor."

He, too, adapted to local customs and activated the ability of "narrator time stop."

"Old man, you're clever. You knew how to exploit my blindness against me."

"My senses are sharp, and my body doesn't get injured."

"If you shot at me directly, even if I didn't dodge in advance, I'd immediately counterattack from afar with Sonically Enhanced Wave."

"So you randomly found a pedestrian on the street and threatened him into shooting at me when I appeared."

"And you stood in a completely different direction, using your gun to threaten the pedestrian into drawing my attention while waiting for me to take the bait and mistake the shooter for you."

"The moment I fell for it and used my ability to dash toward that pedestrian—"

"You would seize the moment when my skill was on cooldown, when I was stuck in recovery and unable to fight back, and turn me into a sieve from far away with your bullets!"

"How was that? Am I right?"

"You—"

Seeing Li Qing actually turn in the first instant and "look" directly at him, Amor's breathing immediately fell into disarray.

"Impossible!"

"Could it be... could it be that you can see?"

"No, I can't see."

Li Qing answered solemnly.

"I found you because you overlooked too many things."

"First, I know you have two guns."

"Second, back in the room, you casually shot both of my kneecaps. Even after I displayed astonishing abilities, your breathing did not become excessively erratic from shock."

"So your shooting could not possibly be as terrible as it was just now."

"And you could not possibly be as nervous as this threatened pedestrian, breathing rapidly with your heart racing."

"And most importantly—"

"Just now, the gunshots went off. Every pedestrian was screaming. Everyone was running."

"Only you—the one standing in another direction with your gun aimed—didn't run. You even remained calmly where you were!"

"So—"

Li Qing pointed his white-glowing fist at Amor and said,

"Amor, I see you!"