Kannazuki held the Black Water-Based Pen.
Its tip hovered above the notebook.
If writing Chen Lei's name directly wouldn't work, he'd find someone to take the fall.
Several felons with murders to their names were being held in the Linhai City Detention Center. All he needed to do was write down a name, control one of them into escaping, or arrange an accident during a transfer, and take Chen Lei out along the way.
A closed loop of logic.
"Yue." Ryuk hung upside down from the ceiling, his enormous body blocking the dim incandescent light. "I know what you're thinking. No.
"That's not how you get around it."
Kannazuki's wrist stopped. He looked up at the Shinigami.
"Yes, you're very smart." Ryuk flapped his wings once and landed on the single bed.
The worn springs creaked. "You successfully guessed one hidden rule. Killing lets you evolve.
"But you guessed wrong about the official shield."
Kannazuki put down the pen.
"Not even killing through someone else?" Kannazuki asked.
"No." Ryuk picked up the half-eaten apple left on the table and took a bite, sending juice everywhere.
"As long as they're with the authorities, we absolutely cannot kill them.
"Whether we write their names directly or control someone else to kill them, neither works."
Kannazuki leaned back in his chair, his hands folded over his abdomen.
"Because the game would end too quickly?" Kannazuki offered his earlier theory.
"The Creator needs to preserve this world's foundations of order to keep the game entertaining?"
Ryuk stopped chewing.
His bulging red eyes fixed on Kannazuki.
Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!
The Shinigami suddenly let out an earsplitting, bizarre laugh.
It echoed through the cramped rented room, making the windowpanes buzz.
"Yue, you're thinking on far too low a level." Ryuk rolled around on the bed. Two black feathers fell off and dissolved in midair.
"You don't understand higher-level games at all.
"This has nothing to do with preserving world order."
Kannazuki said nothing. He was waiting for Ryuk to reveal the answer.
Ryuk sat upright and stopped laughing.
A rare trace of seriousness appeared on his deathly pale face, tinged even with helplessness.
"This has to do with my Creator." Ryuk lowered his voice, as though wary of some invisible presence.
"The Creator?" Kannazuki frowned.
"My Creator possesses the mighty power to fashion this world, give me life, and create this notebook."
Ryuk extended his long tongue and licked the apple peel from the corner of his mouth.
"But even someone that powerful has a lifelong enemy."
Kannazuki leaned forward.
What kind of being could be the Creator's lifelong enemy?
"Who?" Kannazuki asked.
"A being called 'Shen He,'" Ryuk said.
Kannazuki froze.
Shen He?
The vast information bank in his brain instantly sprang into action.
A senior official in Linhai City? A high-ranking official in the Provincial Department? A senior Interpol agent? Or a code name for some secret organization?
"Is Shen He a person?" Kannazuki asked tentatively.
"Not a person."
Ryuk raised his head and looked at the ceiling, as if he could see the endless void through the yellowed plaster.
"A rule. An absolute law that transcends the Creator and hangs over the entire universe.
"Omnipresent and omnipotent."
Kannazuki stared at Ryuk.
"The Creator created this story, while 'Shen He' is responsible for reviewing it."
A trace of reverence entered Ryuk's voice.
"Once the Creator crosses the line, once a death that shouldn't happen occurs in this story-especially the death of a character representing the positive side of the authorities-
"'Shen He' will bring down divine punishment."
"What is divine punishment?"
"Erasure," Ryuk said. "Not just erasing you or me.
"The entire world, along with the Creator, will be sealed away.
"What you humans call a 404."
Kannazuki sat on the folding chair. His breathing stopped for a second.
"So." Kannazuki's voice was steady, without the slightest fluctuation of emotion.
"Police officers absolutely cannot die.
"Even if Chen Lei presses a gun against my forehead, I can't use the notebook to kill him."
"Smart." Ryuk smiled again. "Forget it. You wouldn't understand if I explained too much.
"You only need to understand one thing.
"You, me, even the Creator-we all really want to kill them.
"But for certain reasons, we can't."
Kannazuki nodded.
He picked up the Black Water-Based Pen from the table and uncapped it.
If he couldn't kill them, then he wouldn't.
Kannazuki's brain swiftly stripped away his desire to kill Chen Lei.
Killing intent was a superfluous emotion. It would only interfere with his judgment.
If Chen Lei was a blade with an absolute shield, why should he break that blade?
He could take hold of its hilt.
"Since Chen Lei can't die." Kannazuki looked at the blank page. "Then he has to live. Not only that, he has to become the busiest man in Linhai City. Too busy even to sleep, too busy to have the energy to investigate me."
Ryuk tilted his head. A spark of interest flashed in his red eyes. "What are you planning?"
"Li Jianguo's death was just an appetizer." Kannazuki made the first stroke on the page.
"Chen Lei is under enormous pressure right now.
"The Provincial Department's Joint Investigation Group will be arriving soon.
"Linhai City's underworld will strike back furiously because of Li Jianguo's blood-written list.
"Chen Lei needs results. He needs evidence. He needs to drag those rats hiding beneath the surface out one by one."
Kannazuki's wrist remained steady, his handwriting neat.
"I'll help him."
The pen scratched softly as it moved across the paper.
[Zhao Lidong] The first name on Li Jianguo's blood-written list. A senior Linhai City official in charge of urban construction. Cause of death: suicide by jumping from a building. Time of death: forty-eight hours from now, at precisely six p.m. the day after tomorrow. Actions before death: at five p.m. the day after tomorrow, Zhao Lidong will voluntarily go to the Linhai City Public Security Bureau and seek out Criminal Police Team Captain Chen Lei. In Chen Lei's office, he will voluntarily confess to ten years of corrupt dealings with Sun Jianguo, chairman of the Construction Group. He will hand over a key to a bank safe-deposit box containing all the ledgers and recorded evidence. After finishing his confession, he will leave the bureau building, climb to the top floor of Jinmao Tower across the street, and jump to his death.
Kannazuki finished writing without pausing.
He moved to a new line.
[Sun Jianguo] Chairman of the Construction Group. Cause of death: car accident. Time of death: forty-eight hours from now, at precisely eight p.m. the day after tomorrow. Actions before death: at seven p.m. the day after tomorrow, Sun Jianguo will learn that Zhao Lidong has turned himself in. In extreme panic, he will immediately gather the group's core enforcers and prepare to flee overnight. While fleeing, he will call Chen Lei, hysterically curse him over the phone, and reveal the locations of three core weapons caches belonging to Linhai City's underground criminal network. After the call ends, the armored SUV he is driving will lose control on the expressway, smash through the guardrail, plunge into a deep ravine, and explode.
Kannazuki wrote down the two names in succession.
He had torn a gaping hole in the sky over Linhai City.
Ryuk crouched on the bed, reading what Kannazuki had written. The Shinigami's mouth opened wider and wider.
"Gahahahaha!" Ryuk pounded the bed frame wildly. "Yue! You're a madman!
"Not only are you refusing to hide from the police, you're going to package up the entire city's criminal forces and hand them to Chen Lei!"
"This is an open strategy." Kannazuki capped the pen and set it aside.
"Chen Lei is a police officer through and through. When he sees Zhao Lidong turn himself in and Sun Jianguo reveal those weapons caches, he'll sink his teeth into them like a rabid dog.
"He won't have time to bother with a delivery rider. I'll push him onto a pedestal and make him Linhai City's hero in the fight against organized crime.
"And he'll never know that an invisible hand is controlling everything behind the scenes."
Kannazuki stood and walked to the window.
He pulled the curtains open.
Night had fallen. Linhai City's neon lights flickered in the distance.
This city harbored far too much filth.
Legal procedures were too slow, and "Shen He's" rules protected the sword bearers standing in the light.
Then he, Kannazuki, would be the pen bearer standing in the darkness.
He needed no shield. He was a Shinigami himself.
"However." Kannazuki looked at the distant lights.
"Sun Jianguo keeps a group of genuine desperadoes under him.
"Once Sun Jianguo dies, they'll become rabid dogs with no one to control them.
"Even with leads, Chen Lei and the bureau's police force will suffer massive casualties during the arrests."
Kannazuki turned around. His gaze settled on the black notebook on the computer desk.
"Evolution through killing." Kannazuki felt the abundant strength in his body and the extraordinary clarity of his mind.
"I need more nourishment."
He returned to the desk and opened the notebook to the next page.
He took out his phone and entered a hidden forum on the dark web.
It was an underground intelligence exchange in Linhai City that he had previously found through multiple proxies during his spare moments between deliveries.
Now, his evolved brain instantly cracked the forum's underlying encryption code.
He obtained the real information on all of Sun Jianguo's core enforcers.
Names, photographs, addresses.
Kannazuki picked up his pen.
[Zhang Qiang] [Li Biao] [Wang Dachui]
He wrote down thirteen names in one go.
Every cause of death was the same.
[Cause of death: cardiac paralysis.] [Time of death: two a.m. tomorrow.]
Kannazuki closed the notebook.
Tomorrow morning, Linhai City's underworld would experience an unprecedented earthquake. The Construction Group's thirteen top enforcers would all drop dead at the same moment in their respective hideouts.
Chen Lei would receive Zhao Lidong's confession, Sun Jianguo's dying phone call, and the bodies of thirteen underworld bosses.
Kannazuki couldn't break the authorities' shield. But he could smash all of Linhai City's dark side against it.
"Yue." Ryuk jumped off the bed and walked over to Kannazuki.
The Shinigami's terrifying face held the feverish excitement of someone witnessing a monster's birth.
"You're more frightening than a Shinigami now."
Kannazuki ignored Ryuk's assessment.
He picked up his yellow delivery jacket, put it on, and zipped it up.
"Let's go." Kannazuki put on his helmet. "The evening rush isn't over yet. I still have three deliveries to make. If you want apples, I have to earn money."
He pulled open the rented room's security door.
The hallway was still dim. The little advertisements on the walls were tattered.
Kannazuki walked down the stairs.
He was no longer a suspect being tracked by the police. He was the only player in this higher-dimensional game who had mastered part of its underlying code.
Since the Creator and "Shen He" were both watching,
he would put on a show for them-the ultimate slaughter.
Two a.m. tomorrow. The show would begin.
Kannazuki mounted his electric scooter and twisted the throttle. His yellow-clad figure merged into Linhai City's night.
At the same time.
Linhai City Public Security Bureau, office of the captain of the Criminal Investigation Detachment.
Chen Lei sat behind his desk. The ashtray on it was crammed with cigarette butts.
He stared at Kannazuki's file on his computer screen.
No evidence. No flaws.
But Chen Lei's instincts were screaming a warning. There was definitely something wrong with that Delivery Worker.
Suddenly, the Red Confidential Phone on his desk rang.
Chen Lei grabbed the receiver.
"Captain Chen." It was the liaison officer from the Provincial Department's Joint Investigation Group, his voice urgent.
"Zhao Lidong, whose name was on the list Li Jianguo wrote in blood at the Detention Center, just slipped out of our surveillance. He's disappeared."
Chen Lei shot to his feet. His chair toppled backward.
The storm had arrived.
Before you continue