Moon, you're a genius

Condition one: Execute one thousand transnational criminals every day. Set every cause of death to cardiac arrest.

Simulation:

Day one: One thousand high-value targets died suddenly, all at once. Police in various countries would assume it was a coincidence, or overdoses of some new drug.

Day three: Three thousand dead. INTERPOL would order the cases consolidated. The global health organization would intervene to investigate.

Day five: Five thousand dead.

A critical juncture emerged in the simulation.

Kannazuki's gaze turned utterly cold.

Five days.

It would take only five days for the nature of this massacre to change fundamentally.

It would no longer be a serial murder case.

The highest decision-makers of the five permanent member states would classify it as a "supernatural terrorist attack" or a "strike by an unknown high-tech genetic weapon."

Once it reached the level of national defense and humanity's survival.

The rules changed.

Kannazuki understood all too well how the machinery of the state operated.

Police investigations required evidence, due process, and the presumption of innocence. No matter how much Chen Lei suspected him, without concrete physical evidence, all he could do was glare through binoculars from the unfinished building across the street.

But national security agencies did not care about any of that.

Agents and soldiers cared only about "threat elimination."

When the world's leaders panicked, they would issue the most extreme orders.

Better to kill ten thousand innocent people than let one suspect escape.

Chen Lei's report was currently sitting on the desk of the director of the City Public Security Bureau. But if a global massacre erupted, that report would be in the conference room of the highest national security command within ten minutes.

The report would clearly state: Kannazuki, a delivery worker in Linhai City, was a major suspect. His methods were unknown, and he possessed the ability to commit flawless locked-room murders.

The simulation continued.

The authorities would not need a search warrant.

They would not knock.

They would cut power and communications to the entire Old City District.

A fully armed elite tactical squad would descend from the sky and blast straight through his security door.

Or, more simply.

A bullet fired from an anti-materiel sniper rifle two kilometers away would punch straight through this shoddy load-bearing wall and turn his head into a cloud of blood.

More terrifying still, it would not just be the state's enforcement agencies.

Once the existence of supernatural power was confirmed.

The true geniuses of this world, the monsters whose intelligence dwarfed that of ordinary people, the advisers to financial dynasties controlling the lifeblood of global finance, the top analysts of secret organizations-they would all enter the fray.

They commanded limitless computing power, limitless resources, and limitless privileges.

They would construct enormous sociological models.

They would retrieve the movements, spending records, and online data of everyone on the planet.

No matter how thoroughly he erased his digital traces, that very "cleanliness" would be the biggest flaw in the eyes of those geniuses.

Through elimination, they would narrow the suspect pool from eight billion to one million, then to ten thousand, and finally zero in on him.

With even the slightest suspicion.

He would be eliminated.

Smack.

Kannazuki slapped his pen down on the desk.

The back of his shirt was already soaked with cold sweat.

So close.

He had come so close to being consumed by his desire to evolve and signing his own death warrant.

"Gahahahaha!"

Grating laughter echoed through the cramped room.

Ryuk hung upside down from the ceiling, his enormous black wings folded behind his back.

He tossed a Red Fuji Apple in his hand, his red eyes full of amusement and mockery.

"Moon, why did you stop?"

Ryuk bit into the apple, juice dripping down his shriveled chin.

"Looking at all those names in your head, even I got excited for you. Keep writing, and you'll become smarter. You'll be able to control more. What's wrong? Scared?"

Ryuk floated down from the ceiling and thrust his hideous face close to Kannazuki's.

"Humans are so interesting. You yearn to become a god, yet you're afraid of being killed by mortals."

Ryuk spat out the apple core, undisguised malice in his voice.

"That cop named Chen Lei-doesn't he make you feel trapped right now?

You have the power to decide whether other people live or die, yet you don't even dare step outside. All you can do is hide in this kennel that reeks of instant noodles."

Kannazuki ignored Ryuk's taunts.

He pulled out a tissue and wiped the cold sweat from his forehead.

Utter rationality regained control of his mind.

Ryuk was right.

Chen Lei was the chain binding him.

As long as Chen Lei kept watching him, as long as his suspicions remained, Kannazuki could never freely reap the evil of the entire world.

He could not carry out a massacre.

He could not even kill any more local gangsters in Linhai City.

Sun Daqiang's death had already pushed Chen Lei's nerves to the limit. If another person died, Chen Lei might lose control completely and resort to extrajudicial violence against him.

He had to break this stalemate.

He had to divert Chen Lei's attention away from himself completely.

Kannazuki leaned back in his chair, his hands clasped beneath his chin.

His mind raced again.

Since he could not act himself.

Since he could not slaughter on a large scale.

Then he would create a stand-in.

A perfect, high-profile "Kira" who would draw all the authorities' fire.

Kannazuki's gaze fell on the computer screen.

Dark web data was still scrolling across it.

He needed a target who was extremely intelligent, extremely deranged, and possessed enormous social influence.

He would push the notebook's rules to their limits.

"Ryuk," Kannazuki suddenly said.

"Hmm?" Ryuk tilted his head.

"If I tear a page out of the notebook and mail it to someone else." Watching the screen, Kannazuki's lips curved into a cold smile. "Will that person be able to see you?"

Ryuk froze for a moment.

Then a feverish grin spread across his twisted face.

"Gahaha! Moon! You're absolutely insane!" Ryuk tumbled excitedly through the air. "As long as he touches the page, he'll be able to see a partial projection of me! He'll be able to use the power of that sheet of paper!"

"Good."

Kannazuki picked up his pen.

He did not need a massacre.

He only needed to unleash one out-of-control monster upon this world.

Let the authorities fight that monster to the bitter end.

Meanwhile, he would remain behind the scenes and reap the rewards.

Kannazuki's fingers tapped the keyboard.

"The game's leveled up, Chen Lei."

Watching the screen, Kannazuki murmured to himself.

"Are you ready for true madness?"

Kannazuki sat at his cheap computer desk.

Thirty sheets of paper lay flat across its surface.

Identical in size. Pale in color.

He had just torn them, one by one, from the black Death Note itself.

Every sheet possessed the power to take a life.

A brown leather-bound diary sat at the edge of the desk. Fifteen yuan, the sort sold everywhere in the stationery shop downstairs.

Kannazuki picked up a utility knife.

Its tip precisely hooked the binding thread along the side of the diary.

He cut it. Pulled it out.

The diary's pages came loose.

He divided the original pages into thirty portions.

He held a sheet from the Death Note in his left hand and an ordinary sheet in his right.

He stacked them alternately.

One real, one fake.

He aligned all sixty sheets again.

Kannazuki picked up a steel needle threaded with thick cotton thread.

Following the original needle holes, he stitched them back together, one stitch at a time.

Through the paper. Pull tight. Tie a knot.

He applied a layer of clear, quick-drying glue to the spine.

He pressed it firmly into place.

Ten minutes later.

A brand-new diary lay on the desk.

Ordinary appearance. Normal thickness.

Ryuk crouched on top of the wardrobe, his red eyes fixed on the diary.

Suddenly, Ryuk's body twisted violently.

His bones made the sound of joints shifting out of place.

A translucent apparition, only one-tenth Ryuk's size, peeled away from his body.

The apparition drifted in midair for a second, then plunged straight into the pieced-together diary.

"Heh-heh-heh."

Ryuk gave a strange laugh and jumped down from the wardrobe.

"Moon, you're a genius."