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The evening sunlight slanted into the alley at forty-five degrees, drawing a sharp line between light and shadow across Xu Ye's and Wang Yong's shoulders and waists.

Wang Yong froze for a moment. He raised both hands and turned to look at Xu Ye, the rather hot sunlight washing his face slightly pale.

Then he smiled. "I thought I could fool you. This is a real surprise. Where did I slip up? I'm curious. We're classmates, I didn't act strangely at all, and my Sequence Talent can fool plenty of people. How did you notice?"

Xu Ye fell silent for a moment.

He hadn't expected Wang Yong to have truly become an Awakened, and from the looks of it, joined the Eternal Church.

The Eternal Church had drugs that accelerated aberration. Wang Yong had probably used one to worsen Zhang Jian's transformation.

What alarmed him even more was how few days had passed since the school massacre.

After his old classmate's memories had been erased and altered, the Dawn Blade would surely have assigned someone to monitor him covertly for a week. If he showed any signs of pollution, they would arrest him immediately.

In other words, within that brief period, the Eternal Church had already recruited Wang Yong and awakened him. He had even carried out a pollution incident.

That was far too efficient.

Xu Ye said calmly, "First, I don't believe in coincidences. This is too far from your home. Working part-time around here would cost you ten bucks for a round trip on the tram. With your personality, you wouldn't bear to spend that money. Yet I happened to run into you here."

"Second, criminals in plenty of cases return to the scene afterward to admire their handiwork."

"Third, despite my intelligence, I actually overlooked some key questions. If I'm right, you awakened Sequence Talent 9-954 [Selective Amnesia]. It makes people selectively forget certain crucial details. For example, I almost forgot that you live a long way from here."

Wang Yong looked surprised after hearing this. Then his utterly ordinary face showed a confidence and admiration it had never held before. "You really are a top student. You even figured that out. Still, that's only because I just awakened and haven't developed my talent yet. Next time might be different."

"We're classmates, at least. Can't you put the gun down?"

Xu Ye kept his gun raised.

Wang Yong's personality had changed considerably. It seemed he was being influenced by his second personality.

"I'm sorry about your mother's death, but there's something I don't understand. You should know that the Eternal Church lured your mother into degenerating into an Aberrant. Why would you still join them?"

Wang Yong's face twitched. He narrowed his eyes and sneered. "If we had any choice at all, do you think I would have sunk this low? I wanted to study in peace, too. I wanted to get into the Qingbei Research Institute. But this world, this era-everything is oppressing us."

Xu Ye said, "Let me stop you there. Normally, you wouldn't have gotten in anyway."

"You can continue now."

Xu Ye gestured for him to go ahead.

"..."

That stung.

Wang Yong gave a vicious grin. "My mother chose to become an Aberrant to change our lives. And I chose to become a member of the Eternal Church. This world is beyond saving. With your intelligence, you should be able to see it. Oppression by the nobility, the struggle to survive, pollution, aberration, the Forbidden Zone..."

"But our Eternal Church has found a path. A path through the darkness that leads to light."

"He will descend at our most desperate hour and save this world."

"Darkfall?" Xu Ye asked.

"Our Lord Darkfall," Wang Yong said devoutly.

"You really believe gods exist?" Xu Ye frowned.

"He has always been here. He has even been watching us all along. We create one pollution incident after another precisely to guide His descent."

"He represents depravity, darkness, and filth. His descent will take away all darkness and destroy every existing barrier between social classes. Only then can humanity be reborn."

"We can save ourselves," Xu Ye said.

Wang Yong shook his head. "It's no use. Humans will always be the most selfish animals. Xu Ye, don't try to put your faith in human nature. Haven't you felt that yourself over all these years?"

For a moment, Xu Ye couldn't tell whether those words were true or false.

But he understood one principle: you didn't have to shine, but you couldn't put out someone else's light.

With the Eternal Church's methods, ordinary people were always the ones who died or suffered.

Those lofty nobles hid in Sky City, where the pollution could never reach them.

Wang Yong spread his arms. "Xu Ye, you're capable. You and I are the same kind of person. Join us and welcome His arrival!"

"Sure." Xu Ye nodded in agreement. "What information do you need? How do I join? Are there benefits? How do I contact the other members?"

"..."

This time, Wang Yong was dumbfounded.

He scratched his head awkwardly.

Shouldn't you hesitate first? Then put on a look of defiance, as if you'd rather die than submit?

Then he realized he was being played and sneered. "You almost had me fooled."

Xu Ye rolled his eyes. "Wang Yong, give it up. You're not even smarter than a goose. You'd help someone count the money after they sold you."

"Give it up? Impossible."

"I've already offered my soul to Him. He'll make me a king in the darkness, an executioner in the night wind. Xu Ye, our Eternal Church is far beyond anything you can imagine."

"...Besides, your gun probably isn't loaded."

The moment he finished speaking, Wang Yong leaned forward, crouched, and lunged, rapidly closing the distance between himself and Xu Ye. His Sequence Talent wasn't suited to combat, but he wore a purplish-black gauntlet on his right hand.

It was an F-Class Forbidden Object bestowed upon him by a bishop of the Eternal Church.

A sharp whistle rang out as it sliced through the air.

The blow went straight for Xu Ye's ribs.

Sorry, old classmate.

The road to success is always paved with blood.

To Xu Ye, although Wang Yong had become an Awakened, he looked more like a child who had just learned to walk. After this period of intensive training, Xu Ye's strength and ability to read attacks had both improved considerably.

Just as the attack was about to land, Xu Ye raised his right hand and caught Wang Yong's wrist with precision.

He pressed down.

Lifted.

And flung him away.

Bang!

Wang Yong's body slammed hard into the wall, shaking clouds of dust loose from the concrete.

"..."

Wang Yong endured the throbbing pain in his back and climbed to his feet. He was utterly shocked, with an inexplicable sense of dejection mixed in.

Even after becoming an Awakened, the gap between his strength and Xu Ye's still seemed enormous.

At that thought, he began considering retreat.

"Trying to run?"

Xu Ye held one hand behind his back and raised his right hand forward. A tentacle shot out of his forearm with a whoosh, slicing through the air like a vine whip as it lashed toward Wang Yong's back.

"Huh?!"

Suddenly, Xu Ye sensed an unprecedented danger. Every hair on his body stood on end.

The tentacle seemed to strike something and was bounced straight back.

The next second, the space between him and Wang Yong slowly twisted, and smoke rose from thin air.