A new member of the Dawn Blade

Meng Chengfei had seen all sorts of personalities.

There were insecure male personalities who liked wearing women's clothes, delusional personalities who believed they were reincarnated immortals and demanded money from others to fund their ascension, neurotic personalities who bathed in the street and felt violated when people looked at them...

Some belonged to Awakened, and others to Aberrants.

But he had never seen anyone whose second personality was a cat.

Ordinary second personalities lay dormant within the primary personality, occasionally waking when the primary personality became emotionally unstable. In milder cases, they chattered away inside the primary personality's mind.

In more serious cases, they fought the primary personality for control of the body.

But...

Meng Chengfei found this strange.

Xu Ye's personality seemed to have broken free of his body.

A member of Squad Nine spoke through his metal earpiece. "Captain, we've detected spiritual energy fluctuations. Xu Ye has indeed awakened. His mental output frequency is stable, with no traces of contamination or signs of aberration."

"His second personality may genuinely be different. We'll need to observe him further."

"Of course, we can't determine for certain whether he's lying. We also can't rule out the possibility that he suffers from delusions and subconsciously idealizes his second personality to reduce the harm he suffers. If that's the case, it could actually be an advantage."

"Most importantly, according to our past records, there's an extremely small chance that a source of contamination won't know they've been contaminated. They can go on living normally, happy, optimistic, upright, kind... until something triggers them."

"There was one such case shortly after the Federation dissolved."

Meng Chengfei remained silent.

After Xu Ye gave the white cat a thorough scolding, the cat turned into a streak of light, darted into the space between his eyebrows, and went quiet.

Only then did Xu Ye realize something was off. He rubbed his nose and sat down awkwardly.

Why had his second personality gained a sequence talent too, after he awakened one himself?

His second personality possessed high-tier sequence 9-003, yet, crucially, posed no threat to him whatsoever.

Xu Ye even wondered whether he should pet the cat.

Come to think of it, didn't that mean he wouldn't have to worry about his second personality eroding him?

After all, that white cat was so weak.

Yet Xu Ye vaguely felt that his second personality hadn't split off from his dark side. It didn't even seem like his second personality.

Or was he simply a beacon of positivity from every conceivable angle?

He studied Meng Chengfei's expression carefully, then chose his words. "It should be fine, right? At least it's better than an antisocial personality? Besides, that cat has a nice name. It said its name was Alice."

Xu Ye genuinely worried that the man might decide he was contaminated and shoot him dead.

Meng Chengfei took a sip of tea to hide his bewilderment.

Alice, my ass.

Still, the boy showed no signs of contamination. His second personality was just a little unusual-a cat personality.

At that thought, the corner of Meng Chengfei's mouth twitched involuntarily.

But he had handled plenty of such problems. Given that his team had been short-staffed lately and contamination incidents were becoming rather frequent in the city, Meng Chengfei was reluctant to lose a subordinate like this.

He quickly regained his composure. "A second personality taking animal form is unusual, but it doesn't seem impossible. Perhaps other factions have Awakened with similar peculiarities."

"I just want to know whether it can talk."

Xu Ye nodded.

"What did it say?"

"Meow~" Xu Ye promptly imitated the sound.

Meng Chengfei: "..."

He opened his mouth awkwardly. That did seem perfectly reasonable. Nothing wrong with it.

Xu Ye sat up straight and blinked, looking utterly innocent.

He knew he was special, and that Alice, his second personality, was even more special. But he didn't want to reveal all his secrets.

"All right, let's leave it at that for now. We can discuss the details later." Meng Chengfei pressed a hand to his forehead and looked at Xu Ye helplessly.

"Xu Ye!"

Suddenly, Meng Chengfei stood, straightened his shirt, and assumed a solemn expression.

Xu Ye sprang to his feet as well with a snap.

"I know you don't feel any sense of belonging to the Dawn Blade yet..."

"But welcome aboard."

Meng Chengfei smiled warmly.

Xu Ye froze for a moment, a little at a loss. "Thank you."

Meng Chengfei put away his tea set and said, "As for the Dawn Blade's specific duties, they're too complicated to explain. You still have some energy, right? Come with me. I've just received a case. I'll take you along to investigate, with you taking the lead, so you can get familiar with the work."

"After all... we don't have much time..."

A dark green jeep drove through the city streets, its heavy, deeply treaded tires rolling through puddles and scattering the moonlight reflected within them.

Xu Ye sat in the passenger seat. The crimson night raced past the windows on either side, but he had no interest in the scenery. Instead, he scanned the sequence talent files on the computer.

Sequence talent 9-003: Soul-Seizing.

[Possesses the ability to extract souls. All other details unknown.]

Unknown?

Xu Ye was slightly taken aback.

Meng Chengfei drove with one hand and glanced at the page on the computer.

"Sequence talents in the top fifty are exceedingly rare. Being listed doesn't mean anyone has acquired them. This table of sequence talents was compiled by experts interpreting Heavenly Dao Language. It's neither entirely accurate nor complete. Much of it remains unknown. After all, the Heavenly Dao's language is very difficult to understand."

Heavenly Dao Language.

That again.

The Heavenly Dao could talk? Wasn't that a little too crazy?

Xu Ye asked curiously, "Why do Awakened develop a second personality after awakening? And why is it the second personality that possesses the sequence talent, with so many side effects?"

"What do you think sequence talents are?" Meng Chengfei asked in return. "Superpowers from novels? Spells? Magic?"

"No. None of those."

"Sky City has a department dedicated to studying the Heavenly Dao. Those experts believe it's a fair transaction that follows the principle of equivalent exchange. That's why we have to pay a price."

"But I prefer a paper Doctor Chen published in year 69 of the Wasteland Era."

"He said sequence talents were the power of gods."

"We steal divine power with our mortal bodies. We... are committing blasphemy..."

"To withstand divine power, we can only split off other personalities to offset its erosion of our own selves. That's also why second personalities tend toward the darker side."

Xu Ye narrowed his eyes.

This world was beyond anything he'd imagined.

But...

"Doctor Chen..."

Xu Ye murmured the name. This Doctor Chen had a deep connection to him. Xu Ye even suspected that his transmigration had been caused by the man.

Meng Chengfei glanced at Xu Ye out of the corner of his eye, seemingly debating whether to tell him the truth.

If Xu Ye learned that he himself had killed everyone in the laboratory, he would probably suffer an immediate mental breakdown.

Thinking of that, Meng Chengfei abandoned the idea.

"Unfortunately, Doctor Chen is dead." Xu Ye sighed. Many leads had already been cut off.

"Dead?" Meng Chengfei grinned. "Who said he was dead? Since I first heard of Doctor Chen, he's died more than a dozen times. But every time he dies, he comes back to life a few years later. Some suspect he possesses some kind of high-tier divine sequence."