Xu Le the Butcher

The skinny man had no idea how many times he had stabbed Zhang Qiang. He only stopped when his strength gave out.

By then, Zhang Qiang had long since stopped breathing.

Someone came over and grabbed the skinny man.

"Do you have any idea what you're doing?"

"What am I doing? I just want to live. Is that wrong?"

"They wanted to live too."

"They were infected. I couldn't help them. I'm saving myself, and I'm saving you too."

What the skinny man said now actually echoed what Xu Le had said earlier.

People really did need to help each other in the Dark Age.

But what actually counted as helping?

Leaving these polluted people alone? Of course not.

Real help meant personally putting an end to these polluted people. Only then could everyone have a safe environment again.

That was also the point of what Xu Le was doing.

Hearing their exchange, the others were shocked, but a certain emotion inside them had also been stirred.

The people who had held Zhang Qiang down, including Xu Le himself, had blood all over their faces. Under the Red Moon, they looked rather terrifying.

Even Wang Man, who was relatively close to him, couldn't help feeling afraid as she looked at Xu Le now.

Xu Le raised his gun again and pointed it at one of the Polluters.

"You. Yes, you, the woman in the tank top. Go to the corner on the left. Everyone else, stay still. I'll say it again: whoever moves dies."

The woman Xu Le pointed at froze. First came shock and disbelief, then resistance.

"What gives you the right to order me around? I haven't done anything. I..."

Bang!

Xu Le lowered the muzzle impassively.

"I told you not to move. I have my own way of judging whether you're polluted. If you don't believe me, you can leave the classroom right now. I won't stop you, and I won't attack you."

When the girl's head burst open, everyone else fell utterly silent.

Several people nearby looked at Xu Le, especially as he openly loaded another cylinder's worth of bullets, and couldn't help grumbling inwardly.

Didn't he just say he was out of bullets? How does he have more now? Who would dare gamble on how many bullets he actually has?

Yes, Xu Le had done it deliberately. He had explicitly said he was out of bullets, then loaded more in front of everyone, leaving them unsure what was real and what was a bluff.

That way, nobody would dare challenge him at a time like this.

Everyone had witnessed Xu Le's blunt ruthlessness firsthand. Nobody was willing to gamble with their life.

"He killed another one. He's a butcher."

"Keep your voice down, or the butcher will find an excuse to call you a Polluter and kill you."

"If that person was an Oddity, then what he did wasn't wrong, was it?"

"How would he know whether they were an Oddity? He's not a Warlock."

Some people began whispering about Xu Le. Their voices were quiet, but with his Tranquil State enhancing his senses, he could still catch some of it.

He had expected these comments, but there was nothing he could do.

Compared with his life, his reputation really wasn't that important.

"Him, the one in red, and the one in the skirt. Those three. Drag them over."

"Drag them over? Just grab them?"

"Yes."

Xu Le gave another order. The people around him exchanged glances. In the end, the tall Li Wei and the skinny man who had stabbed someone earlier were the first to act.

Perhaps there were more tactful ways to handle this, but there wasn't enough time.

In about three minutes and fifteen seconds, the first wave of Mutants would appear.

He didn't have the time or energy to coax and persuade them. Direct action was the best solution.

The three tried to resist, but the burly Li Wei gave them no chance.

The girl tried to rush forward and scratch him, only for Li Wei to send her flying to the floor with a kick.

The skinny man was even more vicious. When his target tried to resist, he drove his knife straight into the man's stomach, then grabbed his hair and forcibly dragged him over to Xu Le.

Xu Le looked at the skinny man. Although he still didn't know his name, he had a feeling that if this man survived, he would make something of himself someday.

His ruthlessness alone was enough to set him apart from ordinary people.

"Don't go too far. A fatal injury will make the pollution trigger mutation early."

"Okay." The skinny man nodded in acknowledgment.

Xu Le had learned about Guyinduo Pollution's self-defense response during the Guard's screening.

He couldn't inflict too much damage on the host's body.

If the host suffered a severe injury, the Guyinduo Pollution would mutate ahead of time to protect them.

That was something Xu Le didn't want to see.

Fortunately, it seemed this mutation couldn't be deliberately triggered early. After all, these people didn't want to turn into Oddities either.

They... wanted to live too.

After the three were dragged back, Xu Le picked up his Curved Iron Sword, set it on a desk, and looked at the people who hadn't acted yet.

"Each of you kills one. Everyone takes a turn."

"Kill someone?"

"Do you still not understand? Without a way to remove the pollution, they can no longer be considered human."

"Can you be certain he's a Polluter?"

The people before him were clearly still hesitating. Perhaps they wanted to stall, or perhaps they didn't want to do it themselves.

But at this point, Xu Le wasn't going to give them that chance.

"We'll be dead in a few minutes, and you're still wasting time here. Then let me tell you right now: I guarantee that every person I name is definitely a Polluter. You have two minutes. If every Polluter in this classroom isn't dealt with within two minutes, I'll leave. If you want to die, stay here yourselves."

Xu Le didn't explain how he could identify who was polluted.

But after his final ultimatum, someone hesitated for a few seconds, then took the Curved Sword, strode forward, and thrust.

Shhk!

Blood sprayed. Before the victim could even react, Xu Le pulled the sword free and handed it to someone else.

He was running out of time. Everyone was running out of time.

"Keep going."

"Okay."

Once someone had taken the lead, the rest became much less complicated.

With a gun, knives, and a dozen or so underlings backing him, Xu Le began calling people out.

"You, you, and you. Come out!"

"No! I don't want to die!"

Those he named met much the same fate as the people before them.

Every name Xu Le called meant another brutal killing in everyone else's eyes.

Under Xu Le's tyranny, nobody dared resist this roll call, because deep down, they still considered themselves human.

They believed that whoever turned into an Oddity, it certainly wouldn't be them.

And Xu Le himself continued the slaughter like a merciless butcher.

He only named three people at a time, and the executions grew faster and faster.

Three was already the limit of what they could control, but even so, they were running out of time before the mutations began.

"You, you, you, and you in green. You, the tall one."

This time, Xu Le named five people at once. Sure enough, someone immediately resisted.

"You have no right to do this! You have no right to execute anyone! We're Lighthouse Citizens too!"

With that, the man started running out of the classroom.

As soon as he ran, several others followed. A few more people in the crowd ran out with them.

Staying in the classroom meant being executed by Xu Le. They might as well take their chances outside. Maybe they could survive.

Their flight actually made Xu Le breathe a sigh of relief.

Time was running out. If they hadn't run, he probably wouldn't have had enough bullets.

"Xu Le, they went outside."

"Yeah. That's good."

Xu Le ignored the people who had fled. There was less than a minute left before they mutated.

When that happened, Zhang Zhe would finish them off himself.

Xu Le wiped the Curved Sword in his hand with a rag.

His gaze swept over the remaining crowd. He needed to make as certain as possible that no one carrying Guyinduo Pollution was hiding among them.

After looking around, Xu Le finally sighed in relief, his whole body relaxing.

Seeing Xu Le relax, everyone else relaxed as well.

Especially those who had escaped back inside from outside. It felt as though they had narrowly escaped death.

We should be all right now, shouldn't we?

Then...

Bang, bang, bang, bang!

Four people dropped at the shots. The remaining hundreds trembled, not daring to speak.

They simply watched in silence as Xu Le reloaded.

Of course, most of them were also grumbling inwardly.

He still has bullets? Fuck, you can't trust a single punctuation mark out of his mouth!

Twelve minus eight, Xu Le silently counted.

Four bullets left. That had gone reasonably well.

This time, Xu Le truly breathed a sigh of relief. The immediate crisis was over.

But seeing him sigh only made the other students more frightened!

No way. He just loaded four bullets. Again?

"All right, everyone. Can you stop being so spineless? I know you've never experienced a Black Tide like this, but have you considered that this might not be the last one? You're university students, aren't you? If you don't even have the courage to face death, how are you going to survive in this dark era? Here's some good news: everyone here is clear. At least we've made it through the crisis of the Polluters in this classroom."

Hearing Xu Le say that the classroom's crisis was over, most people finally relaxed. One person asked, as if seeking confirmation:

"Really?"

"Really."

After receiving Xu Le's confirmation, many people began quietly sobbing. Once the tension passed, grief began to spread.

[Heart energy is rising. Please be mindful.]

"So intense grief counts as a kind of heart energy too."

There was probably still almost an hour until dawn.

He had to find a way to resolve the students' heart energy problem. Otherwise, the attraction of all their heart energy would put enormous pressure on Zhang Zhe.

So the classroom was still dangerous.

Seeing that the classroom was safe, Wang Man, his little shadow, came trotting over again.

"Xu Le, how did you tell there was something wrong with those people?"

"I have the talent to become a Warlock."

"Huh?" Wang Man was confused. Weren't people who had the talent and wanted to become Warlocks taken away in their first year?

For those still at school, even if they wanted to become extraordinary, their future options were generally limited to becoming a Swordsman, a Bladesman, or following the monk system.

And now Xu Le said he had the talent to become a Warlock?

Was that really true?

"Okay, then what should we do now?"

"Find a way to calm everyone down. In a situation like this, emotions matter more than combat strength."

Calm everyone down?

The others were also stunned. They didn't know how to do something like that.

"Everyone's so tense right now. How do we calm them down?" Wang Man asked.

Xu Le drew his gaze away from the blood-covered men and slowly turned his eyes toward Wang Man.

"Xu Le? Why are you looking at me like that?"

"You're in the Arts Troupe, right?"

"Uh, I'm only a trainee for now." Wang Man seemed a little bashful.

"Then you can sing, dance, play basketball, and all that, right?"

Wang Man had a bad feeling, but her trust in Xu Le still made her answer honestly.

"I can sing and dance, but what do you mean by playing basketball, Xu Le? I've never played, so I don't know whether I could meet your requirements."

"That's fine, that's fine. Right now, being able to sing is enough."

Xu Le pointed toward the center of the classroom.

"Go on. I believe in you."

"Huh? Xu Le?"