An invitation to the abyss

The following evening, Hell's Kitchen.

In this corner of the city selectively forgotten by superheroes, the darkness never served to conceal evil. It served to indulge it.

The enormous sign outside Wreckage, welded together from discarded armor plates, creaked under its own weight in the cold night wind.

Zhao Fan stood in the shadows across the street from the bar, coldly watching its heavy airtight door, riddled with bullet holes and dents.

He looked no different from the destitute scavengers around him. A gray hoodie washed nearly white, its hood pulled low over his head, concealed most of his face; his work pants were covered in grease and unidentified stains, and the edges of his tactical boots had worn through and begun to come unglued. A close look at the gaps in those boots would reveal faint traces of dark red, dried blood.

Inside, however, he was as taut as a fully drawn bow.

Last night's experiences had seared themselves into his mind like a branding iron. The endless, absolute darkness in which he could not see his own hand; the warm blood spraying onto his face as he slit a Rust Gang thug's throat; or... that slaughterhouse where the monster named Kestrel had dismembered an entire squad of fully armed Steel Monsters mercenaries as easily as slicing tofu.

All of it was ruthlessly reshaping Zhao Fan's worldview. The moral shackles he had brought with him from peaceful times had been utterly pulverized in that tunnel, thick with the stench of blood and burning.

On these ruins where gods and monsters vied against one another, weakness was the original sin.

Zhao Fan took a deep breath, forcibly suppressing the faint, phantom nausea in his stomach, and walked toward the bar.

The heavy radiation-resistant backpack hung from his right shoulder, its strap tightly wound around his wrist and palm in an intricate grip. It was a defensive posture, allowing him to strike back directly at anyone who tried to snatch his bag in this chaotic neighborhood.

He pushed open the heavy airtight door, and a wave of heat mixed with death metal engulfed him like a tsunami.

The bar was thick with smoke and foul air, red spotlights sweeping wildly through the crowd. Several scantily clad women writhed frantically on the dance floor; in the booths, mercenaries, smugglers, and gang members of every description openly shouted out deals and curses.

Compared with last night's cold, deathly silent underground maintenance station, this place was as raucous as a boiler about to explode. Yet it gave Zhao Fan no sense of warmth. Instead, it made his working mind even more alert.

He avoided several dead-drunk bikers looking for trouble and headed straight toward the darkest corner at the far end of the bar.

He sat down, carefully setting the heavy backpack beside his feet and bracing it between his legs, ready to move at any moment. The bartender approached without a word and slammed a glass of cheap whiskey, without ice, in front of him, spilling half of it.

Zhao Fan did not touch the drink. His hand remained in his hoodie pocket, his fingertips gently rubbing a specially made throwing knife that had been wiped clean but still seemed to retain the smell of blood.

"You look like you just crawled out of a grave, kid."

An aged voice sounded beside Zhao Fan's ear, accompanied by a reek of alcohol.

Old Dog Jose had sidled over without him noticing. He had changed into a jacket that could just about be called clean, but his injured leg forced him to lean sideways against the bar. Holding his flask, he rolled his cloudy eyes, his gaze naturally sweeping over the bulging backpack at Zhao Fan's feet. Shock flashed in their depths.

"Run into trouble?" Old Dog lowered his voice and chuckled, exposing yellowed teeth.

Zhao Fan turned and looked at Old Dog from beneath the shadow of his hood.

"I dealt with a few small problems," Zhao Fan said calmly. "But the real big problem nearly made me come back empty-handed."

Old Dog paused mid-drink. An old hand who had spent half his life in the ruins, he knew that look and tone all too well. They only appeared after someone had seen real bloodshed and crossed a psychological threshold.

"In our line of work," Old Dog leaned closer, speaking so quietly only the two of them could hear, "seeing things you shouldn't see and still getting out alive with something to show for it-that's a hell of an accomplishment. Kid, the speed you've been growing these past few days is starting to scare even these old bones."

He paused, his expression turning serious. "Ready to sell?"

Zhao Fan said nothing, merely nodding slowly.

Just then, the noise around the entire bar counter suddenly seemed to be muted by some invisible force. Several mercenaries who had been loudly boasting about how many Chitauri they had killed instinctively shut their mouths and looked toward the back of the bar with reverence.

That familiar figure appeared inside the area behind the bar protected by specially made wire mesh.

The owner, Shadow.

Tonight, she still wore that dark red velvet qipao, its close-fitting cut perfectly tracing her graceful figure, with an oversized men's leather jacket draped casually over her shoulders.

Holding a pristine white silk cloth, she leisurely polished a stemmed glass.

Her gaze drifted casually through the packed crowd and settled on Zhao Fan in the shadows of the farthest corner.

A flicker of surprise first crossed her eyes, as though she had not expected Zhao Fan to be sitting there in one piece. Then it turned into amusement and interest.

She stopped polishing the glass and gently beckoned to Zhao Fan with the hand bearing a black gemstone ring.

Zhao Fan rose. He unwound the backpack strap from his wrist, took the bag in his hand, and walked toward the wire-mesh gate.

Old Dog did not follow. He knew better than to intrude on a private deal at this level and stayed outside, merely offering a quiet warning behind Zhao Fan's back. "Careful, kid. She's not just a businesswoman. She's a venomous snake who'll swallow you bones and all."

The bald bodyguard, nearly two meters tall, stood before the wire-mesh gate. His indifferent eyes swept over Zhao Fan's hoodie and backpack. Only after confirming there was no obvious heavy weaponry did he enter the code and pull open the heavy iron gate.

Zhao Fan stepped inside. The iron gate slammed shut behind him with a resounding clang, completely shutting out the death metal and clamor outside.

The air in this enclosed VIP area was far fresher than outside. It had not only an independent air purification system but also burning incense with a blended fragrance. In the corner, an old record player played Bach's unaccompanied cello suites at an extremely low volume.

Compared with the hell outside, this place was practically another dimension. Yet that very stark contrast made it feel even more oppressive, more coldly suffocating. For the woman seated behind the broad mahogany desk controlled the temperature here.

"I thought you wouldn't make it tonight. Or rather, I thought I'd only see your name in tomorrow's D.O.D.C. incident cleanup report."

Shadow set down her glass and drew a slender women's cigarette from an exquisite cigarette case inlaid with small diamonds on the desk.

Zhao Fan stepped forward naturally and took the one-dollar plastic lighter from his pocket. With a click, a weak flame sprang up, and he steadily lit her cigarette across the desk.

"Because of the D.O.D.C.'s lockdown of the underground maintenance station?" Zhao Fan put away the lighter, his voice betraying no change in emotion.

"Not just the official lockdown." Shadow took a deep drag, her delicate face looking somewhat unreal through the curling smoke. "That subway maintenance station on the edge of Manhattan was quite the lively place last night."

She leaned back in her leather chair and crossed her long legs, continuing in a languid tone as though discussing the weather. "Scar from the Rust Gang and a few of his idiot underlings died in the darkness of the second basement level. Supposedly, the deaths were exceptionally gruesome. Every one of them killed with a single blade strike, without even a chance to fire a second shot. Oh, right. Before one of them had his throat slit, some kind of blunt object had also pierced his eye."

Zhao Fan stood there without so much as blinking, as though he were merely hearing an urban legend that had nothing to do with him.

Shadow watched him, then changed tack. "But those were just nobodies. Their deaths hardly matter. What genuinely surprised me-and shook the entire black market today-was what happened in the tunnel."

She leaned slightly forward, her black eyes like two sharp knives seeking to cut open Zhao Fan's face and see into his soul.

"The Steel Monsters. A full-strength, twelve-man elite mercenary squad equipped with plenty of tactical gear, chopped into a roomful of minced meat in a storeroom in less than two minutes, as easily as slicing cabbage. Even their bulletproof chest plates were sliced as cleanly as paper, with purple scorch marks from high-temperature plasma left along the cuts."

Shadow's voice was as gentle as if she were telling a bedtime story, but every word carried a bone-chilling cold.

"Kestrel was there." She stared fixedly into Zhao Fan's eyes, missing not the slightest contraction of his pupils. "He went to retrieve a drive core left behind by a Chitauri heavy combat vehicle. It was a massacre. I'm very curious, Zhao Fan, employee number 9763. How did a temporary worker who entered the trade less than three months ago, who was still worrying about rent a few days ago... survive that slaughterhouse in one piece, between the Rust Gang's ambush shots and Kestrel's blade, and..."

Shadow's gaze slowly shifted down to the heavy radiation-resistant backpack in Zhao Fan's hand.

"Apparently come back with a full haul, too?"

Zhao Fan's heart gave one violent thud in his chest, but he forced his breathing to remain steady. This woman's intelligence network was terrifying. Not only did she know everything that had happened last night and what Kestrel had been after, she even knew exactly how the Rust Gang members had died. More frightening still, from that information and Zhao Fan's appearance alone, she had accurately deduced that he had also been at the scene of death last night.

Before a woman like this, any excessive concealment or lie would become a fatal weakness for her to exploit.

"I'm just a garbage picker. Trash has its own way of surviving."

Zhao Fan did not explain how he had turned the tables on the Rust Gang, nor did he describe Kestrel's terrifying strength. He simply set the heavy backpack on the smooth mahogany desktop with a thump.

"I was lucky. They took the meat, I picked up the scraps. I didn't run into Kestrel. If I had, you really wouldn't be seeing me today." Zhao Fan looked straight into Shadow's eyes and unzipped the backpack. "But it seems my luck ran out at the very end."

He undid the innermost layer of radiation-shielding tape, lifted out the immensely heavy lead bag, and placed it in the center of the desk.

Shadow gave him a long look and stopped pressing him about what had happened. She was a businesswoman through and through. Everyone in this underground world had their own secrets and trump cards. She cared only about the chips ultimately laid on the table.

She took a pair of specially made insulating gloves covered in a metal grid from a drawer, put them on, and carefully opened the lead bag's seal.

When Shadow saw what was inside, a rare trace of astonishment appeared on the face that always seemed to have everything under control. Then her lovely brows drew tightly together.

It could no longer be called a "mechanical arm."

The shotgun blast fired by that scar-faced thug before his death last night had almost completely shattered the casing of what had once been a perfect B-grade Chitauri biomechanical arm. Countless metal fibers, originally packed tightly together like muscles, now curled outward like weeds blasted apart. All manner of unidentified tubes and wires had ruptured, leaking purple slime that had already blackened and congealed.

Worst of all, the central energy component lay exposed to the air, covered in cracks and emitting a piercing electrical hiss. Its spectral blue light flickered erratically, like a time bomb that might trigger a violent detonation at any moment.

"This is what you call a full haul?!"

Shadow's voice instantly dropped below freezing, and the air around her seemed to congeal with her anger. She shot to her feet, planted both hands on the desk, and stared fiercely at Zhao Fan.

"This thing has suffered severe secondary damage. It looks like it took a point-blank blast from a large-caliber shotgun! The casing is completely destroyed, and its internal load-bearing structure is extremely unstable. You screwed it up, Zhao Fan! You haven't brought back a high-value alien weapon component. You've brought a bomb that could blow my bar, you, and me sky-high at any moment!"

The bald bodyguard immediately stepped forward, his hand already reaching for the pistol at his waist, his enormous body bearing down on Zhao Fan like a mountain.

Facing the enraged black-market boss and the bodyguard poised to act, Zhao Fan did not retreat a single step. He met Shadow's gaze, his voice devoid of fear. Instead, it carried the vicious edge peculiar to someone who had crawled out of a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood.

"I know it's broken. A pack of hyenas with a death wish wanted to steal my stuff. Before I killed them, that lunatic pressed his gun against it and pulled the trigger. He'd rather blow it to pieces than leave it to me."

Pointing at the dangerous heap of scrap, Zhao Fan enunciated every word. "But I still brought it out. You can call it scrap metal, but scan it with your equipment first and see whether it's still useful."

Shadow stared fixedly at Zhao Fan for a full five seconds.

She snorted coldly and waved the bodyguard back. Then she took a sophisticated miniature black scanner from the deepest part of her drawer and swept it over the ruined heap of metal.

"Beep-beep-beep! Warning! High-energy radiation leakage!"

The moment the device approached, it sounded an extremely urgent red alert.

Yet amid the flashing red light and garbled text, the energy peak graph on the screen displayed an unbelievably strange pattern.

"Hm?"

Shadow's expression changed instantly. She abruptly leaned closer to the screen, her slender fingers flying over the scanner's buttons as she switched between analysis modes.

"How... how is this possible?" Anger had vanished from Shadow's voice, replaced by shock and incomprehension. "Even though more than seventy percent of the casing is damaged, the energy suppressor has completely failed, and it's constantly on the verge of detonation... yet..."

She raised her head and looked at Zhao Fan as though he were a monster, then looked back at the scrap.

"The neural connection hub and energy core hidden deepest inside are still producing weak, regular pulses? It's maintaining some kind of internal energy circulation, forcibly suppressing the explosion?"

Shadow took a deep breath, as though discovering the world before her anew.

"Under normal circumstances, a Chitauri biochemical core of this grade is one hundred percent certain to self-destruct the instant physical damage this devastating ruptures its energy circulation system. How did you do it? How did you keep it from exploding after being blasted apart, maintain this 'critical stability' that defies basic physics, and carry it all the way back?"

Zhao Fan said nothing, his face remaining perfectly composed.

But he knew better than anyone that all the credit belonged to the mysterious system within him. Last night, in that extremely dangerous situation, when his hand had touched the core on the verge of exploding, the system's [Analysis] function had forcibly intervened. Through a dimension he could not yet comprehend, the analysis process had miraculously "soothed" and regulated the rampaging energy inside the core, forcibly locking it at a fragile point of equilibrium.

This was his greatest trump card. He would die before revealing it.

"That's my skill. Just like staying alive," Zhao Fan said flatly. "So, does it have any value or not?"

Shadow studied Zhao Fan, no longer able to conceal the wariness and appreciation in her eyes.

"I'm a businesswoman. I only care about the final result."

Shadow put away the scanner and settled back into her broad leather chair, resuming her air of complete control. But the earlier condescension was gone from her voice.

"Though it's been disfigured and has lost its value as a complete infantry weapon component or an exoskeleton power source, to those secretive mad scientists specializing in experiments combining alien organisms with Earth machinery, an active core that 'survives against all reason after catastrophic destruction and maintains its own circulation'..."

A shrewd gleam shone in Shadow's eyes.

"Its research value might even exceed that of an ordinary, undamaged component. They'll go crazy trying to find out why it didn't explode."

"How much is it worth?" Zhao Fan did not want a commercial analysis. He urgently needed money and resources.

Shadow's slender fingers tapped gently against the mahogany desktop, producing a tap, tap, tap, as though she were performing some complicated calculation.

"If it were intact, as I assessed earlier, it would be a top-quality B-grade item. I could offer you at least twenty-five thousand dollars." Shadow looked at Zhao Fan and raised one finger. "But in this ruined state, liable to go out of control at any moment, I'll need a top-grade refrigerated containment case to move it. I'll also have to bear the enormous risk of it blowing up my entire distribution chain in transit."

"Twelve thousand dollars. Nonnegotiable," Shadow said firmly. "That's the most I can offer. Ask around if you like. In all of New York's black market, nobody but me would dare take this hot potato off your hands. They wouldn't even dare touch it."

Zhao Fan fell silent.

Twelve thousand dollars. A little less than half of what he had originally hoped for.

Before transmigrating, that might not have been a fortune. But in this ruined world, where even a meal of moldy bread required careful budgeting and a human life might be worth only a few dozen dollars, it was enough money to temporarily free him from struggling at the very bottom.

With it, he could buy genuine high-strength body armor and tactical eyepieces with low-light night vision and thermal imaging.

Most importantly, this money would give him the capital to climb higher.

"Deal." Without any hesitation, Zhao Fan nodded decisively.

Shadow smiled in satisfaction and snapped her fingers.

The bald bodyguard behind her immediately went to the safe in the corner, entered the code, and brought over a black polymer briefcase.

The bodyguard set the case on the desk and snapped it open.

Inside were neatly stacked bundles of old banknotes, giving off a distinctive scent that mingled ink and age.

Zhao Fan stood on no ceremony. He stepped forward without carefully counting the money and deftly stuffed the bundles into the specially made hidden pockets inside his hoodie, putting the rest in a clean compartment of his backpack.

With the banknotes pressed firmly against his chest, their solid presence and weight finally settled the heart that had been suspended in uncertainty for days.

"A pleasure doing business, Boss Shadow. If there's nothing else, I'll be going." Zhao Fan zipped up and turned to leave the oppressive room.

"Wait."

Shadow's voice came from behind him. This time, it held less of a merchant's mercenary calculation and more of an extraordinarily deep temptation, as though rising from the abyss.

Zhao Fan stopped and turned, watching her warily.

"As I just said, Zhao Fan, I'm very interested in you." Shadow remained behind the desk, but her intangible pressure instantly filled the room. "Not only did you survive beneath Kestrel's shadow, you're also... more ruthless than the average scavenger. When people tried to steal from you, you killed them cleanly and decisively, and even in that desperate situation and explosion, you calmly dug out the core."

As she spoke, Shadow slowly produced something else from beneath the desk and slid it across the smooth mahogany surface until it reached Zhao Fan.

It was neither money nor a weapon.

It was a phone.

An unregistered, disposable prepaid phone of the kind sold for a few dozen dollars at corner convenience stores.

"What's this supposed to mean?" Zhao Fan frowned without reaching for it.

"An invitation." Shadow's voice grew low and magnetic. "And an admission ticket."

Zhao Fan still did not move, his gaze shifting between the phone and Shadow's face.

"The D.O.D.C. is just a garbage collection operation the authorities use to reassure the public and keep up appearances. You bleed and sweat in the ruins every day. Do you think you're cleaning up battlefields and uncovering treasure? No. You're merely brushing away the surface dust for the people who truly matter."

Shadow rose, walked to the liquor cabinet, and poured herself a glass of red wine.

"The real treasures, the things that can change a person's fate or even the balance of the world, are always buried deeper. And the rules down there are completely different from the little games you play on the surface."

Holding her glass, she gestured with that same hand toward Zhao Fan's cash-filled chest.

"Twelve thousand dollars is certainly a decent sum. But at most, it'll make you a slightly better-off scavenger in Queens, one who no longer has to worry about tomorrow's meal. How long will it last, though? According to my information, the D.O.D.C. has already begun secretly investigating the recent spate of thefts. You're not the only one doing it, but do you think the D.O.D.C. might find you?"

Shadow's gaze grew aggressive.

"If you want control over your own fate, rather than being killed on someone's whim; if you want to face another monster like Kestrel without even being qualified to fight back, able only to pray like a dog that he doesn't see you?"

Those words drove like a poisoned thorn into the deepest part of Zhao Fan's heart, instantly igniting the fire of ambition hidden beneath his calm exterior.

The horrifying image of Kestrel slaughtering the mercenaries flashed through his mind again.

Zhao Fan took a deep breath, finally reached out, and picked up the cheap-looking phone.

The phone was light, but in his hand it seemed to weigh a ton.

He pressed the power button. The screen lit up, displaying no complicated interface or apps, only a single unread multimedia message.

Zhao Fan opened the message.

A screenshot of a map appeared on the screen, along with a blurry photograph clearly taken covertly under extremely dangerous conditions.

The map showed an enormous abandoned industrial park on the edge of Queens, near the coastline. A blood-red "X" conspicuously marked the park's very center.

The photograph seemed to show a massive underground cavity. Deep beneath collapsed layers of exceptionally thick concrete, an enormous grayish-white object like a small mountain was faintly visible. Its surface bore intricate patterns resembling the carapace of some ancient beetle-like creature. From its broken cracks seeped an eerie, dizzying deep-purple glow.

"This is..." Zhao Fan's pupils contracted sharply, and his breathing abruptly stopped.

He had seen something similar in the phantom image of the [Relic Compendium] when the system first activated. But that had been an extremely tiny fragment, while the object in this photograph was astonishingly large.

"You guessed right." Shadow's voice sounded beside his ear at just the right moment, carrying a devilish temptation. "The main remains of a Leviathan's biological armor. And it's not merely a dead shell."

Shadow walked up to Zhao Fan and stared fixedly into his eyes from less than half a meter away.

"This is a core armor layer that smashed through a particular underground energy matrix when it fell during the Battle of New York, allowing it to remain active in 'suspended animation' all this time."

"An active armor sample?" Zhao Fan sucked in a cold breath.

According to black-market rumors, even dead Leviathan armor fragments were exorbitantly expensive materials for making advanced body armor. An active sample... that meant it not only possessed terrifying amounts of biological energy, but might even have some monstrous property such as "self-repair" or "genetic assimilation."

Its scientific and military value simply could not be measured in money.

"It's currently inside a 'red exclusion zone' classified top secret by the D.O.D.C." Shadow turned back toward the desk, her tone growing utterly serious. "Dr. Evelyn Reed from the technical division has personally taken command, deploying an entire company of special operatives and high-precision scanning drones. They're sealing off the whole industrial park, preparing for the final excavation."

At the name Evelyn Reed, Zhao Fan's heart sank. He had only just carried out sabotage right under that woman's nose.

"That's not all." Shadow sneered. "Kestrel has caught wind of it too. He would never pass up something this top-tier. Right now, he's like a ghost circling above the restricted zone, ready to swoop in and start slaughtering at any moment. And of course, there are hyena gangs like Rick 'Rattlesnake's'-fools with a death wish, hoping to try their luck."

"The official special operations team, the top assassin Kestrel, and a bunch of outlaws." Shadow braced both hands on the table and looked at Zhao Fan. "This is a true bloodbath of a contest. The winner takes all, gaining unimaginable wealth and power. The losers won't even leave intact corpses-not so much as ashes."

Zhao Fan fell silent. He lowered his head, staring at the enormous thing glowing purple on the phone screen, his mind racing.

"What do you want me to do?" After a long while, Zhao Fan raised his head. There was no fear left in his eyes, only an almost crazed, all-or-nothing ambition.

"I want you to bring back that armor's central power module-the fist-sized 'biological heart.' Just that core."

Shadow smiled, her smile utterly seductive.

"Today, you proved your incredible ability to me. You proved you could hunt for treasure in desperate straits and snatch food from a tiger's jaws. That's why I'm giving you this chance. As long as you bring me what I want, everything after that is negotiable."

Zhao Fan gripped the phone tightly.

He knew better than anyone that this was an extraordinarily deadly trap, a terrifying gamble with barely a chance of survival. Against Evelyn's high-tech lockdown and Kestrel's slaughter, his current strength was still insignificant.

But he knew even better that if he could survive this contest, if he could touch that "biological heart" with his own hands and use the system to perform Analysis on it...

The power he would gain would be enough to let him rise, once and for all, from a pawn being crushed in this cruel world to the player moving the pieces.

He slowly slipped the phone into a pocket close to his body, raised his head, and looked straight into Shadow's eyes, two dark flames of Hellfire burning in the depths of his own.

"I'll take the job."