A Yellowed Photograph, a Young Man Turned Evil Dragon

In the rubble, the Judge's mangled body was twisting and deforming uncontrollably.

He strained to look down, and in the dim moonlight, he saw with his own eyes the dark red buds sprouting from his arm, and the body that was gradually transforming into a monster.

"Uh... ah..."

Extreme terror and despair, unable to accept reality, instantly filled his unfocused pupils. What he was most proud of in his life was his identity as a "human" wielder of the sword, yet in the end, he had become the lowest monster in his own eyes.

Filled with endless irony and fear, the Judge let out a hoarse sound, his eyes fixed on the night sky, before finally succumbing to his last breath.

He died without being able to close his eyes.

"My lord! The Judge is dead!"

Vice Principal Liu, who witnessed the entire scene, was on the verge of a mental breakdown.

When he saw Dongfang Yueming's gaze slowly sweep over him, Vice Principal Liu kowtowed frantically on the ground like a dog, his forehead bleeding profusely.

"Don't kill me! Spare me, sir! I'm just a dog working for them, I know nothing! Please, spare my life..."

He begged for mercy frantically, his face covered in snot and tears.

Dongfang Yueming didn't even bother to say a word to him, but simply raised a finger casually, with a sharp wisp of true energy swirling around the fingertip.

"Laugh!"

A thin stream of true energy shot out like a bullet, precisely piercing Vice Principal Liu's forehead.

The pleas for mercy abruptly ceased, and Vice Principal Liu's obese body fell heavily onto the ground, never to move again.

The surroundings returned to deathly silence.

Just then...

"Buzz..."

In the rubble pit, a faint light suddenly shone from the pocket of the Judge's tattered coat, accompanied by a slight vibration.

Dongfang Yueming stepped forward and took out the specially made encrypted phone.

The screen just lit up, and a message popped up:

[The Variants seeds are ready; we can begin the next round.]

Upon seeing these cold, a dozen words, Dongfang Yueming's eyes instantly turned icy cold.

"Start the next round..."

He recalled the group of arrogant mentors and prodigies from the Demon Capital and Central Capital who had been talking about slaying demons and monsters at the Han Family earlier.

"It seems that those people from Demon Capital and Central Capital who came under the guise of eradicating Variants species may not be good people after all."

Dongfang Yueming sneered inwardly.

He casually swiped the message away, Dongfang Yueming squatted down and began to search the Judge's corpse.

Apart from a jade slip containing the Profound Grade Qi Technique that the Judge had just used, there were no other valuable cultivation methods.

However, in the Judge's inner pocket, Dongfang Yueming pulled out an old photograph that was extremely well-preserved, but whose edges were slightly yellowed.

He examined the photograph by the moonlight.

The photo shows two young people, a man and a woman, standing side by side.

The man was full of vigor, and one could vaguely see in his eyes that he was the Judge in his youth. The girl standing next to him had a bright smile and was extremely beautiful.

Looking at the background in the photo, Dongfang Yueming suddenly felt that it looked somewhat familiar.

There was a row of neatly arranged sycamore trees, and a pointed clock tower that could be vaguely seen in the background.

Holding the photo, Dongfang Yueming took two steps forward, looked up, and gazed across the grove of trees, comparing it to the distant outline of the campus.

Exactly the same.

This photo was taken at Jinling Martial University! However, judging from the age of the buildings, it must have been taken a very, very long time ago.

"So, he also graduated from Jinling Martial University back then?"

Dongfang Yueming looked at the corpse on the ground and shook his head slightly. It was a great irony that a student who was once full of vigor in this school had ended up becoming the mastermind who sent his juniors to the monster's dinner table.

He put the Profound Grade Qi Technique, the old photos, and the cell phone into his pocket.

Then, Dongfang Yueming circulated his internal energy, and an extreme chill spread from his feet.

[The Taixu Extreme Ice Sword Scripture]

The dark blue ice instantly covered the bodies of the Judge and Vice Principal Liu, freezing them completely into two ice sculptures.

"Broken."

Dongfang Yueming snapped his fingers.

With a crisp "crack," the two ice sculptures, along with the corpses inside, instantly disintegrated into the finest ice powder. With a gust of night wind, the powder completely dissolved into the soil, leaving no trace of its existence.

After doing all this, Dongfang Yueming turned and left the grove.

As he walked along the quiet campus path, he turned on the Judge's phone.

The phone had no password and contained little data, but it gave Dongfang Yueming a clearer understanding of the secrets of this world.

He first confirmed that the man who had just died at his hands was indeed the highest-ranking official of the Great Xia Night Watchers's Jinling branch, a senior investigator codenamed "Judge."

In the work logs and some communication records, Dongfang Yueming discovered that below the Judge, there were also several intermediate investigators.

Judging from the wording of their reports, these mid-level investigators were clearly not ignorant low-level executors. They seemed to have some understanding of the "truth" about the breeding of Variants above and had been coldly carrying out the order to "maintain balance."

Above the Judge, this phone only stores two contacts of a higher rank.

One is a [Star-level Night Watchers], codenamed "Demon Blade".

The other is a [Moon Grade Night Watchers], codenamed "Baihu".

Dongfang Yueming flipped through the communication records.

The Judge's primary reporting target is this "Demon Blade." It was also this star-level Night Watchers, codenamed Demon Blade, who previously issued the order for the Jinling City Night Watchers to unconditionally cooperate with the operations of the Demon Capital and Central Capital Martial University.

As for the Moon Grade Night Watchers codenamed "Baihu," there were no communication records on his phone; it simply lay quietly in the deepest part of his contacts, with an extremely complex encrypted contact method.

"Star-level... Moon Grade..."

Dongfang Yueming looked at the two code names and stroked his chin.

"Logically speaking, within the Night Watchers organization, Moon Grade rank should be higher than a Star-level rank."

Dongfang Yueming turned off her phone screen and put it away.

He raised his head and looked up at the night sky above, which was covered by thick clouds and had no stars or moon in sight.

The upper echelons of this world are rotten to the core. They feed the Variants with the blood and flesh of ordinary people, and in the end, they themselves are assimilated by the Variants's power.

"Since you all enjoy playing this 'raising gulls' game so much..."

A cold and pure killing intent gradually ignited in Dongfang Yueming's deep eyes.

"Then don't blame me for turning this game of chess, along with all of you who are playing it, upside down."

A new goal was firmly established in his mind.

Eliminate all Variants.

And... those "people" who have been assimilated for power and profit, and are even more vicious than the Variants!