Chapter Twenty-Nine: Another Person

Where is the other one?

The moment he sensed something amiss, Zhong Shenxiu almost instinctively summoned another wave of magical energy. At the same time, he carefully attuned his mind to the feedback from his magic.

In the living room before him were still the five figures… Two of them were already moving about, seemingly searching the house for supplies… The one at the front was acting as a lookout…

But the last one… Where was he…? Found him!

Zhong Shenxiu’s eyes flew open; he turned his head toward the far right, gazing at a small room no bigger than a few square meters in the very corner of the yard. The door stood half-ajar, and as Zhong Shenxiu shifted his position and adjusted his angle, he could just make out a shadow moving inside.

That was the last man!

At the sight, Zhong Shenxiu couldn’t help but lift the corners of his mouth in a faint smile. Was this what it felt like to have fate itself lending a hand?

The man happened to be alone, and the best part was that he was shut away in a concealed, cramped space… A bold plan suddenly began to form in Zhong Shenxiu’s mind.

…

Grellu was in a foul mood today.

He had spent the past three years in a lightless underground base. Still, the generous pay had tempted him—three years, he’d thought, so be it. Once the contract was up, he’d have his money and could indulge himself however he liked.

But half a year ago, he’d been unexpectedly reassigned, now patrolling the core sector. And the so-called “core” turned out to be a girl.

Grellu swore to God he’d never seen a face as breathtaking in his entire life. But he didn’t dare make any foolish moves. After all, he’d heard a thing or two about the girl’s legend.

She’d been brought in at the age of ten, yet in the five years since, no one except that stern middle-aged woman from Sokovia had been able to get close to her.

He remembered once, a group of spies took advantage of a lapse in security and managed to sneak into the girl’s custom-built cell. The result of that day… was seven corpses added to her cell.

No one knew how they’d died.

All that was known was that the seven spies perished in unspeakable ways; just from hearing others describe it, Grellu would break out in goosebumps.

As for their boss, he did nothing to the girl—kept her well-fed and comfortable, gave her whatever she wanted, just never let her out. It was practically house arrest: as long as she didn’t leave her special cell, anything else could be arranged.

When Grellu first heard of this, he’d spent days bewildered.

But not long after starting his new patrol, he caught wind of another rumor. In just five years, nearly a hundred patrolmen like him had already been replaced outside the girl’s cell.

Almost without exception, his predecessors had all suffered mental breakdowns and killed themselves!

The news had terrified Grellu. He couldn’t shake the image of those seven who’d died so horribly. From then on, he spent his days in dread; whether from nerves or something else, he began to suffer sleepless nights and nightmares.

Just as his mind was on the brink of collapse under this oppressive strain, something happened. In the early hours today, for reasons unknown, the base suddenly lost power, plunging everything into pitch blackness.

Grellu happened to be changing shifts at the time, soothing his anxious mind with some intricate handicrafts in his room. With a sudden click, the lights went out, and the diligent teachers who had been guiding his handiwork step by step vanished from the computer screen…

After about ten minutes, power was restored.

No sooner had the lights come on than his boss assigned him a new task—head to the surface to scavenge for supplies.

Although caught off guard, the prospect of finally returning to the surface was more than welcome to Grellu. He eagerly joined a hastily formed team and rode the organization’s specially modified van up to ground level.

But then…

Grellu discovered that something strange had happened aboveground. The people seemed to have the intelligence of three-year-olds, and the houses, for some reason, were no longer made of concrete and steel but of chocolate and biscuits…

For a moment, he thought he’d crossed into another world.

The shock only lingered briefly in his mind, quickly swept away by the endless dark urges that had been pent up during those three years of repression.

When a person finally explodes after such suffocation, he is no different from a demon straight out of hell.

When Grellu realized that these residents wouldn’t resist anything he did, his true nature emerged.

He started by seeking out pretty women—first, a tentative touch, and when nothing happened, a bolder caress… a squeeze.

Growing ever more brazen, he was about to indulge himself in a pleasure he’d been denied for three years when—

That idiot temporary team leader suddenly jumped out to stop him!

Just recalling that bastard’s “the mission comes first” face made Grellu even more furious!

Not wanting to see that annoying leader’s mug, he chose to come alone to this corner room for the last scavenging target of the team.

What he didn’t know was that this petty act of sulking would be his death sentence!

Zhong Shenxiu had already slipped silently inside the small building. It was probably the family’s storage room, crammed with all sorts of odds and ends thick with dust.

This, too, worked in his favor—Zhong Shenxiu concealed himself behind a desk about waist-high, hidden from view.

The man in front of him, dressed in the same gear, was thin, with sunken eyes and bulging pupils—an obvious case of malnutrition.

He stood motionless in the storage room, occasionally clenching his teeth, his face twisted in a grimace.

Zhong Shenxiu guessed he was brooding over something unpleasant.

Had his wife run off with someone else? Was that why he was so worked up?

Seeing the man remain still and at a distance, Zhong Shenxiu was in no hurry to act.

His aim was to kill in a single strike—no mistakes allowed.

If the man made a sound and called his three companions, things would go badly for Zhong Shenxiu; even if he survived, he’d have to expend far more magic.

He still had his main quest to worry about—he couldn’t afford to waste his thousand magic points here.

So Zhong Shenxiu waited patiently; there was still some time before the two in the living room finished scavenging, and he could afford to bide his time.

At last, the man seemed to make up his mind with a determined set of his jaw and strode angrily toward the storeroom’s small doorway.

Hidden in the shadows, Zhong Shenxiu had been waiting for this moment!

“Raikiri! Thirty magic points!”

Zhong Shenxiu uttered the name silently, channeling his magical power, then sprang into action.

His right hand formed a fist, surging, swirling energy following in its wake. With a punch as swift as lightning, he struck straight at the man’s head!

Zhong Shenxiu was actually being conservative, channeling thirty points of magic into the blow. Better to be safe than sorry—even if he used a little extra, it was better than botching the attempt, getting into a gunfight, and spending hundreds of magic points.

With ten points of magic, he could already punch through a wall with ease—thirty points was overkill. Before the man even realized what was happening, Zhong Shenxiu’s fist was already at his face.

What followed was utter destruction.

The man’s skull, hard as it might be, and the brain within, soft as tofu, were both crushed to powder by the violent force of the magic!

Scarlet flecks sprayed back onto the wall, painted there by the raging wind of the punch, forming a constellation of blood.

In an instant—

A headless corpse lay silently on the floor…