Chapter 135

Chapter 135

Tang Xian’an’s hand settled on the hilt of his blade. His gaze on the man before him held caution, but beneath it swirled something deeper, more complex.

Years ago, in the First Research Institute, he and Gu Zheng had crossed paths briefly. Fresh out of high school, Tang Xian’an had been underground, holding a gun for the first time, fumbling with the unfamiliar weight.

Gu Zheng had walked by. He’d picked up the weapon, glanced at the target, turned his head, and fired. A perfect bullseye.

A researcher had chuckled. “Before he retired, Gu Zheng was the top sniper in the entire Whistling Arrow unit. Multiple overseas missions.”

Back then, Tang Xian’an had thought: I want to be like him.

He drew his blade.

Against Gu Zheng, he held nothing back. Dragon’s breath ignited along the tangdao’s edge, white flames radiating blistering heat that fogged the glass windows nearby.

The smile on 01’s face faded, replaced by a spark of raw excitement.

He’d known what choice Tang Xian’an would make. Any other would have been a betrayal of the man he remembered. Disappointment wasn’t part of the equation.

He watched the blade descend.

The strike carried immense force. Animal instinct and combat-honed talent screamed at 01 to dodge.

He didn’t.

The tangdao bit deep into the junction of flesh and tentacle at his neck. The serrated meat-severed clean, hitting the floor where it writhed violently.

Black blood soaked the front of 01’s shirt.

A wild laugh burst from him. “Is that all you’ve got?”

A new head swelled from the stump.

A coppery, overwhelming scent of blood flooded Tang Xian’an’s nostrils. Even before his eyes registered movement, he was twisting aside, bringing his blade up in a defensive arc.

01’s broad palm slammed into the steel with a shower of sparks. The impact rattled bones, numbing Tang Xian’an’s arm. Fingers closed around the blade, gripping with such force the meticulously forged metal groaned, threatening to warp.

Huang Chen cut a bloody furrow across 01’s palm.

His other fist, moving with thunderous speed, drove toward Tang Xian’an’s gut.

The air itself cracked. The wall behind Tang Xian’an cratered inward. The entire supermarket shuddered. Goods rained from shelves. The symphony of shattering glass was nearly drowned out by the structural groan.

…

In the distance, atop a department store, Lu Zhi stood. Her black gown, studded with diamonds, glittered like a captured slice of starry night. She took a sip of crimson liquid, her deep green eyes revealing nothing.

Gu Zheng had promised to deliver Tang Xian’an’s corpse. Afterward, they would divide the First District—half for the Hound Base, half for the Slaughterhouse.

For Lu Zhi, this was a high-stakes gamble. One she could not afford to lose.

Her only irritation was 01’s insistence on handling Tang Xian’an alone. It went against her philosophy: why duel when you could swarm? But she needed him, for now. So she waited, patience a thin veneer.

The commotion from the supermarket was immense. Within the swirling black mist, bestial roars clashed with the shriek of metal. The building listed dangerously. Periodic explosions tore through it, fiery blossoms whose smoke threatened to smother the blood-red moon.

“The face of the Slaughterhouse,” Lu Zhi murmured with a touch of regret. “I decorated it myself. Took over a decade. Seems it’s a lost cause.”

She looked up as a streak of fire traced the sky.

07 landed on a nearby rooftop, Lu Yan unconscious in his arms. His gaze, like hers, was fixed on the epicenter of the battle.

[They’re going at it!] The system chattered in Lu Yan’s mind. [Ooh, dragon scales cracking, the dog’s shedding! So violent!]

The ‘dog’ was indeed shedding. Where Huang Chen carved chunks from 01’s body, the fallen flesh writhed and transformed into sleek, black hounds. They darted through the chaos, leaping at gaps in Tang Xian’an’s defense, trying to tear fresh strips of flesh.

His grip on the blade remained steady, but new wounds littered his body. Golden dragon blood seeped from between scales, its scent driving the nearby pollutants into a frenzy.

Lu Zhi’s tone was mocking. “What’s wrong? Not going to your master’s aid?”

07 remained silent, a statue of waiting.

Inside the supermarket.

The ceiling collapsed. Walls crumbled. Bai Ze vanished beneath a pile of rubble. Tang Xian’an’s gaze flickered toward it for a split second before snapping back to 01.

Distraction was a luxury he didn’t have.

His body was a tapestry of injuries. Bones broke and were forcibly knit back together, a machine pushed far past its limits.

01 unleashed a barrage of blows in mere seconds, each one aimed to kill. The shockwaves alone would have pulverized an ordinary man.

Aside from smears of blood, 01 bore few visible wounds. His expression was a mask of cold, controlled frenzy.

[Talent 29 - Phoenix].

The talent made him notoriously hard to kill. But damage still took its toll.

Over a dozen black hounds circled Gu Zheng. The largest, a three-headed monstrosity with terrifying fangs, stood waist-high. Two of its heads were now gone. The later spawns were smaller, their auras weaker.

A blade gleam cut an elegant arc through the air. It seemed deceptively slow, yet arrived before 01 in an instant.

[Talent 3 - Time].

01 tried to raise his arm. In that moment, his personal time seemed to congeal.

A derisive snort escaped Gu Zheng’s nostrils.

He could only watch as the blade plunged into his chest.

The cost of warping 01’s time was immense for Tang Xian’an. He felt like a spring wrung of its last drop, weakness threatening to loosen his fingers from the hilt.

Pain made Gu Zheng’s hand tremble slightly. He gripped the blade’s handle and, under Tang Xian’an’s stunned gaze, twisted it violently within his own chest.

Reaching in, he ripped out a pulped, beating mass—his own heart. Red. Alive.

“So,” 01 said, “you really do want me dead.”

“You deserve it,” Tang Xuan replied, his voice flat.

“Deserve it?” Rage twisted into a bitter laugh. Gu Zheng hurled the ruined heart to the floor. The surrounding hounds descended, fighting over the morsel. “On what grounds?!”

His fury was palpable, white bone spikes erupting through his skin, tracing paths of welling blood.

Tang Xian’an closed his eyes. When they opened again, gold burned with banked fire. “The path I took here was paved with corpses. Countless dead. In this Slaughterhouse, not one pollutant is innocent. You included.”

01 raised an arm, using his thumb to wipe blood from his cheek, revealing a grim, cold smile. “Natural selection. Nothing more. Don’t you see, Tang Xian’an? This is evolution. The weak humans invented morality and laws because they’re terrified of being culled.”

Gu Zheng had chosen to leave the army on the cusp of promotion. He’d volunteered for the Ember Project, for those secret experiments.

He’d done it with resolve—to make the world better. He was willing to sacrifice everything, even his life.

But what they took from him was more than life.

He could accept death. But not defilement.

No one knew better than Gu Zheng what their existence in the Institute had been.

Being dissected alive, studded with probes and electrodes. Denied food, water, sleep, locked in airtight iron cages. Frozen, burned, tested for the limits of an Awakener’s endurance. Force-fed toxins that would kill a pollutant, convulsing, foaming at the mouth, begging for a death that wouldn’t come, flinching at the mere sound of footsteps… lab rats in a sterile hell.

The experiments weren’t meaningless. Their results became data on pages, the theoretical basis for antidotes, plans for cleansing pollution. The contributions of the test subjects were real.

But outside the Institute, no one knew they had ever existed.

Just like their cold, meaningless numbers. 01 to 09.

01 stared at Tang Xian’an, fine blood vessels threading the whites of his eyes. “You know why I hate you so much now? Back then, when they needed someone to fuse with the dragon bone, Professor Qiao said we were both suitable. He asked which of us would undergo the surgery.”

“I said, ‘I already have a combat talent. He only has his special-class Time talent. Let him have the bone.’”

Tang Xian’an remembered.

“I’ve always wondered,” 01’s voice was low, venomous. “If I hadn’t given it to you… would the one standing in your place now, the one called ‘Hope’ and ‘Bulwark’… would that have been me?”

Without the accidents, the betrayals, the test subjects could have stood beside Tang Xian’an, in the light.

Human weapons. An unbreakable line of defense for humanity.

But the world held no room for ‘what if.’

Gu Zheng’s eyes were ice. His body began to swell grotesquely, shredding his clothes. Black meat-tendrils crawled over his limbs, weaving into new bone and sinew. His limbs hit the ground, dripping black viscous fluid.

This was his final form. The pinnacle of his perfect evolution.

Its maw gaped open, a spiral of serrated teeth and a fleshy tongue unfurling like a grotesque rose.

Bloody and beautiful.

01 launched its attack on Tang Xun’an. The surrounding black monsters received the same signal, surging forward in a wave that threatened to swallow him whole from above. Glass from the skyscraper shattered, raining down like a storm.

Lu Zhi watched the scene unfold. "Looks like it's over," she murmured, pouring herself a glass of wine with a satisfied smile.

01’s bone spikes pierced Tang Xun’an’s throat, pinning his limbs. He was cornered, truly at the end.

Huang Chen lay several meters away, swallowed by the black fog. In the few dozen seconds he’d been engulfed, Tang Xun’an’s condition had deteriorated past the point of desperation.

A suppressed cough wracked his body, bringing up golden blood and shreds of lung tissue.

Gu Zheng’s voice echoed in his ear. "Use Dragon Bone now, or you won’t get another chance."

Tang Xun’an knew. He remembered Ji Wen’s last warning, but there were no other options left.

Lu Yan’s face flashed through his mind. Tang Xun’an closed his eyes in silence.

Jet-black scales erupted across his skin in an instant.

When his eyes snapped open again, the pupils within those golden irises had lost all humanity, transforming into sinister, vertical slits.

A dragon’s roar tore through the arena, shattering the wine glass in Lu Zhi’s hand.

……

……

Nearly everyone still within the Inner World heard that roar.

The three-headed hounds brought from the Hound base suddenly lifted their muzzles to the sky and howled like wolves.

They were still guarding a life-support pod containing Subject No. 9, Ye Liangshan.

Gong Weibin, tethered to the roadside, hesitated, unsure if he should join the chorus.

He’d considered escaping, but the slightest twitch made the surrounding hounds bare their teeth, forcing him to cower and press himself against the ground.

Bai Ze, lost in unconsciousness, seemed to sense something. He struggled to open his eyes, fingers twitching faintly. "Captain Tang… don’t…" he whispered.

On a stretcher nearby, Bai Qiushi jolted upright, yanked the IV needle from his arm, and stumbled to the window. He stared at the distant sky. "Holy shit… it can’t be?!"

His wardmate, Zhou Qiming, looked confused. "What’s wrong, Captain Bai?"

Bai Qiushi’s expression was grim. "Tang Xun’an used Talent #9, Dragon Bone."

"What’s wrong with Dragon Bone?"

"That talent was transplanted from a pollutant. Every use causes the aberration level to spike irreversibly in a short time. The Research Institute’s recommended usage frequency is once every three years."

Bai Qiushi’s fist slammed against the windowsill, his face pale. "This is his third time this year."

The Real World.

The time was 1:40 PM, well past the mall’s opening hour.

Yet the entire commercial street was sealed behind police tape. Special Operations troops stood guard, forming an impenetrable wall of flesh and steel.

Outside this barrier, Lü Shang, dressed in traditional Tang-style clothing, was on the phone. "Is this the X City Prevention and Control Center? This is Lü Shang. I’d like to know why our mall has been sealed off."

The Lü Department Store, a comprehensive retail giant, had dominated this commercial street since its construction over forty years ago. After several expansions, it loomed like a feudal lord over the district. Sealed without warning at 3 AM, its stock had plunged to a limit-down halt the moment the markets opened at 9.

The operator’s voice was patient. "This is on orders from headquarters. For public safety, a temporary lockdown is necessary. The duration is yet to be determined."

Dragged from bed at 3 AM, Lü Shang had exhausted all his connections to no avail. His patience had worn thin. "Orders?! How much tax have I paid over the years?! And you dismiss me with ‘orders’?! In X City, how much of the GDP does the Lü Group support? How many jobs?! Twenty years ago, when the Lü Department Store headquarters considered relocating, you weren’t singing this tune!"

The store’s glory days had been about two decades prior. Since the appearance of the Slaughterhouse in X City, the resident population had steadily dwindled, and the entire mall had grown increasingly desolate.

Back then, overly optimistic about the future, Lü Shang had invested heavily in new land and renovations. As a result, the Lü Department Store’s ventures outside X City had remained mediocre.

Now nearly seventy, with his only daughter missing for over twenty years, Lü Shang was long past his prime.

A nephew steadied his arm. "Uncle, don’t get so upset."

As they spoke, a deafening roar erupted overhead!

In the distance, the department store’s glass facade exploded inward, shard by shard. Thick plumes of gray-black dust billowed, pierced by the violent flash of a fireball.

Lü Shang’s eyes widened. After a moment of stunned silence, he threw down his cane and lunged forward, a wail tearing from his throat. "Don’t stop me! My mall—my mall!"

An Awakener who had rushed to X City from elsewhere frowned deeply, connecting a call to headquarters. "The Inner World and the Real World are showing signs of fusion. Requesting an emergency city-wide evacuation!"

……

……

Inner World.

The central district of X City was a field of ruins, skyscrapers reduced to rubble as two monstrous abominations clashed without mercy.

The earth trembled; rivers ran dry. Even the crimson moon hanging in the sky seemed to sway, on the verge of falling.

Lu Zhi glanced at 07, a flicker of impatience in her eyes. "Aren’t you going yet?!"

The Slaughterfield was on the brink of collapse.

07 remained motionless, a statue of flesh and bone.

Lu Zhi snorted coldly. "If you won’t go, I will. Useless thing."

With that, she leapt from the high-rise. Her icy, massive serpent form burst through the expensive gown.

Lu Zhi’s entry shattered the fragile balance in an instant.

Gu Zheng snarled at her, a dog guarding its kill.

"Don’t blame me," Lu Zhi sneered. "If you hadn’t taken so long to finish him, I wouldn’t have needed to step in. Don’t overestimate yourself, Gu Zheng."

Her eight heads shot toward the black dragon simultaneously.

The dragon’s wings were torn, yet it seemed to feel no pain. A final, desperate breath of white flame ignited—bright, but feeble.

In the distance.

Odin tightened his grip on his spear. "I’m going."

His liaison officer stopped him, voice bitter. "It’s no use. That’s a battle on another level. Not just you. Even if every remaining Awakener here joined forces right now, it wouldn’t matter." Beside him, a researcher from the Sixth Institute trembled, barely able to hold his syringe. "And to those pollutants, you’d be the finest nourishment. You can’t go."

"Tang Xun’an can at least kill one of them. The other will be severely wounded. Headquarters can still negotiate terms. But if all of you die here, humanity might enter its dark age ahead of schedule. So, you can’t go. Not now. Wait until the battle reaches its end. Besides, we received intel earlier—07 has also entered the Slaughterfield." The researcher’s voice broke into a sob.

Odin lowered his head, his knuckles white around the spear shaft. "...I understand."

Lu Yan opened his eyes.

A signal from the system had finally reached him.

[Gu Zheng’s pretty much spent. Time for some hellfire barbecue. Ha, charcoal-grilled dog.]

[I know what you’re asking. Tang Xun’an is alive. Barely.]

Lu Yan pressed his lips together and turned to Zong Yan. "Go."

Zong Yan smiled. "Alright, doctor. Take care of yourself from now on."

Like a warrior dissolving his form, Zong Yan’s aura erupted, blazing like a sun that set half the sky ablaze with daylight.

He dissolved into streams of fire, a spring rain of flames sprinkling down upon the earth.

Tang Xun’an, sensing 07’s approach, felt his already failing body fracture further. A despairing sense of exhaustion, of a lamp burning its last drop of oil, washed over him.

Wherever these scattered sparks touched, they ignited instantly, erupting into towering waves of fire!

Yet these flames surged not toward him, but toward Gu Zheng.

Shock flooded Gu Zheng’s mind.

"07?!" 01 roared, utterly enraged. "Have you gone mad?! We are the same kind!"

The flames consumed not only 01, but Zong Yan himself.

07’s blood-red eyes met the dog’s gaze. His expression was unreadable—perhaps relief, perhaps sorrow. "We are not."

The soaring inferno extinguished all life, a wildfire that blotted out the sky and swallowed the earth.

As if it had never been extinguished at all.