After two hours of artillery fire, the area that had just been blasted by thermobaric bombs was plowed over again. The land stretched empty in every direction, the hardened ground still radiating heat from the blaze. Huge craters pocked the earth. You’d never guess that just a few hours ago, this had been a forest.

As the white smoke left by the thermobaric bombs dispersed, soldiers paired off and searched for signs of the demon, working their way inward from the perimeter with specialized detectors. According to the Science Council’s calculations, there was still a good chance the intelligent demon had survived. And since it hadn’t flown into the sky, it had to be hiding underground.

As the search perimeter closed in, the area where the demon might be hiding grew smaller and smaller.

Ta Xiao glanced at the time on his phone, his expression tense.

The Organization K backchannel had just sent word about Huaguo’s moves. A Huaguo representative had held a meeting with the Myanmar government online. The meeting was strictly confidential. Ta Xiao didn’t know what Huaguo was planning, but he knew he was running out of time.

So, without waiting for the center of the blast zone to cool, Ta Xiao sent people in. Whether the demon was alive or dead, he urgently needed to know the outcome—and then get out of there immediately.

As for who would clean up the mess left behind? That wasn’t his concern.

“Fuck, it’s hot as hell.”

After receiving orders to continue searching toward the center, a man in tactical gear grumbled as he held a detector rod. “I’m soaked through. When we get back, I’m taking a shower, then I’m finding the best local babe and letting loose a few times.”

His companion carried no detector, just a rifle as he followed alongside. “Nirel, focus. We might be getting closer to the demon.”

“Busion, I don’t believe anything could’ve survived that explosion.” Nirel crushed a piece of charcoal underfoot. Embers still glowed inside it.

They walked for more than ten minutes across the steaming ground. Even in specialized heat-resistant boots, Nirel could feel the soles of his feet burning.

“That’s no ordinary creature. It’s a real monster!” The armed man watched the way ahead cautiously.

“Ha! What kind of monster can withstand temperatures over a thousand degrees and hundreds of artillery shells?”

As Nirel spoke, his detector suddenly began to emit a strange sound.

“Huh??”

The two of them jolted and snapped to attention. Judging by the signal’s strength, Busion immediately worked out where it was coming from.

“Busion reporting. I’ve got an anomalous signal to the northwest.”

“...Copy. I’ll keep moving toward the target.”

The two exchanged a look. The man with the rifle lowered his voice. “The helicopter will be here soon. Let’s find it.”

“Fuck, it really is alive?” The other man drew the pistol from his waist. “If we find it, that first-class merit is ours.”

“Careful.”

After joining Organization K, every special forces soldier underwent amygdalotomy. The surgery carried a significant risk of death and side effects, but Nirel and Busion were lucky. Like the Organization’s other elite soldiers, they feared nothing—not even death.

They were more afraid of someone else taking credit for their achievements than they were of dying.

After advancing another dozen meters, the two special forces soldiers finally spotted the demon’s physical form beside a steaming pit—

A mass of white flesh, still writhing. It looked utterly bizarre. The air around it wavered and distorted. It was clearly very hot.

It didn’t quite match the childlike appearance described in the Organization’s records, but demons could change their shape. The two men were certain they’d found their target.

“It can’t move?” Nirel tilted his head. The corner of his mouth stretched into an uncontrollable grin, his face alight with delight. “I get it! It’s paralyzed. It can’t attack us. As long as we don’t touch it, we’re safe! Fuck, we’re gonna be rich, brother.”

“This is the best possible outcome.” Busion nodded, looking relieved as well.

“Reporting in. Target located. It’s in a ‘paralyzed’ state.”

Three minutes later, a helicopter carrying a specialized containment device descended. A fully armed team jumped out, some carrying steel forks and others lassos. They swiftly secured the demon inside an alloy container. It didn’t resist at all. Only after the alloy containment unit had been completely sealed did everyone finally breathe a sigh of relief.

Not fearing death didn’t mean they wanted to face it head-on. The less they had to do with something this dangerous, the better.

The other searchers looked on with envy, regretting that they hadn’t searched in that direction.

After securing the demon, Ta Xiao immediately ordered an evacuation.

Anything they could take went into cars and planes; anything they couldn’t was destroyed on the spot. Organization K’s convoy hurriedly left the area. Several aircraft escorted the demon out of the country.

On the plane, Ta Xiao sipped hot coffee as he thought over what they’d gained from this mission. Capturing the demon was a major achievement. Who knew what kind of reward the Organization would give him? At the thought, Ta Xiao couldn’t help humming softly.

Less than twelve hours after Organization K left, the Myanmar army had surrounded every compound.

The forces inside the compounds clashed fiercely with the Myanmar military.

Who could’ve guessed that the government troops, once as easy to push around as soft persimmons, would suddenly become so difficult to deal with? Their equipment and morale were both completely different from before. After dozens of rocket strikes, the forces in the compounds collapsed completely. The warlord leaders abandoned their businesses and fled in every direction.

……

Gussy stayed underground for a whole day. Only after confirming that no one else was coming did it finally relax a little.

The power of the thermobaric bombs had left a deep impression on Gussy. If it hadn’t gotten underground in time, the shock wave would’ve shaken it apart on the spot.

It didn’t know what had happened outside to make Organization K leave in such a hurry, but it had clearly escaped.

Gussy had realized it might not be able to evade a manual search, so it had thrown out a part of its body as bait. Having learned the technique of splitting from its main body, it hadn’t lost much of its memory along with that piece.

Gussy couldn’t help thinking that an animal’s ability to shed its tail and escape was a kind of wisdom, too.

It couldn’t stay here for long. It’d be bad if Organization K realized they’d taken a fake.

Gussy squirmed its way out of the mound of earth. It was extremely weak, on the verge of death, and needed to replenish its energy as soon as possible.

Hopefully, there was still some unburned charcoal up there.

Just as Gussy was about to reach the open air, a hand reached down from above and grabbed it!

It was over.

Gussy panicked and fired its last remaining energy beam along the arm. But the attack vanished without a trace.

Huh?!

It realized at once: if the energy beam had no effect, then the other party was one of its kind. There was only one possible identity.

Sure enough, the other party’s voice confirmed Gussy’s guess.

“You can still move with less than one percent left. How?”

The instant Xu Fang touched Gussy, he immediately understood its current condition. The Gussy in front of him was like a completely different person from the one he’d met last time. But that was what Xu Fang had expected. Even people who started out exactly alike would grow more and more different as they went through different experiences, until they eventually became nothing alike at all.

“Damn, I thought I was about to get refined away.” Once Gussy emerged from the earth, it saw daylight again—and Xu Fang’s gaze. Gussy had thought it had changed a lot, but when it met those emotionless eyes, especially the one strange-looking blue eye, it wondered if its main body had changed even more.

“What rank are you now?” Xu Fang asked again.

“Probably... maybe at the very peak of D-rank, right on the verge of a breakthrough...”

“That sounds consistent with the website’s description of C-rank.”

Dangling in Xu Fang’s hand, Gussy gave up resisting. “My main body, what have you been through?”

Gussy wasn’t surprised that Xu Fang had found it. After all, apart from the “author,” no one in this world had any privacy from that website. Besides, Gussy was Xu Fang’s “property” to begin with.

“It’s a long story. Want to sync our memories?”

“Are you going to refine me?” Gussy asked weakly. “To be honest, I don’t want to die yet.”

“No. I’m not planning to do that for now. I’m short on people, and I need your help.”

“I’ve forgotten what I knew about that website. Don’t give me those memories. I don’t want to become an author.”

Xu Fang nodded. “I understand. Sometimes, forgetting is a kind of happiness.”

As the two quickly exchanged memories, Xu Fang and Gussy soon learned about each other’s past.

Even a brief glimpse of Xu Fang’s terrifying memories made Gussy feel like it was going insane. The ten thousand years stretching through the middle of those memories seemed capable of shutting out every prying eye in the world.

This guy’s becoming more and more like an ancient god, Gussy thought.

Xu Fang paid Gussy no mind. He’d found some valuable information in its memories.

The neural pulse network was probably a technology controlled by Organization K. From what Gussy had experienced after being affected by it, the technology had something to do with emotions. It might amplify or redirect them.

Under the influence of the neural pulse network, Gussy’s emotions had become much richer. At the very least, it could now feel anger and sadness—and fear, when it suddenly ran into its main body.

Actually, Xu Fang was more worried about his own mental health.

Without a human body, Xu Fang was gradually becoming more rational. There was nothing wrong with rationality, but his humanity was fading, too. He might not lose it completely, but he could lose the most precious part of it—the part that defined what it meant to be human—and become a flawed, even dangerous, form of “dehumanized” existence.

Xu Fang couldn’t guarantee that his “dehumanized” self wouldn’t go to some kind of extreme. That was why he wanted to get his hands on the emotion-related technology. Maybe it could help balance his emotions.

Owen had once spent some time as a digital lifeform. Maybe he’d learned a thing or two about this, too.

Gussy had advanced to C-rank energy perception without relying on the Horror Novel Web. Did that mean the Horror Novel Web hadn’t developed the evolution of energy perception?

Had the Horror Novel Web merely summarized the paths those before it had taken?

If so, there was a lot more room to work with. C-rank perception could still develop further.

At that thought, Xu Fang studied Gussy’s eyes again.

Noticing its main body looking at it, Gussy tilted its head curiously. But after only two seconds of eye contact with Xu Fang, it couldn’t help looking away.

“Your thought perception is gone?” Thought perception came with an intimidating effect, making anyone who met its gaze feel their soul tremble. But now, Xu Fang could look directly into Gussy’s eyes without feeling the slightest discomfort.

“Yeah, I noticed that too. As expected, the two paths of evolution are incompatible. You gain one thing, you lose another.” Gussy picked up a piece of charcoal from the ground to replenish its energy.