1——

The second hand kissed the final twelve; the countdown ended.

The tornado should’ve spun seven more seconds. Instead it froze—no, not froze. It unraveled, strand by strand, like rope undone by an unseen knife.

Organs that had been orbiting its funnel stopped dead. Like puppets cut from their strings, they drifted down in neat ranks, settling onto the earth in tidy lines.

Each organ homed back to the body it belonged to—orderly as students in an earthquake drill. No shoving. No cutting. They slipped into their places and fused with the parts already gathered there.

Feet first. Then legs. Then torso and hands. The head last. A Daemon rose where pieces had been.

It looked like an assembly line spitting out Daemons. But Wang Xiaoming knew it wasn’t fresh-made; it was salvage turned to shape, recycled and reissued.

They popped back like batch stock. Eyes, nose, even the map of pores stayed identical. A hundred percent copy and paste.

And then… they kept fighting.

“Ah-la-la-la~ looks like my gamble paid off.”

From the instant he felt something off using [Lukar Scissor Kick], Wang Xiaoming had a bold, absurd guess—unreal, but stubborn.

He hadn’t expected to be this right. Even their respawn spots matched where they’d stood when they weren’t attacking.

It felt like code running: set spawn point → fight → die → return to spawn. The formula ticked with precision, cold and clean. That would explain their machine-like rhythm.

Which meant a bigger secret sat behind it. This wasn’t natural. It screamed human interference.

Rule out the Demon King. That guy had no reason to pull a pointless, offending stunt; the excuse would be that the human realm doesn’t suit Daemons.

So what’s left? A traitor. Someone who hates the Moser Empire. Or… someone with a different agenda for the Moser Empire.

Not the time to chase it. Not his job. A fresh mess was already clawing at his door.

“Hey! You bastards!”

He cranked up a server-wide loudspeaker. His booming voice hauled every Daemon’s focus onto him; not one kept battering the gate that needed breaking.

Priority target: living beings? Interesting.

“Honestly, my bad for lumping you in with ‘zombies.’ You’re way more fun than that trash. Respawn on top of that… such a cheat.”

His body vanished with a soft whoosh. A white streak flashed through the Daemon crowd. Heads thudded onto stone; that sound rang like a gong for the start. Every Daemon lunged at once.

————————————

“How many times now?”

Wang Xiaoming asked himself, not wanting anyone to answer.

The fact was ugly: he’d lost count of how many cycles he’d run—wipe Daemons, wait for them to revive, then wipe them again.

Worse, they seemed to carry some twisted passive. The more they died, the faster they recovered. Their bodies hardened too. His blade had to bite deeper, push harder, grind in like steel on granite.

The one good thing: their attack power never scaled. The fight had just shifted from slicing tofu to carving stone.

The old man had joined somewhere around who-knows-which round, and the pressure finally eased, a little.

“This is the seventy-second,” the elder said, answering him.

“Heh… you know that was just me grumbling. You didn’t have to.”

“I do. If I don’t answer, you’ll sound too alone.”

True enough. In some way, he and the old man were both alone.

The battle outside had raged so long. Why hadn’t the city sent a single soul?

Abandoned? Written off as disposable pawns?

Irritation flared, hot and sour. Being used like a tool left a rust taste on the tongue.

His faith in the Empire cracked. That oath—offer your life to the Empire—now only made him snort.

He admitted it: when he swore, he meant it. Even in the first waves, he was ready to die. But now it was different. Seventy-two assaults and no aid? What’s left to explain?

If they’ve thrown us away, why should I die for this country?

Just this once. One last time. I’ll fight for this dumb-ass country one last time. If no one comes, then from today, I’m no man of the Moser Empire.

“Hey! Quit spacing out! Seventy-third assault’s starting!”

“Heh… got it.”

He tucked his leg, sprang full force, and his longsword fell again—cutting down the same Daemon he’d killed seventy-two times already.