Wang Cai stood up in the rubber suit, but the sticky plastic clung tightly to his skin, hindering his movement. He stumbled after two steps and collapsed. His limbs stuck fast, he couldn’t rise.

Wang Cai suffocated to death inside the suit.

“He was killed by his own greed. No wonder Mammon set his sights on him,” Lin Zhengde muttered.

He turned the page—

Evil spirits typically kill by tearing away a specific organ: limbs from laborers, heads from thinkers.

“What a vile soul,” Lin Zhengde remarked.

Without looking back, he flipped straight to the final page—the trigger to shatter the spirit’s sanity.

It always came down to greed, the original sin.

What drives a greedy soul mad? Simple. First: deny them what they crave.

The spirit had already reached this point. It wanted to kill everyone—even those with indirect contact. But its power was insufficient. Too many people.

It teetered on the edge of madness, craving more demonic strength to slaughter further contacts. Yet its vessel was full. Only by swapping its own escape ability for pure demonic energy could it gain more.

It would only do so if instinctual reason shattered completely—especially with someone far stronger already in the city.

Pushing it over the edge wasn’t hard. Second: take what the greedy one possesses. Loss cuts deeper than longing.

Right before Lin Zhengde lay the spirit’s own thing—the punctured, ruined rubber suit.

But if his theory held, the moment Wang Cai’s spirit lost instinctual control, it would become something far worse—a fully demon-empowered horror.

“Should I wait longer?” Lin Zhengde asked himself.

He couldn’t handle the spirit now, let alone berserk. And by taking its relic, he’d become its prime target.

A faint chill brushed the summer night. Lin Zhengde shivered lightly.

Calling stronger allies first was safer. But it would give the spirit more time to kill.

It was already unrestrained—every tendril rampaging. Night offered easier prey. By dawn, hundreds more might fall.

The past month’s total victims could equal tonight’s toll alone.

And its first targets? Undoubtedly the prior survivors—and their families.

He recalled the little loli’s words from daytime and chuckled wryly.

“Even if hope’s a lie… it should at least have an expiration date, right?”

Lin Zhengde bent down, pulling a stained, blotchy scrap of fabric from his pack.

A third-grade shroud—a crude imitation of the Holy Shroud’s principles. Many functions, but most crucially: faint sacred properties to isolate what lay before him.

To blind the spirit to its severed tendril. To make it taste “loss.”

“You take the coin, you clear the curse!” he declared.

With a sharp motion, he wrapped the ruined suit.

The night turned icy. A piercing shriek tore through the distance.

…

“…Roughly like that. So An Li, no need to run around. Results are coming soon.” I summarized everything clearly.

An Li looked slightly surprised. “Civilians still staying behind? When Holy See personnel evacuated, even the dark web issued warnings. I didn’t expect anyone to remain.”

“He’s here to spread hope,” I said with a wink—then froze. “Wait. There’s a dark web? And you never told me!”

“Don’t ask. Better not to know,” An Li said calmly. “It’s… unhealthy for you.”

The dark web held more than surreal rumors—it shared resources for truly terrible things…

She fell silent, thoughtful. “So this person plans to drive the spirit mad, forcing it to replace all escape ability with Mammon’s power. Smart. But one problem.”

I tilted my head up from the sofa. “What problem?”

“His life. Once the spirit snaps, he’ll face a monster far stronger than before. How does he survive?”

The words barely left her lips when the air turned noticeably colder.

“The spirit has already gone mad,” An Li said.

I checked my phone. On WeChat, Master Zhengde had just sent: “Hey, you there? I did it.”

Of course—he reported the moment it happened, even though most should be asleep.

I typed back hastily: “Where are you?”

Seconds later, a location pin arrived. It was… very far from us.