“What?” Meryl looked at Bailian in shock. “They’re dead?”

Bailian nodded. “I know it’s hard to believe, but it’s true.”

“To be honest, I still don’t want to think back on that hellish scene... Those three mangled lumps of flesh, with no trace of human shape left, made me wonder if I was hallucinating.”

The group looked at each other.

“Three powerful Shatterborn, just dead like that?”

“And butchered, too? How is that even possible?”

Clearly, the news had stirred up no small shock in the hearts of everyone in Loki Squad.

Meryl also realized how serious this was. She rubbed her chin and thought aloud, “Two Class S and one Class A. Their combat power definitely wasn’t low. Even if they were injured, trying to devour them cleanly would still be risky for us.”

“One mistake, and one of us could get hurt. Or worse, lose our life.”

“There are only three possibilities if someone wanted to kill them,” Akiko added. “First, you’d need at least one A-rank squad of over twenty people, wearing them down nonstop. Only then would killing them be possible...”

Bailian shook his head. “There were no signs of any large-scale battle at the scene—”

He paused, then forced himself to recall it again. “Actually, there were no signs of battle at all. It was like the three of them died silently in the dark.”

Meryl drew in a deep breath.

“If that’s the case, then there are only two possibilities left.”

“An SS-Class Ravager—or an SS-rank Breaker!”

Kevin and Kapil exchanged a glance, then both sucked in a sharp breath.

Class SS stood at the true peak of this world. Whether it was an SS-Class Ravager or an SS-rank Breaker, each possessed unfathomable power. Only beings like that could silently kill two Class S and one Class A.

“Damn it, since when did East Asia get someone like that?” Jin Xuanwen said, rubbing his head in frustration. “We finally finished the mission, and I was already looking forward to going back to the branch and sleeping for a whole day.”

Meryl sighed too. “Yeah. No one expected this mission to turn out this rough.”

Akiko lowered her head and stayed silent.

Kailuo noticed something off about her and asked, “Is something wrong, Akiko?”

“Ah... no, nothing.” Akiko’s gaze shifted a little. “I was just wondering if the one who killed Sean might also be connected to the White Bloodsource we have.”

Akiko lied. She chose not to tell Meryl about Ming Yi.

Mainly because she didn’t believe Ming Yi had the ability to kill Sean and the others. This should’ve just been a coincidence.

But the fact that Ming Yi never showed himself until the very end still planted a trace of doubt in her heart.

Even so, she could only roughly chalk it up to a kind of “leave once the deed is done, hiding both merit and name.”

“We can’t ignore that possibility. After all, we still don’t know how important the White Bloodsource is to Class SS beings.”

Meryl reminded the squad again, “The mission is already complete. Don’t stir up extra trouble. Take the newcomers and return to the branch as soon as possible.”

“If this really involves a Class SS existence, then it’s already beyond what we can handle. Let the branch chief have the headache.”

Ming Yi returned to the base when it was already close to evening.

The sunset cast a deep orange glow over his somewhat lost and hollow figure, making him look painfully lonely.

He pushed open the base door, crossed the hall, and once again walked down the long corridor.

Step by step, his footsteps echoed with a lonely ring.

Suddenly, a door at his side creaked open, followed by a soft sound of surprise.

“Xiao Yi? Where did you go? Why are you only getting back now?”

Ming Yi knew that voice well. No, more than well. For three years in college, that voice had appeared in his dreams countless times.

Senior Alice.

Ming Yi forced out a smile. “I’m fine, Senpai.”

“Your face doesn’t look too good.” She sounded worried.

“It’s nothing. I just walked pretty far, so I’m a little tired now. I’ll be fine after I go back and sleep. You should rest early too, Senpai.”

After saying that, he ran back to his room almost like he was fleeing, not even waiting for her reply.

The moment he got inside, Ming Yi collapsed onto the bed, as if all the strength in his body had been drained away.

Everything that had happened today kept replaying in his mind, especially the terrified, despairing look in Li Xiaoming’s eyes before he died.

Every time he thought of it, a chill spread through his whole body.

That’s right. Back then, Ming Yi wasn’t being controlled, possessed, or consumed by some dark transformation.

He was awake.

More than awake, even. If anything, he was too clear-headed.

Every single thing he did was under his own conscious control. It was his own choice.

He wanted to kill those three people.

At first, that thought hadn’t been very obvious. But after using the Corruption Artifact to help Akiko out of danger, the thought suddenly expanded without limit in his mind.

It became as natural as “people need food and water to live.”

It became instinct.

You want to kill them.

You should kill them.

You must kill them.

So when he saw Sean and the other two about to escape, Ming Yi followed without hesitation.

At that moment, he never once thought about how he was supposed to kill them.

Somewhere in his subconscious, he simply believed those people were bound to die. Their deaths were the natural order of things.

It was as if he had completely forgotten that he was only a newly awakened rookie, not even worthy of being called D-rank.

That didn’t mean he was out of his mind.

Quite the opposite.

Ming Yi could clearly feel his brain running at incredible speed. Everything around him was perceived with absolute clarity.

That feeling of complete control over every inch of his body, down to every pore, was something he had never experienced in his life.

Calm to the extreme. Rational to the extreme.

Without a shred of personal emotion.

Precise and airtight, like a machine.

When he fought Li Xiaoming, he controlled his drops of blood and shot them toward that long whip. In truth, he had no idea what would happen.

He didn’t know why the whip suddenly stopped moving the moment it touched his blood, either.

But at the time, his mind judged it to be the most ordinary thing in nature and automatically ignored it.

When he personally killed Mia and Li Xiaoming, even that horrifying scene, enough to make any normal person go pale with shock, caused him no discomfort at all.

There was no fear, no panic, no disgust in his mind.

It was as if he were a god standing in a higher dimension, looking down on all living things with equal indifference.

Only after the killing was over did that feeling slowly fade.

Then the contradiction and dissonance between memory and reality surged into his mind all at once. It took Ming Yi a long time to fully sort out what had actually happened.

Even though he had recovered, even now he still felt no guilt at all.

At most, what he felt was a kind of regret, like losing his temper and arguing with a friend.

The more he thought about it, the more terrifying it became.

Why had he been able to take two lives so lightly?

Why had an act so completely opposed to his upbringing, the law, and basic morality felt so natural?

Am I... really still me?