“AAAAAAAHHHH!!!!”

The frenzied Bailian charged at the woman again, attacking like he didn't care if he lived or died.

For a moment, even the woman was thrown into disarray by Bailian’s mad assault. In just two or three exchanges, his spear tip nearly pierced her skull. She barely dodged it, but it still left a streak of blood across her face.

“Damn it!” the woman cursed inwardly, then turned to glare at the white-haired elder and the purple-haired young man.

The elder and the purple-haired young man immediately joined the siege. Meanwhile, the cloaked man kept chanting from afar.

“Codex of Silence—No Movement.”

“Codex of Silence—No Sight.”

“Codex of Silence—No Hearing.”

Surrounded by the three attackers, Bailian crashed left and right through their assault, trading wound for wound. His body was already soaked red with blood, and his clothes had been torn into strips of ragged cloth.

As the battle dragged on, Bailian gradually stopped being able to see the three figures. He could no longer hear their voices either. Even so, he didn’t stop. He kept attacking, as if striking blindly through endless darkness.

With every thrust, Bailian could feel his movements growing slower and heavier, as if he had become a child flailing his claws and fangs.

But he still stubbornly gripped his spear and attacked, one strike after another.

In truth, he couldn’t feel it at all. The four of them had already stopped fighting. They merely stood around him, watching him stagger and attack empty air like some laughable fool.

His oil was spent, his lamp long dry, yet he still forced himself to hold on to one last breath.

“This guy... doesn’t quite match the intel,” the elder said, stroking his beard. “He may be Class S, but he’s absolutely among the very best of them. And he’s this young. He might even be one of the Liberation Syndicate’s candidates for Class SS.”

“We killed him. If the Liberation Syndicate finds out...” The cloaked man fell silent.

“Then we really won’t have a single peaceful day again,” the purple-haired young man said with a sigh.

The stunning red-haired woman kept staring at Bailian, saying nothing.

At last, Bailian seemed to have exhausted his final trace of strength. His footing turned unsteady. Unable to stay upright, he dropped to one knee.

In that sheet of darkness, he couldn’t sense anything from the outside world. Like a deaf-mute, he could only support himself with the long spear in his hand.

Then, as if sensing something, he turned his head toward one direction.

Meryl lay there, her face bloodless, looking at him with a smile.

“Mer...yl...” Bailian’s voice was unbearably hoarse, as if he couldn’t even squeeze out the strength to speak.

Ming Yi lay nearby like a dead dog, able only to watch Bailian and Meryl with wide eyes. He couldn’t even move his body an inch.

Meryl looked at Bailian. Her arm moved slowly, turning toward him.

Bailian also raised his arm with a tremble and began crawling toward Meryl, inch by inch.

One meter.

Two meters.

Bailian dragged his body forward, leaving behind a winding, twisted trail of blood.

Just a few short meters.

Yet it felt as distant as the ends of the earth.

Just a few short meters.

Yet Bailian felt as though he could never reach her side, not even in several lifetimes.

A few meters away, Meryl smiled at him.

A few meters away, he could touch her hand.

A few meters.

At last, Bailian painfully crawled to Meryl’s side.

A twitching smile split open on his blood-smeared face.

He lifted his hand. Just a few centimeters more, and he could touch Meryl’s fingers—

Then his body shuddered, and his hand froze stiff in midair.

“No!” Ming Yi watched as the cloaked man drove a dagger viciously into Bailian’s heart. He desperately tried to shout, but all that came from his throat was a string of muffled groans.

The cloaked man pulled out the dagger and let out a cold snort. “Still this stubborn even after death? If you’d gone on your way sooner, you could’ve met your little lover sooner too.”

The light in Bailian’s eyes gradually dimmed.

His slightly raised arm, still carrying a trace of unwillingness, finally fell limp.

Those two hands, only centimeters apart, never managed to touch in the end.

—

—

Ming Yi had never been this angry before.

He was furious.

Like a child watching his favorite toy get smashed right in front of him.

He wanted to cry and make a scene. He wanted to throw a tantrum. He wanted to be unreasonable and make a mess of everything.

He wanted to use his tiny fists to beat the person who broke his toy.

He wanted to use stones from the roadside to smash the person who broke his toy.

He also wanted to hit the people who saw his toy being broken, yet did nothing, and even took pleasure in it.

He wanted to hurt someone.

At the same time, a question rose from the bottom of his heart.

A young child couldn’t understand it. Why were there people in this world who would smash his toy?

Why did this world allow such people to exist?

Why didn’t this world stop them?

Yeah.

This world really was strange.

—

—

Looking at the corpses of Bailian and Meryl, the red-haired woman frowned slightly, as if she disliked the sight. She waved over a few mercenaries and had them start cleaning up the battlefield.

The purple-haired young man stretched lazily and let out a satisfied groan. “Nnngh—hah... finally done. Killing two Class S really is a pain.”

“Next up, time to collect the spoils—” The purple-haired young man turned happily toward the White Bloodsource.

Then the grin on his face slowly froze.

Beside the White Bloodsource, Ming Yi’s body was standing in an extremely twisted posture.

His neck was bent at a perfect ninety-degree angle. It looked as if there were no bones in it at all. Both of his arms had rotated several full turns, and his joints no longer served their proper function. Instead, they connected several unrelated body parts like pivot points.

The bones in his legs were completely out of place. By all logic, he shouldn’t have been able to stand at all.

And yet he stood there perfectly steady, utterly motionless.

There was even a hair-raising smile on his face.

The others also noticed something was wrong and turned to look at Ming Yi with strange expressions. For a moment, they were all stunned by the bizarre scene.

“Wh-What... what is this?” the cloaked man asked, his voice full of shock.

“No idea. I’ve lived this many years, and I’ve never seen anyone stay alive like this,” the white-haired elder said, shaking his head.

“Alive?” The purple-haired young man looked at the elder strangely. “You call that alive?”

At that moment, Ming Yi, now like a walking corpse, suddenly spoke. The abrupt sound made everyone jump.

“I admit it. You’ve completely stirred my wrath.”

That voice didn’t sound human at all. It was like the mournful wail of a cold wind, yet also deep and hoarse, carrying the stiff dryness of something mechanical.

“Do you have a grudge against this world?”

“Do you hate this world that much?”

“Are you really so unwilling... to leave this world a way to live?”

With his head still crooked, Ming Yi’s lips pulled into a bizarre grin. It was so eerie it made everyone’s skin crawl.

“Hmph, enough with the cheap tricks!”

The white-haired elder was the first to lose patience. With a cold snort, he thrust out his palm and struck toward Ming Yi’s head, intending to smash it into pieces in one blow.

But after moving less than two steps, he came to a sudden stop and froze in place.

“Hm? Old man, what are you doing?” the purple-haired young man asked with a frown.

The white-haired elder couldn’t make a sound at all. His eyeballs bulged outward at an inhuman angle, and his face grew redder and redder, as if all his blood were rushing upward.

The next moment, his head exploded like a watermelon hit by a sniper round. Brain matter and blood splashed across the entire area like watermelon juice.

A nauseating stench of blood instantly filled the air. Everyone on the scene stood rooted to the spot.

“Fuck! Fuck!” That horrifying sight deeply shattered the remaining three. The purple-haired young man screamed wildly, “What the hell is going on?! What kind of monster is this?!”

They were all powerful S Class Corruptors, but the bizarre scene before them still scared them out of their wits.

Unable to suppress the fear in his heart, the cloaked man turned and ran in a panic.

But before he could get more than two steps away, his head became the next watermelon.

Bang.

Even without a head, the cloaked man’s body still lurched forward a few more steps from inertia before finally collapsing to the ground.

Like a toy broken by a child.