Five days after the release of the supernatural tiers.
As a window city to the world, Haicheng saw occasional appearances of Specters and Evil Spirits, but they were quickly eliminated by the newly dispatched Ghoul soldiers and supernatural agents from the Special Bureau.
At six in the evening, the sun had already set, and the crimson glow of the twilight dyed the surface of the sea.
On a busy street in Haicheng, the sound of an argument caused the surrounding crowd of commuters to turn their heads and look.
“President Ji, you can't do this! It's written in black and white in our contract! Why did you transfer all of the company's funds? How am I supposed to pay my employees!” a loud roar echoed down the street.
A middle-aged man was clutching the hand of a young man wearing a patterned suit. Behind the middle-aged man stood a young girl.
In this fast-paced metropolis, only a few people stopped to watch the scene.
The young man in the patterned suit wore an impatient expression. “Let go! I don't have time to waste on you. If you have a problem, go talk to my lawyer and sue me!”
“President Ji, if you don't return the money to me today, I won't let you leave! This money is a lifeline for the hundreds of people in my company...” The middle-aged man was cut off halfway when he saw the other party glaring at him with sudden, violent irritation.
Under the middle-aged man's gaze, the young man in the patterned suit reached into his coat and pulled out a revolver.
“Dad!” The girl behind him cried out in alarm.
Bang!
“Ugh...” The gunshot rang out. Clutching his neck, the middle-aged man stared at the young man in the patterned suit in disbelief.
He had never expected that the man would dare to open fire in broad daylight.
“So noisy and annoying. You really didn't do your homework before coming to demand money from me, did you?” the young man sneered as he looked down at the middle-aged man, who had collapsed onto the ground in a pool of blood.
“Dad!” The girl watched her father's face turn pale as his eyes lost focus. Overwhelmed with panic, she fell to her knees, desperately pressing her hands over the bullet wound.
“Murder! Call the inspectors, quick!”
“Someone call an ambulance!”
As the gunshot echoed, panic erupted on the street. Everyone scrambled to get away from the young man holding the revolver.
Hearing someone call for the inspectors, the young man scoffed disdainfully, “Hmph, you bunch of peasants, do you still think this is the old era? I'll stand right here, and I bet your precious inspectors won't even dare to touch me!”
His words were incredibly arrogant, and the surrounding crowd glared at him with fury.
Among them, a man in his thirties wearing a black suit, brown-rimmed glasses, and a neat side-part in his black hair stood quietly, observing the scene. He looked rather honest and unassuming.
Unlike the people around him, he showed no anger or panic, acting as if he were merely a spectator.
The crowd grew larger. Sure enough, just three minutes after the call, four or five patrolling inspectors rushed to the scene.
“Out of the way! Where is the killer?” Several inspectors pushed through the crowd with their pistols drawn.
When they saw the young man in the patterned suit holding the revolver, they raised their guns and aimed them at him. “Drop the gun, or we will open fire!”
Unfazed, the young man in the patterned suit calmly pulled out his phone and thrust it forward. “Hey, kid, you're shouting a bit too loud. You're even louder than your mayor!”
The leading inspector's expression shifted. He quickly took the phone, and an authoritative voice echoed from the speaker: “I am the Mayor of Haicheng, Zheng Jiu. President Ji is my guest. I expect you to handle this matter appropriately.”
Hearing a voice he usually only heard on television, a cold sweat broke out on the inspector's forehead. He bowed and scraped, saying, “Yes, sir! Since he is your guest, Mayor, he must have been attacked first and was only drawing his gun in self-defense!”
In this semi-feudal nation, the power of a mayor was sometimes terrifyingly immense.
The inspector respectfully handed the phone back. He then turned to the surrounding crowd and barked, “What are you all looking at? Disperse immediately! This was nothing more than a case of justified self-defense!”
At his signal, the other inspectors began pushing the crowd back.
Seeing them twist the truth so shamelessly, the kneeling girl panicked. She looked at the inspectors and cried out, “Why aren't you arresting him? There's a surveillance camera right there! He clearly shot and killed my father!”
Hearing this, the young man in the patterned suit sneered arrogantly. “Why? Because someone in my family is a supernatural being! Do you have any idea how few supernatural beings there are in the entire country? Times have changed. Even if I slaughtered your entire family in the middle of the street, the authorities would only fine us at most. They still need to hire my family to destroy Specters!”
Hearing his words, utter despair washed over the girl's face.
Times were changing rapidly, and supernatural beings had already become the new aristocracy of this era.
Their power stemmed from their own strength. The privileges they enjoyed in the Nanming Kingdom—and indeed, across the entire world—were far more terrifying than those of the old nobility.
Seeing the girl's despair, the young man in the patterned suit became even more arrogant. Once the onlookers heard that his family member was a supernatural being, their grumbling ceased. Fearing the consequences, they quickly hurried away.
Right at that moment, the young man in the patterned suit suddenly raised his revolver and pointed it at his own chin.
Bang!
The gun went off. The bullet entered through his chin and blew off the top of his skull.
Thud!
The young man's corpse collapsed to the ground. The girl, the inspectors, and the remaining onlookers were all frozen in shock by this sudden turn of events.
Within the crowd, the honest-looking man with the brown-rimmed glasses turned and walked away.
Under the rays of the setting sun, his glasses reflected the light, concealing his eyes from view.
As he walked, a voice devoid of any emotional fluctuation echoed in his mind: “I really didn't expect you to be so warm-hearted, to actually care about the lives of these ants.”
“Warm-hearted? I just couldn't stand him acting more arrogant than me,” the man replied, a slight smirk playing on his lips.
“You are a special ant. You possess the same abilities as I do, and you are the person I have been looking for,” the voice in his mind continued.
The man's expression remained unchanged. “If you want me to work for you, what kind of terms can you offer?”
The voice in his mind replied, “Become the Supreme Pontiff of the Church of the Earth Mother, and I can raise your strength to the absolute peak of this world.”
Listening to the Earth Mother, Yuan Zuozhi replied casually, “Deal. However, I don't want my mind to be controlled. After all, if anything enters my brain, it will interfere with my thinking, which would hinder the expansion of the Church of the Earth Mother.”
His ability lay in consciousness, while the Earth Mother commanded both flesh and consciousness. It was likely because they shared similar abilities that he had caught her attention.
“Very well. But to become the Supreme Pontiff, your flesh must accept my blessing!” the Earth Mother said calmly.
If outsiders were to learn that an exalted deity was bargaining with an obscure nobody, they would surely be shocked beyond belief.
Hearing this, a strange light flickered in Yuan Zuozhi's eyes behind his glasses. The Earth Mother was clearly trying to control his physical body.
Since he possessed consciousness-based abilities, even the Earth Mother could not forcibly control him.
Even if he were to be controlled, he could automatically cleanse any imprint left in his mind.
“Fair enough. This is the position of the Supreme Pontiff, after all. How could I expect to obtain it so easily without paying some price?” Yuan Zuozhi said, a smile spreading across his face.
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