Chapter 13 | Embers of the Past

Inside the room, Yu Jin's pleasant surprise formed a sharp contrast with Xiao Jie's gloomy expression.

It was obvious that this time, the real Special Response Squad had arrived.

It wasn't that Yu Jin hadn't learned his lesson and harbored no doubts about the newcomers' identities, but rather that there was simply no way to doubt them.

After all, Mrs. Xia—the only one capable of disguising herself as a Bureau agent—was currently being dragged backward across the floor like a corpse by one of the squad members. Her face was pale, her eyes were tightly closed, and she looked as though she was on the verge of death.

The squad member looked at Xiao Jie on the bed and pointed at Mrs. Xia with a chuckle.

“Your esteemed mother is quite young at heart. How does she still love falling asleep just about anywhere?”

Xiao Jie clenched his fists tightly, burning with rage.

“You deserve to die! All of you deserve to die!

But the one who deserves to die the most is you!!!”

He stared at Yu Jin, the hatred in his eyes so thick it was almost palpable.

“If it weren't for you, I would have easily deceived them when they arrived. Once I tricked and killed them, I would have become a true Disciple of Eternal Night!

You ruined everything for me! You defiled my devotion!

I want you dead!!!”

Before his voice even faded, a dark shadow materialized behind Yu Jin.

Yu Jin only felt a rushing gust of wind behind his head. Before he could react, a pale white bone blade had already pierced through his skull.

Literally pierced.

Because the moment the bone blade pierced the skin of Yu Jin's scalp, a splashing drop of fresh blood spread like wildfire, dyeing his hair red. His head violently shattered into countless pieces. In the exact same manner Mrs. Xia had used before, his flesh formed a hollow ring, acting as a bullseye for the bone blade's sneak attack.

The bone blade passed right through the ring without causing any damage. But when it tried to retract, it was tightly clamped down by countless tentacles, completely unable to budge.

As the saying goes, "paying someone back in their own coin." Perhaps even Xia Jie had never imagined that the universal truth of "only Mommy can beat Daddy, and Daddy cannot beat Mommy" would play out before his eyes in this exact manner.

Seeing this scene, the nearby members of the Special Response Squad were so shocked they fell to their knees.

It was no exaggeration; they literally knelt.

Only a man in a white trench coat and glasses remained standing. He pushed up his reflective glasses, bit through two of his fingers, and then, using his finger as a brush and blood as ink, drew a vertical line across his lips before shouting aloud.

“Kneel!”

The moment the syllable was uttered, Yu Jin felt an invisible, colossal force dragging his knees down, slamming them toward the floor.

With a loud thud, he slammed to his knees.

Not only Yu Jin, but Xiao Jie and Father Xia were not spared either.

The sound of knees hitting the floor and hitting the bedboards echoed simultaneously. Both of them were hard-stunned by this sudden turn of events for a brief second.

The other members of the Special Response Squad, who had already been kneeling, were completely unaffected. As if they had rehearsed this countless times, they seized the opportunity, shuffling forward on their knees and lunging toward Father Xia and Xiao Jie. In a matter of seconds, they bound the two of them tightly.

The entire process was smooth and seamless, leaving Yu Jin utterly dumbfounded.

This actually works?

It worked incredibly well, but things obviously wouldn't be that simple.

With his bone blades locked down, Father Xia's eyes bulged with rage, and he couldn't break free. However, the instant he saw his child tied up, his entire body turned bright red and literally split open—physically, that is.

Countless bone blades burst out like a nest of nesting pythons, shredding the ropes binding him, before transforming into flying arrows that shot toward all the surrounding enemies.

The half-dead Mrs. Xia also violently snapped open her crimson, bloodshot eyes. The tentacles covering her face began to boil, wrapping and biting toward the nearest person.

In a single second, the scene spiraled completely out of control, falling into absolute chaos.

Xia Jie took advantage of the chaos to slam his palm on the bedboard, instantly swapping places with his mother, who was in the most advantageous position. Without another word, he ducked his head and sprinted toward the door.

As long as the green mountains remain, one need not worry about firewood; he understood the principle of living to fight another day.

Unfortunately, there was someone on the scene who understood it even better than he did.

The man in the white trench coat glanced at the weak, running figure rushing toward the door and spoke coldly.

“I won't let you escape a second time.”

Saying that, he once again smeared blood across his lips and bellowed in a loud voice.

“Bow!”

“Thud, thud, thud, thud, thud!”

This command came so suddenly that even the members of the Special Response Squad weren't prepared for it.

An irresistible, gargantuan force dragged everyone's knees, elbows, wrists, and foreheads down to the floor. For a moment, the sound of kowtowing echoed endlessly.

Kneeling on the ground, Xiao Jie felt endless humiliation—not because of the kneeling, but because a foot was stepping on his head.

It was the man in the white trench coat.

He acted with absolute decisiveness, offering no idle words. He simply pulled out his gun, aimed it at Xiao Jie's head, and pulled the trigger.

Bang!

The moment fire flashed from the muzzle, Mrs. Xia's head once again shattered into countless fragments.

That's right, Xiao Jie had swapped again.

The bullet deflected off the floor, severing a few tentacles, but it wasn't fatal.

Mrs. Xia let out a wail as countless tentacles wriggled, wrapping toward the man in the white trench coat.

The man in the white trench coat took a step back, grabbed his pineapple-haired teammate from the floor, and pulled him in front of himself as a shield.

The pineapple-haired man rolled his eyes. Instead of dodging, he met the attack head-on, stepping wide open toward Mrs. Xia.

A single one of those terrifying tentacles that could clash with bone blades was enough to pierce a human heart. Yet, strangely enough, before the tentacles could even touch the pineapple-haired man, they all simultaneously shrank back and reversed direction, looking as bizarre as if he were their actual master.

Seeing this, even Mrs. Xia was stunned, but the pineapple-haired man acted as though it was completely normal and spoke.

“The debtor is always the boss.

Since I borrowed your things, if you want me to return them, you'd better pray I don't die.”

He held out his hand, which was holding a pair of fake eyelashes he had plucked from Mrs. Xia's face at some point, and casually pasted them onto his own upper eyelid with a grin.

Mrs. Xia froze in a daze. The pineapple-haired man strolled casually over to her, helped brush aside the hair-like tentacles, and pulled out a small paring knife with a smirk.

“Immune to headshot damage, are we?

Then how about we try the neck?”

With that, he slit Mrs. Xia's throat.

Blood sprayed everywhere, and Mrs. Xia closed her eyes in despair.

“No! My toys!!!”

Xiao Jie roared in fury, but Father Xia's anguish was even more agonizing.

He leaped from the corner, the bone blades protruding from his body striking down like a rain of whips. Everything in the bedroom was sliced with fine cracks by the sharp edges. Everyone leaned on each other to mount a collective defense, but he actually managed to force open a path through them all on his own.

Father Xia's sorrowful and indignant gaze swept over Mrs. Xia's corpse. He wanted to approach her, but abruptly turned his head toward the bed instead. Sweeping his bone blades to push back the nearby Special Response Squad members, he scooped up Xiao Jie and dashed toward the window.

Seeing that they were about to escape and the Special Response Squad was positioned too far back, Yu Jin clicked his tongue in irritation. The tentacles on his face split open, catching two bone blades slashing from his left and right. With a flick of his right hand, he flung his own bone blade toward Father Xia's back.

The bone blade whistled through the air, tangling with the retracting bone blades on Father Xia's back.

Yu Jin didn't try to control the blades to inflict damage. Instead, his bone blades threaded and knotted through the dozen or so blades, quickly tying his bone blades and Father Xia's bone blades together.

With Yu Jin acting as a deadweight anchor, Father Xia's forward momentum was jerked backward, preventing him from instantly escaping everyone's line of sight.

Seizing the opportunity, the man in the white trench coat raised his hand again. Yu Jin was sharp-eyed; the moment he caught the movement, his pupils dilated, and he proactively dropped to his knees.

He had to kneel. Being commanded to kneel was far too painful; his knees and forehead were still burning from earlier.

The pain was one thing, but the main issue was how embarrassing it was.

Forcing yourself to kneel just because someone else told you to was too undignified; kneeling proactively on his own terms made it slightly easier to accept.

However, to Yu Jin's surprise, the man in the white trench coat didn't utter another command. Instead, he simply raised his pistol and fired repeatedly at Father Xia.

Bang bang bang bang!

“...”

Yu Jin felt that every shot the man in the white trench coat fired wasn't hitting Father Xia's back, but rather slapping his own face.

Slapping his face until it was as red as his hair.

He wanted to stand back up quietly, but the pineapple-haired man behind him patted his shoulder and began praising him.

“Impessive. You mastered the Fire Mantra technique so quickly.”

With a dark expression, Yu Jin turned his head around, only to find that the pineapple-haired man was also kneeling on the ground while talking to him.

Evidently, both of them had the exact same idea.

In fact, it wasn't just the two of them; the rest of the Special Response Squad members were also kneeling on the ground.

Everyone exchanged glances. When they realized the man in the white trench coat hadn't issued a command but had simply fired his gun, they glared at him with eyes that looked as though they were staring at a second Xia Jie.