The night wind, thick with the scent of blood, poured into the alleyway.
Luo Yang moved at high speed through the ruins, the crushed bricks crunching beneath his feet.
He didn't look back; his mental power, woven into a vast web, had already firmly locked onto the positions of that group of Heterosequences.
Seventeen in total.
The auras of sixteen among them were familiar to him. Dark rank, Gray rank, and even a few defective ones that didn't even have a rank.
After his breakthrough to Clear Heart Level 3, Heterosequences of this level no longer posed any threat.
What truly made him feel a hint of danger was the one walking in the very center.
That thing's energy fluctuations were suppressed extremely well.
So well that if he hadn't just broken through, causing his mental power's coverage and precision to increase by a whole dimension, it might have even been able to slip past him.
But precisely because his perception was no longer what it used to be, that energy—wrapped in layers of disguise and as thick and blazing as magma—seemed all the more startling.
Underworld rank.
The sheer solidity of that energy and its presence, which felt even more monstrous because it was suppressed to the extreme, caused a rather unpleasant thought to surface in Luo Yang's mind.
This thing was likely even a notch stronger than the Underworld rank Heterosequence he had held off for forty minutes in the northern suburbs.
His footsteps stopped in the center of the first-floor lobby of an abandoned shopping mall.
The shattered glass curtain wall reflected the fires of the distant battlefield, casting the entire space into a flickering play of light and shadow.
Luo Yang turned around to face the direction from which the group of Heterosequences was approaching. His right hand gripped the hilt of Night Owl-Slash, and the deep blue blade slid silently from its sheath.
“A-Zhi, stay right there.”
He kept his back to the darkness behind him, his voice as calm as if he were discussing what to have for a meal later.
“I'm going to receive some guests.”
Standing at the mall entrance, Yan Zhi held her now lukewarm cola with both hands, her pitch-black eyes reflecting Luo Yang's receding back.
She didn't speak, merely nodding obediently before lowering her head to take a small sip of her drink.
She still loved the feeling of the bubbles bursting on the tip of her tongue.
When the first wave of Heterosequences surged out from the darkness, Luo Yang didn't use Weapon's End, Ember's Birth.
He simply gripped Night Owl, channeled his blood energy into it, and took a step forward.
A deep blue arc of light sliced through the dim hall. The Dark rank Heterosequence charging at the very front didn't even see the trajectory of the blade before its torso was split open at the waist.
Black energy-state blood sprayed out, turning into wisps of black mist the moment it touched the ground.
Night Owl-Slash was a fourth-tier weapon, after all. After Luo Yang's breakthrough to Clear Heart Level 3, even without activating Weapon's End, Ember's Birth, the blade could easily slice through the energy structure of a Dark rank Heterosequence using only his own blood energy infusion.
The second, the third, the fourth...
Luo Yang's pace wasn't fast. He was like someone taking a stroll in his own yard; with every step he took, his blade would cut into a Heterosequence's body.
The energy defenses of those low-level Heterosequences were as thin as paper under his blade. The sensation of the edge cutting through their bodies was even less effort than slicing through a piece of frozen beef.
In less than two minutes, all sixteen low-level Heterosequences had dissolved into drifting black mist.
Luo Yang flicked the viscous black liquid energy from his blade and looked up at the final one remaining.
It stepped out from the darkness.
It was a humanoid Heterosequence, roughly the same height as an average adult male.
Its face retained the contours of human features, but its skin was an unnatural grayish-white, like a corpse soaked in formalin.
There were no eyeballs in its sockets, only two swirls of dark purple light.
The most unsettling thing was its expression.
It was actually smiling.
“Absolutely magnificent.”
It spoke. Its voice was as raspy as nails scraping against sandpaper, but its enunciation was clear, and its tone was no different from a normal human's.
“I have wandered this city for so long, yet this is the first time I have seen a Punisher who can slice through Heterosequences like vegetables. Young man, what is your name?”
Luo Yang didn't answer. He held his sword, calmly observing the Underworld rank Heterosequence before him.
“Your strength is at least at the peak of Clear Heart, and you might even have touched the threshold of Path Illumination.”
The Heterosequence didn't mind his silence, continuing to speak to itself. “For someone your age to have such strength, there isn't a second like you in the entire Jiangnan Province.”
“So, I am sincerely requesting of you—”
It bowed slightly, actually making a polite gesture used in human social settings.
“Please let me pass. I didn't come here tonight for battle, nor for slaughter.”
“I simply want to go to the rear and see if there are any suitable Punishers who can be made into my own kind.”
Luo Yang's gaze suddenly sharpened at that moment.
Made into its kind?
“You mean you want to directly transform living Punishers into Heterosequences?”
His voice remained steady, but his fingers tightened slightly on his sword.
The Underworld rank Heterosequence straightened up, the smile on its grayish-white face deepening.
Instead of answering directly, it reached out its right hand.
Before Luo Yang's eyes, that hand slowly deformed, the five fingers merging together.
Dense dark purple patterns surfaced on the skin until the entire hand transformed into a bony, strangely shaped blade.
“If you don't make way, I will have to communicate with you in another manner.”
There was a hint of regret in its voice. “To be honest, I don't want to do this. It would be a pity for a genius like you to die here. But if you insist on blocking me—”
The tip of the bone blade pointed at Luo Yang's throat.
“Then I can only turn you into my proudest masterpiece.”
Luo Yang looked at the bone blade, and the corners of his mouth suddenly curved upward.
It had used the word “masterpiece.”
Interesting. Very interesting.
An Underworld rank Heterosequence that not only possessed complete rationality and language skills but even had some sort of twisted aesthetic.
It seemed to treat the act of transforming others into Heterosequences as a form of creation.
More importantly, its very existence was a challenge to all human knowledge of Heterosequences to date.
Heterosequences were formed from the twisted mutations of fallen Punishers—this was knowledge written in textbooks, a fact accepted in the human world for centuries.
But the thing in front of him actually claimed to be able to directly transform living Punishers into Heterosequences.
If this was true, it meant that certain Heterosequences had evolved abilities sufficient to overturn the existing power structure.
“Let me ask you something.”
Luo Yang rested Night Owl-Slash on his shoulder, his tone casual, as if he were asking for directions.
“Is this 'making' something only you can do, or can all of you do it?”
A flash of amusement crossed the purple glowing eyes of the Underworld rank Heterosequence.
“You've asked a very good question,” it said. “But I'm afraid that question requires your life in exchange for an answer.”
Before it could finish speaking, a hand reached out from behind Luo Yang.
That hand was fair and slender, its fingertips carrying a hint of chill as it gently poked Luo Yang's lower back.
Luo Yang looked down.
Yan Zhi had walked up behind him at some point. She looked up, her gaze passing over his arm to stare directly at the Underworld rank Heterosequence opposite them.
Her expression was flat, showing neither fear nor curiosity. It was as if she were looking at a piece of merchandise in a window that didn't particularly interest her.
Then she spoke, her voice light and airy.
“If I eat this thing, will it cause you any trouble?”
Luo Yang's sword nearly slipped from his shoulder.
The smile on the face of the Underworld rank Heterosequence opposite them finally froze.
Rate on N.U.
