The Cleanup

With the Curse Master's departure, the black imprisonment cage he had set up began to collapse rapidly.

The Arsonist's flames had been unable to burn through it before, but now, with a light touch, it crackled and dissolved into wisps of black smoke, vanishing into nothingness.

The Arsonist was stunned for a moment. Feeling the sudden lightness around him, his flame-formed body swayed slightly as he regained his freedom.

The look he directed at Yue Shi was incredibly complex.

There was relief, but also shock at how easily Yue Shi had dealt with the Curse Master.

But more than anything, it was a deep sense of wariness.

This "peer's" strength and methods were far more terrifying than he had imagined, making him impossible to fathom.

Yue Shi paid no attention to the Arsonist. His focus was entirely drawn to the two dark red beads in his hand.

In the Insight vision, information about these two beads emerged.

【Record Bead: "Engraving"】: Capable of recording specific phenomena, states, concepts, rules, and the reality-distortion models generated when a power user exercises their abilities.

Recording has a failure rate. The more powerful the target or the higher the level of rules involved, the higher the failure rate. Conversely, the stronger the user, the higher the probability of a successful recording.

Only three records can exist at most simultaneously. When a new record is made, it irreversibly overwrites the oldest one.

【Replication Bead: "Reflection"】: Capable of perfectly replicating the content recorded in the Record Bead: "Engraving," allowing it to manifest in reality.

This was how the hunched-back old man had escaped Yue Shi's hands several times.

The old man had recorded his healthy physical state in the bead, and every time he was injured, he would immediately refresh it. As long as his health bar wasn't emptied in a single blow, he could instantly return to full health.

At the same time, he had recorded a powerful defensive supernatural power, making it difficult to kill him instantly.

The final record was the Curse Aggregate's "place of birth."

This was an abstract concept, functioning like an anchor point where the Curse Master could only appear.

Originally, there was only one anchor point.

However, the Replication Bead could create an identical fake anchor point in another location, allowing the Curse Master to leave his original place of birth.

It was unclear what agreement the old man had reached with the Curse Master to make the latter obey his commands. However, just now, the Curse Master seemed to have not given his all.

"This old geezer is a lab executive; he must know a lot of internal intelligence," Ghost reminded in a low voice, having re-possessed the teddy bear and walked to Yue Shi's side.

Hearing this, Yue Shi turned his gaze toward the hunched-back old man on the ground, who was hanging on by a thread.

The man was dying from excessive blood loss and extreme pain.

Yue Shi walked over and gave him a light kick.

"Speak. Where are the lab's other hidden bases? Who are the core figures of the Glory Association and the Su family? Where is your headquarters?"

A wheezing sound came from the old man's throat. His face was ashen, his eyes vacant, and he couldn't even form a complete sentence; he was about to croak.

Yue Shi frowned. The bead in his hand flashed, refreshing the old man's physical state.

The old man was instantly restored to his original state. There wasn't even a healing process; it was like using a brand-new file of the same name to replace corrupted data.

Yue Shi looked at the severed arm he had tossed aside, then at the old man's restored arm, falling into deep thought.

Two identical leaves?

The old man sat up, panting heavily, a strong desire for survival erupting in his eyes.

He looked at Yue Shi and spoke without hesitation, "What do you want to know? I can tell you everything!"

"I know many secrets of several supernatural families in Jinlong Continent, and I know a lot of the Investigation Bureau's internal filth. As long as you're willing to spare my life, I'll tell you all of it."

He believed he had offered a heavy enough bargaining chip.

"Then you might as well die," Yue Shi said coldly.

The words had barely fallen.

With a squelch.

The old man's newly restored arm was torn off once again.

Next, his leg bones were crushed, and his ribs were broken.

"Aaaagh!" He let out a scream even more shrill than before as his newly refreshed body plunged back into extreme agony.

Subsequently, the old man received the same torture package as Su Yuanhe.

"No, stop! I can tell you who the president of the Glory Association is!"

"I know where the Su family's ancestral land is!"

"Spare me, I'll be your dog!"

"I'll help you deal with them..."

In his torment, the old man kept throwing out one seemingly major secret after another, trying to move Yue Shi just to secure a slim chance of survival.

But Yue Shi didn't listen at all; he was completely uninterested in those so-called secrets.

Restoring the old man's physical state just now was merely to test the bead's ability and, incidentally, to torture this old geezer a bit more.

In Yue Shi's simple and crude logic, as long as he killed everyone, uprooted all opposing forces, and let the world head toward destruction, those hidden secrets would naturally lose their meaning.

He didn't need negotiations or intelligence; he only needed total destruction.

Unfortunately, the old man's physical constitution was not as resilient as Su Yuanhe's.

The torture was only halfway through—before the live skinning had even begun—when the old man's wails gradually weakened. The light left his eyes, his body twitched a few times, and he died for good.

Before dying, a final, indistinct sentence escaped his throat, filled with endless resentment and obsession: "I can't die, I haven't yet..."

With his death, no one would ever know the dark and heavy secrets deep within his heart.

In truth, he was the last survivor of an ancient elite family from over thirty years ago.

Back then, Black Guanyin had launched a bloody purge of the elite families, performing indiscriminate curse-killings based on bloodline and surname.

Because he was a fake young master swapped by a nanny and had changed his surname in time, he had luckily escaped the disaster.

Over the years, he had been hiding in the shadows like a venomous snake, using the meager knowledge and remnant resources passed down from a true elite family to develop secretly and collude with the newly rising supernatural families.

Everything he did was for the day he could take revenge on Black Guanyin, reclaim the glory that should have been his, and even let the elite families rise again in another form.

Unfortunately, all these ambitions and schemes vanished into nothingness with Yue Shi's brutality.

Until his death, he hadn't even scratched a single hair on Black Guanyin's head.

After torturing the old man to death, Yue Shi didn't pay much attention to the Arsonist, treating him as if he were air.

Yue Shi began the final clearing out and looting.

The goal was clear: kill every single surviving lab employee, leaving none behind. Take all valuable items and information.

Especially that guy who was like a phantom—he had to be hunted down and killed.

The lights flickered as Yue Shi moved around Lab 0 with Ghost.

"Clack, clack, clack."

Yue Shi made rhythmic footsteps that were exceptionally clear in the silence.

Every time he found a place where survivors were hiding, he would walk back and forth, slowly approaching.

He did this intentionally.

To psychologically terrorize every person still alive.

The sound of footsteps was the death knell, using invisible fear to break the survivors' nerves.

Soon, intermittent, suppressed sobbing came from the ruins and dilapidated rooms.

Ghost followed closely at Yue Shi's side, the cute teddy bear clutching a bloody short sword, itching to rush in and shout, "Here's Johnny!"

Just then, from a pile of twisted equipment wreckage beside them, a lab employee in a tattered white coat and a blood-stained face struggled to crawl out.

He had injured his leg and had difficulty moving.

When he lifted his eyes and saw Yue Shi within arm's reach, his survival instinct made him make a wrong decision.

With a roar, he reached for the sidearm at his waist.

But just as he moved...

A pitch-black raven pounced from the shadows, its sharp talons slashing across the employee's neck.

Squelch.

The carotid artery was severed, and blood surged out.

The employee fruitlessly clutched his neck, his eyes bulging as his body slumped down, dying with his eyes wide open.

Throughout the process, Yue Shi looked straight ahead, his footsteps never pausing for a second, as if he had merely swatted a buzzing fly.

He continued toward the depths of the corridor, searching for the next target.

"Die!"

Not far from Yue Shi, another pile of debris exploded.

A middle-aged man in a well-tailored suit, looking like some department supervisor, ran toward Yue Shi in a state of madness.

He had no weapon in his hand; perhaps he had gone crazy and wanted to fight hand-to-hand?

But he couldn't even get within five meters of Yue Shi.

Ghost drifted out of the teddy bear and slammed straight into him.

Biological Possession.

The sprinting department supervisor's body stiffened, and his eyes cleared.

Then, under Ghost's control, he bent down and picked up a handgun dropped by some security personnel.

He raised his hand and aimed at a spot nearby.

Bang, bang!

Two precise shots.

Two other employees who had just struggled to crawl out of the ruins were headshot before they could even realize what was happening.

Bang, bang.

Ghost, controlling the supervisor's body, continued to fire with a cold expression.

As long as there were people still alive nearby, whether they tried to crawl up or hide, whether they wanted to resist or beg for mercy, they were cleared out indiscriminately.

A moment later, the surroundings fell silent.

Ghost released the possession and returned to the teddy bear's body.

The possessed supervisor's body went limp as he regained consciousness.

He looked blankly at the smoking gun in his hand.

Then he looked around at his colleagues' bodies littering the ground.

Blood was everywhere; ruins were everywhere.

A massive sense of despair overwhelmed him.

With a thud, he fell to his knees, his hands clutching his hair as he let out a heart-wrenching roar.

"Aaaaagh!!!"

"How dare you! How dare you destroy this place! Do you have any idea what this place means? It's over! Everything is over!"

Yue Shi stopped, slowly turned around, and looked down at the collapsing supervisor, asking in return, "What are you howling for? You sound like a pig. Is this some kind of wonderful place? Why shouldn't it be destroyed?"

His tone was as cold as could be, the scumbag vibes practically radiating off him.

The supervisor looked up, his eyes bloodshot, glaring at Yue Shi as he roared in anger, "You don't understand at all! How much effort and how many resources went into the research here! The results here were the hope for dealing with future supernatural crises! Everything, everything has been destroyed by you..."

"Too many words."

Yue Shi didn't wait for him to finish, casually delivering a kick.

A massive force slammed into the supervisor's chest.

Crack. The sound of a shattering sternum was clearly audible.

The supervisor's voice cut off abruptly as his body flew backward, slamming into the wall behind him. By the time he slid down, he was already dead.

At this moment, Yue Shi thought of something and looked at Ghost beside him. "By the way, did you record a lot of exciting videos just now?"

Ghost nodded. "I recorded quite a few, all in HD. From Su Yuanhe to that old guy just now, I didn't miss a single one. What do you want to do?"

A malicious curve formed on Yue Shi's lips. "Post them. Post them on the Supernatural Forum."

"I want everyone to see what a pathetic spectacle the executives of Lab 0 make of themselves in the face of death."

"Good idea. Killing the man and crushing his soul—I like it!" A hint of excitement crept into Ghost's voice.

He immediately began editing the videos meticulously.

However, while editing, he didn't feel so excited anymore, only saying wistfully, "With such cruel torture, I really don't know how I endured it back then. My appearance then must have been quite hideous too."

Yue Shi rare spoke like a human, offering comfort. "It's normal for humans to show a hideous and pathetic side when being tortured; no one is an exception."

He would also grit his teeth in pain; no matter how handsome a face was, it was useless then.

Fortunately, his consciousness could retreat to the mysterious space to escape the pain. But when he returned, he would have to face a body riddled with holes.

Even if it wasn't his own body, it was still quite distressing.

Ghost moved quickly, having already edited the video and even drafted a text description. He clearly introduced the origin of Lab 0, its secret collusion with the Su family and the Glory Association, and pointed out Su Yuanhe's identity.

Then, he changed his nickname on the forum from "Legal Vanguard" to "Avenger."

He uploaded the HD video of Su Yuanhe being tortured on the electric chair, screaming and devoid of any dignity, along with the subsequent brutal skinning, as an attachment to the Supernatural Forum.

He casually gave it a title: 【Shocking! Exposing the Illegal Human Experimentation Den, Lab 0! Watch Chief Su Being Tortured Online!】

"Done," Ghost clapped his hands.

"The content is very explosive and bloody; it should attract quite a few creeps or people with special interests. However, given the frequency of new posts on the Supernatural Forum, it's unlikely to gain widespread attention with just one video."

Yue Shi glanced at Ghost. "Why do I feel like you're throwing shade at me?"

"How could I!" Ghost cried out in protest.

He immediately changed the subject, asking Yue Shi, "Lab 0 has been destroyed to this extent, so your revenge is mostly complete. What do you plan to do next? You're not thinking of just killing your way through and taking out everyone involved, are you?"

Yue Shi took it as a matter of course. "Yeah, that's exactly what I'm thinking. I must exterminate all ten generations of them. Only then is it fair, and only then does it do justice to the suffering I've endured."

"Eeeh~, you have the nerve to use the word 'fair.'" Ghost scoffed.

Yue Shi simply explained his logic calmly:

"If someone stabs me once and I stab them back once, that's not called fair. Because at the very beginning, I had no intention of hurting anyone, yet I was persecuted for no reason."

"So I will make them feel a billion times the pain I felt. That is true 'fairness.'"

Ghost: "..." Why did that set of twisted logic sound so right?