The Puppet Butler escorted Black Panther away from this tranquil place shrouded in blizzard, presenting him with a scarf. He bowed once, then turned and vanished into the wind and snow.
Black Panther glanced back at the castle. The biting cold wind, carrying large snowflakes, obscured his view. The gloomy sky grew darker and darker, making the warm, bright golden light streaming from every window of the castle stand out even more. As he was leaving, Qishenggu invited him to stay the night and wait until the blizzard had subsided before departing, but he refused with a cold expression.
That woman was not the hospitable type at all; after being refused once, she made no further attempt to persuade him to stay. She was completely different from the Reptile and Domino he had met at the Shaojin Mansion—those two little rascals had been so enthusiastic and clingy, dragging and tugging him into the house, inviting him to stay over again and again.
Looking back, Black Panther still stubbornly believed he had agreed to stay only because he couldn’t refuse such a warm invitation. However, ever since the attack on the Shaojin Mansion, he had only kept a watchful eye on those two little ones from the shadows. He knew they were living comfortably at the IOA, but he hadn’t been in touch much.
The blizzard showed no signs of letting up, and the temperature kept dropping. Black Panther put on the scarf the Puppet Butler had given him, and his frozen body warmed up a little.
Before nightfall, Black Panther quickened his pace through the deepening snow toward his helicopter. Fortunately, he had a strong sense of direction and good eyesight, so at least he wouldn’t get lost in the storm.
The snow grew deeper and deeper; with every step, he sank deep into the drifts, having to pull himself out with all his strength just to take the next step. A journey that should have taken an hour took him three. Thanks to the puppet master’s help in stitching up the wound on his shoulder, it had mostly healed, but he still had several severe bone fractures and internal injuries. Lan Bo had indeed been ruthless; if he’d been just a little faster, he probably would have torn him alive and devoured him whole.
For now, he had no choice but to return to that man. Only with the healing power of a familiar could his injuries be mended as quickly as possible.
He wandered through the snow for a while, his brow furrowing deeper and deeper. The leeward slope where he’d parked the helicopter was deserted; the helicopter itself was nowhere to be found.
This place was rarely visited by humans; the likelihood of someone stowing away was slim. Even if someone had, without exceptional piloting skills, flying a helicopter in such weather would be tantamount to suicide.
Black Panther scanned his surroundings. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed light refracting and bending on the leeward slope; the air in that spot seemed unnaturally different from the rocks behind it.
A sharp, cold gleam flashed in Black Panther’s eyes, and an oppressive aura emanated from his body.
The unnatural, translucent figure suddenly plopped down into the snow, clasped its hands together, and knelt on the ground facing Black Panther. Controlled by Black Panther’s J1 ability, “Fallen Conversion,” it could only remain motionless in this worshipful posture, its true form materializing from its transparent state.
After it fell, the missing helicopter reappeared.
“Test Subject 814, the Ethereal Lionfish. I heard it was destroyed because it was useless, but apparently not.” Black Panther shook his head, unwilling to pay attention to the pranks of such a low-level test subject. He walked around the ω, who sat silently on the ground, and headed toward his helicopter.
But as he brushed past the Ethereal Lionfish, Black Panther paused, seemingly sensing no life force at all. He glanced back; the Omega kneeling on the ground was composed entirely of black, white, and gray.
He looked just like a three-dimensional death portrait.
“……” Black Panther felt a vague sense of unease. He quickened his pace to the helicopter; just as his right hand touched the handle, he was suddenly jolted by a wave of murderous intent sweeping toward him. He had been walking in the snow for too long. Although his senses remained sharp as a feline test subject, his limbs had grown numb from the extreme cold. Combined with the near-death experience at Lan Bo’s hands earlier, the severe pain had slowed his reactions.
A cold gleam flashed by, and the Black Panther darted aside to avoid it, but the blade was too fast. As Bo Li’s icy blade slashed down, the Black Panther felt a dull, numbing pain in his right hand; three fingers and half his palm were severed.
The half-palm, still adorned with a sapphire ring, fell at his feet. Gushing blood instantly stained the white snow red, rising in a wisp of warm steam before freezing solid in the bitter cold.
Black Panther clenched his teeth to endure the excruciating pain in his right hand and glared coldly ahead, only then clearly seeing the figure before him—
Test Subject 2316, “Jack the Ripper,” a mantis-type test subject whose arms, starting from the forearms, were entirely composed of two sharp folding daggers.
Yet he bore little resemblance to the image in Black Panther’s memory. Black Panther had once seen Jack the Ripper in the reptilian test subject database; that was a fLan Boyant creature with emerald-green hair and bright red eyes, whereas the one before him was only shades of gray and white.
“I remember you were killed by Eris at the Red Fox City breeding base. Why are you still alive?” ” Black Panther’s severed right hand rapidly regenerated, growing from the bone outward as flesh and tendons gradually enveloped the skeleton. His eyes glowed gold, and his pupils narrowed into cold, slender lines.
The Mantis test subject stared at him with lifeless eyes, showing no expression and offering no reply.
Black Panther suddenly sensed a faint disturbance in the wind and snow behind him. Beneath the thick blanket of snow, more than a dozen test subjects slowly pushed aside the covering snow and crawled silently out of the ground. Each test subject was a pale gray, blending indistinctly with the swirling snow, making one wonder if their eyes had lost the ability to distinguish color.
Black Panther finally realized the gravity of the situation. He had no time for further futile combat. He picked up the frozen, severed hand that had fallen to the ground, dodged the mantis test subject’s twin blades, grabbed the handle, and pulled himself into the helicopter, starting it up immediately.
The rotors began to spin, emitting a deafening roar and churning air currents. The gray test subjects crawling out of the snow converged on the helicopter in droves. Their numbers swelled from a dozen to several dozen, then to over a hundred. Each pair of eyes held nothing but a lifeless, cold indifference, devoid of any sign of vitality.
Black Panther shot them a cold glance, pressed his index finger to his lips, and made a shushing gesture.
In an instant, the test subjects surrounding the helicopter—starting with the one closest to him—began to clasp their hands together one after another. Pressed down by an invisible force, they knelt, and the entire encircling group gradually knelt from the inside out, hands clasped, as if performing some eerie ritual of worship.
Demon Envoy J1’s ability, “Fallen Conversion,” was a silence-type ability—a movement-restricting effect that forced the targets to remain in a prostrate posture, unable to move.
The helicopter took off amidst the blizzard, swaying from side to side as it was buffeted by the howling cold wind, slowly ascending into the sky.
Meanwhile, a black vortex formed at the center of the test subjects controlled by “Corrupted Conversion.” From within the vortex, a massive phantom figure slowly rose, clad in a pure black cloak. its face a mass of black mist. Slender hands, formed from ethereal black smoke, gripped a staff composed of absolute black matter, held upright before it. The staff bore no adornments, save for a smooth, curved hook at the handle.
The demonic phantom drove the staff forcefully into the ground. The black hole beneath its feet immediately expanded rapidly, spreading to the feet of the test subjects—who were immobilized by the Fallen Conversion—whose ashen bodies gradually turned black and were sucked into the black hole at the demonic phantom’s feet.
The ability of Demon Envoy M2, “Judgment Day,” is an illusion-type ability: the guilty are sent to the Void, while the innocent are sent to the Land of Bliss. (Essentially, this is the effect of different radiation wavelengths on the brain’s neural pathways.)
Black Panther piloted the helicopter through the blizzard. After leaving the Lawrence Mountains, the sky gradually cleared, and the dim light grew slightly brighter.
He picked up the severed hand lying in the storage bin beside him. The frozen stump had now thawed and hung limply. Black Panther yanked the sapphire ring off the index finger of the severed hand and casually tossed the stump out of the helicopter.
He clenched the ring tightly, his knuckles turning white from the force. He considered flinging it out of the cabin in frustration, but ultimately, reluctantly, slipped it back onto the index finger of his regenerated right hand.
Once the ring was back on, the faint glow of the fluorescent green scorpion tail emblem visible through the fabric of his trench coat’s back finally faded, and from the outside, his clothes looked perfectly normal.
The scorpion tail emblem was deeply etched along one of his vertebrae, emitting a green glow. Though faint, this glow could penetrate even the thickest clothing. Since the sapphire ring suppressed the emblem’s fluorescence, he had to choose between the two.
——
In a ward at the IOA Medical Association, Bai Chunian was still staring at the computer screen. Almost all the operatives in his Search and Seizure Division were out on missions, and he still couldn’t stop worrying about those few interns who had just been promoted to full-fledged agents.
“You’re back.” Lan Bo pushed open the door and walked wearily to the sofa. He unfastened the gun holster on his leg, then his belt, and stripped off his filthy combat uniform, leaving only a camouflage vest and a pair of shorts. He lifted the hem of his vest and stood by the window to catch the cool breeze.
A gentle breeze carried the scent of white rose mingled with his sweat to the hospital bed. Bai Chunian looked up: “Don’t stand there in the draft. You’ll catch a cold if you do.”
Lan Bo tilted his head and smiled: “I’ve lived for over two hundred and seventy years and never caught a cold.”
“Even so, don’t stand in the draft.” Bai Chunian picked up the lunchbox from the bedside table. “Come here, come here. I saved some shrimp dumplings for you—Brother Han packed them from the cafeteria.”
Lan Bo plopped down on the hospital bed, his body pressing against Bai Chunian’s legs. He propped himself up on the bed’s edge with both hands, his mouth slightly agape.
Bai Chunian picked one up for him: “ “What’s up? Usually you open your mouth so wide it almost reaches your ears, and your teeth are like a meat grinder—big enough to fit a basin inside. What’s wrong today?”
“……” Lan Bo chewed the shrimp dumpling in small bites and muttered softly, “The gang leader ran off with the gem. I went after him, but before I could even make a move, I just opened my mouth and he fainted from fright. Randy, am I that scary?”
Bai Chunian fought back a laugh: “How adorable. That’s a very efficient way to eat.”
“As long as you don’t think so, that’s fine.” Lan Bo perked up again, opening his gaping maw full of sharp fangs, and devoured all the remaining shrimp dumplings right out of the lunchbox, even going so far as to drain the water jug on the bedside table completely.
“By the way, did you turn the recovered gem over to the police?”
“I did. While I was at it, I went home and picked out a ruby of about the same size to give them.” ”Lan Bo rolled over, leaning against Bai Chunnian’s shoulder. Wrapping an arm around him, she lazily continued, “The ruby I picked out was pretty big, actually—bigger than the original one. The curator had already thanked me, but the original owner was so ungrateful. He didn’t want the new one; he insisted on getting the old one back, saying it was heart-shaped and held special meaning.”
“Oh, and what did the police say?”
“They were all staring at me. I had no choice but to gnaw that ruby into a heart shape for him.” Lan Bo wrapped one arm around Bai Chunian’s neck, pressing her cheek close to his, and idly picked at her fingertips. “I thought the shape looked pretty similar, but the original owner still didn’t seem very happy.”
“You gnawed it right in front of him? Anyone would be upset. How did you resolve it in the end?”
“I cried a few pearls for him right then and there. You said they were pretty expensive, right? He was much happier after he took them. It’s just that I couldn’t cry at the time—I had to force it for ages.”
“Sigh.” Bai Chunian cupped Lan Bo’s face and gave him a gentle kiss. “You don’t have to do that. Getting back more than half is enough. You’re a king; you can’t lower yourself like that, you know.”
Lan Bo lifted his eyelashes. “I wasn’t doing it to make him happy—I was doing it to make you happy, baby.”