Tokyo. Above the third-floor corridor of the Roppongi hotel.
The light from the elevator spilled in, illuminating the silhouettes of two uninvited guests. On the super-human species panel, one was codenamed Fist Girl, and the other Scythe Demon.
Ke Mingqing carried Bai Ziling on his back, turning his head to quietly lock eyes with them.
'Two B Rank super-human species. Can I handle them at my current level?' he thought. 'Let's give it a try. The other members of Death Crow are still in Tokyo anyway, so it won't take them long to get here.'
The elevator doors slowly slid shut, cutting off the light that had spilled into the corridor.
The moment the corridor plunged back into darkness, Fist Girl moved.
She twisted her body at an impossible angle. Her bandage-wrapped fist kicked up a gale, sweeping down from mid-air.
Sharp claws slowly extended from Bai Ziling's ten fingers, and tiny fangs poked out from the corners of her mouth.
She was just about to leap from Ke Mingqing's shoulders when he suddenly spoke.
Bai Ziling froze. Then, she wrapped her arms tightly around his neck and gave a soft, "Mhm."
Ke Mingqing's agility had already reached B Rank, so his neural reaction speed was naturally no slower than his opponent's. Given the distance her fist had to travel, dodging was effortless.
He stepped sideways, evading Fist Girl's incoming punch, and stomped the ground to pull back and open the distance.
At the same time, he unleashed his E-grade skill: Mist of Loss.
[E-grade Skill: Mist of Loss (Causes a diffusion of mist. Enemies within the mist cannot see your figure, but you have total sensory awareness of everything inside.)]
In an instant, an expanse of purple fog swept out like a gale, engulfing the entire corridor.
The figures of Ke Mingqing and the two vampire hunters were swallowed by the mist.
Fist Girl glanced left and right, momentarily stunned.
She couldn't locate the others; it was as if the fog had smothered her senses.
"You'd best not breathe in the poison."
Giovanni's cold, ethereal voice drifted through the mist, impossible to pinpoint.
In truth, the mist was non-toxic, but Ke Mingqing had bluffed them. The second Fist Girl and Scythe Demon heard him, they subconsciously held their breath.
Within the fog, Ke Mingqing made a shushing gesture. Bai Ziling was very obedient. She clung motionlessly to his back like a sloth, without making a single sound.
Ke Mingqing knew full well that the electronic signals inside the hotel had been jammed by the enemy through some unknown means.
Right now, neither cell phones nor the security cameras on the ceiling were functioning, which naturally meant Heimeng couldn't spy on what he was doing.
The only ones who could see him were the two soon-to-be corpses in front of him. Corpses were corpses, and corpses couldn't snitch.
In the next instant, racing arcs of pitch-black lightning surged from Ke Mingqing's right hand. This was his first time using a skill other than the Gate of Truth while in Giovanni's body.
The lightning tore through the mist in the corridor, blowing back Bai Ziling's white bangs.
Her red eyes widened, staring at the sight in sheer amazement.
Suddenly, Bai Ziling froze.
Whenever she had been bored these past few days, Giovanni would always play videos of the superhero Blue Pigeon on a tablet for her.
Because of that, she knew exactly what this dancing stream of lightning meant.
Boom!
Ke Mingqing transformed into a streak of racing lightning and shot toward Fist Girl. Capitalizing on her bewildered state, he raised his hand like a blade and chopped down at her shoulder.
The moment they were less than a meter apart, Fist Girl heard the roar of the lightning. She whipped her head around and met Ke Mingqing's gaze.
She threw a punch. A burst of blood vapor erupted from the bandages wrapped around her fingers, forming a phantom fist imprint that blasted toward him.
Ke Mingqing raised an eyebrow, meeting the blood vapor with his hand-blade.
Bang!
Lightning and blood vapor collided in the mist. The electrical arcs and the scattered vapor formed a swirling stream of red and black, their intertwined light illuminating the youth's pitch-dark eyes.
He bounced back, landing against the wall. His calves tensed before he kicked off the surface, rocketing forward to strike at Fist Girl once again!
Riding the advantage provided by the Mist of Loss, Ke Mingqing seized absolute initiative. Carrying Bai Ziling on his back, he darted through the fog, attacking Fist Girl time and time again.
Every so often, he would also shoot bolts of lightning from his fingertips.
Every one of his strikes aimed straight for her vitals, yet Fist Girl stood rooted in place as steady as a mountain, the only movement coming from her jacket flapping wildly in the wind.
Every time pitch-black lightning struck from the fog, she reacted in time, blocking it with fists wreathed in dancing blood vapor.
Ke Mingqing sighed inwardly. He had to admit that an E-grade skill was just an E-grade skill. Completely concealing his presence in the mist was impossible; the wind kicked up by his attacks, and even the rumble of his lightning, gave away his position.
In just a few short breaths, lightning and blood vapor clashed repeatedly within the mist. The plaster on the corridor walls cracked layer by layer, and the ceiling lights nearly collapsed.
In the next second, the third person present broke the stalemate.
Scythe Demon, who had been standing squarely in front of the elevator the entire time, finally picked up on a trace of movement.
He shot forward, swinging his massive, pitch-black scythe to unleash a squall of blade-like wind formed from blood vapor.
Ke Mingqing turned his head, catching sight of this through the omniscient senses granted by the Mist of Loss.
He observed closely. A bloody hue flowed over the scythe. It seemed every vampire hunter possessed this ability: extracting vampire blood to strengthen themselves or empower their weapons.
However, Ke Mingqing could tell that these two vampire hunters were super-human species who specialized entirely in physical and weapon combat; beyond that, they had no flashy abilities.
Slash!
The bloody scythe wind arrived in the blink of an eye. Ke Mingqing reacted with godlike speed.
He stamped a crater into the wall, using the recoil to launch himself toward the corner diagonally ahead.
He brushed right past the bloody scythe wind, narrowly escaping disaster, but the fog blanketing the corridor was blown away.
The motion-sensor lights in the hallway flickered on, casting a cold white glow over his figure.
Ke Mingqing lost his cover. Fist Girl and Scythe Demon charged from the front simultaneously before instantly splitting left and right. They stepped onto the walls on either side of the corridor and bolted straight for him.
One swung a fist, the other cleaved with a scythe. The surging blood vapor crashed toward him endlessly, like a torrential river.
Ke Mingqing was like a reef squeezed between two rushing currents. His body remained entirely motionless, standing quietly in place.
The very next instant, right before the scythe and fist imprint reached him, he took two steps back.
He reached up with one hand to hold Bai Ziling tight, then slightly twisted his other arm and made a pushing motion forward.
"Wall of Ten Thousand Armies," the youth chanted softly.
[B Rank skill unleashed: Wall of Ten Thousand Armies.]
Ke Mingqing's voice and movements were incredibly casual, but Bai Ziling witnessed the most astonishing sight she had ever seen in her life.
At that moment, a gale swept through. She squinted, watching as a golden city wall built from dozens of armored soldier statues materialized out of thin air!
The reason Ke Mingqing had retreated a short distance lay precisely in this: Fist Girl and Scythe Demon were now directly in front of him.
The wall shoved forward with the unstoppable, mountain-toppling momentum of a landslide!
The blood vapor attacking from the front collapsed. The walls on both sides of the corridor were forced apart and shattered. All Bai Ziling could see was an expanse of gold pushing forward irresistibly!
Whether it was Fist Girl's fist or Scythe Demon's scythe, both struck against this magnificent, unstoppable wall.
The two had no idea what was happening. They only felt as if Mount Tai was bearing down on them. They were simultaneously sent flying backward, smashing into the wall at the end of the corridor and leaving behind two deep, human-shaped craters.
Because the Wall of Ten Thousand Armies had ruptured both walls, the rooms lining the corridor were exposed.
The guests inside were huddled on their beds in sheer terror, using their black room phones to call the front desk.
However, since the vampire hunters had jammed the signal, their calls went unanswered.
"Can you still move?" Ke Mingqing suddenly asked.
The physical resilience of the two vampire hunters was astonishing indeed. They struggled out of the craters and dropped to one knee. Surging blood vapor rushed to repair their shattered internal organs.
"Makes sense. They're B Rank, after all..."
Watching this, Ke Mingqing didn't retreat; instead, he advanced, walking step by step toward the two at the end of the hall.
"Giovanni, run," Bai Ziling whispered.
Ke Mingqing merely replied, "It's going to rain. Cover your head if you don't want to get wet."
"Rain?"
"Yes, rain."
He spoke casually as he raised his right thumb and middle finger and snapped.
The snap echoed through the dead-silent corridor.
As soon as the snap faded, a sudden torrential rain fell... That's right, it began raining inside the sealed corridor, as if the ceiling fire alarms had been triggered.
The roaring curtain of water crashed down, washing over every figure present. Bai Ziling was dumbfounded.
She belatedly covered her head, but her hair was already soaked.
"Right, are you scared of thunder?" Ke Mingqing asked through the downpour.
Bai Ziling nodded.
"Then remember to cover your ears," he said.
She nodded again. Having learned her lesson, she decided to obediently follow his instructions.
The Wall of Ten Thousand Armies would linger for a while. This massive barricade trapped the two vampire hunters at the end of the hall, their bodies rapidly healing in the rain.
A moment later, they shoved aside the already crumbling wall and launched themselves into the air.
But in that same instant, Ke Mingqing raised his hand in the rain. He had suddenly donned a C-rank item on his right hand—the Lucky Gloves—and within those gloves was a die.
It was a red-and-black die.
"Six."
The youth spoke like a prophet as he tossed the Dice of Calamity. The die rapidly tumbled through the air before hitting the ground, the pips on its top face settling on a specific number.
That number was 6.
[Roll 6: Heavenly Thunder (This ability of the Calamity Dice can only be used in rainy environments.)]
Ke Mingqing reached up and covered the ears of the girl on his back.
In the next moment, Fist Girl and Scythe Demon heard a rolling peal of thunder echo from the horizon, as if the heavens themselves had a mouthful of muffled thunder and were roaring at them.
Immediately after, a bolt of lightning capable of cleaving the world apart crashed down from the sky. It shattered the window at the end of the corridor and struck the two from behind.
Boom!
The flash of lightning vanished as quickly as it appeared, dyeing the entire corridor in the bright colors of daylight before quietly fading away.
Ke Mingqing looked straight ahead and saw two corpses reduced to nothing but bones. They knelt on the ground for a moment before their remaining skeletons slowly toppled over, hitting the floor with a heavy clatter.
Damp blood vapor mixed with the rainwater and spread across the floor.
A moment later, a notification panel slowly popped up in front of Ke Mingqing's eyes.
[Detected that the player has killed two B Rank super-human species. Awarded a total of 4,000 experience points.]
[Experience points have reached the current level cap. Player level increased by one. Current level progress for player "Ke Mingqing": Lv. 17 (1,700/8,500 EXP)]
'I'm not sure if they have others lying in wait, but we need to leave first. We have to find a place without signal interference so Heimeng can track us and send the rest of Death Crow as backup,'
Ke Mingqing thought. Still carrying Bai Ziling, he crashed through the window.
Like a galloping bolt of lightning, he soared through the sky above Tokyo, bounding across the rooftops of buildings. The night wind whipped against his and the girl's faces.
Bai Ziling rested quietly against his back, gazing at the sprawling scenery of the city.
"Bai Ziling," Ke Mingqing suddenly said after a while.
She turned her head and looked at him wordlessly. The girl's hair danced in the evening breeze. In the distant sky, the scattered snow-white glow of the Tokyo Tower blanketed the youth and the girl.
"You can't tell anyone what just happened, understand?" Ke Mingqing said.
Bai Ziling nodded, taking a long moment before softly asking, "Giovanni is Blue Pigeon?"
"You'll know eventually," Ke Mingqing said after a brief silence.
"Will you tell me later?"
"Yes, I'll tell you later."
Ke Mingqing's voice was drowned out by the howling wind. He crossed over a bustling, enchanting Japanese-style commercial street, leaping up from directly above an izakaya and dropping toward the center of an enclosed office building.
He slipped through an open window on the fourth floor and came to a halt.
Once the window was shut, the world instantly fell quiet. A sliver of moonlight dotted the pitch-black office.
Ke Mingqing sat down against the wall and let out a sigh of relief.
He turned his head and glanced at the white-haired girl, his eyes downcast.
In truth, he knew there was no need to care whether she lived or died. No matter what, she was just a super-human species.
As long as they were a super-human species, they were a player's mortal enemy, with absolutely no exceptions. Letting her die here wouldn't have been a problem, especially since she knew he was Blue Pigeon.
But Ke Mingqing also knew that her heart was crucial.
'As long as someone extracts her heart and blood, there's a chance it could grant immortality,' he thought. 'It might even be able to resurrect a player punished by the system. Otherwise, these vampire hunters wouldn't be so obsessed. But that's just a possibility.'
'For that sliver of a possibility... should I try to kill her?'
At that thought, Ke Mingqing averted his gaze from her face.
"Giovanni, is it going to thunder again?" Bai Ziling asked softly, tilting her head.
The girl suddenly reached out and covered Ke Mingqing's ears.
He paused for a moment before shaking his head and letting out a low chuckle.
"There won't be any more thunder."
"Oh, okay."
Bai Ziling nodded, but her hands remained tightly clamped over his ears.
She stared quietly at his profile. This was her first time seeing Giovanni smile. The usually expressionless young attendant seemed to have let go of his restraints in this moment, his eyes lit by the moonlight.
She thought for a second before asking, "Why doesn't Giovanni smile normally?"
'To differentiate the characters I play,' Ke Mingqing said to himself.
He thought it over for a moment. "Because I don't like smiling."
"Really?" Bai Ziling murmured. "But Giovanni looks so happy when he smiles."
Ke Mingqing sighed. "Of course it's true. Who isn't happy when they smile? Also, can you stop covering my ears? I already told you it's not going to thunder anymore..."
Before he could finish his sentence, a loud bang suddenly rang out. From the corner of his eye, he caught sight of a silver-white bullet streaking in from outside the window, aimed straight for his shoulder.
At that exact moment, he saw a hand fly into the air and slowly hit the floor.
Blood sprayed, dyeing Ke Mingqing's ear and cheek red. He stared blankly for a second before belatedly realizing it was Bai Ziling's right hand.
The girl's wrist had been blasted clean off. The agonizing pain nearly caused her to faint.
"Bai Ziling..."
Ke Mingqing froze, his lips parting in a soundless murmur.
The next second, he snapped his head around and looked through the floor-to-ceiling window. On a tall attic in the distance stood a man's silhouette.
He wore a black sweater and had a cigarette dangling from his lips. Above his head, a super-human species panel slowly popped up.
[Super-human species Codename: Vampire Hunter — Mad Gun (Danger Rating: B++ Rank)]
In that instant, the man lowered the gun barrel of his long rifle and pulled the trigger again. A silver bullet rocketed toward them, but Ke Mingqing simply kept his head bowed, his pitch-black bangs hiding his eyes.
"I didn't even kill her... How dare you..." he said softly.
The bullet flew right at him. But the moment it was about to strike his body, it slammed into an impassable golden barrier.
Mad Gun was stunned. He peered closer and saw a tiny paper doll whispering on Ke Mingqing's palm.
"Superman Philosophy."
Ke Mingqing gently set down Bai Ziling from his back. He raised his head, quietly staring at the man in the attic with eyes as terrifying as a beast ready to devour someone alive.
But a second later, a look of pure terror washed over the man on the distant attic. As if his neck had been snared by an invisible noose, his body jerked backward.
Ke Mingqing furrowed his brow slightly, not understanding what had just happened.
Soon after, a figure dropped into the office building and appeared before Ke Mingqing.
It wasn't a vampire hunter who came into view, but a woman wearing a white skirt suit.
She had platinum blonde hair and wore a black veil over her face. There were traces of silk threads stitched into the corners of her mouth and eyes.
She sat quietly on the windowsill, leaning back on both hands. Looking up, she curled the corners of her lips into a faint smile and asked, "Miss me?" The newcomer was none other than Bai.
Seeing her, Ke Mingqing's confusion vanished.
Bai was an A+ Rank super-human species—the famous Puppeteer of Death Crow. Dealing with a mere vampire hunter was effortless for her.
"Bai, heal her," Ke Mingqing said, leaning down to check on Bai Ziling.
"Giovanni..." the girl mumbled.
"It's okay. I'm right here," Ke Mingqing whispered, looking into her eyes.
"Don't underestimate vampires... It's just a severed hand. That's nothing to her," Bai said. "She's just young and hasn't gotten used to the feeling of losing limbs yet."
She paused before playfully adding, "On the other hand, someone else might need to be 'cured'."
As she spoke, Bai suddenly raised her right hand. Invisible threads materialized, dragging a man in a black sweater in through the window.
Ke Mingqing turned his head, silently glaring at the vampire hunter.
"If you have no objections, the attending physician is going to pluck his head off now, okay?" Bai said. The threads tightened slightly. The man clutched his throat in agony, foaming at the mouth.
"Wait."
Ke Mingqing spoke up, and Bai stopped.
"Let me do it."
The young man spoke nonchalantly as he rose from the floor and walked step by step toward the vampire hunter.
Bai tilted her head and raised an eyebrow, quietly watching Giovanni's figure. She suddenly curled her lips and asked, "Do you need this?"
Saying so, she used her threads to snatch a long-barreled handgun from the man's grip and handed it to Ke Mingqing.
Ke Mingqing raised the pitch-black, enchanted handgun and shoved it into the man's mouth. Staring down at him from above, he rested his finger against the trigger with agonizing slowness.
The vampire hunter shook his head desperately, but the next second, Ke Mingqing pulled it.
Bang! The bullet, enveloped in blood vapor, exploded forward and tore straight through the man's throat.
Mad Gun's eyes went wide as he let out a muffled wail. A few teeth clacked hard against the gun barrel before tumbling out.
Immediately after, a series of notification panels popped up before Ke Mingqing's eyes.
[Congratulations. Detected that the player has killed a B Rank super-human species—Vampire Hunter: Mad Gun. Kill reward granted: 2,000 experience points.]
[Current level progress: Lv. 17 (3,700/8,500 EXP)]
[Completed Weekly Mission 2: Kill three super-human species (Reward: 1 Attribute Point)]
Ke Mingqing exhaled and tossed aside the bloodstained gun. He wiped the blood from his cheek and ear with the back of his hand and looked down at Bai Ziling again.
By now, the girl's right hand had completely regrown. Her skin was like new, without a single scar.
"I have a question for you," Ke Mingqing said, suddenly turning his head to stare at Bai's face.
"What is it?" Bai tilted her head.
"How do you know that Bai Ziling's heart grants immortality?" Ke Mingqing asked. "Or rather..." He trailed off, looking up to meet Bai's eyes.
He lowered his voice. "Were you actually the one who leaked that intel?"