Black Iron’s eyes darted as he weighed his options. He looked at Jin Ji and said, “I don’t care who you are. At least our goal right now is the same. So let’s stop fighting. What do you say?”
As the saying goes, the enemy of my enemy is a friend. Black Iron’s biggest enemy right now was Liu Yin. Since Jin Ji had helped them capture Liu Yin, he wasn’t an enemy that had to be dealt with immediately.
Jin Ji nodded.
Black Iron raised his hand and struck out toward Liu Yin’s neck, intending to snap his head off. Since Jin Ji wasn’t one of the organization’s members and the organization had declared the mission a failure, going to the hot spring inn was pointless. The situation was too chaotic, so killing Liu Yin right here was the safest option to avoid complications.
However, the moment his hand touched Liu Yin’s neck, a green whip shadowed across the air, crackling with electricity and striking the back of his hand, forcing him to pull back instantly.
“What’s the meaning of this?” Black Iron glared at Jin Ji.
“Take him to the hot spring inn to be dismantled,” Jin Ji said.
Black Iron stared. “Your goal is the technology on his body?”
Jin Ji said nothing, seeming to accept the assumption.
Seeing Jin Ji’s firm stance and guarded posture, Black Iron gritted his teeth.
To extract the various technologies embedded in a cyborg, one indeed needed to dissect them while they were still alive. Only when alive and facing danger would a cyborg activate their atavist power to perform structural mechanical transformations. If a cyborg died, their body reverted to nothing more than a lump of plain human flesh, without a single screw to be found inside.
Further argument was pointless. Black Iron growled bitterly, “Fine. Move fast! The guy is waking up!”
Before the words fully left his mouth, Black Iron felt a burst of heat against his cheek. His face twisted in horror as he threw the man on his shoulder away, but it was too late.
Energy exploded right against Black Iron’s cheek, blasting off half the flesh on his face. Through the gaping hole on his left cheek, his teeth, tongue, and tonsils were exposed, and the exposed skull showed hairline fractures.
“Argh!” He let out an agonized scream, his hand hovering over his ruined cheek, his remaining eye filled with hatred as he glared at his attacker.
Liu Yin braced himself on the ground with one hand, panting softly as his eyes scanned Black Iron.
Jin Ji had noticed Liu Yin’s subtle movement even before Black Iron did. Standing further away, Jin Ji had already darted behind a tree.
“Cyborg Chang Hei, from Mijia Village in Lulin Prefecture. In 2016, he hacked hospital robots and machines in several places, killing most of the medical staff and patients…” Liu Yin pulled up the wanted list stored in his brain from the past hundred years and quickly found Black Iron’s record. The cruelty in Black Iron’s killing methods made Liu Yin frown.
“Scum,” Liu Yin said.
That single word seemed to hit a raw nerve. The pupil in Black Iron’s remaining eye shrank. His forearm instantly morphed into a chainsaw, revving as he lunged at Liu Yin.
Liu Yin hardened his arm, blocking the chainsaw blade with a shower of bright sparks.
“I merely made this world remember the crimes they committed!” Black Iron roared as he unleashed a heavy barrage. “Look at their crimes! Who among them isn’t worse than me? And you—a royal of the Cyborg Clan! You should have united our people, led us to glory, and taken revenge on them! Instead, you became their lapdog! You think you have the right to judge me?! You might have forgotten the heinous atrocities they committed against our kind, but I haven’t! I am justice!”
Black Iron’s rage and hatred exploded like heavy artillery, battering Liu Yin.
Briefly caught off guard, Liu Yin’s weakened body was hurled back, crashing hard into the mountain wall. Black Iron rushed forward, but Liu Yin kicked him off, and the two tumbled into another fierce clash.
Black Iron shouted, “Da Jinzi! Help me out here!”
He realized that even in Liu Yin’s weakened state, killing him single-handedly in a short time was near impossible. And with Tao Ying—that ticking time bomb—somewhere out there, he began calling for backup.
Jin Ji leaned against the tree trunk without moving. He pulled out his phone, eyes fixed on the map and the flashing red dot. The red dot tracked Tao Ying’s location, placed on her during Jing Pei’s birthday banquet.
Tao Ying was closing in rapidly. Once she arrived, delivering Liu Yin to the hot spring inn would become nearly impossible.
Jin Ji fished out a gas mask from the spatial pouch borrowed from his colleague, along with a canister of gas. Opening the valve, an odorless, colorless gas began to disperse into the air.
“Da Jinzi! Did you forget how you got that scar around your neck?!” Black Iron roared again when Jin Ji refused to step in. He had long noticed the ring-like scar on Jin Ji’s neck, resembling a mark left by a collar or restraint worn for a prolonged period. Naturally, he assumed it stemmed from the dark history the Cyborg Clan had endured.
Jin Ji froze. Echoes of the past surged into his mind.
“Do you know what happens to cyborgs if they are discovered? Look at history! After the Great Cosmic Convergence, every single Cyborg Atavist was hunted down and dissected alive. That’s how human technology took a massive leap forward. Less than twenty years after the Convergence ended, humanity went from a backward era without electric lights to having networks, computers, mobile phones, and aircraft!”
“The laws banning it now are all lies! Behind closed doors, plenty of people are still hunting cyborgs. You are a cyborg. The moment you step out that door, someone will snatch you away, and you’ll never see your parents again. So obey your father. Stay right here and don’t go anywhere. Do you understand?”
His father had repeated that grim history over and over during his childhood, instilling fear of the outside world so he would trust no one else.
Naïve and ignorant as a child, he had believed his father completely, terrified of what lay beyond. Year after year, he stayed inside that empty, desolate factory, controlling machinery to manufacture goods on assembly lines—making his father rich, buying big houses, marrying a younger wife, and having other children.
When he grew up and began to doubt whether his father spoke the truth, he had no way to find answers. He knew nothing of the real world outside. Online, opinions regarding that dark period were conflicting, as many nations denied its occurrence.
Even if the history was real, were people truly still capturing cyborgs in secret for research? Would he really be targeted the moment he walked out?
Wanting to know the truth, he came across an urban legend online—the existence of a Puzzle Intelligence Agency. Supposedly, contacting the agency’s broker would yield answers to any question.
“That piece of history is real,” the mysterious information broker had told him. “Over a thousand years ago, after the Great Cosmic Convergence, Cyborg Atavists across the world were slaughtered for their scientific value. Countless cyborgs were plunged into a living hell, hiding in shadows without a ray of light.”
His heart had plummeted.
“Back then, every surviving cyborg in the world longed for a final sanctuary—the very land you stand on right now.”
The sudden turn brought a flicker of light back into his eyes.
“Hualan did not sink into the mire with the rest of the world. Instead, it sheltered every cyborg within its borders. The proof? During the era of chaos, Hualan possessed the highest number of cyborg warrior atavists in the world, including a member of the cyborg royal family. If not out of gratitude and trust, why would they fight for that land?”
“So my answer to your question is this: the sky above you isn’t as dark as you think. Stand tall and walk out into the light.”
His chest had trembled with intense emotion. For the first time, he yearned for the outside world, wishing to stand tall and step outside—only to be struck down by his furious, controlling father and thrown into a factory incinerator.
The information broker had saved him, guiding him into the world he had feared for twenty years.
That was his story.
He had walked out from the shadow of that dark history. Black Iron clearly had not.
“This world owes a blood debt to the Cyborg Clan! Everything they enjoy today—which part of it isn’t stained with our blood?! Without cyborgs, how many years would their science have stagnated?!” Black Iron’s attacks surged alongside his furious roars.
“As a royal, instead of seeking justice for our kind, you serve our enemies! Back then, you could have called upon our people to establish a nation of our own, using technology to crush and avenge ourselves on them! Yet you made this choice! You are trash, and trash deserves to die!”
Liu Yin realized Black Iron was likely a cyborg who had lived for several centuries; the birth date on his wanted poster was merely something he had altered himself. Otherwise, he wouldn’t know the details of that era.
Having lived so close to that history, his hatred ran deep.
Liu Yin spoke coldly, “Since you know that part of history, you should also know how those cyborgs who sought to unite, form a country, and crush the world with technology planned to achieve their goal.”
Just as humans couldn’t understand their own biological structure without deep study, cyborgs were no different. How could they extract technology from their own bodies to dominate others?
The only way was to dissect fellow cyborgs as well. And they would be even more ruthless, driven by a desire to burn the world and avenge themselves on everyone. The blades turned against their own kind would be sharper, masked under high-sounding excuses.
It was nothing more than creating another living hell.
That was why Liu Yin had chosen a different path.
Black Iron knew this, of course, and roared as if it were natural, “To survive among wolves and tigers, how can there be no bloodshed?! Necessary sacrifices are made for a better future! Those to be sacrificed were merely low-purity kin who couldn’t help anyway! Dedicating their lives to the grand future of the Cyborg Clan was their honor!”
Liu Yin’s expression turned ice-cold. “So your speech, your hatred—it’s nothing more than unfulfilled selfish desire. You simply want to sacrifice others to gain power. How are you any different from those who raised their blades against cyborgs back then? Don’t act like an innocent seeker of vengeance. You don’t deserve to!”
Because he was a villain, a selfish and weak man consumed by rage, he vented his hatred on the innocent and on the nation that had sheltered them back then. Instead of going abroad to deal with the foreign politicians who attempted to erase the crimes committed against cyborgs.
Anger burned within Liu Yin. Bright light gathered in his palm, and a lethal disintegration blast erupted from his hand, slamming straight into Black Iron without mercy.
With similar purity levels, a vast gap in strength existed between an ordinary cyborg and a cyborg royal—not to mention Liu Yin’s purity was significantly higher than Black Iron’s.
The instant the blast hit, Black Iron’s body shattered into pieces. As his severed head flew through the air, his consciousness briefly lingered. Liu Yin grabbed him by the hair, holding the head before his eyes.
“You don’t deserve to rest on this land,” Liu Yin said. “Not even your corpse, for it would only pollute it.”
Opening his mouth in utter terror, Black Iron watched as his body crumbled to ash under intense heat, followed by his head burning away into nothingness amidst a final scream.
The world fell silent.
Liu Yin panted, his body swaying slightly. Suddenly snapping awake, he held his breath, but it was too late. Influenced by Black Iron earlier, he hadn’t noticed the paralyzing gas spreading through the air again. Blackness washed over his vision, and his limbs lost all strength.
Once again, he was hoisted onto a shoulder.
Less than half a minute after Jin Ji ran off carrying Liu Yin, Tao Ying arrived at the scene. Looking at the scorched battle marks and the scattered energy residue left by Liu Yin, the web of red veins in her eyes turned even more vivid and eerie.
Meanwhile, on the other side, the atavist families had no idea where Tao Ying had headed. The elders broke into a cold sweat, quickly making excuses and blaming each other.
“It has nothing to do with us! We didn’t arrange this backup plan!”
“Right, right! We don’t even know who that person was!”
“What do we do now? Contact traffic police to check surveillance? Won’t that expose tonight’s operation?”
“Definitely not!”
“Shut up, all of you!” Wu Ying roared, her anxiety reaching boiling point.
Silence fell over the crowd.
Jiang Qing suddenly spoke up. “Where did you originally plan to take Liu Yin for dismantling? Who did you assign?”
“…Hmph. We assigned staff from a research institute our company invested in. It’s at a hot spring inn inside the forest park. An old friend owns it, so we borrowed the place,” a former family head muttered stiffly.
“Then is it possible they took Liu Yin there?” Jiang Qing asked. “The forest park happens to be in that direction. The people and equipment are all there, and they can easily frame you guys. It’s a solid plan.”
Jiang Qing knew the organization had dispatched Black Iron’s squad from the Squads of Ten Evils. If he wasn’t mistaken, the person who snatched Liu Yin earlier belonged to Black Iron’s group. Thus, they weren’t just framing the atavist families—they were framing the organization as well.
Had Jiang Qing not pointed it out, the family elders wouldn’t have thought of the hot spring inn until it was far too late.
Hearing Jiang Qing’s deduction, their eyes widened.
“Let me head over and check first!” Wu Ying made the quick call.
The other atavists grew anxious as well, especially those who had participated in the plot, terrified of being framed. They scrambled forward faster than anyone.
“Senior Sister, don’t worry. Aren’t plant-type atavists the most resilient?” Chen Mo comforted her. “As long as the root system isn’t completely destroyed, they can regrow. She’ll be fine.” He assumed Wu Ying’s agitation stemmed from fear that Tao Ying might be killed.
“I’m not worried about her life,” Wu Ying gritted her teeth, in no mood to explain further, muttering under her breath, “We have to stop her quickly, or things will turn catastrophic.”
Meanwhile, Qiu Fa had followed Jing Pei halfway before receiving a phone call informing him that Liu Yin had been intercepted by a second group of people on his way out from the Long Estate.
He turned to look at Jing Pei. “Is it that organization?”
“Mm-hmm.” Jing Pei nodded. She wasn’t lying—Black Iron’s team and the crew at the hot spring inn both belonged to the organization.
“So you’re taking me to find Liu Yin now?”
“There’s a tough opponent over there,” Jing Pei said. “Hard to handle.”
Qiu Fa nodded slowly. “So the true purpose of meeting tonight was to bring me along as hired muscle.”
Hearing the subtle irritation laced in his deep voice, Jing Pei glanced sideways at him, smiling sweetly. “Not at all. It’s a date—with a minor hassle cleared along the way.”
She swung the gift tucked under her arm. “I even brought a gift. If this isn’t a date, what is it?”
“Hmph. Sweet-talking scammer.”
“Ehh~ don’t be like that. As everyone knows, I’m an honest and reliable information broker who never sells fake intel and never sweet-talks people. You’re the sole exception.”
Qiu Fa turned his head away slightly, yet couldn’t resist glancing back at her. “Slick tongue.”
“If you don’t like hearing it, I’ll stop.”
Qiu Fa paused. “…Say whatever you want. Has nothing to do with me.”
Jing Pei found his reaction utterly endearing, her smile widening further.
Qiu Fa took a deep breath, his shirt fabric stretching tight across his broad chest, radiating warmth and tension. He said stiffly, “Didn’t adults teach you to look where you’re walking when you were little? Look forward, don’t look at me. Where is Liu Yin? Are we close?”
“Almost there,” Jing Pei let him off the hook.
Jin Ji’s task was to deliver Liu Yin to the hot spring inn for dismantling—a critical mission. If he failed at his end, the boss wouldn’t get what she wanted.
The trust the boss placed in him made Jin Ji willing to risk everything for her, yet he lacked confidence in himself. He had undergone specialized training for less than five months. In a fight against an experienced combatant, his chances of winning were slim. It was only because the boss deployed people with surgical precision that none of his missions had failed so far.
But this time was different.
Carrying Liu Yin as he sprinted toward the hot spring inn, Jin Ji could feel Tao Ying closing in behind him.
That girl was a terrifying monster capable of turning seven atavist warriors into dried corpses in an instant.
Fortunately, the inn was now visible to the naked eye.
Breathing a slight sigh of relief, Jin Ji pulled out his phone to check Tao Ying’s position. The screen showed a red dot rapidly approaching his green dot in a straight line.
500 meters… 450 meters… 300 meters… 250 meters…
Jin Ji’s breath caught in his throat. He was sprinting at maximum speed, yet he could only watch helplessly as the gap closed.
He turned his head and caught sight of Tao Ying. Like a vengeful phantom, her eyes glowing blood-red, she was gaining on him.
“Give Ah Yin back to me…” Tao Ying stared at the figure ahead, murmuring to herself. The overwhelming emotion clouded her mind. With a wave of her hand, her arm transformed into slender branches, thrusting forward like whips toward Jin Ji.
Once caught by the Blood Peach, one would be drained dry instantly.
Fortunately, the distance was still slightly too far, and the branches stopped just short of Jin Ji. Cold sweat broke out on his forehead.
“Over here!” Jin Ji shouted toward the front.
There were quite a few people stationed inside the hot spring inn. Aside from researchers, there was a heavily armed security team—all ordinary humans equipped with formidable firepower. After all, if Liu Yin had been successfully delivered, the organization wasn’t about to let the prize slip away. His death would cause massive shockwaves, plunging Hualan into chaos and leaving the government no time to search for their operatives.
The staff had been waiting anxiously. Hearing the shout, one of them raised a pair of binoculars, spotting Jin Ji carrying Liu Yin with Tao Ying in hot pursuit. They instantly understood the situation.
“Quick! Assist him!”
The hot spring inn stood on a wide patch of flat land, surrounded by century-old trees inside the forest park and enclosed by a high iron fence to prevent hiking tourists from wandering in.
And this fence could be raised and electrified. Every facility owned by the organization was prepared for combat.
The fence began to rise, and the heavy iron gate started to swing shut. On the third and fourth floors, as well as the balconies, armed personnel set up silenced firearms loaded with specialized atavist weapons. Though the intruder was an atavist, with their heavy firepower, taking her down was entirely feasible.
Drenched in sweat, Jin Ji saw the gate 50 meters ahead. Tao Ying was behind him—150 meters… 100 meters…
He was already within her attack range. The blood-drenched branches whipped toward the back of his neck, ready to impale him.
Bang!
In the blink of an eye, a bullet struck the thrusting branch, forcing it to retract. Enraged, Tao Ying whipped out more branches, but several high-velocity rounds slammed into the wood, though failing to slow her down.
“Get in! Move!” someone inside the gate yelled, eyes wide with panic.
The blood-sucking branches hovered behind him like a grim reaper’s scythe, aiming for his neck. Jin Ji leaped forward with everything he had, tumbling through the iron gate.
Thud!
The heavy gate slammed shut. The moment it locked, a loud impact echoed as the branches slammed into the metal surface.
Soaked in sweat, Jin Ji’s heart hammered like a war drum, but he didn’t dare hesitate for a second, carrying Liu Yin as he sprinted deeper into the inn.
By now, both the fence and gate were fully electrified with a current strong enough to repel a dinosaur. Should Tao Ying attempt to force her way through, the electricity would blast her back. If she tried to leap over, heavy atavist weaponry would intercept her in mid-air.
Liu Yin was just ahead, separated from her by a single gate. What were they doing to him inside? Would he be dismantled? Like the cyborgs in history, dissected alive, subjected to endless torture just to force the components inside his body to turn?
The mere thought made Tao Ying tremble violently. The blood-red veins in her eyes burned bright. Rage fed her killing intent as she glared at the guards like looking at corpses.
“This world doesn’t need you,” she whispered softly.
Her feet sank into the soil as the Blood Peach tree expanded at a terrifying speed…
“Little Tao!” Wu Ying and the others arrived just in time to witness the sight. Wu Ying roared, “Stop! Little Tao! Don’t do this!”
They were a step too late.
As the giant peach tree grew higher, the face of Tao Ying embedded on the trunk saw the light in her eyes fade, replaced by terrifying, demonic eyes radiating pure malice. Then, those eerie eyes sank into the trunk alongside her face, vanishing completely.
Wu Ying’s heart sank. “It’s over… we’re completely done for.”
“Has she fully entered her atavist state?” Feng Yilian asked, her expression turning grim. “What’s her atavist purity level?”
“Ninety percent,” Wu Ying replied.
Entering a full atavist state meant losing human reason, becoming completely dominated by demonic nature—in other words, total loss of control.
And Tao Ying was a Blood Peach with a purity level as high as 90 percent. That meant she would bring about a catastrophe on par with a natural disaster.
“What… what happens if she loses control?” Chen Mo asked in shock.
Wu Ying watched the towering peach tree in full battle readiness, her voice trembling slightly. “I don’t know… but most likely, every living thing within her reach will be drained completely dry.”
