Unlike the special-ability users I had encountered before, Z gave off no trace of a high-quality soul, nor any detectable mana fluctuation. He registered exactly like an ordinary human you might pass on the street.

  That lack of feedback wasn’t conclusive proof he really was ordinary. Plenty of anomalies are masters at concealment; perhaps whatever power Z possessed belonged to that category.

  I decided to send my substitute to probe him while also investigating the fifteenth-floor apartment.

  Truthfully, I never believed the cave in that room was an entrance to the future. More likely it led to some other pocket dimension. Its manifestation was completely inconsistent with what the ritual array should have produced—it was almost certainly the result of a botched activation.

  Still, a botched activation is still an activation. Zhu Shi would erase the array the very next day. I had to figure out why it had triggered before she did.

  If possible, I would have preferred not to mention the array’s existence to Zhu Shi at all—but I couldn’t.

  She was the one who had assigned me to investigate the fifteenth floor in the first place. I couldn’t lie about what I saw, because she could easily cross-check with Zhu Chang’an and Z. Killing them on the spot would only draw suspicion back to me. And as a Luo Shan probe, I couldn’t simply refuse to request permission to handle the anomaly—that would violate protocol and look extremely suspicious.

  So after submitting the request, I suggested Zhu Shi delay dealing with it. When she refused, I proposed sending someone else instead.

  Phenomena like caves aren’t Zhu Shi’s specialty—she’s a “Black Impermanence” focused purely on combat. Handing it to a “White Impermanence” who specializes in such things would have been far more reasonable. And if the obstacle became a White Impermanence, I could eliminate them with ease and feast on a high-quality soul in the process.

  Unfortunately, Zhu Shi always overestimates the danger of anomalous events and carries an excessive sense of kindness and responsibility. Any threat that appears in her jurisdiction, she refuses to pass on to others. Similar situations had arisen before. The moment I saw her expression, I knew my plan was dead in the water. I could only give up.

  To be safe—and to secure an alibi—I waited until evening, after meeting Zhu Shi in person, before deploying my substitute. But when the substitute reached the base of the fifteenth-floor building, I saw—through our shared senses—Z walking out of it.

  Clearly, Z—obsessed as he was with anomalies—had also taken an interest in the fifteenth floor. He had walked straight into the tiger’s mouth. I immediately ordered the substitute to test Z’s strength first. The substitute already harbored a personal grudge and couldn’t wait to reveal himself.

  Because I suspected Z possessed anomalous power, I instructed the substitute to proceed with caution. He followed my advice and probed carefully at first. But in the end he still made a reckless mistake. The moment he realized Z was a flame wielder, he charged in without restraint.

  Calling it reckless on the substitute’s part doesn’t tell the whole story—even I hadn’t anticipated that Z would differ so drastically from most flame users. He could ignite opponents with nothing more than a glance.

  And even after he revealed his power, I still couldn’t sense any mana fluctuation coming from him… No—more precisely, I could feel intense mana radiating from the flames themselves, yet the source—Z—showed no such signature.

  Mana is a broad term. It encompasses both the energy required to cast spells and the power those spells exert. Supernatural abilities fall under the same umbrella. Sources vary widely—some draw from soul power, others from life force, and some from raw kinetic, thermal, or electrical energy. Regardless, whenever power is in motion, fluctuations should appear. It’s impossible for them not to.

  Could the flames not originate from Z himself, but from some external object he carried? Even then, the object should have registered as the source when activated. Yet those flames felt like rootless fire springing from nowhere—completely baffling.

  For the time being, I had no choice but to accept it as one of those inexplicable quirks of the anomalous world. Perhaps it was simply an attribute of Z as a special-ability user. There was nothing to do but adapt.

  After taking a hit, the substitute tried to escape via shadow translocation. I still wanted him to gather more information about Z’s capabilities, so I forbade him from using it. But the flames seemed to have terrified him into a panic. He ignored my verbal command and fled on foot instead. I was about to force him to turn back and attack Z when I noticed something new.

  Even after breaking line of sight with Z, the flames continued clinging to the substitute relentlessly. I watched for a while before finally concluding there was some kind of mental connection between Z and the fire. I couldn’t tell whether it extended his perception, but he could clearly keep feeding fuel to the flames along that link.

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  Regrettably, that was all the substitute could uncover. Once Zhu Shi arrived on the scene, I remotely recalled the Seed of the Heart to prevent it from falling into Luo Shan’s hands.

  Even so, the information was invaluable. Based on the overwhelming dominance Z displayed while defeating the substitute, devouring him would be more than enough to push the Seed of the Heart through to the next stage.

  Not long after, new intelligence came from Zhu Shi.

  Z had personally entered the cave on the fifteenth floor. The entrance and exit vanished unexpectedly, nearly trapping him inside forever.

  Yet he had found a way to break free using his own power and survived…

  —

  I had experienced a similar hopeless trap.

  Trapped in what seemed like an absolutely inescapable dead end, I understood that terror, that despair… and the ocean of regret that came with it.

  So I could empathize with Z’s emotions.

  Although Zhu Shi remarked over the phone how calm Z had remained in the face of the anomaly, it was obvious—no one short of a complete madman could stay truly calm in that situation. Not me back then, and not Z now. He must have spent considerable effort suppressing his panic just to maintain composure while recounting the experience to Zhu Shi, hiding how shaken he truly was.

  If I were in his place, I would have wanted to put on a strong front in front of her too. Zhu Shi is an exceptionally striking woman—both in appearance and presence. It’s only natural for a man to want to look impressive around her. If I were ten years younger, I might have even pursued her myself.

  At the same time, I genuinely admired Z. The old me couldn’t even manage that level of surface bravado.

  Moreover, the old me hadn’t escaped that hopeless situation through my own strength. Perhaps it was precisely because Z had overcome his predicament with his own power that he could maintain even this much dignity. From that angle, my admiration was tinged with envy.

  And the fear he hid so carefully beneath that composure—perhaps I was the only one who could truly understand it.

  Thinking about it stirred an inexplicable sense of closeness toward Z.

  In the early hours of the morning, after finishing surveillance on Zhu Chang’an, I returned to the fifteenth-floor apartment. Though probes were stationed nearby, they had no reason to suspect a colleague. I entered without issue and attempted to use the new information Z provided to reopen the cave.

  It failed again. Even though the array had become complete, opening the cave still required an astronomically high element of luck. Z’s success likely depended on some additional factor he himself hadn’t noticed. With no more time to experiment, I had to abandon the site.

  After Zhu Shi and Z both arrived, I approached as though I had only just gotten there. Then I took Z to the abandoned construction site near Xianshui University, intending to use the rumored evil spirit there to probe more details of his abilities.

  Understanding Z didn’t mean sparing him.

  To push the Seed of the Heart to the next stage, I couldn’t afford to miss this chance.

  Unfortunately, it seemed there had never been an evil spirit at the abandoned site to begin with. I switched to Plan B: summoning shadow clones to attack Z directly and observe his abilities up close.

  Zhu Shi had already submitted her report on Z the previous night. While it mentioned his ability, it only stated “ordinary flame manipulation”—likely an attempt to protect the finer details of his power. During our walk, I deliberately displayed more knowledge about his flames than I should have, purely to test his reaction.

  Even if he asked how I knew so much, I had prepared plausible excuses in advance. But judging from his response, Zhu Shi hadn’t bragged to him about anything. Typical of her—completely lacking in social finesse. What a waste of effort.

  There was only one piece of intelligence I truly needed: whether Z had any countermeasure against attacks from behind.

  Since Z could ignite opponents with a glance and possessed such overwhelming firepower, a rear assault was naturally the optimal strategy. During the earlier fight with the substitute, a shadow strike from behind had been attempted—yet Z evaded it.

  I couldn’t tell whether that was pure luck or genuine awareness of his rear. Moreover, the shadow thrust had altered its trajectory mid-flight to avoid Z’s flames, changing from a direct rear strike to an attack from the lower left. Perhaps Z had only reacted because of that change.

  In my combat experience, nothing is more dangerous than vague “maybes.” I needed certainty. So I had one clone attack from behind while I myself fired at that same clone with my handgun. The shot was meant to deflect any suspicion if Z successfully countered the sneak attack and wondered why I was just standing there watching.

  It was a successful probe. Z showed zero reaction to the rear assault—and by “saving” him, I significantly increased his trust in me.

  I hadn’t expected him to still be holding back during the earlier fight. His firepower could escalate to this degree—enough to instantly reduce my clones to ash.

  Yet even with such devastating offensive power, his weakness remained pitifully exploitable.

  The moment a blade reaches the neck, it doesn’t matter whether the target is holding a handgun, a cannon, or a missile—none of it matters anymore.

  So, in the instant he turned around and let his guard down—

  I partially transformed my arm into Freak form, shaping it into a razor-sharp blade, and severed his head.

  Even after decapitation, human consciousness can persist for several seconds.

  To prevent him from igniting me with a final glare, I swung the blade again—driving it straight into his eye sockets and crushing his brain tissue completely.

  —

  The mana fluctuations from Z’s earlier battle with the clones must have already alerted Zhu Shi. She would arrive soon.

  I couldn’t linger.

  I turned to leave.

  What I told Z earlier—“I’ll be transferred to another region”—wasn’t entirely a lie. I really did plan to leave Xianshui City after breaking through.

  From now on, I would no longer be Investigator Kong of Luo Shan’s probes.

  I would be the Freak Kong Da.

  But after only two or three steps, I sensed something wrong.

  Normally, when I kill a human, I feel their soul entering my body—especially a superhuman’s soul, which should be unmistakably vivid. Yet right now, I felt nothing.

  It was as though…

  As though Z wasn’t dead yet.

  At that moment, I felt the air behind me heat up.

  A crackling sound of combustion rose from where Z had fallen. Flames spread forward, reaching toward me.