With great power comes the self-proclaimed status of superhuman, even aspiring to become a god among mortals, enslaving the common folk.

  The words spilling from the head right now were practically the core doctrine of the faction Lu Youxun belonged to.

  Zhu Shi shot a quick glance at Lu Youxun. His expression remained unchanged, as if what the head was saying had absolutely nothing to do with his own side.

  “If it weren’t for you sanctimonious Mount Luo people, I could kill whoever I wanted, violate whoever I wanted—completely free… If it weren’t for you!” The head kept ranting wildly.

  Zhu Shi’s voice dripped with disgust. “You call yourself a superhuman, yet you have to prey on the souls of ordinary people just to keep from going berserk and losing control. What kind of transcendent being are you? You’re nothing but a parasitic vampire leeching off humanity as a whole!”

  “It’s just a difference in wording. This is the food chain, predator and prey. Lions and tigers starve if they can’t catch anything, but they’re still nobler than their prey because they sit at the top of the chain.” The head sneered dismissively. “Besides, isn’t the world we live in already like this? Animals eat animals, and humans eat humans—the only difference is that the latter’s version is dressed up as more ‘civilized.’”

  “You compare yourself to animals, so at least you’re aware you’re living like a savage beast.” Zhu Shi seemed ready to argue. “The civilization you look down on was built by the countless ordinary people you despise. Every piece of convenient technology you enjoy in daily life came from their efforts.

  “Compared to that, what exactly can you—a self-proclaimed superhuman—actually accomplish? Can you build a civilization single-handedly? Develop technology on your own? You can’t do a damn thing.”

  “Those dressed in fine silk are never the ones who raise silkworms. In the end, the world belongs to those with greater violence, and they’re the ones who stand higher. Don’t you even understand that simple truth?” The head remained unshaken. “I used to be the one being eaten—squeezed dry by superiors, treated like livestock. Now I’m stronger than they ever were. I eat whoever I want.”

  “Judging from the power you displayed earlier and the descriptions of monster abilities in our files, this clearly isn’t your first time killing.” Zhu Shi asked coldly, “How many people have you killed before this?”

  “Not many—just under ten. The ones who used to bully me, lord over me, treat me like a cash cow… Their souls have all become my food.” The head bared a cruel smile.

  “So many deaths, yet we haven’t received any reports about them… Did you dispose of all the bodies?” Zhu Shi said.

  “Exactly. I sank every single corpse into the shadow world.” The head answered without hesitation. “As long as the bodies aren’t found, they’ll just be treated as missing persons for the time being.”

  “You spineless, cowardly criminal…” Zhu Shi seemed at a loss for harsher words. She turned to me instead. “Senior Brother Zhuang, say something too!”

  Me? The guy who once attempted kidnapping?

  I thought for a moment, then pulled out the crime scene photos. “So… what about the family of three you killed recently? Did they have some grudge against you too?”

  The photos showed a middle-aged man torn apart with savage brutality, and nearby, a mother and child killed instantly with single blows.

  “I didn’t know them before. They were just prey.” The head said.

  “Since they had no grudge against you, why kill them?” I asked. “I’m not going to lecture you about not killing innocents—that kind of talk won’t mean anything to you. But from what I’ve observed, your power level is still below Agent Kong’s, meaning you haven’t hit your limit yet. If that’s the case, why pick high-risk targets like local dignitaries instead of easy ones like some homeless person on the street?”

  The head answered in a low, heavy voice: “Because I needed to test myself.”

  “Test?” I echoed.

  “I’m already a superhuman, yet I still feel an instinctive awe when I see police officers or officials. I know exactly why—it’s the social conditioning drilled into me since childhood, the so-called ‘morality and law’ still holding me back. How ridiculous is that?” The head said. “I had to kill at least one person with real power to prove I can truly transcend all that.”

  Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!

  “Then it looks like your test failed.” I said.

  The head’s tone darkened. “What did you say?”

  “You went to the trouble of investigating that family beforehand and waited patiently for the day the wife and child would be out of the house—clearly to avoid involving the mother and son.” I recalled the earlier case analysis as I spoke. “But they didn’t go on the planned trip. When you carried out the attack, you found all three of them at home…

  “No—at first you probably thought only the target was there. If you’d seen the whole family together from the start, you likely would’ve waited for him to be alone again, just like you’d done before.

  “After brutally killing the target, the sick mother and child—who had been resting in another room—suddenly appeared in front of you. That’s when you realized something was wrong, and you immediately killed them too… I don’t think I’m off the mark. So why did you change your mind at that moment? Was it because they saw your real face?”

  My deduction seemed to hit exactly what had happened, yet this time the head couldn’t respond. He opened and closed his mouth, his expression blank with confusion. “I… don’t know.”

  Seeing that answer, Lu Youxun looked surprised.

  “Of course it wasn’t because they saw your real face—you were in your transformed state at the time.” I stared at the head. “But you felt like you were being seen, didn’t you?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Zhu Shi asked, puzzled.

  I had put myself in the position of this criminal and thought it through.

  Suppose I were this monster. I wanted to kill my target without dragging his family into it, yet at the last moment I changed my mind. What could drive that?

  It wasn’t fear of revenge—their revenge would mean nothing to me. It definitely wasn’t fear of being identified—my face and body were completely altered.

  Yet before any rational thought like “no risk of exposure” could fully form, something more primal and immediate surged up.

  I had just savagely murdered a woman’s husband, a child’s father.

  And then, unexpectedly, that very wife and child appeared before me.

  In their dazed, terrified, hate-filled eyes, my blood-soaked, monstrous form was reflected.

  At a moment like that, what would go through his mind? What would his body do?

  The truth probably wasn’t complicated at all.

  “You didn’t have time to think about why you had to kill them—your body just moved on its own… Isn’t that right?”

  “I…” The head’s confusion deepened, slowly twisting into visible pain.

  Unlike Zhu Shi, I didn’t particularly want to condemn him from the standpoint of morality or law—I myself hold little reverence for either. I just don’t go around loudly proclaiming it. People who make a special point of announcing how little they care about morals and laws tend to come off as rebelliously immature, in my opinion.

  And even if that immaturity is there, as long as someone fully understands the consequences of their actions and can accept them completely, then whatever they choose to do is their own business. Save people, kill them, help them, violate them—anything goes. Diving headfirst into an inescapable abyss without reason is fine too. If they can laugh heartily right up until the moment of death, that’s a kind of boldness in its own right.

  But I suspected he wasn’t the type who could laugh to the end.

  He couldn’t be a good person, and he probably couldn’t be a thoroughgoing villain either.

  He was most likely just another ordinary person—the very kind he looked down on.

  “Do you regret it?”

  I really wanted to know his answer.

  “…”

  The head squeezed his eyes shut in agony, his whole form trembling, yet he gave no reply—only silence.

  A moment later, he dropped from the air and thudded onto the ground.

  Lu Youxun picked up the head from the dirt.

  After examining it closely, he said, “Time’s up. He’s completely dead now.”

  Hearing that, I felt a sudden wave of disinterest.

  “I don’t know exactly what you said, but Z, it looks like you really got through to him?” Zhu Shi still seemed a bit confused, but she brightened up anyway. “Whatever—seeing him suffer like that felt pretty satisfying!”

  Lu Youxun looked at me and sighed. “Your reconstruction of his crime had a lot of assumptions, but somehow you nailed what was really eating at him. Maybe that’s a kind of talent. You might even have the potential to become a… well, a detective.” (He definitely said “criminal” first, didn’t he?)

  “In any case, I’ll take this head back with me. He said he met the other monster once, so I want to try divining the location where they made contact and possibly map out the other one’s future movements.” He continued, “But… there might be some obstacles with this.”

  “Is there a problem?” Zhu Shi asked, concerned.

  “We traced this lead through divination based on the recent string of local dignitary murders, but this monster only killed that one family of three. The main perpetrator behind the other cases is the second monster.” Lu Youxun explained. “So from a causal perspective, the divination should have pointed to the other one—but it didn’t.

  “The other monster likely has some ability to interfere with divination. Even if I can eventually locate him, it’ll take considerable time. Not tonight, at least.”

  “Tomorrow?” Zhu Shi asked.

  “I’ll notify you once I have results.” Lu Youxun said. “For now, let’s all head home.”

  “Alright… then you two go ahead.” Zhu Shi nodded. “I need to stay here and take care of something.”

  “What are you planning to do?” I asked curiously.

  “Just some stuff, that’s all.” Zhu Shi brushed it off vaguely, then seemed to catch herself. “Wait—no, Lu Chan, you stay too. You can only leave after Z is long gone.”

  “Why’s that?” Lu Youxun asked, puzzled.

  Zhu Shi declared firmly, “Obviously to make sure you two don’t sneak off and talk behind my back!”