16: Chapter 16 All sacrifices have a price, except for that boy.

South of the city. An abandoned factory.

Rusted steel trusses crisscrossed, blocking the midday sun.

Inside the factory, the air was thick with an inescapable, pungent smell of blood.

The concrete floor slabs had been completely pried open, revealing the black soil beneath.

Ten massive corpses were arranged in a huge circular Formation according to a specific geometric pattern.

These were the remains of ten A-level Anomalies.

There were deformed giants shaped like mountains of flesh, faceless masses of meat covered in mouthparts, and frost-covered mournful Souls exuding an aura of extreme cold.

At this moment, ten men draped in black robes stood beside each of the ten remains, their hands forming complex Seals.

Under their full exertion and guidance, the Formation rumbled into operation. The core rules of these ten remains were forcibly extracted, transforming into ten thick, dark red beams of light that converged upon a pitch-black crack at the very center of the Formation.

A slender, upright figure stood at the edge of the Formation.

The young man wore a custom-made Advanced suit, spotless and pristine.

On his face, he wore a silver-white metal mask that covered the upper half of his face, revealing only his tightly pursed thin lips and a sharp jawline.

He wore snow-white gloves and was toying with a dark gold pocket watch in his hand.

"Leader. The sacrifices have completely melted. The spatial lockdown is complete. The barrier of the sequence weapon is fading."

Seeing that the extraction by the Formation was stabilizing, the leader of the black-robed men reined in some of his spiritual energy, walked up to the young man, knelt on one knee, and lowered his head to report.

The other nine remained in place, struggling to maintain the operation of the Formation.

The young man closed the pocket watch. The metal cover made a crisp click.

"Very good." The young man's voice was low, devoid of any emotional fluctuation. "I have just crossed the barrier to S-class. The Salvation Society needs me to possess absolute martial suppression. The timing for this item to emerge is perfect."

The head black-robed man looked up, his eyes filled with fanaticism.

"With this s-class sequencing weapon [black day], you will be able to sever the shackles beneath Linhai City! When that happens, the city-wide barrier will collapse."

The young man walked to the edge of the Formation, his gaze landing on the continuously expanding pitch-black crack at the center.

Extremely terrifying energy fluctuations were seeping out from there, swallowing even the light.

"Greenhouses cannot raise warriors capable of resisting the apocalypse."

The young man straightened his suit cuffs, his tone level.

"The authorities' approach is too naive. They try to protect ordinary people with weak spiritual energy matrices. But once the entities in the depths of the abyss fully awaken, this protective circle won't even last a second."

He turned around and looked at the ten black-robed subordinates who were maintaining the Formation.

"What we must do is break the greenhouse. Let the entire Linhai City become a trial ground where Strange Tales run rampant. Only the few humans who survive the life-and-death struggle will be qualified to stand their ground in the coming apocalyptic disaster. For the sake of a greater survival, the sacrifice of the majority is a necessary price."

The head black-robed man knocked his head heavily against the ground, and the nine people maintaining the Formation around him also shouted in unison.

"The Salvation Society swears to follow the Leader to the death! Everything for survival!"

The young man waved his hand, signaling the subordinate kneeling before him to rise.

He glanced at the time on his watch. The barrier would be completely broken in ten minutes.

"How is the Investigation Bureau?" the young man asked.

The official forces of Linhai City were not weak. Although they had already blocked the fluctuations in this area, it was hard to guarantee that no high-level investigator would notice the sacrifice of these ten A-level Anomalies here.

The black-robed man stood up, his tone carrying a hint of irrepressible pride and desire for credit.

"Rest assured, Leader. Your subordinate had made arrangements long ago. To divert the main force of the Investigation Bureau and completely draw their attention away from the south of the city, I planted a bait in the heart of the downtown area in advance."

The young man did not look back and asked offhandedly: "What bait?"

"Your subordinate spent a large sum in the black market to purchase a B-Level Weird Tale [Pseudo-Human Examination Room] in a sealed state. Just two hours ago, I precisely deployed it to the place with the highest density of people and the weakest official defense."

The young man raised an eyebrow: "Where?"

The black-robed man laughed: "Inside the teaching building of Linhai City No. 2 Middle School. It is full of students who have no power to truss a chicken. A B-Level Weird Tale unfolding its Domain in a school is enough to make the entire Investigation Bureau panic! Their main force is currently surrounding No. 2 Middle School, and they definitely cannot spare any manpower to come to the south of the city!"

The young man's movements stopped.

The air in the entire factory instantly stagnated.

The echoes of the machinery operating around them vanished.

The bloodlust exuding from the ten A-level Anomalies' remains on the ground was instantly dispersed by a more violent, purer killing intent.

The smile on the black-robed man's face froze.

He instinctively felt a bone-chilling fear, and his breathing stopped abruptly.

A black shadow flashed by.

Before the black-robed man could even make a defensive move, his body was already suspended in the air.

The young man's right hand clamped tightly around the black-robed man's neck, lifting him into the air with one arm.

The white leather glove sank deep into the muscles of the black-robed man's neck, and his cervical vertebrae emitted an unbearable grinding sound of cracking.

Half of the young man's face was hidden in the shadow of his silver-white mask.

His eyes revealed a murderous glare ready to devour people.

"Linhai City, No. 2 Middle School?"

The young man bit out every word heavily, his voice as cold as a freezing wind blowing from the depths of Hell.

The black-robed man kicked his legs wildly, his hands clutching the young man's arm, his eyes bulging; he couldn't make a sound, only barely squeezing out broken syllables from his throat.

He had absolutely no idea what he had done wrong.

The Leader had just been saying that for the sake of the greater good, one must stop at nothing, and that the sacrifice of the majority is a necessary price.

How could he turn around and start killing him instantly?

On the edge of the Formation, the nine black-robed subordinates who had been extracting energy were directly crushed by this terrifying killing intent, vomiting blood and falling to their knees one after another.

The dark red light beams of the Formation vibrated violently as a result.

They trembled all over, not daring to lift their heads.

"I have repeatedly emphasized that the bait deployment point must be far away from the East District! Who gave you the authority to change it to that place without permission, especially No. 2 Middle School?!"

The young man's fingers tightened abruptly, the muscles under his suit bulging.

That was Su Yun's high school.

Today was a mock exam.

His younger brother must be in the school.

A B-Level Weird Tale, thrown among a group of ordinary high school students.

That was a one-sided massacre.

The young man closed his eyes; his mind was filled with the image of Su Yun's miserable death, as well as his parents' disappointed gazes.

The subordinate explained tremblingly.

"Leader, there was no choice, the Seal of the Weird Tale loosened just when we arrived there..."

"Student casualties."

The young man opened his eyes, took a deep breath to suppress his anger, and stared at the purple face of the black-robed man.

"Say one wrong word, and I will extract your Soul to light a sky lantern."

He loosened his fingers slightly, leaving room for the other party to speak.

The black-robed man gasped for air frantically, his voice hoarse and miserable: "No... no casualties! Not a single one!"

The young man's eyes narrowed: "What do you mean? Did the Investigation Bureau get there that fast?"

"No, not the Investigation Bureau..."

The black-robed man coughed up a mouthful of blood, "Our insider just sent back news... The barrier is broken. The Weird Tale is dead. I heard... I heard it was forced to self-destruct on the spot by a student using some strange logic puzzle... The entire Senior Year Class 2 survived... No one died..."

The bloodshot look in the young man's eyes faded bit by bit.

He quickly processed the information in his mind.

Senior Year Class 2. That was exactly Su Yun's class.

Forced to self-destruct by a student using a logic puzzle?

The young man did not know the specific process, but as long as his younger brother was safe, his heart, which had almost jumped out of his chest, finally returned to its place.

He waved his hand casually.

The black-robed man was slammed against a steel pillar more than ten meters away like a broken sack, the immense impact causing the steel pillar to dent.

The black-robed man spat out a large mouthful of blood, slid to the ground, and coughed violently.

The young man took out a snow-white handkerchief and leisurely wiped the dust from his gloves.

"Don't let it happen again."

The young man's voice returned to its previous coldness and level tone.

"Leader..." The black-robed man struggled to get up, his face full of confusion and fear, "Your subordinate is dull-witted... I don't understand..."

The young man threw the handkerchief on the ground.

"Children are the future of this world. The sparks of the future need to be tempered through growth, not consumed casually as worthless bait before they have even picked up a weapon."

He turned around, his back to the ten subordinates, his tone brooking no doubt.

"The Salvation Society exists to save the world. Killing is just a means, not an end. If I find out again that anyone has reached out to schools..."

The young man drew a short blade from his waist and threw it casually.

The short blade grazed the scalp of the head black-robed man and nailed into the steel pillar behind him, burying itself to the hilt.

"I will peel his skin off."

"Yes! Your subordinate understands! There will absolutely not be a next time!"

Just then, the young man was startled again.

Because in his perception, a person was rapidly approaching this direction.

A straight trajectory was being drawn through the intricate, abandoned factory area, heading straight for the central factory building where they were located.

What surprised the young man most was that to ensure this sacrifice was foolproof, his subordinates had set up a concealment barrier on the periphery sufficient to shield high-level spiritual energy.

Even the detection instruments of the Linhai City official Investigation Bureau could not detect the anomaly here, but this sudden intruder, as if possessing foreknowledge, had locked onto the core coordinates of the Formation with extreme precision, without any probing or hesitation.

"Be on guard."

The young man's eyes turned slightly cold, and he gave the order in a deep voice.

The short two words instantly caused the air pressure in the factory to drop to freezing point.