109: Chapter 109 The Mysterious White-Robed Man!

Chen Chen narrowed his eyes, staring at the white-robed figure holding a sign 120 meters away.

"Mr. Chen Chen, I am waiting for you underground."

The black paint characters were crooked, yet they spelled out his real name with precision.

Qin Hongye's voice came down from the second floor: "Should we engage? I can see clearly through the scope; the target is making no threatening movements."

"Don't shoot."

Chen Chen pressed the communicator and turned his head toward the command console.

Shen Wanbing's fingers pressed against her necklace, a thin layer of sweat seeping from her forehead.

The concentration ice heart necklace flashed like an alarm, the blue light almost merging into a single sheet.

"Chen Chen..." Her voice was tense. "There are no life signs on the Radar."

"What do you mean?"

"Heat source, infrared, bio-electric field, carbon dioxide concentration—all zero. Physical scans show that location is empty."

Shen Wanbing's nails dug into the gaps of the necklace's silver chain.

"He is standing there, but according to the data, there is nothing there."

The vehicle cabin was silent for two seconds.

Su Xiaoqi held a half-eaten steak, tilting her head to peek out the vehicle window:

"That person in white clothes is so strange; there's no flesh on their face."

Shen Wanxing huddled in the corner of the sofa, gripping the corners of a cushion with both hands, her voice trembling:

"Don't... don't go over there, okay?"

Chen Chen looked back out the window.

The white-robed figure seemed to notice something and slowly lowered the sign in its hand.

The sign hit the ground and shattered into three pieces.

Then it raised a hand and took off its hood.

There was no human face beneath the hood.

A face covered in silver threads was exposed to the dim daylight.

Those threads were not patterns—they were alive.

Dense silver liquid neural cords squirmed on the surface of the skin, weaving into the contours of facial features, yet there were no eyeballs, no lips, no human organs of any kind.

Chen Chen's right hand pressed onto the hilt of the void-rending ship-slaying blade.

The white-robed figure's mouth did not move.

But a voice exploded directly in Chen Chen's mind—a cold, mechanical synthesized voice with electrical static:

"Looking forward to your arrival, Heretic."

The three words: Heretic.

The mark of the Lord of Flesh.

As soon as the words fell, the white-robed figure's body began to liquefy from the top of its head.

The whole person looked like a wax statue melted in a microwave; silver liquid metal flowed down from its scalp, along its neck, chest, and legs, gathering at the soles of its feet.

In less than three seconds, the complete human form turned into a puddle of silver, hissing as it seeped into the cracks of the gravel on the ground, disappearing completely.

Even the fragments of the sign were swept away by the silver liquid.

The street returned to being empty.

Jiang Yanxue gripped the control stick, her knuckles turning white: "What the hell was that?"

Chen Chen leaned back into the chair, rotating his thumb once around the hilt of his blade.

Liquid metal.

It shared the same technological origin as the semi-biochemical mechanical leader from Wild Sand Camp, but the tiers were not on the same level at all.

The leader needed a damping alloy skeleton to maintain a human form, while this thing used liquid neural cords to construct its entire body, coming and going as it pleased.

More crucially—it called him "Heretic."

The hatred mark of the Lord of Flesh, given by the system, not displayed externally.

Anyone capable of reading this information was either a high-level creature from the Lord of Flesh faction or some entity capable of reading system tags directly.

Regardless of which, they were no pushover.

"Don't just stare." Chen Chen patted the co-pilot armrest. "Sister Bing, check if the Rusted Waste City has any hidden broadcast frequencies."

Shen Wanbing suppressed her racing heart, swiping her fingers across the panel three times.

A dozen seconds later, a heavily compressed low-frequency signal was stripped from the noise.

She pressed play.

A hoarse, metallic, distorted synthesized voice came out of the communicator, completely different from the voice that had just rung in his head—this was a normal radio broadcast:

"Warning... Rusted Waste City spatial anchor energy decaying... Only sixty-five hours remaining until the next random jump... Repeat... sixty-five hours..."

It played on a loop.

Jiang Yanxue's dark red pupils constricted:

"Spatial jump? This crappy city can run?"

Shen Wanbing switched to the Black Fog data panel, several data lines intersecting on the holographic projection.

"The Black Fog's current advance speed is ten kilometers per hour during the day. From the edge of the nearest fog wall to the Rusted Waste City coordinates, the straight-line distance is three hundred and sixty kilometers."

She looked up.

"At this speed, the Black Fog will swallow this area in three days at most. And the Rusted Waste City will jump away randomly in sixty-five hours—if we don't get the things underground, we won't make it in time for either."

Time was locked.

Chen Chen turned his wrist to check the system time.

Less than three days left.

The proprietress's commission, Yi Chang's inheritance pebble, and the A-rank equipment in the sealed warehouse—everything was compressed within sixty-five hours.

"No more stalling."

He stood up from the co-pilot seat, hanging the void-rending ship-slaying blade back across his waist.

"We're flattening everything in our path."

"What's the target?" Jiang Yanxue turned, gripping the control stick.

"Underground factory entrance, south of the city center. Sister Bing, navigate."

"Received." Shen Wanbing locked the coordinates into the navigation panel and slid the engine output power up by one notch.

The Ghost Fortress engine hummed and surged, electric arcs bursting from the chassis, and the twenty-six-and-a-half-ton steel beast accelerated along the streets of the Rusted Waste City.

The tin booths on both sides were overturned by the airflow, and several survivors who were trading were scared into flattening themselves against the walls.

Chen Chen walked up to the second-floor levitation cabin.

Jiang Yanxue was bent over, squatting next to the weapon rack, applying maintenance oil to the blade of the Shadow Instant-Kill Blade.

Her tight combat suit clung to her body, the two curves below her lower back pulled taut, her hair tied in a high ponytail, exposing a large expanse of skin on the back of her neck.

Hearing footsteps, she didn't look up: "Pre-battle maintenance; don't rush me."

Chen Chen walked behind her, bent down, and grasped her wrist holding the blade from behind.

Jiang Yanxue's body stiffened instantly.

"The angle of your wrist's force application is wrong."

Chen Chen's voice was close to her ear, his breath spraying against the side of her neck. "When performing a horizontal cut in combat, your wrist needs to rotate inward by fifteen degrees."

He pressed her wrist and turned it to an angle.

The heat radiating from his 117 points of constitution transferred through the thin combat suit, and Jiang Yanxue's breathing rhythm went haywire.

She bit her lower lip, her dark red pupils slightly unfocused for half a second.

"...You're doing this on purpose."

"Teaching you how to use a blade is doing it on purpose?"

"I've used a blade for seven years; you're teaching me?"

Chen Chen didn't let go; instead, he tightened his five fingers.

Jiang Yanxue's back pressed against his chest.

The notification for Forbidden Domain Dual Cultivation popped up in his mind.

Today's three-time quota refreshed at midnight; it was currently full.

Shen Wanxing's luck feedback efficiency was the highest, but Jiang Yanxue's agility attribute was 47, which was 11 points lower than his 58—a one-way transfer could give her a boost.

Increasing the core attributes of combat personnel before battle—the logic was sound.

"Forbidden Domain Dual Cultivation." Chen Chen tossed the two words out in a low voice.

Jiang Yanxue's body jolted violently.

She turned her head, complex emotions surging in her dark red pupils—anticipation, and a hint of secret excitement.

"...Now? The people downstairs are listening."

"If you think it's too noisy, you can keep quiet."

Jiang Yanxue was choked up.

"You—"

The second half of the sentence was blocked in her throat.