Chapter 669: Shadows of the Stolen Powers

Previously in Nightmare of God, Number Two had already told himself that many things had been stolen from him.

At that time, Lu Xin didn’t yet understand what form this ‘theft’ truly took. It wasn’t until now that he suddenly realized. Even though it was after the Red Moon Incident—when order had crumbled and most people lacked proper education—Lu Xin had once been educated, so he remembered the concept of ‘clones’ before the incident.

Thus, when he saw three different Number Twos, he understood immediately.

So this was the kind of theft after all…

Number Two was extraordinarily powerful. Bound in some way to Nightmare of God, he was virtually born to be at the pinnacle among Ability Users. His powers defied simple categorization—he possessed countless abilities that, once stolen, could wreak havoc in the real world. But these stolen powers required a host. Where did the host come from?

The answer was simple: Number Two himself.

By replicating Number Two, they obtained host bodies perfectly suited to carry these powers.

But this was replication…

Creating myriad copies of a being that originally existed only once…

Lu Xin despised such acts!

……

……

“Shua…”

While Lu Xin wrestled with this thought, the three Number Twos across from him suddenly attacked without a word. Clearly, these were not genuine Number Two, for they hadn’t even exchanged a greeting.

“Chichi…”

A fine slicing sound cut through the air, as delicate, filament-like blood vessels slashed swiftly.

That Number Two—whose spiderweb had ensnared countless people, binding them to his very being—gathered even more blood vessels and muscle tissue the more bodies were tied to him. Like an endless mass of hair, these filaments stretched out, rebounding with uncanny vitality and flexibility, surging relentlessly toward Lu Xin.

His Father was battling the Hell Regiment, and without hesitation, Lu Xin unleashed a Mental Impact.

“Hulala…”

Before him, the distorted air exploded as blood vessels were blasted out, many wilting instantly.

But a Mental Impact was inherently fleeting.

It was like throwing a punch.

Once thrown, the force was spent, with a pause before the next blow.

Yet the blood vessels and muscle strands continued relentlessly, some bypassing Lu Xin’s front and coming from the sides and even from behind, lashing into his body.

At that moment, on the high-rise roof to the east, a Number Two caressed a glass cup in his hand.

The very next instant, the cup transformed into a red apple.

It was as if a signal had been given. The air around Lu Xin began to tremble violently as pure black parts materialized out of nowhere.

They self-assembled in mid-air, intricately joining to form a dark, ominous submachine gun. In the next moment, this submachine gun split into two, then into four, until it became dozens of guns.

They fanned out from above, all aimed squarely at Lu Xin.

At that moment, Lu Xin tensed in alert.

He knew it was probably fake—a mere refraction of light forming an illusion.

Drunkard could easily pull that off.

Yet he felt it was fake, even as his senses confirmed its terrifying reality.

So much so that even his very perception wavered, accepting it as true.

In that instant, an indescribable sense of foreboding seized him—as if a real submachine gun were trained on him.

“Seventeen…”

He suddenly cried out, his brows twitching with urgency.

“Shua!”

In the distance, his Sister atop a spiderweb quickly lifted her head, a flash of surprise on her small face.

Earlier, whether confronting the Hell Regiment or that monstrous being bristling with blood vessels, she hadn’t directly attacked with her spiderweb because she sensed that the force was beyond her strength. The web was powerful enough to instantly envelop Flame City, sever its violent law enforcement, and subdue countless wailing citizens on the street.

But no matter how formidable the web, it was merely a product of Spider-type power weaving them together.

However, these three monstrous beings exuded a strength that seemingly surpassed the Fourth Stage—a power that even her abilities couldn’t counter.

Just as the Hell Regiment was immune to Spider-type influence, if she wished to stop them, she could only try to use the very people woven into the web. The result would be devastating losses, a risk too great to take.

That vessel-like monster, however, could sever their bonds in an instant, turning them into one with itself.

The Sister on the upper floor instinctively avoided getting too close to him.

After all, each was extremely dangerous, and she cherished her toy and didn’t want to risk it colliding with debris.

So she instinctively dodged.

Only then did she realize she could no longer hide—her Brother was furious.

He even began calling her name…

……

……

“Dada dada…”

The Sister quickly raced along the spiderweb to Lu Xin’s side.

Though she was reluctant to risk her new toy and her life, she hurried over nonetheless.

As she drew closer to Lu Xin, the massive web’s edges began to give way, letting people fall off continuously.

This happened because, as the Sister withdrew her Mental Power, the web’s grip on its periphery loosened.

Her Mental Power surged stronger even as the web weakened.

“Shua!”

The Sister, now beside Lu Xin, darted her tiny hands out in a flurry.

Under the force of her Mental Power, her little hands blurred into countless afterimages, as if she had grown hundreds at once.

They seized every blood vessel filament advancing toward Lu Xin in a single, swift motion.

At the same time, Lu Xin discarded the falling Number Two copy, turned, and faced the Number Two on the high-rise. In that moment, all the submachine guns reloaded and began trembling as countless fake bullets were fired at him.

Although these bullets were fake, Lu Xin knew that even a phantom bullet hitting him would create a gaping wound.

Without hesitation, he yanked a portion of his Father’s shadow. His left hand gripped it, and as it turned jet black, the trembling shadow nullified the incoming bullets, repelling them until wooden fragments dropped—the so-called submachine guns had transformed into wood.

“Sister…”

After resolving this matter, Lu Xin murmured a reminder to his Sister.

Relieved, the Sister no longer called his name loudly and responded with a firm pull.

With a crashing sound,

her small hands, now clutching bundles of blood vessels and muscle tissue, forcefully hurled the grotesque, bloated Number Two—resembling a giant mass of bound bodies—forward.

Countless faces on that mass opened their eyes and mouths in a horrifying display.

Lu Xin, barely glancing, simply turned and grabbed it away.

With a sharp ‘chi’ sound, his hand pierced through the Number Two clone, crushing its heart.

Yet, in the very next moment, the Number Two whose heart had burst, along with a face just inches from Lu Xin’s, flushed red as blood sprayed onto him. Wild agony and madness erupted in his eyes; suddenly, blood vessels flew as one of the contaminated individuals clinging to him had its heart ripped out and forced into his chest.

Immediately, its power surged even further, and numerous limbs lunged at Lu Xin.

Lu Xin’s pupils narrowed as his black hand reached out; every limb that clutched him was instantly vaporized—even obliterated. Yet other limbs managed to cling on, and countless blood vessels stabbed at him.

At that moment, Lu Xin’s emotions and senses were overwhelmed by chaos.

“Is this the power of the Fifth Stage?”

Lu Xin absorbed the chaos in silence, his body half reduced to a pulpy mess while the rest remained intact.

He realized that these three Number Two replicas wielded abilities unlike any he had encountered before.

While he had long since diluted ordinary pollution, this new contamination persisted.

At the same time, affected by the chaos, his Father’s power also wavered slightly.

On the street, the Black Military swelled like a tidal wave, surging forward. In his blurred vision, he could see pale faces beneath black top hats and outstretched hands reaching for him.

Across the way on the high-rise, the Number Two replica lightly caressed an apple in his hand.

Suddenly, Lu Xin felt his footing give way. Glancing down, he saw that the sports arena’s steel framework had vanished, and he was standing on a pile of glass cups—smooth and incapable of support—causing him to slide, tumbling among countless scattered cups.

He felt the icy press of the Hell Regiment’s pale, grasping hands on his skin.

Inside him, innumerable foreign blood vessels writhed and jabbed.

Underfoot, the rolling glass cups induced a disorienting sense of imbalance and suffocation…

For the first time, Lu Xin felt that this world was utterly unreal.

Taking a deep breath, he murmured, “Number Two, I’ll help you settle these accounts…”

As the final syllable floated away, black particles coalesced in his left eye.

Then, within that black eye, a fierce luminescence burst forth.

“Hulala…”

The glass cups around him, refracting light in a dreamlike manner, suddenly recoiled as if projected away.

Lu Xin noticed that he was still standing atop the sports arena.

In the next moment, he gripped his Sister’s hand with his left and pressed his Father’s black shadow with his right.

“Ka-ka…”

The Sister’s body shattered as she suddenly clung to the Number Two replica—a grotesque amalgam of bound, living bodies—in front of Lu Xin. Then, a terrifying, twisting force surged into that Number Two, flinging away the attached bodies until only a pale, emaciated form remained.

In the next instant, that form tore apart into fragments of pulsating flesh.

At the same time, his Father’s power surged dramatically. Rolling black shadows ripped away from the sports arena and surged in segments toward the Black Military. With one devastating blow spanning several hundred meters, the front-line force was obliterated into mental turbulence. Moreover, that black shadow rushed directly toward the end of the Hell Regiment, where a Number Two clad in a suit stood.

“Hulala…”

That Number Two was also reduced to powder.

His Father’s maniacal laughter boomed—loud and excited. Previously suppressed by the Hell Regiment and filled with intense frustration, his Father now exacted revenge, for Lu Xin had refused to taint him to harvest mental power.

Amidst his Father’s laughter, Lu Xin suddenly turned to glower at the distant Number Two replica on the high-rise.

Black particles in his eyes trembled as they fixed on the glass cup in the replica’s hand.

The cup exploded instantly, and the Number Two stumbled backward…

……

……

“Their abilities are strong, but they’re all defective…”

“If the real Number Two arrives, I fear…”

Lu Xin pondered as he shook his head slightly, glancing at the wreckage of the three replicas.

Then, a clattering noise of chains echoed behind him.

On the Hell Embryo, four faint white chains suddenly floated upward.

One chain shot toward the back of Lu Xin’s head while the other three quickly extended in different directions.

Realizing something was amiss, Lu Xin spun around and seized the chain heading his way.

“Chi-la…”

The chain in his palm was vaporized by his Mental Power, shattering into pieces.

Yet the other three chains flew out, piercing the air as if entering a mysterious realm.

In the next moment, the three chains retracted, yanking out three Number Two replicas.

One lay on a nearby spiderweb, its body still slick with bizarre blood vessels, gazing sinisterly.

Another stood on the street, dressed in a black suit and wearing a top hat.

The third stood on the opposite high-rise, holding a glass cup.

In total, there were three Number Two replicas.

……

……

“What is this now?”

A look of astonishment crossed Lu Xin’s face.

Was this the power of the Hell Embryo, or that of Number Two himself?

He recalled that in Nightmare of God, Number Two had claimed he was immortal, yet insisted that only he could kill himself. Thus, these reappearances of Number Two weren’t due to Lu Xin’s failure to kill him.

Then…

Lu Xin’s mind flashed back to the despair he’d witnessed while hiding in Flame City.

They were dead, yet still wandering this world…

Could it be that the Hell Embryo possessed, to some degree, the power to defy life and death?

……

……

“Gudong!”

“Gudong!”

“Gudong!”

While Lu Xin struggled with the three Number Two replicas and pondered his next move, the embryo behind him trembled violently.

He felt an ominous threat crawling over his skin, as if the embryo were rapidly nearing a dreadful limit with every passing second.

On one side were the three Number Two replicas wielding power beyond a Mental Overlord’s reach; on the other, the Hell Embryo…

What was he to do?

As the thought crossed his mind, panic gripped him, and his teeth clenched tight.

“Hula…”

Then, a deafening noise erupted from afar.

……

……

Around the sports arena, human-shaped spiderwebs swayed in the air. Abandoned cars and traces of fire scarred the street.

All nearby had long fled—except for those clinging to the spiderweb—leaving the ground deserted.

Yet around the arena, countless human heads began appearing mysteriously.

Countless figures scaled walls and leaped across rooftops like a formidable army surging forward with a thunderous roar.

The strangest part was that every single one bore the visage of Dracula, baring fangs in a fearsome yet handsome grimace, as they crowded the front of the arena.

Soon, the mass parted as a convertible jeep rolled forward. Seated inside was a blonde man wearing a blindfold who, in classic Dracula style, lifted his blindfold and surveyed the battle—with his gaze fixed particularly on Lu Xin in the arena.

His expression gradually shifted to one of delight: “This five-million deal was well worth it…”

……

Shortly thereafter, on a street in the northwest, countless zombie-like figures shuffled forward with heavy, sluggish steps.

There were at least several hundred of them, as if still half-asleep, each with a red serpent coiled around their neck, eyes alert and occasionally flicking their tongues as they whispered among themselves.

……

Then from the south, a diminutive Old Wang emerged, clutching a brick.

Walking with his legs drawn in and grinning broadly, he remarked, “Those women sure kick hard in the groin…”

……

Immediately after, a sports car roared in, drifting sharply as a flurry of cash rained down.

Out stepped a father and son duo wearing Pikachu masks, eyeing their surroundings warily.

The duo exchanged words, “Dad, they aren’t even wearing masks…”

“Shut up, you little turtle…”

The Father warned in a low tone, “Can we really measure up to them?”

“They’re all lunatics—after causing chaos they always run off. Meanwhile, we’re stuck here…”

……

……

More and more people arrived—some carrying suona, others moving with the grace of dancers, and some wielding plasma guns.

It seemed that some were members of a club, others were undercover agents from unknown organizations within Flame, and still others might simply be looters drawn by the Hell Embryo’s mental force, all furtively watching.

“Where is the entrance to Hell?”

“Whose voice was that little girl just now?”

“They said it’s a party, but why is there no proper table set?”

“…”

Of course, some had simply lost their way.

For instance, in an underground base at that moment, a chubby figure struggled to break free from a wall’s grip.

Then, he looked bewildered at the vast underground space, “Where is this?”

“I still have a party to attend; how did I end up here?”