Original and most updated translations are from volare. Please don’t read elsewhere and stop supporting theft.

TL: Zhao

Editing: Krisaia

Inside the interrogation room of the police station, Li Yiming struggled to stop the trembling of his hands as he looked at the handcuffs around his wrist.

’If I want to find Liu Meng, then I need to find a way out of this domain... But how? Convince them to change their way of life?’ Li Yiming pondered over his situation. He decided that his priority would still be locating Liu Meng rather than figuring out his own life philosophy.

"You looking for trouble? Aggravated assault?" Two policemen entered the room with a grin. Li Yiming noticed that both of them had their police badges removed, so he could not see their police number.

"Officer, you’ve dropped something." Li Yiming pointed at the door.

The two policers, who had already begun rolling up their sleeves, looked at the entrance and saw a parcel sitting on the ground. It obviously belonged to Li Yiming, since he had just been rushed into the room and did not have his belongings confiscated yet.

They stared at each other as they opened the parcel and found it full of cash, containing no less than one hundred thousand yuan.

"Well... your case is a troublesome one, so we’re going to do the interrogation in the afternoon. You’ll have the right to a lawyer, but you need to fill up this form first." One of the officers cleared his throat and said with a solemn voice.

’Bribery...’ Li Yiming began shaking even more violently as he repressed his urge to break free from his handcuffs and punish the officers. ’How am I supposed to cleanse this? Or should I even bother at all?’

Li Yiming’s head began aching as he thought of the ghosts he had to fight before coming into the domain. Using brute force tend to be ill-advised in a domain, as more and more enemies could simply be created, and he could not afford to waste much time on it.

Thud!

The door to his cell was suddenly open. A group of strong men in black rushed in with the officer standing behind them looking onward nervously.

"He’s the kid?" The man at the head of the group asked the police officer, and the latter answered with a nod.

"Okay, you can leave. Don’t worry, we know what we’re doing." The man in black said.

The police officer, upon seeing that Li Yiming was staring at the ground despondently, finally closed the door.

"You better last long enough to entertain us." The man said with a menacing smile as he poked at the back of Li Yiming’s head.

"What? Oh, you’re a funny one... Arghhh!" The man’s twisted smile quickly turned into a painful moan as Li Yiming broke his fingers with a quick snap.

One of the subordinates rushed toward Li Yiming with raised fists. Li Yiming traded a punch with him, breaking his entire arm at once. Li Yiming then bent his elbow and delivered a blow to the man’s face.

A loud crack was heard as the man’s head exploded like a melon.

As the blood and gore dripped down from his forehead, Li Yiming looked at the dumbfounded men around him.

"Maybe this is the way..." Li Yiming grumbled — killing people was another way to cleanse the world from their wrongdoings. If he was going to be unable to convince them to change their ways, then he would wash their sins away with blood.

Bang! Bang!

Loud banging at the door was heard. The police officer did not expect the men to be done with the job so quickly. The situation turned to his favor as he would get to keep all of the money if Li Yiming did not confess to it.

He opened the door and peeked inside, only to have a bloody hand clasp around his neck the next moment.

Li Yiming sighed as he looked at the corpse of the police officer, whose neck he had broken so easily. He then headed toward the basement of the police station to look for weapons.

Leaving the police station, his trembling hands gradually calmed down, but his bloodied right wrist now had a trace of red light. Unbeknownst to him, the corpses he had left behind slowly turned into puffs of black smoke.

* * *

"The search and rescue team have returned. There are no survivors from the aircraft carrier," Qian Mian said as he distributed copies of the report to those present in the meeting room of the temporary command outpost. An hour ago, he had arrived with the guardians from the Star Alliance, only to receive news about the gravity of the situation.

"I’ve had a look. The ghosts hanging around on the ocean are about level three or four. The few beneath the sea are level six, as for the ones near the gate..." Tian Yan said with a grave tone.

"Sages. Three of them." Li Huaibei added with a frown.

"What? This makes no sense at all!" Fang Shui’er exclaimed. The ghosts she had fought near the Southern gate, although menacing-looking, were level three at best, with most of them below that threshold. She had thought that Pan Junwei’s request to take care of the Northern gate was a sign that the tides were in their favor, but she now understood that it was clearly not the case.

"That’s why we need to take care of the other gates first. With our current strength, it’s impossible for us to seal the gate by force." Pan Junwei wiped away the sweat around his eyes and said with an anxious voice. Even with an army of virus-enhanced soldiers, they had suffered massive casualties as the soldiers were unable to use guardian equipment, and more importantly, unable to fight under the sun. To make matters worse, the ghosts seemed to be completely unaffected by physical attacks.

"If you’re out of options, then you should pull back your troops and leave the front line to us." Bai Ze’s childish voice was heard.

"This is..." The president, who had been invited to the meeting by Pan Junwei, was perplexed as to why a child was participating in a summit regarding a national emergency.

"She’s the one who calls the shots for us," Fang Shui’er replied coldly. She was of the opinion that the president, who normally should not be involved with guardian affairs, was uninvited and unwelcomed.

"Those who share the same goal should work together." Pan Junwei quickly intervened to ease the tension.

"How are the evacuations going?" The president changed the subject of the conversation.

"It’s going well. Although media exposure resulted in some panic among the general population, it also made them more cooperative," An officer answered.

"However, panic has spread to the other cities, and it’s quickly becoming difficult to manage," Another officer added.

"Call back of our volunteers and continue recruitment. Order the divisions to encamp at their respective cities and take over public security from local police forcers," The president calmly issued the order.

"Should we make the existence of the guardians public to avoid mass panic?" The president sought approval from those present. Although he did not want to admit it, the existence of "heroes" would do far more to ease the fear of the public than any kind of military intervention.

"That’s a good idea. I’ll get the footage of the fight against the ghosts right away. We could also make public the situation for the other gates to let the people know that we have what it takes to fight back," Qian Mian considered the proposition.

"It’s still not good that we’re simply sitting here. We need a breakthrough," Pan Junwei returned to the main subject.

"A breakthrough?" Fang Shui’er asked.

"If we can’t seal it, then maybe it’s better to blow it all up." Pan Junwei showed signs of fervent bloodlust — he had been repressing his urge to bring out his full weapon arsenal until now.

"How are you going to do it?" Bai Ze asked.

"We have seventeen-hundred nukes in the arsenal, and I have another one of my own. I’ll shove it right through the gate and that should do the trick."