237: Hyena and Doctor

The leader was a tall, thin man with half his face rotted away, patched up haphazardly with a few pieces of scrap metal.

He carried a homemade chainsword in his hand, its teeth still caked with the flesh of some unknown creature.

"Isn't this the famous Ninth Master?"

The man with the rotted face shook his chainsword, the weapon emitting a buzzing idle sound.

"What's the matter? Tired of living in the big houses up top, so you've come down to our sewers to inspect the work?"

Ninth Master's expression turned grim.

"Black Skin," Ninth Master gritted his teeth, "I led the people who built this path back in the day. Let us pass."

"Pass?"

The man called Black Skin laughed, the scrap metal on his face rattling.

"Ninth Master, have you lost your mind? In this world, you have to pay interest to borrow anything. Look at the state you're in—dragging a crippled leg and bringing along two... cripples?"

His gaze landed on Su Qingxue, and a lecherous glint flashed in his prosthetic eye.

"This girl isn't bad. She's a bit dirty, but she'll be usable after a wash."

He looked at Chen Mo again.

"As for this one..." Black Skin curled his lip, "Covered in blood, he looks like bad luck. Leave his boots, and you can just chop him up to feed the fish."

The four lackeys behind him burst into laughter.

They slowly surrounded them, the steel pipes and machetes in their hands clanging against the pipe walls, creating a noisy racket.

These were the "hyenas."

They only preyed on wounded lions.

Su Qingxue tried to raise her gun, but her hand was shaking violently.

Her energy had been exhausted in the previous battle; now, she might not even have the strength to pull the trigger.

"Ninth Master."

Black Skin stepped closer, his nauseating halitosis washing over them. "Don't say I don't value our old friendship. Leave the girl, gouge out that modified electronic eye of yours and give it to me, and I'll let you crawl past. How about that?"

Ninth Master trembled with rage, about to let out a curse.

A hand pressed down on his shoulder.

Chen Mo stepped forward.

He walked slowly, each step splashing into the water with a pat-pat sound.

"Boots?"

Chen Mo stopped two meters in front of Black Skin and looked down at the tattered military boots on his feet.

"There's only one pair, not enough to go around."

Black Skin paused, then burst into laughter.

"Kid, you're pretty arrogant, aren't you? Not enough to go around? Then we'll just chop off your feet too..."

Pfft.

The laughter stopped abruptly.

Because a dagger had already been driven into his mouth.

Entering through the lower jaw, piercing the tongue, and pinning directly into the upper palate.

Chen Mo's movements were too fast.

Too fast for anyone present to see how he had struck.

"Mmph... Mmph..."

Black Skin widened his prosthetic eye, his hands frantically clawing at the hilt in his mouth as blood gushed out through the gaps in the scrap metal.

"Is it enough to go around now?"

Chen Mo gripped the hilt and gave it a violent twist.

Crack.

Black Skin's jaw shattered instantly.

Chen Mo let go and kicked Black Skin in the chest.

The tall, thin body flew back like a ragdoll, crashing into two of his lackeys, and all three tumbled into a heap.

The remaining two were stunned.

They looked at the blood-soaked man as if he were a demon crawling out of hell.

"Attack! Kill him!"

One of the guys holding a steel pipe roared to embolden himself and swung the pipe down.

Chen Mo didn't retreat; he advanced.

He sidestepped the pipe and thrust his left hand out like lightning, grabbing the man by the throat.

He didn't crush it.

Instead, he lifted the man up and used him as a shield at his side.

Clang!

Another machete slashed hard into the poor guy's back, cutting three inches deep into his flesh.

"Ahhhhh!"

The screams echoed through the enclosed pipe.

Chen Mo, expressionless, drew the pulse pistol from his waist with his right hand.

That was the one he had casually taken from Su Qingxue earlier.

Bang! Bang!

Two shots.

Precise headshots.

The guy with the machete had a charred hole in the center of his forehead and fell stiffly into the water.

As for the "shield" in his hand, Chen Mo tossed it aside like trash into the nearby sewage drain.

In the blink of an eye.

Five "hyenas"—two dead, three crippled.

Black Skin, whose jaw was shattered, was still twitching in the water, his throat emitting wheezing, airy roars.

Chen Mo walked over and pulled the dagger from his mouth.

He wiped it on Black Skin's clothes.

"Who else wants the boots?"

Chen Mo scanned his surroundings.

In the darkness, the red dots that had been restless instantly vanished.

Dead silence.

Only the sound of flowing water.

"Let's go."

Chen Mo tossed the gun back to the stunned Su Qingxue and turned to continue walking forward.

Ninth Master swallowed hard, watching Chen Mo's back, a deep fear growing in his eyes.

In that instant just now.

He felt that Chen Mo wasn't killing people at all.

He was performing surgery.

Precise, cold-blooded, without a single wasted movement.

And...

Ninth Master noticed that the light from the implant in Chen Mo's chest, which had been flickering before, was now terrifyingly stable.

That dark red light didn't look like it was burning; it looked more like it was breathing.

...

Half an hour later.

They finally crawled out of the foul-smelling sewer and arrived at an abandoned underground air-raid shelter.

This was one of Ninth Master's "safe houses."

It was called a safe house, but it was really just a warehouse filled with moldy canned goods and expired medicine.

"I can't go on..."

Ninth Master plopped onto the ground, refusing to move any further. "Even if the King of Heaven himself came down, I'm taking a break."

Su Qingxue leaned against the wall, tending to her wounds.

She watched Chen Mo, who was checking the inventory, and finally asked the question she had been holding back the whole way.

"Your heart... what's going on with it?"

Chen Mo stopped what he was doing, pulled out a can of drinkable beer, and popped the tab.

Hiss.

The sound of carbonation.

"I don't know."

Chen Mo took a swig of beer, the cold liquid flowing down his throat, slightly washing away the metallic taste of blood in his mouth.

"It seems... to have upgraded."

"Upgraded?" Su Qingxue frowned.

"Before, it was a furnace trying to burn me alive," Chen Mo said, looking down at his chest. "Now, it's a stomach with an empty belly."

That hunger.

It wasn't a craving for food.

It was a greed for energy.

When he killed those "hyenas" earlier, Chen Mo clearly felt that when the dagger pierced their bodies, a faint trace of bio-electricity traveled up the hilt and into his body.

Although it was very little, pitifully little.

But the pleasure of that "feeding" made his scalp tingle.

Is this what Ruan Qiushui feels?

Is this what they call a "god"?

Chen Mo sneered.

What kind of bullshit god is that?

Just a higher-level ghoul, nothing more.

Beep—

Suddenly, a red pop-up window appeared on Chen Mo's retina.

It was a system notification from the heart implant.

It wasn't an error alarm.

It was a data log.

[External data write detected...]

[Source: Unknown (Signature match: Hell-003)]

[Decrypting...]

Chen Mo's pupils constricted sharply.

Hell-003?

The hell engine has serial numbers?

If so, what number is the one inside him? And what number is Ruan Qiushui?

Before he could figure it out, a new line of text appeared before his eyes.

It wasn't dull code.

It was a short message, as if someone had written it on the screen with bloody fingers:

[Do not trust that doctor.]

[He wants to eat us all.]

Chen Mo's hand shook, and the beer can in his hand was crushed.

Doctor?

Which doctor?

The black-market doctor who performed his implant surgery? Or... the madman who created the "hell engine"?

Just then, the heavy iron door of the air-raid shelter was suddenly knocked on from the outside.

Knock, knock, knock.

Very rhythmic.

Very polite.

"Guests inside."

A gentle, smiling voice came through the iron door.

"I am the doctor from the 'Mutual Aid Society'."

"I heard you have a patient here. Do you need a house call?"