85: I'm back in your hell.

Time stopped.

In the command center, there was only the monotonous and piercing long beep of the medical monitor.

It sounded like a cold, irreversible death sentence.

Everyone froze in place, like puppets drained of their souls.

The doctor put down the paddles, his face etched with helplessness.

Zhao Dahai's fist was embedded in the alloy wall, blood trickling down the twisted metal.

Bureau Chief Zhou closed his eyes, his weathered face instantly aging by ten years.

Su Qingxue held Chen Mo, his body utterly devoid of a heartbeat.

She did not cry.

She simply stared at his pale face with her vacant eyes.

As if trying to engrave his image into her soul.

And at that very moment.

The cold death sentence suddenly ceased.

Beep.

Beep-beep.

On the monitor, a tenacious curve began to pulse again.

Steady and powerful, like a precise engine being restarted.

Chen Mo.

He sat up.

He pulled out the tubes attached to him, his movements fluid, showing no sign of weakness.

He stepped off the bed, his bare feet landing on the cold metal floor.

“Gh-Ghost!”

The head of the medical team fell onto the floor in terror, pointing at Chen Mo and unable to articulate a clear word.

The entire command center was enveloped in silence.

Everyone stared at the man who had returned from the dead, as if looking at a god who had crawled out of hell.

Chen Mo did not look at them.

His gaze swept over everyone in the room.

The entire world, within his sight, presented an unprecedented, naked reality.

He looked at the paralyzed head of the medical team.

“Director Wang, the surgery you performed five years ago was not a failure.”

His voice was flat, yet it was like a surgical scalpel, precisely dissecting the man's deepest pain.

“Your wife's death was due to a rare genetic rejection. Go back and look at her medical records, page 73, the Serum Protein C values.”

Director Wang's pupils suddenly dilated!

He trembled violently, as if struck by lightning!

Chen Mo's gaze then fell upon Bureau Chief Zhou.

“Director Zhou, the mole in the Provincial Department is not your old classmate.”

“It's his secretary. A gambler who owes thirty million in a Macau casino.”

“The evidence is inside a Parker pen in his office safe—a micro USB drive.”

Bureau Chief Zhou's body shook violently!

He stared fixedly at Chen Mo, his eyes like those watching an omniscient and omnipotent devil!

Finally.

Chen Mo's gaze landed on the woman who had been standing in the shadows, like a black statue.

“Nightingale.”

He called out her codename.

“No.”

He shook his head.

“I should call you... Lin Xue.”

Boom!

An expression named "horror" appeared on Nightingale's eternally frozen face!

She subconsciously took half a step back, her hand moving toward the gun on her hip!

“Fifteen years ago, three days before the Severed Finger Nursery Rhyme case occurred, you were adopted by a Swiss couple.”

Chen Mo's voice, like the judge of hell, declared her sealed past.

“But that couple died in an ‘accidental’ car crash on the way to the airport.”

“You survived.”

“It was Gao Fan who carried you out of the burning car.”

“Shut up!”

Nightingale finally lost control.

She drew her gun, the black muzzle aimed directly at Chen Mo's forehead!

The four black-clad team members behind her also drew their weapons simultaneously, instantly dropping the atmosphere in the entire command center to freezing point!

Chen Mo did not move.

He didn't even look at the gun pointed at him.

He simply looked at her, a flicker of pity passing through his deep eyes.

“He told you that this corrupt world killed your adoptive parents.”

“He gave you a new life and a target for revenge.”

“But he didn't tell you...”

“That car accident was orchestrated by him personally.”

“You are not a survivor.”

“You are his... pre-selected, twelfth sacrifice.”

No!

Impossible!

Nightingale's body began to tremble violently!

Her psychological defenses fractured piece by piece at that moment!

“I do not have time to explain all of this to you.”

Chen Mo took a step forward, ignoring the gun only centimeters from his forehead.

An invisible, god-like pressure instantly enveloped the entire room.

“The sacrifice ritual at that orphanage will be completed in 89 minutes.”

“Afterward, a gate leading to the sin abyss will fully open.”

“You, me, this city, this world—we will all become food for the... thing behind that door.”

He looked at her eyes, which had become chaotic due to pain and confusion.

“Now, you have two choices.”

“Shoot and kill me, and then wait for the ‘god’ in your heart to devour you and this world together.”

“Or...”

“Follow me, and kill the devil who deceived you for fifteen years.”

Nightingale's hand holding the gun trembled like a leaf in the autumn wind.

Reason and emotion, faith and truth, tore and collided violently in her mind!

“Captain Zhao!”

Chen Mo ignored her, turning to Zhao Dahai, who was stunned, and issued an order.

“Assemble your strongest men, and put on the best gear you can find! We are not going to make an arrest; we are going to slay a god!”

“Yes!”

Zhao Dahai straightened his back abruptly as if shocked by electricity, and raging flames ignited in his tiger eyes!

“Li Ke!”

“Here! Team Leader Chen!”

“Connect me to the ground-based satellite! I want all real-time footage of that abandoned orphanage in Jiangcheng's northern suburbs! Infrared, thermal imaging, energy fluctuations! I need to see the heartbeat of every single mouse there!”

“Understood!”

“Su Qingxue.”

Chen Mo turned around and looked at the woman who was still sitting on the ground, staring blankly at him.

For the first time, his voice carried a trace of warmth.

“Get up.”

“The war isn't over yet.”

Su Qingxue's tears welled up again.

But this time, they were tears of joy and rebirth.

She nodded heavily, leaped up from the ground, wiped her tears, and transformed back into the valiant, icy female officer.

The command center roared into operation, like a war machine that had just been refueled!

Only Nightingale and her team members remained frozen in place.

“You...”

After a long while.

Nightingale finally lowered her gun, her voice hoarse as if scraped by sandpaper.

“Why should I believe you?”

“You don't need to believe me.”

Chen Mo walked up to the massive holographic screen.

It was already displaying the real-time footage of the orphanage.

The entire building was shrouded in a visible black mist, thick as ink.

Like a massive, wicked heart, beating frantically.

“You just need to go and see for yourself.”

“See whether the ‘god’ you worship has prepared a new life for you... or a grave.”

“I need your ‘Ghost’ squad. The guards there are not human.”

“I need you to... clear a path to hell for me.”

Nightingale looked at the ominous black mist on the screen, and at the man's solitary, towering back.

She finally made her choice.

She abruptly waved her hand at the people behind her.

“Prepare to move out!”

Chen Mo did not look back.

He merely looked at the orphanage, which was gathering the world's sins, and a cold curve appeared at the corner of his mouth.

“Gao Fan.”

“I have returned to your hell.”