133: Chapter 133 The Reaper Beyond the Rules

After an unknown amount of time, dawn broke, yet that first light did not represent hope.

Dull gray light struggled to seep in through the broken glass windows.

The light even carried a certain decayed, granular texture.

"Click."

As if some invisible shackle had been quietly unlocked, the shop's atmosphere, which had been tense to the point of snapping, completely dissipated at this moment.

The dark tide had receded.

"Go! Quickly! While we can!"

"Get out of here! I can't stay in this hellhole for another second!"

The survivors who had been huddled in the shadows now scrambled like monkeys with their tails on fire.

They rushed toward the door on all fours, their footsteps chaotic and their breathing ragged.

As they passed Li Taiping, everyone instinctively chose to take a detour.

No one even dared to look up at him.

They were terrified that this man, holding a steel pipe with eyes colder than the dark tide, would suddenly change his mind and keep them there for "practice."

Li Taiping stood in place, his posture upright and motionless.

The bloodied steel pipe in his hand pointed diagonally toward the ground; a drop of dark red, viscous liquid slid down the side and hit the dust with a 'splat,' blooming like a tiny flower.

His gaze was locked firmly onto the five men lying on the floor, who were still in a state of heavy unconsciousness.

He had figured out the Shop Owner's rules.

Killing was forbidden inside the shop.

This was an ironclad law and the sole foundation for this shelter's existence.

"Rules are meant to protect the weak."

Li Taiping's voice was so low only he could hear it. "And they are also meant to... bind the fools."

He moved.

He bent down with unhurried movements, possessing even a sort of aristocratic elegance.

Then, expressionless, he grabbed the ankle of the burly man with the fleshy face.

"Screech— Screech—"

The sound of a body dragging against the floor was exceptionally grating in the empty, silent shop, like a dull saw repeatedly scraping against everyone's nerves.

Su Jie was stunned.

Her beautiful peach-blossom eyes were full of shock. She quickly jogged to catch up, her fingertips twisting together in nervousness, her voice trembling:

"Hubby, what... what are you doing? It's already light out, let's hurry back to the shelter. It's not safe here."

Li Taiping didn't look back, his pace incredibly steady.

He simply uttered two words: "Clearing trash."

Su Jie's breath hitched.

She watched helplessly as Li Taiping, like a tireless porter, dragged those five unconscious men one by one toward the main entrance.

The moment the last body crossed the threshold and entered the ruined street.

Li Taiping keenly perceived that the suffocating pressure that had been looming over his head instantly vanished without a trace.

That was the boundary of the Shop Owner's domain.

A single step away, yet they were two different worlds of life and death.

"Still not awake?"

Li Taiping stood outside the door, the shop's light casting a long, thin shadow at his feet.

He casually tossed away the deformed steel pipe, which made a dull metallic thud as it hit the ground.

"Then, never wake up again."

He pulled a short knife from his waist.

It was something he had "borrowed" from a survivor during the chaos earlier.

The blade wasn't particularly sharp, but in Li Taiping's hand, it radiated a chilling aura of death.

He crouched down, his movements as precise as if he were performing a delicate surgery, or perhaps pruning weeds in his own garden.

"Puchi!"

The short knife sliced through the burly man's throat without any resistance.

Blood erupted like a pressurized fountain, instantly staining the cracked asphalt road bright red.

The man didn't even let out a groan before he completely bid farewell to this desperate world in his silent coma.

Then the second one.

The third one.

The fourth one.

Li Taiping's gaze was calm to an eerie degree.

There was no bloodthirsty madness, nor any pleasure from revenge.

In his eyes, killing these so-called "people" was no different from casually deleting a piece of redundant code taking up memory.

In this dungeon, everything besides himself was an illusion.

Su Jie stood at the shop entrance, as if struck by lightning, frozen like a wooden statue.

She had originally thought Li Taiping just wanted to throw these people out to fend for themselves, but she hadn't expected him to be so absolute, so ruthless.

"You can... even play it like this?"

Two survivors who were still in the shop and hadn't gone far yet happened to witness this scene.

They felt their knees go weak and collapsed to the ground with a 'plop,' the sound of their teeth chattering clearly audible.

They had thought that as long as they hid in the shop, they would be absolutely safe.

But they forgot that dawn would always come, and the dark tide would always recede.

And humans, ultimately, have to go outside.

This man's strength was not only despairingly high, but his insight into rule loopholes was almost demonic.

He wasn't just killing people; he was mocking the rules.

The moment the last person took their final breath.

Deep in Li Taiping's mind, a long-awaited, heavenly mechanical voice suddenly rang out.

"Ding— System signal reconnecting..."

"Connection progress: 15%..."

"Personal Warehouse function partially activated!"

The fingers Li Taiping used to hold the knife trembled slightly.

In his sea of consciousness, the previously dim panel data area, specifically the icon symbolizing "Personal Warehouse," was emitting a faint but steady blue light.

Although his transcendent strength hadn't fully recovered yet.

And although that damned dungeon quest panel was a mess of garbled code.

But, the Personal Warehouse was open!

This meant he was no longer an unarmed ordinary person.

Because he had unlocked...

【AK-47 (good grade)】!

With a thought, Li Taiping could already feel the cold, heavy, and violently beautiful touch of the rifle in his storage.

In this wasteland where even transcendent powers were sealed, this thing was the judge's pen that made all beings equal.

Even an early-stage Excellent Grade monster would have to obediently turn into data fragments under the baptism of infinite good grade 7.62mm bullets.

"Let's go. Don't just stand there dazed like a wooden doll."

Li Taiping put away the short knife and casually wiped the blood off on the burly man's still-warm clothes.

Then, he began to skillfully search the corpses.

Besides the food and water that originally belonged to him, he also scavenged three Spatial Rings from these men.

Although the space was pitifully small, only able to fit a few boxes of instant noodles, in an dungeon where resources were extremely scarce, this was practically hard currency.

Li Taiping stuffed all the spoils into a ring and then casually tossed it to the still-dazed Su Jie.

"Take it. The stuff inside is enough for you to drink until you vomit and eat until you're stuffed."

Su Jie instinctively caught the ring. Feeling the weight from her fingertips, her eyes instantly turned red.

She looked at Li Taiping's not-so-broad but exceptionally reliable back, and the slight grievance and misunderstanding she had felt earlier vanished instantly.

It turned out he wasn't ignoring their livelihood; he had already planned how to take it back with interest.

This man was always steps ahead of everyone else.

"Hubby, you're amazing!"

Su Jie broke into a smile through her tears, her eyes almost overflowing with stars, her admiration beyond words.

Li Taiping ignored her sentimentality.

An old hand like him had long since become immune to this level of admiration.

He pulled out those two yellowed parchment scrolls and that broken compass with the spinning needle from his shirt and threw them directly into the deepest part of the System Backpack.

These were his greatest gains from this trip.

excellent grade item upgrade scrolls.

As long as he had enough of these, his "Many Children, Many Blessings" could evolve into an Excellent Grade eternal fortress spanning across the heavens.

"Back to the shelter."

Li Taiping took Su Jie's hand, his figure like lightning as he nimbly traversed through the ruins.

Several hours later.

When the two returned to the narrow but reinforced small house.

The sickly gray light on the horizon disappeared once more.

The darkness, like a tide, re-submerged this desperate land.

Night had fallen.

...