114: Chapter 114 The First Cut of the Harvest Season

"Gentlemen, cancel the daily patrols. All hands on standby for harvesting."

"Starting tonight, the harvest season officially enters its main stage."

The first fire of the main stage was not lit by Yan Zheng.

December 2nd, 10:11 AM, Antique Shop Underground Room.

Three days after the bill was passed.

Yan Zheng sat in front of the workbench, with three district maps spread out before him, marking the street grids of The Bronx, Harlem, and Lower Manhattan respectively.

Seven circles were drawn in red pencil on the maps, with times and event types marked next to each circle.

In the Mental Link, six creation pulses were running simultaneously, and the green light dots of Skeleton Soldier No. 8 and No. 9 moved slowly on the corresponding positions of the maps.

The system panel popped up a real-time notification in the corner of his vision.

[Abnormal Event Monitoring: Fordham Road Mutant Registration Registry, Bronx. High-frequency X-Gene fluctuation signal detected, intensity steadily climbing.]

Yan Zheng picked up his enamel cup and took a sip of tea. The temperature was just right. Today he brewed Keemun black tea, its aroma half a fraction richer than yesterday's pot.

"It's the third day."

Yan Zheng put down the enamel cup and tapped the location of Fordham Road on the map of The Bronx.

"For the past two days, there were only sporadic protests and minor scuffles, which the Police could suppress just by setting up a Police line."

"Today is different."

The fluctuation signal on the system panel jumped from orange to red.

"Mr. No. 8."

The green pulse in the Mental Link lit up briefly.

"Close in, maintain a distance of three hundred meters, and give me the visual."

Skeleton Soldier No. 8's field of vision expanded in the mental space.

About forty people had gathered in front of the registration registry on Fordham Road. Half were holding protest signs, while the other half were New York City Police officers in dark blue riot gear.

Standing in the middle of the crowd was a short, stocky, middle-aged man. He was bald, with the veins on his neck bulging like purplish earthworms. His hands repeatedly clawed at the air, each grasp creating a visible ripple of distorted air.

Vibration waves.

The glass doors of the registration registry were already shattered, the doorframe warped to one side, and broken glass littered the ground.

Two registry staff members in suits crouched behind the counter. One of them was making a phone call, his hands shaking so much he could barely hold his phone.

"He's gone berserk."

Yan Zheng split his Mental Power, shifting half of his focus from No. 8's vision to No. 9.

No. 9 was in Harlem, crouching on the fire escape of an apartment building.

In the visual, at the intersection of 125th Street and Lenox Avenue, a silver-gray prison transport vehicle sat sideways in the middle of the road. Its front end had crashed into a lamppost, the hood crumpled like the folds of an accordion.

Three figures in black hoodies stood beside the transport vehicle. One of them was using some kind of purple energy to cut through the iron lock on the rear door.

The side of the transport vehicle was painted with the New York City Police logo, but the special antenna array on the roof and the reinforced windows exposed its true ownership.

A transport vehicle from Project Purity.

"People from The Brotherhood."

Yan Zheng zoomed in on No. 9's visual and clearly saw a triangular tattoo peeking out from under the hoodie's collar.

"Hijacking the transport."

Yan Zheng: (˵ꐦ≖⌓≖˵)

"A rampage at The Bronx registry, and The Brotherhood hijacking a transport in Harlem. Two incidents erupting at the same time."

His finger moved across the third map, stopping at the location of Lower Manhattan.

"When will the third spot blow?"

The answer arrived forty minutes later.

The system panel popped up a third red notification.

[Chambers Street, Lower Manhattan. Abnormal X-Gene signal outbreak. Signal characteristics: Self-destructive energy release.]

Yan Zheng finished the last sip of tea in his enamel cup. The tea stain at the bottom of the cup was a fraction thicker than yesterday's.

"Three spots, three directions, all detonated within eight hours."

He stood up and walked over to the strategic map.

"Mr. System, undead deployment plans for the three event locations."

The panel popped up the allocation recommendations.

[Recommended Plan: Split forces into three routes, standby on the periphery for harvesting.]

[The Bronx Direction: Skeleton Soldier No. 8 will act as the primary scout. Acid Walker will pre-deploy through the sewers, responsible for rapid harvesting after the conflict ends.]

[Harlem Direction: Skeleton Soldier No. 9 will maintain continuous monitoring. Frost Archer will move through the underground pipe network to stand by within a five-hundred-meter radius of the scene.]

[Lower Manhattan Direction: Brute will pre-deploy through the Underground Room tunnels, responsible for heavy material transport in high-threat environments.]

[Knight and Gunner will remain in the Underground Room for core defense. Thunder Guard will act as the mobile reserve.]

Yan Zheng confirmed the deployment plan on the panel. In his Mental Link, the six pulses adjusted their frequencies simultaneously, switching from Level 1 alert to decentralized execution mode.

His temples began to throb.

The mental load of operating three lines simultaneously was nearly double that of two. Yan Zheng's total Mental Power was only fifteen, and the daily maintenance of three lines consumed twelve of it.

"A three-hour window of operation."

He sat back at the workbench, took his scalpel out of his pocket, and set it beside the grid paper. The cold metal grounded the sensation in his fingertips.

"Harvesting and withdrawal must be completed within three hours, otherwise my Mental Power will be overdrawn."

The situation in The Bronx wrapped up at one in the afternoon.

In No. 8's visual, after going berserk for forty minutes, the vibration-wave Mutant was shot from the flank by Project Purity Agents with two inhibitor ampoules, one hitting his neck.

The way he fell was different from the kinetic Mutant in Queens last time; he wasn't killed, but the dosage of the inhibitor was clearly increased, and he was dragged onto an armored transport vehicle like a lump of jelly.

He didn't die.

However, during the rampage, there were two corpses in the alley next to the registry. One Project Purity Agent had been blown back by the vibration waves, his skull cracking against the base of a fire hydrant, rupturing his brainstem on the spot. The other was a registry security guard with a collapsed chest cavity.

When Acid Walker emerged from the sewer manhole, there were no cameras in the alley.

Two corpses, four minutes of transport, evacuated back the same way.

The prison break in Harlem caused an even bigger scene.

The three-man squad from The Brotherhood cut open the rear door of the transport vehicle and released the two Mutants locked inside, but Project Purity's reinforcements arrived faster than expected. Six Agents in black tactical gear rushed out from a van two streets away.

The exchange of fire lasted for eleven minutes.

One member of The Brotherhood lost his superpower after being hit by an inhibitor, and was subdued and taken away by the Agents.

Project Purity lost one man, his carotid artery slashed by The Brotherhood member using purple energy.

After the firefight ended, Frost Archer climbed to the surface from the underground pipe network outlet and spent four minutes dragging the Agent's corpse into the nearest maintenance manhole.

Lower Manhattan was the most tragic.

After being cornered by three Police cars and a Project Purity armored vehicle, the self-destructive Mutant chose to release his energy at full power.

The radius of the energy blast covered half of Chambers Street. Three Police cars were totaled, the armored vehicle flipped on its side, and the windows of surrounding buildings were completely shattered.

The Mutant himself died, his body burned through from the inside by his own energy, leaving only a charred skeleton and half a torso.

There were also two other corpses: one Project Purity Agent and one Mutant.

The Agent died from the energy shockwave, with fractures all over his body. The Mutant was killed during the blockade, with a synaptic burn bomb—just like the one in Queens—embedded in his temple.

Brute took six minutes to arrive nearby from the Underground Room tunnel exit, carrying all three corpses at once using the load-bearing capacity of his petrified arms.

8:00 PM, Underground Room.

Five corpses were lined up on the workbench, numbered from left to right.

Yan Zheng put on white gloves, his gold-rimmed glasses reflecting a flash of white light under the desk lamp.

The system panel popped up five notifications for material harvesting.

[Material Harvest 1: Project Purity Agent, no X-Gene, conventional human skeleton, common quality. Applicable direction: Minion-class reinforcement.]

[Material Harvest 2: Project Purity Agent, no X-Gene, common quality. Same as above.]

[Material Harvest 3: Mutant, self-destructive energy release type, gene severely damaged, low residual quality. Limited applicability.]

[Material Harvest 4: Mutant, vibration-wave gene, good quality. Applicable direction: Close-range area-of-effect attack module.]

[Material Harvest 5: Mutant, Phase Conversion gene, good quality. Applicable direction: Defensive evasion module or infiltration-type creation core.]

Yan Zheng: (˵ꐦ✧ᗜ✧˵)

"Vibration wave and Phase Conversion."

"One offense, one defense, a perfect match."

He took out his scalpel and drew a positioning line on the collarbone of the fourth corpse.

"Mr. System, prioritize extracting the vibration-wave and Phase Conversion genes. Complete the preliminary separation tonight."

"Use the skeletons of the two ordinary Agents for minion expansion, and seal the residual gene of the self-destructive one for future use."

The extraction process lasted for three hours.

At 11:00 PM, Yan Zheng sealed the last gene sample into the freezer. He took off his white gloves, which were stained with dark liquid, and washed his hands five times at the sink.

A new batch of tea was brewed in the enamel cup. Holding the cup, he walked over to the strategic map, his gaze lingering on the markings of the three event locations for a long time.

"Eight hours, three conflicts, five corpses."

"The first cut of the harvest season was clean enough."

His finger moved from the Harlem marking to The Bronx, then to Lower Manhattan.

"But there is one thing."

Yan Zheng's index finger drew a line on the map, connecting the three points.

"Project Purity Agents were the first to arrive at every single scene."

"Faster than the Police, faster than the fire department, faster than everyone."

"In The Bronx registry rampage, Agents appeared on the flank just ninety seconds after it began. In Harlem's transport hijack, the reinforcement squad came out of a van two streets away, meaning they had parked there in advance. As for the self-destructive one in Lower Manhattan, before he even released his energy, their armored vehicle was already in position on the periphery."

Yan Zheng pulled a pencil from the tray and drew a question mark in the middle of the connecting line.

"They aren't responding to emergencies."

"They are waiting."

Yan Zheng: (ꐦ≖‸≖)

"Waiting for Mutants to lose control."

"Or rather, they are creating conditions to make Mutants lose control."

He wrote a line of small characters next to the question mark.

Project Purity tactical speculation: Provocative induction, manufacturing public opinion ammunition, synchronized legal execution.

"Force a terrified Mutant to go berserk in public, have the TV stations film it, and let the public see Mutants blowing up half a street."

"Public opinion will declare Mutants dangerous, and support for the bill will rise by another ten percentage points."

"Then they can rightfully kill and contain them."

"Killing three birds with one stone."

He took the scalpel out of his pocket and spun it half a turn between his fingers, the red pencil lines on the map reflecting off the metal blade.

"Mr. Stryker, your methods are even dirtier than mine."

The blade flipped, catching the light from a different angle.

"But whether it's dirty or not doesn't matter. What matters is that you've driven the prey out of their dens for me."

"There will be new conflicts tomorrow. And the day after tomorrow. Every single day."

Drinking the last few sips of tea in the enamel cup, the astringent taste accumulated at the back of his tongue. Yan Zheng didn't pour it out, but downed it in one gulp.

"Mr. System, catalog and archive today's harvest."

"Also, make a comparison chart of the arrival times and response speeds of the Project Purity Agents at the three scenes."

"I want to calculate the density of their forward deployment in New York."

"Knowing where they are waiting means knowing where the next conflict will erupt."

"Knowing where it erupts means knowing which street the corpses will fall on."

He put the scalpel back in his pocket and turned off the desk lamp. The Underground Room plunged into the dim colors of creation's phosphorescence.

"Gentlemen, thank you for your hard work tonight. We continue tomorrow."

In the Mental Link, the six-colored pulses flashed simultaneously.

"It's only the first day of the harvest season, and the warehouse is still mostly empty."