109: Chapter 109 Azu's Street 'Speech'

On the street, Kara saw this smile and shuddered violently.

Her antennae uncontrollably stiffened into two straight lines behind her, and her back was instantly drenched in cold sweat.

She had followed A-Zu for too long, long enough to have seen him use this smile when facing rebelling miners, diplomats after failed negotiations, and the group of defecting generals he had personally executed.

"Prince," Kara lowered her voice and took a half-step forward, "Please do not cause more slaughter. Commander Chen Mu's attitude is currently still..."

A-Zu raised a hand to interrupt her. Sunlight hit the side of his face, plating the edges of his eye sockets with a faint golden outline.

The smile still hung at the corners of his mouth, but his pupils were slowly changing color.

"See? Isn't this a good time to test Commander Chen Mu's attitude?"

He slowly stepped down the stairs, his boot soles landing on the paving stones of Fifth Avenue. Each step was not fast, but with every step he took, the smell of tension in the air grew thicker.

The people in the front row of the crowd instinctively backed up half a step, but the wave of sound from behind was still pushing forward, leaving the front row caught in a dilemma between advancing and retreating.

A-Zu said with a smile, "Next, I will count to three! After three, I hope you can speak while kneeling."

"One."

A-Zu held up one finger. His voice wasn't loud, but it eerily pierced through the roars of hundreds of people, reaching everyone's eardrums clearly.

The tense atmosphere rose another level.

A few people in the very front row began to pull at those behind them. Although their throats were still shouting, their heels had already begun to shift backward.

"Two."

His second finger flicked open. The red light in his eye sockets was no longer gathered deep in his pupils but began to spread to the edges of his eyes, like two iron balls melting from the core outward.

The crowd began to scatter. Those in the back, still unaware of what was happening, were still pushing forward, but the front row was already turning to flee for their lives, and those in the middle were being pushed and staggered.

An old woman was squeezed against a lamppost, and the protest sign in her hand fell. She bent down to pick it up and was nearly knocked over by the surge of people from behind.

"Three!"

The moment the third finger flicked open, two crimson beams of light shot out from the very center of A-Zu's pupils without warning.

The young man standing in the front row holding a protest sign didn't even have time to react.

The beam cut in from his left shoulder and out from his right ribs. His entire body was sliced horizontally across the middle like it had been cut by a pair of invisible giant scissors. His upper and lower halves maintained the same shouting posture for a split second before separating and falling in two different directions simultaneously.

Behind him was the veteran holding the box with his retirement medal. From the moment A-Zu started counting down, he hadn't run; instead, he held the medal box a little tighter against his chest.

He wanted to use his life to practice the 'Humanity Won't Kneel' rhetoric he had once posted online.

The first wisp of laser hit his medal exactly. The box melted, the medal melted, and the veteran's palm melted as well.

When he fell backward, the remains of the medal box were still stuck to the skin of his chest, the liquid metal cooling into silver beads.

Subsequently, his entire body was cut in half, but eerily, his lower half remained standing straight until it was knocked over a second later by the people falling in front.

Then it was those who had already turned to run. The beams cut in from their backs and out through their chests, slicing them apart like a sweeping blade of light.

As a young girl ran, she was fortunately tripped by someone who had fallen in front of her. She lay flat on the ground, hands cradling the back of her head, letting the people behind trample over her. Meanwhile, those who remained standing were all caught by the laser, and in an instant, flesh and blood flew everywhere.

The entire process lasted only three seconds. After three seconds, A-Zu withdrew the red light from his eyes.

On the sidewalk paving stones of Fifth Avenue in the distance, the tracks scorched by the light beams were clearly visible. Everything in front of A-Zu had been cut in half.

A lamppost was cut off at the waist, its upper half rolling incessantly on the road surface.

As for the people who were just holding protest signs, some were still moving. A young woman lay on her back on the ground, her legs missing from the knees down.

She used her elbows to prop herself up, trying to crawl backward. Every inch she moved dragged a deep red trail behind her, and her mouth continuously emitted wailing cries.

Beside her, a man was kneeling on the ground, feeling his body, surprised that he was actually unharmed.

Further away, a nine-year-old girl, her face covered in blood, was desperately using her body to plug her mother's wound, constantly shouting, "Help me, someone is hurt here!"

A sanitation worker across the street hid behind a trash can. The trash can was half-melted when the beam swept past, and the skin on his right shoulder was also scalded off by splashing liquid metal.

He poked his head out from behind the trash can, saw the scene on the street, then pulled his head back and covered his mouth tightly, not daring to let out a single scream.

The sunlight over Fifth Avenue was still as bright as before, but those protest signs saying 'Humanity Won't Kneel' were already splattered with blood.

A-Zu stood on the stone steps. He looked at everything before him and listened to the rising and falling wails and cries.

Someone was calling their wife's name, someone was shouting to call an ambulance, someone was calling for Jesus Christ, and some were just simply crying.

He listened to these sounds from beginning to end, and then his mouth slowly curved upward—first a smile, then a loud laugh, and finally, outright wild laughter.

He turned back around, walked toward the shop, and said to Kara, "Now, they should know how to speak to a Higher Race from now on."

——————

United Nations Building, 9:47 AM. Cole stood in the corridor, hands behind her back, her fingertips unconsciously rubbing the button on her cuff.

The door leading to the Ball Chief's office in front of her had been closed for a full forty minutes.

Forty minutes ago, before the smoke on Fifth Avenue had even cleared, she had already rushed into the United Nations Building.

Now the smoke had cleared, yet she was still waiting at the Ball Chief's door.

The door opened, and Maya walked out, carrying an empty breakfast plate in her hand.

Cole hurriedly went up to meet her: "Maya, what did the Ball Chief say?"

Maya glanced at her and said in a low voice, "The Ball Chief just finished breakfast and is calling for you to go in now. Also, the Ball Chief's mood isn't particularly good."

Cole nodded, took a deep breath, and pushed the door open.

She saw Chen Mu standing by the window with his back to her, holding a cup of still-steaming coffee.

Outside the window, in the direction of Fifth Avenue, those few wisps of black smoke were still rising. From this distance, it looked like someone had drawn a few messy diagonal lines on the Manhattan skyline with a pencil.

"Lord Ball Chief!" Cole's voice finally couldn't be suppressed. She took two steps forward, her speaking speed so fast the words almost tripped over each other. "Something has happened! That A-Zu, on Fifth Avenue, shot lasers from his eyes and killed over a hundred people on the spot. What should we do about this?"

"Please give us instructions, Lord Ball Chief!"