Chapter 325: Card Bag

The other end of the city.

Thick fog swallows the whole alley, leaving only outlines; the streetlights' glow is diluted into dirty orange‑yellow blobs that cannot illuminate beyond three steps.

The tip of a Boning Knife drags across the ground, carving a harsh metallic clang on the cracked asphalt.

Sparks burst from the base of the blade, flashing and lighting the hand that grips it—its knuckles swollen, skin blackened by heat, several fingernail plates peeled away, revealing dark‑red flesh beneath.

Rain Night Butcher walks very slowly.

It's not that they want to be slow; they simply can't walk faster.

Half of the Raincoat is charred to coke, stuck to flesh and impossible to peel off. From left shoulder to chest, the skin bears burns from aluminum thermite; the extreme heat fuses epidermis and dermis together, so each step pulls at the scab, tearing it and oozing yellow tissue fluid.

The right leg is also off. The kneecap is dislocated, producing a faint clacking with each step, like the slipping gears of an old mantel clock.

But they keep walking.

The charred half of the face twists into a snarl. It's hard to tell whether it's a grin or pain, because the corner muscles have been contractured by heat into a permanent upward‑tilted curve.

They are looking for someone.

More precisely, they are searching for a person wearing a Black Combat Suit.

They've seen that outfit before. Three hours earlier, at that intersection, a group of guys in identical uniforms pointed guns at them, and the one who was the Captain, dying, hugged them and detonated aluminum thermite.

How hot does white phosphorus burn? Two thousand four hundred degrees Celsius.

At that temperature, bone turns to powder, steel softens, and human flesh is reduced to nothing but ash.

They endured it.

Not because they are tougher than steel, but because their Rules forbid dying in a place like this.

The price is this ghastly appearance now.

Half a life.

But it's enough.

Enough for them to cut the remaining black‑uniformed pups into neat meat bricks, stack them, and build a wall.

They imagine that scene.

A perfectly orderly red brick wall, each block radiating body heat, blood seeping through the gaps.

Truly beautiful, almost a work of art.

The sound of the Boning Knife scraping the ground suddenly stops.

The butcher leans forward two degrees, the charred half of the face tilting toward the deep fog. The unscathed right eye rolls in its socket, pupil constricting.

Someone is in the fog.

Fifty meters away, bearing fifteen degrees left of straight ahead. A humanoid black silhouette, back turned to them, moves at a steady pace along the alley's center line.

Stride steady. Shoulder line straight. Back upright.

That gait is not something an ordinary civilian could have; only system‑trained individuals can maintain such torso stability while marching.

And the back‑figure is wearing a brand‑new, spotless Black Combat Suit.

Standard issue of the Federal Weird Investigation Bureau.

A low, muffled laugh rolls from the butcher's throat.

The charred lips peel back, exposing teeth glazed by heat, reflecting the dim streetlight.

Alone?

In a place like this?

With luck this good, they almost suspect the heavens are sending them this to vent their frustration.

They lift the Boning Knife from the ground.

The curved edge still clings to dried blood and charred meat fragments. The blade's back, baked by aluminum thermite, has shifted from silvery‑gray to a sickly violet‑blue.

Enough.

Even this rotten knife can still slice a person with ease.

The butcher does not charge head‑on.

Their right foot steps sideways, and the whole body slides from the alley's center toward the shadowed area of the left wall.

That shadow is a blind spot of the streetlight. The fog thickens here, visibility under a meter, even their own outstretched hand appears only as a vague outline.

A perfect blind spot.

The butcher's movements are too light for someone so wounded. The clacking from the dislocated kneecap is suppressed by a bizarre gait—right leg off the ground, only the toe tapping for leverage, all weight on the left leg, like a wingless vulture still gliding silently.

The distance is closing.

Forty meters.

Thirty meters.

Twenty meters.

They can see more details of the silhouette now.

A young man. Judging by shoulder width and height proportion, just over twenty. A bulging little sack hangs at the waist—not a gun holster, its shape more like a... Card Bag?

It doesn't matter.

Whether it holds Poker Cards or Tarot cards, in front of visual slicing, any physical defense is merely decorative.

Fifteen meters.

The butcher activates the Rules.

They need no extra action. No swinging the knife, no charging. The trigger condition for visual slicing is a single one—the target must be within their visual field, and the scene must contain a fixed reference that can serve as a fulcrum.

The walls on both sides of the alley.

Cracks in the ground.

The streetlight pole overhead.

Support points are everywhere.

Space begins to warp.

In the Butcher's intact right‑eye view, reality was split by an invisible line into upper and lower parts. The upper part was the foggy alleyway skyline; the lower part was the silhouette of that black‑clothed youth.

The cutting line crossed the neck.

Precise to the millimeter.

He knows that distance too well. The weakest spot in a human cervical spine is between the third and fourth vertebrae; if the cut comes from behind and the line passes the lower edge of the occipital bone, the whole head will pop off like a bottle cap.

Clean. Neat.

Twelve meters.

The cutting line is locked. The spatial warp enters standby. If that youth takes even half a step forward—any half‑step—the moment his foot touches the ground, his neck will be permanently separated from his torso.

The Butcher is already picturing where to place that head in his mind. On top of the meat‑brick wall? Or embedded in the wall as decoration?

No, I can't laugh yet; I have to hold back.

Ahead, the black‑clothed youth maintains a uniform stride.

Left foot.

Right foot.

Left foot.

Right—

Stopped.

The youth halted without warning.

He wasn't tripped, nor did he hit an obstacle. He simply stopped. His whole motion ceased abruptly, switching from moving to still with no deceleration transition—so blunt it seemed abnormal.

The Butcher's right eye narrowed.

The cutting line locked on the youth's neck remains, and the spatial warp stays on standby. But the rule's activation requires the target to move—a stationary object cannot be sliced.

That is the core weakness of his rule.

It is also the weakness he least wants anyone to discover.

Coincidence?

A person who never looked back from start to finish happened to stop on the last half‑step before entering the cutting zone?

The Butcher's Adam's apple rolled, and he swallowed a mouthful of blood‑scented saliva.

Something's off.

Twelve meters away, that young silhouette remained motionless. The night wind swept through the alley, lifting a corner of his combat uniform's back, revealing a firm waistline beneath… and that Card Bag.

Then, that hand moved.

Right hand.

It rose slowly from his side, neither fast nor slow, fingers slightly spread.

The fingertip brushed the Card Bag's clasp.

The metallic clasp's click was very light—so light that in a normal setting it would be unheard.

But in this dead‑silent alley, the "clack" echoed, repeatedly refracted and amplified by the dense fog and walls, drilling clearly into the Butcher's ear.

Cold.

Not cold in temperature.

It is a bone‑deep, instinctual alertness.

Since the Blood Moon Descent, the Butcher has killed thirty‑seven people—strategists, Mutants, special agents of the Investigation Bureau—any kind of opponent he's faced. He knows one thing clearly: truly dangerous prey never runs when locked on.

Those that run are the prey.

Those that don't run are either fools or hunters bigger than you.