Chapter 326: The Butcher's Death

The youth turned around.

His movement wasn't quick; it could even be called slow. Like during the last segment of a recess drill, when the teacher shouts "turn back", he turns at an unhurried, steady pace.

The butcher saw that face.

Young. Clean. No particular expression, just calmly looking at him, much like someone waiting for a meal at the Cafeteria window.

But those eyes were off.

Deep within the pupils lay an extremely thin layer of darkness, not fear, not anger, but something that settles only after experiencing countless life-and-death moments.

The butcher had seen that kind of gaze before.

In the mirror.

Suddenly, the other's right hand moved.

The butcher's visual slicing line was still locked between the third and fourth vertebrae of the opponent's neck, the spatial distortion on standby, ready to activate with even a 0.1 mm shift of the target—

Swoosh.

A faint sound of air being torn.

The butcher's right ear was gone.

It wasn't cut off. Something severed it at the root. The cut surface was excessively smooth, blood hadn't even had time to spurt out, and a thin red film clung to the wound.

The ear lobe spun and flew out, "Pat" landing in a puddle three meters away, splashing a small droplet.

Uh?!

Pain.

A burning, stinging pain spread from the right side of his skull, like someone dragging a hot iron across the scalp. The butcher's body instinctively jolted, his left hand covering the empty ear base.

Blood filled the gaps between his fingers.

His gaze fell on the youth's right hand. Between the index and middle finger, he held a second Poker Card.

A dark Poker Card. Its edges reflected a cold metallic glint.

Where is the first card?

The butcher's eyes shifted right. On the wall behind him, a Poker Card was lodged in a brick crevice, only half of its corner exposed, stained with his blood.

Throughout the whole process, the youth didn't move a step.

Did not move.

He did not move.

That realization hurt the butcher more than losing an ear. Not because the opponent standing still could slice him like this—but because the opponent's stillness rendered his Rules useless.

The trigger condition for visual slicing is the target's displacement.

If this kid doesn't move, he can't slice.

Yet this kid's stillness can still kill him.

"How do you know my Rules?" The butcher's voice rasped out of his burnt throat, hoarse as sandpaper grinding glass, angry and embarrassed.

Twelve meters away, the youth gave no reply.

He just stood there, the Poker Card between his two right-hand fingers swayed slightly in the night wind. His posture was relaxed, shoulders level, weight centered between his feet, as if rooted.

The butcher read the meaning behind that posture.

"I won't move."

"If you want to come, come yourself."

The butcher clenched his teeth, the glazed surfaces producing a crisp porcelain clack. On the burnt half of his face, the mouth corner, twisted into a fixed curve by heat, twitched twice.

Embarrassing.

Since the Blood Moon Descent, he has killed countless people, and none have ever given him this hollow feeling of being pressed to the ground and rubbed.

A runt kid, not even a hair fully grown, used a broken card to slice off his ear, then stood there waiting for him to come and meet his death.

"What is this?"

"Who are you looking down on?"

The butcher no longer concealed his movements.

He stepped out from the wall's shadow, moving to the alley's center. The clunk of his dislocated kneecap was no longer suppressed; each step produced a crisp old‑gear slipping sound. He switched the Boning Knife from a side grip to a forward grip, tip forward, spine against the inner forearm.

"Visual slicing unusable?"

"Fine."

"I've still got a knife!"

The distance began shortening from twelve meters.

Ten meters. Eight meters. Six meters......

The butcher's stride quickened. The misaligned kneecap was forced beyond its limit, dull ligament‑tear pain radiating from his right leg to his hip, and he didn't even blink.

The wound seared by aluminum heat agent burst open by more than half under the running vibration; the charred scab cracked, fresh red flesh peeled outward, yellowish tissue fluid trickling down along the ribs.

Irrelevant.

Four meters.

Getting close.

The Boning Knife's trajectory was simple—top to bottom, along the midline, from the frontal bone down to the pubic symphysis. No flourish, no feint, pure force poured out.

Nearly two hundred jin of weight plus the inertia of three running steps were all pressed into that single slash.

The blade cleaved the air, emitting a deep hum. The rolled edge left a vague afterimage under the streetlamp, bearing the purple‑blue scorch marks from the aluminum heat agent, racing straight toward the youth's face.

Jiang Yuan moved.

Not backward.

But forward.

Half a step.

Just half a step.

The timing of that half-step was precise to a perverse degree. The Boning Knife's blade sliced through a point less than three centimeters in front of his nose tip, and the wind it generated blew the stray hairs on his forehead back. If he had launched the step a tenth of a second faster, his entire face would have been cleaved in two along the midline; a tenth of a second slower, and he wouldn't have had the chance to close the attacking distance.

He, however, got stuck at that one precisely correct moment.

He closed in.

The butcher's pupils contracted sharply. The Boning Knife, still mid‑air, hadn't had time to be withdrawn when the opponent was already pressed against him, close enough for him to smell the gunpowder on the other's combat suit.

Too close. The knife couldn't be used.

The butcher reacted fast—his left elbow swung horizontally, aiming at the youth's temple. Had that elbow landed solidly, it would have been enough to shatter an adult man's temporal bone.

It missed.

Jiang Yuan leaned his upper body back fifteen degrees, and the gust from the elbow brushed under his chin.

The butcher's second strike followed immediately. His right knee jabbed forward, targeting the liver area. The misaligned knee bone gave off a sharp grinding noise as it powered through, yet he paid no heed to the pain.

Jiang Yuan sidestepped the knee jab, and his right foot retreated half a step to re‑establish distance.

Just this half-step.

The butcher seized the opening, and the Boning Knife flicked upward—from below—

"Ssshh."

A slash opened across the chest of the combat suit. A superficial wound; the skin and flesh were barely broken.

But the butcher showed no sign of pleasure.

Because at the exact instant the blade passed, a Poker Card stuck to his wrist and flew across, cutting a deep wound down to the bone at the radial artery.

Blood spurted out.

The Boning Knife almost slipped from his grasp.

The butcher, with all his might, clenched his five fingers, using his barely mobile wrist to grip the knife handle, and staggered back two steps.

His right ear was gone. His right wrist was half‑crippled. The old burn from the aluminum heat agent still oozed.

He stared at the young man before him.

The youth's breathing was unnaturally steady.

"Enough."

Jiang Yuan spoke. His voice was low, his tone as calm as casual conversation.

"What?"

"I say," Jiang Yuan lifted his chin, "Enough. I've decided that from now on, you can only serve as a common foot soldier within my Shadow."

A metallic rust taste rose in the butcher's throat. He opened his mouth as if to speak—

The ground beneath his feet grew cold.

It wasn't a change in the ground's temperature. Something was burrowing out from his Shadow.

The butcher lowered his head.

The streetlamp stretched his Shadow long, crooked across the cracked asphalt, and that black silhouette was writhing.

It began at the edge of the Shadow.

First the fingertips. Five jet‑black, non‑reflective fingers solidified out of the two‑dimensional Shadow plane, emerging silently onto the road as if rising from beneath water.

Then the palm. The wrist. The forearm.

Not just one.

But dozens.

A dense mass of black arms burst out of the Shadow beneath the butcher's feet, their joints bending, extending, and clinging at angles that defied human anatomy.

They crawled up the butcher's ankles.

The butcher's instinctive reaction was to swing his knife.

He succeeded— the Boning Knife struck a black arm. The blade sank three centimeters and lodged. It was as if he had cut into a slab of extremely cold tar; the edge stuck, unable to be pulled out.

More arms coiled around him.

Calf. Thigh. Waist. Chest.

Each hand's force was modest, but the sheer number was overwhelming. Dozens of hands applied pressure simultaneously, pulling him in different directions from all sides, the joints twisted to their extreme limits.

The butcher's feet left the ground.

He was lifted.

Dozens of jet‑black arms that had grown from his own Shadow hoisted him like a puppet, suspending him in mid‑air. His limbs were locked separately, three arms wound around his neck, their fingers digging into the muscles on either side of his trachea.

The Boning Knife fell to the ground, bounced twice, emitting a crisp metallic clang.

The alley fell silent.

Only the butcher's hoarse, harrowing scream echoed from his throat.

Jiang Yuan walked over.

His steps were neither fast nor slow, his soles treading over broken stone and blood. The streetlamp cast his Shadow behind him, clean and motionless, a world apart from the frenzied shadows churning beneath his feet.

He stopped in front of the butcher.

He looked up.

Their distance was less than half a meter, close enough for the butcher to see the curve of the youth's eyelashes.

In those eyes there was no hatred, no pleasure, no superfluous emotion.

Only one thing that made the butcher's skin tingle from scalp to heel.

Businesslike.

The kid was handling official business.

So this is what it feels like to be processed.

Jiang Yuan extended his right hand.

The gloved palm opened and slowly fastened onto the butcher's head.

His five fingers closed.

The sound was short.

Like crushing a ripe watermelon underfoot.

Warm liquid splashed onto Jiang Yuan's cuff and glove. The shadow arm relaxed, and the headless torso fell from midair, landing on the asphalt, its legs twitching a few times before going still.

Jiang Yuan shook off the substance on his glove.

He crouched and picked up the butcher's fallen boning knife from the ground.

Divine Gift.

He sheathed the boning knife and stood up.

He didn't say a single unnecessary word from beginning to end.

The thick fog in the depths of the alley still roiled. The dim yellow light of the streetlamp illuminated the bloodstains covering the ground and that twisted corpse. In the distance, the red moon's light filtered through the clouds, dyeing the whole city an unreal dark red.

A black shadow opened a huge maw and swallowed the corpse.

Jiang Yuan refastened the clasp of his card bag.

The sound of the metal clasp closing echoed briefly in the alley, crisp and clean.