Chapter 352: Slaying Du Yan

The process of Du Yan standing up lasted nearly five seconds.

During those five seconds, Su Ming heard every muffled crack as the keratin layers pressed against each other. The sound began at its knee joint, traveled up the thigh bone, passed the pelvis, passed those absurdly thick dorsal carapaces, and finally converged on its bulging scapula.

The entire Square trembled.

It's not an exaggeration. It's a physical vibration—Du Yan's weight has exceeded the ground's load limit, and each time its joint adjusts an angle, the cement slab beneath its feet cracks another fissure.

Su Ming still held his electric blade aloft, the blue‑white arc lingering on the edge reflecting the crimson vertical pupil's image.

Du Yan stood fully upright.

It lowered its head to look at Su Ming.

Su Ming looked up at it.

This absurd height disparity in their stare shouldn't raise any logical doubt. A human, an electric blade, standing before a small hill.

Du Yan moved.

It wasn't a charge, not a lunge. It simply raised its right arm and then slammed it down.

Simple. Brutal. Exactly the same method it used when it was still human in the Black Market to settle trouble—I'm bigger than you, I'm heavier than you, I crush you.

Su Ming stepped to the left.

That arm, thicker than his entire body, slammed onto the spot where he had just stood, the cement floor collapsing into a two‑meter‑diameter pit. Shards of stone and dust sprayed in all directions, clattering against Su Ming's combat suit.

The shockwave's gust pushed Jia Shan back by half a meter.

Jia Shan's Compound Eyes rotated twice, locking onto Du Yan's flank. He let out a low hum and surged forward, using his whole body's mass to ram Du Yan's knee bend.

A 180‑kilogram collision.

Against those low‑grade Mutated Entities outside, this would be enough to split the opponent in two.

But Du Yan's knee remained completely still.

The instant Jia Shan struck the keratin layer, the sound was not the crisp snap of bone breaking but the dull thud of metal hitting rock. Du Yan didn't even lower its head to look; it simply waved a hand—

as if swatting away a fly.

Jia Shan's body was struck by that massive palm on the head, sending him flying backward. He tore through the first load‑bearing wall; concrete chunks and Reinforced Steel Bar fragments rolled with his body, inertia never ceasing. The second wall couldn't hold either; the entire wall was knocked out into a human‑shaped silhouette by his back and then collapsed with a roar.

The falling debris rained down for seven or eight seconds before stopping.

Jia Shan was buried beneath that pile of ruins.

His life force is strong; even a snapped neck wouldn't kill him, but for now he can't climb out on his own.

Su Ming took all this in his peripheral vision.

His face showed no expression.

His thumb pressed against the inner side of his left wrist.

It wasn't a light rub. It was a pinch.

The Time Marrow Worm awoke, a sharp sting shooting from the wrist bone along the nerves up to the cerebral cortex. Su Ming's pupils constricted rapidly—not from pain, but from adaptation.

His world changed.

Du Yan was delivering a second punch. That colossal palm, capable of blotting out the sky, arced through the air; its speed, to an ordinary person, would seem comparable to a car being thrown.

But from Su Ming's perspective, everything broke down into frames.

He could see the crack patterns on each keratin plate of Du Yan's finger joints, the density ripples generated by the palm wind moving air, and even the residual blood of the previous prey squeezed from the finger gaps as the palm closed, atomized by air pressure into red fine mist.

Su Ming didn't dodge to either side.

He ran forward.

Straight toward Du Yan's face.

The massive palm swept past three centimeters above his head, the gust blowing his hair backward. He slipped through the gap between Du Yan's legs—a space just wide enough for an adult to pass sideways—and slid to its exact rear.

The electric blade slashed diagonally.

The edge cut into the keratin layer of Du Yan's right ankle joint, the blue‑white arc bursting a spark on the gray‑white carapace.

A shallow mark.

Only a shallow mark.

Su Ming's pupils narrowed slightly. This thing's keratin layer is more than ten times thicker than those he encountered on the outskirts; the electric blade's heat cannot achieve effective cutting in a single contact.

Du Yan twisted its massive body and returned a kick. Su Ming had already withdrawn, his boot soles skidding on plasma as he slid four or five meters away.

But he stared at the spot of that shallow mark, his lips moving.

It wasn't an insult. He was counting.

One cut doesn't pierce.

Then cut a hundred times.

Su Ming pushed the electric blade's output to the maximum—its blue light became a continuous flowing band, the hum so sharp it made one's scalp tingle.

His thumb pinched the wrist bone again. Deeper. Heavier.

The Time Marrow Worm began to scream. That internal alien sting twisted every one of Su Ming's nerves into a knot, the cost accumulating in real time. But he didn't care.

Time slowed to its limit.

Du Yan before him turned into a breathing statue. The crimson vertical pupils rotated slowly enough to be viewed frame by frame; between the inverted rows of teeth, the giant mouth was slowly closing, strands of saliva solidifying mid‑air.

Su Ming started moving.

He had only one target— the right ankle joint, the spot of that shallow mark.

First strike. The keratin layer's fissure extended less than a centimeter to each side.

Second strike. Same impact point. The crack deepened.

Third strike. The cut began to emit gray‑white debris.

Fourth strike. Fifth strike. Sixth strike.

Su Ming's body traced an arc around Du Yan's ankle, each step meticulously calculated. The electric blade's trajectory varied, but the impact point remained singular. He employed the smallest lever arm for the highest‑frequency cuts, the blue sparks splashed from the blade meeting the keratin layer forming an unbroken arc of light.

From a distance, it looks as if someone has wrapped a loop of high‑speed rotating phosphorescent filament around Du Yan's ankle.

—Seventeen cuts. The keratin layer shows its first penetrating fissure.

—Thirty‑one cuts. Grey‑white shell fragments begin to shatter outward, exposing the soft tissue beneath, swollen with yellow pus.

—Fifty cuts. Du Yan's entire right ankle joint is ripped open by the electric blade, leaving a palm‑sized wound. The soft tissue sizzles under the blue‑white arc, emitting a crackling char, while the air fills with the burnt protein stench.

Du Yan finally perceives pain within its infinitely stretched sense of time.

A deep howl erupts from its flat, massive maw—into Su Ming's ear, the howl is slowed into a lingering low‑frequency vibration.

But Su Ming does not stop.

—Seventy‑three cuts. The electric blade slices into the bone crevice.

—Eighty‑nine cuts. The tibia begins to loosen.

—Ninety‑seven cuts.

Su Ming suddenly widens his swing, driving his full weight into the final three cuts.

One hundred.

The entire right leg detaches at the ankle. The five‑hundred‑plus‑kilogram limb crashes onto the cement, shattering it into a web of cracks.

Du Yan's body loses balance. Instinctively it thrusts out its arms to brace the ground, and its howl shifts from low to a sharp, piercing roar.

Then Su Ming turns to the left ankle.

Same spot. Same rhythm. Same one hundred cuts.

Du Yan cannot muster any effective counter. It contorts its upper body, trying to smash the flickering, ghost‑like human in its sight, yet each swipe lags by an entire era.

The left leg breaks.

Du Yan crashes to the ground with a thud. The Square's surface cannot bear the impact; the central area collapses, dragging debris and broken pipelines down with it.

Su Ming leaps onto its back.

He runs up the raised, armored spine, his boot soles leaving a trail of scorch marks on the keratin layer. The two arms are the next target.

Shoulder joint. Ball‑and‑socket. The keratin layer here is thicker than at the ankle, but it no longer matters. Su Ming now knows the optimal cutting path—cutting against the grain of the shell's growth lines, each strike about thirty percent more efficient than before.

Right shoulder. Sixty‑two cuts. Broken.

Left shoulder. Fifty‑eight cuts. Broken.

All limbs are stripped away.

Du Yan—once the Black Market Local Emperor and a devout follower of Sai Men—has become a massive maggot lying at the pit's bottom. Deprived of limbs, only a keratin‑clad torso writhes undignified among the rubble.

A mournful howl ricochets through the underground space, its repeated reflections turning it into a sound no creature could produce.

Su Ming jumps down from its back and circles to the front.

The crimson, vertically‑pupiled eye stares at him fixedly.

Fear.

A beetle stripped of its shell, looking at a child holding a magnifying glass, probably shares the same gaze.

Su Ming sheathes the electric blade at his waist.

No longer needed.

He lifts his right foot and steps onto Du Yan's massive, keratin‑covered face.

The crimson vertical pupil contracts sharply.

Su Ming exerts force.

Crack!

The keratin layer cracks open. Its interior is forced out, spilling through the fissure in all directions—grey‑white fragments, pink brain tissue, and a scorching, iron‑rust‑scented liquid, all splattering onto Su Ming's boot soles and trousers.

The Square falls silent. Complete silence.

Su Ming looks down at his boot, smeared with grime, expressionless.

A clatter of rubble erupts behind him—Jia Shan claws its way out of the ruins. Its body, covered in Compound Eyes, turns toward the Square's center, glances at the massive torso missing limbs and head, then at the unflinching Su Ming standing beside the debris.

The emotion in the Compound Eyes is complex—but the dominant feeling is fear.

"Clean up the battlefield," Su Ming says, shaking off the debris from his boots, "clear all remaining passages, and any living Mutated Entity found need not be left."

Jia Shan obediently goes.

Su Ming stands alone at the Square's scarred center, limbs and broken shells scattered around.

He looks down at his wrist.

Beneath his skin, the outline of the Time Marrow Worm is slowly calming.

Deprived of Spatial Force's restraint, he inevitably pays the price.

Probably about a month of lifespan left.

It seems he must quickly find a second suitable Weird and merge with it.

Su Ming pulls out the Communicator and presses the return key.

"Black Market sweep complete. Du Yan eliminated. Awaiting next coordinates."

His tone is just like a routine report.

A brief silence follows on the other end of the Communicator, then a voice says, "Received."

Su Ming turns off the Communicator and stuffs it back into his pocket.

What he doesn't know is—

At this moment, in Jiang Hai City's Core district, the top floor of a luxury riverside apartment building.

Someone is watching him.

The floor‑to‑ceiling windows are unlit.

The only light comes from outside—the moonlight over the city skyline—and the faint blue glow of a laptop screen on the desk.

But the people in this house don't need that computer.

Chu Che stands in front of the floor-to-ceiling window.

In his right hand he holds a glass of Burgundy red wine, a thin veil of moisture clinging to the glass wall. His left index and middle fingers are together, lightly resting on the temple arm of his gold‑rimmed glasses—his habitual pose when he thinks.

His gaze does not focus on any building outside the window.

He is looking at something else.

"Not bad."

Chu Che's voice is soft, carrying the gentle tone cultivated over years of practicing medicine.

He swirls the wine glass. The dark‑red liquid spirals along the glass wall, forming an even streak.

The editor's view zooms out, lifting from the ruins of the Black Market to a citywide panorama. Six S-Class Anomaly Domain crimson light pillars pierce the clouds, evenly distributed at key nodes of the Federation's territory. Between those pillars, in the vast towns, countless orange specks spread at a speed visible to the naked eye.

Gospel Church's believers.

Chu Che watches the scene, a slight curve lifting the corner of his mouth.

That smile is warm and gentle. Placed in any normal setting—such as an Examination Room or an academic banquet—it makes people feel as if bathed in a spring breeze.

But at this moment, paired with the ice‑cold layer beneath his eyes that is colder than his lenses, the meaning of that smile is completely reversed.

"Weird Domain is a surgical trauma, forcing humanity together, compelling them to unite and cooperate."

He points at those orange specks with his wine glass.

"Gospel Church is a chronic inflammation, keeping their immune systems perpetually activated, leaving no energy or leeway for internal strife."

He drains the last sip of wine from the glass and places the empty cup on the windowsill.

"One provides pressure, the other maintains urgency. A dual approach—that's the perfect evolutionary environment."

Chu Che's gaze pierces the forest of skyscrapers, passes the neon after‑glow of the commercial district, and settles on the city's southeast.

There stands a domed building.

Its gray‑white stone façade, Roman‑columned portico, and at the apex of the dome a blind goddess statue—left hand holding a Balance, right hand gripping a long sword.

Court.

Chu Che withdraws his fingers from the glasses' temple arms and slips both hands into the pockets of his Doctor's Lab Coat.

"However, merely having trauma and inflammation isn't enough."

His voice is very soft, as if muttering to himself, yet also as if delivering a one‑sided pre‑operative briefing to an absent audience.

"A truly healthy organism also requires a set… of immune mechanisms."

He looks at the dome.

He watches the Balance in the blind goddess's hand.

The red‑moonlight falls on his gold‑rimmed glasses, reflecting those warm eyes without any heat.

"New Medicine, it's probably arriving soon."