Chapter 378: Irreparable

Qin Zhixia had no hesitation at all.

She let go and pulled hard.

Five fingers spread, the alloy battle knife together with the scarlet vines wrapped around the hilt were discarded on the spot. Xiao Zhang's pupils constricted slightly—he didn't expect her to let go so decisively.

But Qin Zhixia was no longer in her previous position.

The exoskeleton's energy module at the knee joint exploded a blue tail flame, she shot backward three meters, her right hand drew the first bayonet from the rear backup rack in midair— the cold blade entered her hand, Obscure Infusion, the blade whitened.

Xiao Zhang pulled out the alloy battle knife from his chest and threw it on the ground; that knife, when it landed, had been corroded by scarlet flesh buds beyond recognition.

"Does switching to a small knife help?"

His voice was no longer human. The bone spikes in his throat ground each word into a rough metallic scraping sound, but the word order and usage remained the same.

Qin Zhixia didn't answer.

She charged forward.

The bayonet is nearly half as short as the battle knife, meaning the attack range is compressed to within arm's length. Xiao Zhang's longest bone spike is forty centimeters; for Qin Zhixia, that distance is like pressing her face against the blade to fight.

But she had no choice.

The first stab plunged into Xiao Zhang's abdominal cavity.

The bayonet, under Obscure Empowerment, cut into mutated tissue with no resistance, but Qin Zhixia didn't linger; as soon as the tip met resistance she immediately withdrew—

Because Xiao Zhang's abdominal wound began to heal the moment the blade was pulled out.

Pink flesh buds welled from the wound edges, like a wound suturing surgery sped up a hundredfold; in less than two seconds, not even a scar remained.

The second slash diagonally cut the carotid artery.

The blood spurted in the wrong direction. A normal person's carotid artery cut would spray, but Xiao Zhang's neck spewed out a dark red, metallic‑sheen viscous liquid. This substance splashed onto Qin Zhixia's exoskeleton forearm, producing a faint corrosive sound.

Xiao Zhang's neck healed in three seconds.

He didn't even stop his steps.

Third stab—Qin Zhixia aimed at the heart.

The tip entered through the fourth intercostal space, the angle so tricky it would earn praise from any forensic pathologist. She did it on purpose. Years of grassroots criminal investigation work gave her an understanding of human anatomy on par with an ordinary surgeon.

The bayonet went in completely.

The blade pierced the heart.

Xiao Zhang's movement finally paused.

But only for a fraction of a second.

"Useless, Qin Team."

He lowered his head to glance at the bayonet on his chest, his tone hinting at helplessness, "The heart is no longer important to me. This body...... has long stopped relying on those organs to function."

Scarlet flesh buds surged backward from the heart wound, flowing outward along the bayonet's blood channel. Qin Zhixia didn't have time to pull the blade—

Xiao Zhang's right palm slapped her shoulder.

The force was so great the exoskeleton's load‑distribution system emitted an overload whine. Qin Zhixia was knocked to one knee, the concrete floor cracking in a spiderweb pattern at her knee.

She gritted her teeth, discarded the bayonet entangled by flesh buds, and drew another from behind her back.

Fourth one.

Stabbed into Xiao Zhang's right eye socket.

The tip pierced from the eye socket through the cranial cavity; theoretically any carbon‑based life should die instantly.

Xiao Zhang stepped back two steps.

In his right eye socket, masses of flesh buds began to surge around the bayonet, the buds enveloping the blade and pushing it out together with its sheath. A new eyeball swelled into shape in the empty socket.

The whole process took less than ten seconds.

Qin Zhixia stepped back one step, her chest heaving violently. Sweat mixed with blood trickled from her forehead into her eyes, salty and stinging.

She had already thrust out that many blades in succession.

Each strike hit a vital point.

All were ineffective.

Xiao Zhang was still standing there.

Covered in blood, yet he stood ramrod straight.

"I said," Xiao Zhang's voice grew deeper, bone spikes sprouted four more along his spine, each tinged with a faint red blood mist, "Just having resolve—"

He didn't finish his sentence.

Because Qin Zhixia charged again.

This stab was different from the previous ones.

She stabbed slightly off‑target.

One thrust plunged into Xiao Zhang's left flank—

More precisely, it was two cun left of the junction between the eleventh thoracic vertebra and the first lumbar vertebra.

At the moment the tip entered, Qin Zhixia's fingers felt a change in resistance.

Different.

The previous attacks, each stab felt uniform— the mutated tissue had even density, like cutting a block of rubber of the same consistency.

But this stab, the tip touched something hard.

And—

The reaction speed of the flesh buds changed.

Earlier wounds took two to ten seconds to heal, depending on depth; but the wound at this spot saw flesh buds erupt madly within 0.3 seconds, a speed over three times that of other areas.

Qin Zhixia's pupils contracted sharply.

She saw it.

Deep in the wound cut by the bayonet, beneath the surging pink granulation tissue, there was a scarlet crystal the size of a walnut, its surface covered in fine patterns, pulsing at a frequency visible to the naked eye.

Like a heart.

No—it is something more essential than a heart.

With each pulse, the surrounding granulation tissue splits a new layer from the crystal's surface, then rapidly spreads along the muscle fibers to wounds all over the body.

All regeneration begins here.

This is the core.

"You're not immortal." Qin Zhixia's voice was squeezed from her throat, hoarse, but every word was crystal clear.

Xiao Zhang's expression changed.

Not anger, not surprise—it was something more complex. Like the flustered feeling after being read, and also like the relief when a long-held façade of invincibility finally cracks.

He stepped back three steps, pressing his palm against the wound on his waist. The granulation tissue accelerated its growth, sealing the opening that exposed the core.

"Your observational skills are still as abnormal as before." he said.

"You're still as nitpicky as before." Qin Zhixia threw away the bayonet with its broken tip and drew the second-to-last one. "When you first reported to the Project Team, I had you watch the suspect interrogation videos, and your report came in at twelve thousand words."

"But... do you think becoming a monster for revenge will make everything perfect?" Qin Zhixia stepped forward. "Your actions will only bring you a more miserable end."

"You don't understand." Xiao Zhang's voice lowered. "The law can't make up for it. Justice can't make up for it. I look at Captain Zhou's ashes, I look at my parents' portrait—tell me, what can make up for it?"

"Nothing can make up for it."

Qin Zhixia's answer was blunt to the point of cruelty.

"Dead is dead. Wrong is wrong. Those you hate, those who ruined your family—even if you killed them a thousand times, Captain Zhou won't crawl out of his grave to pat your shoulder and say 'well done'."

Xiao Zhang's Transformed Body shuddered.

It was slight. If not standing face to face, you wouldn't notice it.

"But you can choose how to go on living." Qin Zhixia took a step forward. "If you think the law is useless, then change it. If you think the system is corrupt, then clean it up. You told me you want to be a Prophet, to bring judgment upon this world—who have you judged? You made a group of desperate people swallow those red scraps, turning them into inhuman monsters, and you call that redemption?"

"At least they don't have to endure anymore—"

"What don't they have to endure? Pain? Injustice? Or existence itself?" Qin Zhixia's voice rose. "You've taken away their choice, Xiao Zhang. And still, how is that different from the people you hate? Those elites took your family's lives; you now take away others' right to be human. In what way are you nobler than them?"

Something swayed in Xiao Zhang's dark red pupils.

It was not a bodily wound.

It was a deeper disturbance.

He stood in the ruins, covered in bone spikes, his spine bent into an inhuman arc—but his eyes focused at that moment.

They focused on Qin Zhixia's rear.

That spot held nothing—only a half-collapsed concrete beam and a few twisted reinforcing bars.

But Xiao Zhang saw something else.

Or rather, he saw a person.

Wearing a faded old police uniform, standing beside a plastic stool at a roadside stall, holding a bottle of the cheapest baijiu, smiling with wrinkles at the corners of his eyes.

"Xiao Zhang, what is a police officer, have you ever thought about it?"

"It's a shield."

"Not a shield to block bullets for yourself. It's a shield to block for the common people."

"What if you can't block it?"

"Even if you can't block it, you must block. Even without the uniform, you must block."

Zhou Weiguo's face in memory gradually blurred.

But that silhouette remained clear.

Forever it stayed clear.

That was the silhouette of someone who knew the road ahead was a dead end, yet still shoved evidence into his pocket and walked forward. Not tall, even somewhat stooped—the years of grassroots work before becoming captain of the criminal investigation squad had bent his waist. But that silhouette walked steadily.

He never hesitated a single step.

Outside the wall, the reinforced concrete trembled violently.

Su Ming's electric blade and Yan Ming's gavel had clashed hundreds of times. Both were covered in wounds—Su Ming's left shoulder was grazed by the gavel, the bruise on his collarbone swollen to fist size; Yan Ming's right rib was slit by the electric blade, pink granulation tissue squeaking as it oozed out to repair.

But the battle was tilting.

Su Ming knew exactly where his advantage lay—time.

Having previously dealt with Yan Ming, each time he now distorted the flow of time, Yan Ming's domain could not anchor. The Absolute Court requires a stable spacetime foundation to unfold, and Su Ming's very existence is a denial of "stability."

He had waited a long time.

He waited for a moment when Yan Ming's attention lapsed.

That moment arrived.

Yan Ming's blue pupils shifted a few degrees—through the broken wall, he noticed the situation on Xiao Zhang's side.

Su Ming did not waste this opportunity.

The Time Marrow Worm surged beneath his wrist, and the light on his electric blade flared to a blinding white-blue.

One strike.

Not aimed at a person.

Aimed at the load-bearing column.

The load-bearing column, cleaved along its midline by the full force of the electric blade, had its reinforcing bars sliced like noodles, and the entire six-meter-high concrete structure roared as it collapsed toward Yan Ming.

Yan Ming was forced into a disgraceful retreat, nearly being crushed underneath.

He brushed dust from his shoulder and withdrew his gaze.

From Xiao Zhang's side came no sign of the expected victorious trend.

Qin Zhixia was still standing.

Yan Ming's brows furrowed slightly.

His original plan was simple—he would hold Su Ming back, then Xiao Zhang would deal with Qin Zhixia, and finally the two would join forces to clean up the aftermath. But now Xiao Zhang not only failed to take down Qin Zhixia, but...

What is that?

Hesitation?

Su Ming didn't give him time to assess the situation.

The second blade came right after.

Yan Ming raised his hammer to block, but the impact shoved him back three steps. His heels ground over the gravel, making a sharp scraping sound.

Su Ming pressed the attack, giving him no ground.

On the other side.

Qin Zhixia looked at Xiao Zhang.

Xiao Zhang also looked at her.

In those dark‑red pupils, the zeal of the "Prophet" was fading bit by bit; beneath it surfaced something older, darker, and more weary.

Dazed and confused.

Something in Qin Zhixia's chest was jerked hard, but her grip on the knife tightened instead.

It was time to end it all.

She inhaled a breath of air tinged with the taste of rust.

Then she gazed at the spot where Xiao Zhang's core lay—left of the waist and abdomen, two cun left of the eleventh thoracic vertebra.

Not enough.

Firepower insufficient.

She knew where the core was. She knew how to strike it.

But her remaining gear and strength were insufficient to pierce Xiao Zhang's defense, tear through that bone‑spike shield, strike the core precisely, and inflict irreversible damage before he could regenerate.

One step short.

Just one final step away.

Qin Zhixia clenched her right hand around the bayonet until her bones creaked.

She needed greater strength.

Drawing a deep breath, she seemed to have made a decision.

She flipped the bayonet in her right hand.

Then the light in her eyes sharpened to a frightening degree.