Chapter 403: Impact on the Weird Domain

Behind him, the Weird Domain fissure was slowly writhing, and Jiang Yuan emerged from the Blockade Line.

However, he didn't walk out.

He was half‑kneeling, dragging his exhausted body, crawling out with one hand on the ground.

The Black Combat Suit, from collar to knee, was completely soaked with Weird plasma, and that pungent sweet, burnt‑rubber mixed with iron‑rust smell had seeped into every pore of his skin.

The protective plate on his left shoulder was broken in half, the jagged edge jutting like teeth, swaying with each of his breaths.

When the Spinal Sword retracted, it retained residual heat; Bone Flame burned along his spine, causing his back to spasm repeatedly.

The Shadow Legion's consumption was too great.

In that A-level Anomaly Zone just now, thirty‑seven A-level Strange Tales, he cleared them alone in forty minutes. When the last one was devoured, even though his Dark Shadow Court was replenished, its power had already been eighty percent depleted, and his own stamina was drained to the limit.

Jiang Yuan pushed himself up from the ground, his knee buckling, and he almost fell again.

He steadied himself by gripping a concrete block beside the Blockade Line, gasping heavily, the scent of blood surging from the back of his throat, indistinguishable whether it was his own or the monster's.

The Weird Domain had not yet been cleared; he needed to return to resupply, then go back into the Weird Domain again, until the danger was completely eradicated.

Buzz—

At that moment, a chaotic noise came from the far end of the street.

At first he thought it was tinnitus. After a fight, this happens often; the cochlea is shaken by the shockwave, and the world feels muffled as if behind a layer of water.

But the sound grew louder.

Getting closer.

Getting noisier.

Jiang Yuan lifted his head.

He saw.

The entire road.

From the traffic lights to under the overpass, and to the unseen bend at the intersection, it was filled with people.

Clusters of heads. Hands holding phones. Cardboard. Banners. Loudspeakers. Glow sticks.

A river forged of human flesh surged toward him.

"There!""Someone's coming out!""Look! He's covered in blood! It's a Deceiver!"

The crowd accelerated.

It wasn't walking. It was running. It was a frantic rush.

Jiang Yuan hadn't had time to react when the first wave of people rushed in front of him.

—Not enemies.

—Civilians.

The white glare from the phone screens smeared his face.

The flashlights blazed into his face, further shattering his already chaotic vision.

He stepped back half a pace, his back hitting the iron railing of the Blockade Line.

"Are you with the Investigation Bureau?!""Are you a Deceiver? Answer me!""Did you watch that livestream? What exactly are you hiding?!"

Voices clamoring from all directions crashed in, question after question overlapping without punctuation. Men and women, old and young, sharp shrieks and roars tinged with sobbing.

A young man wearing gold‑rimmed glasses thrust his phone up to Jiang Yuan's nose, the screen looping a live broadcast clip of the North American United President.

"Tell us! Where is the Evolution Seed? How can you monopolize it?"

Another middle‑aged woman in a combat jacket pushed to the front, her finger nearly poking his mask.

"My husband was swallowed by that—what—what Ghost Domain last month! Besides blocking the road, what else did your Investigation Bureau do? Huh? How many people did you rescue? Tell me how many you rescued!"

Jiang Yuan's lips moved.

He wanted to speak.

He wanted to tell her that in just the past three months, the Investigation Bureau had sacrificed hundreds of Special Forces members, over a hundred of whom left no bodies at all.

He wanted to tell everyone that he had come close to death countless times, just to clear dangerous zones like the Weird Domain behind him, so that every person on this street could safely stand here and spit at him.

A scene flashed in his mind.

Gray‑white ash.

It fell rustling from the ceiling, landing on his hair, shoulders, and open palms.

The ash of Mo Shu.

She gave him a final smile.

The smile was lighter than any she ever gave, so light it didn't feel like a farewell.

And then she shattered.

From her fingertips, from her hair, her whole form disintegrated into countless drifting gray particles, settling on his blood‑splattered face.

He couldn't grasp them.

Not a single one.

"Are you deaf? I'm asking you a question!"

The crowd grew denser, bodies pressed together, breaths overlapping. Behind him was the Weird Domain Blockade Line, the iron railing digging into his spine; ahead, hundreds of people filmed him with phones while shouting insults.

He didn't move.

A lanky young man in a white T‑shirt squeezed through the gaps, holding a selfie stick, and shouted into the live feed, "Family, can you see this! This is the Investigation Bureau's lapdog! Fully armed in high‑tech gear, just out of the Weird Domain! What do you think he was doing inside? He was hoarding resources alone!"

The barrage of comments probably kept up. The young man grew more excited, his tone rising to the highest pitch.

"Brothers, share the link! Let the whole world see the faces of these people!"

Spit sprayed onto Jiang Yuan's chin.

He didn't even wipe it away.

He kept his head down, the fragmentary hair in front of his forehead, damp with sweat and black blood, covering half his face. Only those closest could see his eyes.

Those eyes were half‑open, without focus.

Empty.

No expression at all.

The crowd's roar rose wave after wave.

"Move aside!" "Get out of the way!" "What gives you the right to block the road?" "The taxes we pay feed you trash!"

The first three rows of people began to push him.

It wasn't just one or two people pushing.

It was three or four dozen people pressing forward together, the force layered through the crowd and transmitted to the front, like tide crashing against reef.

Jiang Yuan's shoe sole left a scratch on the ground.

He didn't retreat.

He pressed his back against the iron railing, planted his feet on the ground, his shoulders wedged between the concrete blocks on either side, turning himself into a wall.

"The area behind is extremely dangerous."

He finally spoke.

His throat was hoarse, sounding as if sandpaper had been used on it.

"If you go in you'll die; you can't go in!"

No one answered him.

Or rather, some heard him but chose not to care.

"Bullshit!" a bald man shouted back, "The livestream said there's something in the Weird Domain that can make people evolve! You're just scared of ordinary people getting stronger!"

"Right!" "Move aside!" "We're going in!"

The shoving turned into pulling.

Someone grabbed his collar. Someone yanked his sleeve. Someone tried to move his arm aside.

He didn't budge an inch.

He had lived over twenty years, killed Weird, killed Fake Persons, killed enemies.

But he had never touched a civilian.

Not a single hand.

Not today either.

He just stood there, letting those he had risked his life to protect curse him, hit him, push him.

Scalding spit landed on his cheek, dripping from his chin to the collar of his combat uniform.

He didn't wipe it away.

Shadow stirred restlessly at his feet. A Shadow Ghost sent an instinctive killing‑intent signal, which he suppressed back.

He suppressed it back again.

He suppressed it back once more.

"You mother— just move!" "Trash!" "Murderer!" "Executioner!"

A middle‑aged man in a gray polo shirt squeezed to the front. About forty, his face flushed bright red, breath reeking of alcohol. His eyeballs were blood‑filled, the pupils burning with a fanatical flame.

Jiang Yuan had seen that kind of flame before.

He had seen it in the eyes of Gospel Church believers.

But this man was not a believer.

He was just an ordinary person ignited simultaneously by fear and greed.

"Move aside! I'm going in!"

The middle‑aged man reached to push Jiang Yuan's shoulder, but was snapped back hard. His body staggered, anger flaring, his gaze swept Jiang Yuan's form.

Then he saw it.

The Containment Box at Jiang Yuan's waist.

That palm‑sized black square glowed faint blue, faint dark patterns flowing in the seam of its lid. Even someone unskilled could tell it held something not of this world.

The middle‑aged man's eyes lit up.

It was the light of spotting a gold vein.

He lunged forward, both hands going straight for the Containment Box.

"Hand it over! It's humanity's property! How can you alone hold it!"

Jiang Yuan sidestepped slightly.

But the crowd was too dense; his space to move was less than half a body width.

The middle‑aged man lunged a second time, this time even more ferocious. His fingers clutched the edge of the Containment Box, refusing to let go; his knuckles whitened from the strain.

The two wrestled within the crowd's gaps.

The noisy shouts, camera shutters, distant loudspeaker slogans—all jammed together.

Then—

The middle‑aged man's hand slipped.

It wasn't that he let go; he lost strength during the tug.

Five fingers scraped across the Containment Box; the Nail caps were untrimmed, the coarse edge, with inertia, gouged Jiang Yuan's left wrist.

—Sss—.

The sound was faint.

So faint it was drowned in the shouts of hundreds around, unheard by anyone.

But Jiang Yuan heard it.

He heard it clearly.

Because that scrape wasn't carved into his skin.

It was scraped onto the black tactical hand ring on his left wrist, burnt and deformed.

Mo Shu's hand ring.

The only thing she left in this world before she dissipated.

The harsh friction raised a white scratch, cutting across the burn mark on the front of the hand ring, like someone had etched a line on a tombstone.

Everything around suddenly became distant.

The crowd's shouts, phone flashes, the middle-aged man's flushed face, the feel of the iron railing behind him.

All faded into background color.

Jiang Yuan's steps stopped.

Not the kind of stop from braking.

It was the kind of stop where, from bone to tendon to every nerve fiber, everything was welded to the ground in the same instant.

He lowered his head.

Slowly.

Inch by inch.

His gaze fell on his left wrist.

It landed on that fresh white scratch.

The hand ring was already damaged. Its edges burnt and curled, the strap's clasp half-melted, pressed against his wrist bone, like a ring of an old scar that refuses to heal.

Now it has an additional wound.

It was left by the person before him whom he protected with his life.

The surrounding air was changing.

No one noticed.

But the Shadow Ghost noticed.

It surged violently within Jiang Yuan's shadow.

The middle-aged man was still cursing.

He had no idea what had happened, shouting words like "fairness," "rights," "all humanity" while straining his voice, and reaching out again.

This time, his hand didn't touch the containment box.

Because Jiang Yuan's left hand moved first.

Five fingers spread—then closed.

— it pressed against the middle-aged man's throat.