Chapter 435: God Hunter

The last tear in the ward still hung on Lu Yu's eyelashes.

Su Ming's footsteps disappeared for a full ten seconds.

Lu Yu's shoulders stopped shaking.

First the frequency slowed, then it dropped completely to zero.

His hand loosened from the edge of the blanket, his finger joints neither turned white nor trembled—in fact, from start to finish, those tremors stayed within a precise amplitude.

Neither more nor less.

It was just enough for a Investigation Bureau Core Captain who had undergone system interrogation training, under dual verification by electrocardiogram and skin conductance response, to conclude that 'this child is not lying'.

Lu Yu's face lifted from the crook of his arm.

The tear stains remained. The blood stains remained. His nose tip was red, his lips swollen, looking as miserable as a stray cat just fished out of a trash heap.

But those eyes had changed.

Three seconds ago, the surging anguish, fear, guilt, and collapse were all gone.

Clean and clean.

As if someone reached out and pressed flat all the ripples on the water surface, revealing the pitch-black lakebed below that not even light could penetrate.

Lu Yu sat up straight.

No gritting teeth, no sucking in cold air. Though the wounds stitched with over a hundred sutures on his back indeed hurt, this level of pain wasn't enough to make him frown.

He lowered his head, and with a casual swipe of his thumb wiped away the blood at the corner of his mouth.

The motion was light and casual, like brushing off dust that had rubbed onto the hem of his clothing.

"Sorry, Teacher Su."

His voice was low and hoarse, the rasp not fully gone, but his tone was completely different from three minutes ago.

No trembling.

No choking up.

Moreover, there was not a trace of guilt.

After a long while.

He glanced at the IV needle on the back of his left hand, extended his right index and middle fingers, pinched the needle hub, and pulled it out.

The motion was swift and clean.

A bead of blood seeped from the puncture, quickly swallowed by the darkening pattern rising on the skin's surface; the wound closed within two seconds, leaving no scar.

Lu Yu lowered his head and looked at the three electrodes attached to his chest.

The heart‑rate curve was still jumping on the screen.

He tore them off one by one, tossed them onto the sheet, and casually undid the fastening strap around his waist and abdomen. The buckle wasn't complicated—just two metal clasps; the Investigation Bureau probably didn't expect to really restrain anyone with this.

Bare feet stepped onto the floor.

Cool.

The smell of disinfectant was stronger than when he was lying down, rushing straight into his nostrils.

Lu Yu walked to the window.

This high‑risk isolation ward was on the seventeenth floor. The bullet‑proof glass was thick and green‑tinged, the window frame made of alloy, with two electromagnetic locks embedded on the outside—no handle, no opening mechanism.

The cage's specifications were not low.

He looked out through the glass.

The city's nightscape lay spread out beneath his feet. Lights were thick and packed, traffic flowed on the overpasses, and the neon signs of the commercial district kept flashing without tiring.

From this angle, the world seemed to be running normally.

It was as if those Weird Domains, those monsters, those torn‑apart cities, and Chicago erased by a nuclear blast were all matters of another dimension.

Lu Yu's gaze lingered on the glass for a few seconds.

In the reflection, a boy wearing a white patient gown and barefoot stared back at him with a blank expression.

Quite thin.

He didn't look like a monster capable of withstanding the rule‑strikes of an A‑level Weird Domain and still bouncing about energetically.

His brain began to turn.

Not that kind of slow, leisurely recollection, but the way precision instruments engage high‑speed gears after startup. Every image, every line of dialogue, every micro‑expression detail was fed into an analysis framework as cold as could be.

B09.

He had already scouted that safe ruin before entering. The residual rules there were C‑level, with activity under four percent; the Federation had tested it three times, concluding it was 'controllable'.

But that was only relative.

The Qiu Ce Yuan simply sent students to such places to let these greenhouse‑grown seedlings see the world, and incidentally to gather a few data points for the screening report.

But they didn't know what he had inside him.

But Lu Yu himself knew.

He knew that once he entered that ruin, the thing inside him would become excited and release a frequency‑wave outward. Those dormant residual rules would be activated by that wave, their intensity would spike, and their level would jump.

He was betting on a probability.

A probability of 'being able to survive and still suffer enough'.

The result turned out better than expected.

If he hadn't, at the critical moment, actively released the power of that thing inside him, crushing the Core, he and Chen Yao would both have had to answer for it on that square.

But precisely because he unleashed that power, saved Chen Yao, and nearly got himself killed—in Su Ming's eyes he shifted from 'a possible threat' to 'a pitiful child worth winning over'.

In Chen Shao's eyes, it became 'the benefactor who saved my sister'.

Two birds with one stone.

This account, Lu Yu had already started calculating it before entering Qiu Ce Yuan.

Behind Qiu Ce Yuan is Huan Yu Heavy Industry, behind Huan Yu Heavy Industry is Ding An Industry, behind Ding An Industry...... is Eden Garden.

At the same time, among Qiu Ce Yuan's specially appointed mentors is Su Ming. Su Ming is Wei Gong's covert informant. Wei Gong is the helmsman of the Federal Weird Investigation Bureau.

Another thread.

The node where the two threads intersect is this academy.

All he needs to do is place himself at the intersection of the two threads, so that both sides consider him a "one of their own."

Over at the Investigation Bureau, Su Ming has already taken the bait.

"You don't have to shoulder it alone anymore."

When that sentence left his mouth, Su Ming's tone didn't change, his breathing rate didn't change, but his pupils dilated ever so slightly once.

That was empathy.

It was heartfelt, unfeigned empathy.

Lu Yu, at the moment Su Ming uttered that line, confirmed—this person truly wanted to help him.

In his previous life he was hunted by neighbors and cannibalized. After rebirth he met Captain Lei Yu, who risked his life in exchange. Su Ming is fundamentally cold, but beneath his cold shell lies a scar named "Having Been Protected."

So when he saw another teenager described as "parasitized by something, isolated, even suicide a crime," that scar began to ache faintly.

Lu Yu hit that point with precision.

Every word.

Every tear.

Every breakdown of "I don't know what to do."

All of it was calculated.

As for the Eden Garden side—Chen Yao.

In the B09 Weird Domain, when he used his spine to shield Chen Yao that blow, it wasn't entirely acting. Thirty percent was real. After all, if Chen Yao died, the plan that hinged on the Eden Garden line would be completely ruined.

But the remaining seventy percent......

He was betting on Chen Shao's reaction.

What action would an ultra‑protective personality, who would erase the entire Zhao family from Earth for his sister, take upon learning his sister almost died in the Weird Domain and a certain youth risked his life to protect her?

The answer has long been known.

After all, Chen Shao came in person.

He arrived bearing all of Eden Garden's belongings.

He even warned the Federation before leaving, "Do not harm Lu Yu."

In other words—Chen Shao has already, subconsciously, added him to the "needs protection" list.

Lu Yu lowered his gaze, looking at his right hand.

The faint dark pattern on the back of his hand flickered in the light, stretching from the base of his fingers to the wrist bone, then up the forearm, disappearing into the Patient Gown's cuff.

That thing quietly settled between his bones and tissues, like a coiled giant python.

Quasi‑S.

Su Ming's assessment.

Lu Yu's mouth twitched.

Conservative.

After this thing devoured the A-level Strange Tale of Qinghuai Community, it then devoured the Core of B09. Two meals. Each consumption makes it a notch stronger.

Up to now, he hasn't fully probed its limit.

But he can feel it is still growing.

He is also growing.

Unlike Su Ming's "parasitized, uncontrolled," his relationship with this thing is closer to a… negotiation.

It needs to eat.

He needs power.

There is room for trade between them. As long as he feeds it enough Weird, it won't backfire.

At least for now, that's the case.

What about the price?

Lu Yu squinted.

The price is that he can clearly feel himself drifting bit by bit away from the "human" category.

But that doesn't matter.

What matters is another thing.

He clenches his fist.

The black pattern pulses with muscle contraction, emitting a faint glow from beneath the skin, then dimming quickly.

Weird.

He knows that every occurrence of Weird in this world has a source.

—Someone created the first Weird.

Someone is using Weird to slaughter humanity.

Someone sits where no one can see, treating the entire civilization as a petri dish, tossing in strains, then watching through glass which colonies survive and which die.

That person sees himself as a god.

He uses a pair of cruel hands to arbitrarily edit and manipulate behind the scenes.

Lu Yu's five fingers press against bullet‑proof glass.

He exerts force from his palm.

—Squeak.

The alloy frame gave out a strained deformation noise, and fine cracks spread outward from between his fingers, like a spider web, like lightning.

Now, by helping Chen Yao win Chen Shao's trust, he has already set half a foot into the Eden Garden, which will become a colossal entity—no, it has already become a colossal entity, and its influence will only grow stronger.

Through Su Ming, he secured the Investigation Bureau's trust and the "special resources".

The board was laid out.

The Federation is the knife in the open. Eden Garden is the tooth in the shadows. Two weapons, one left, one right, both within his reach.

Step one: stand firm.

Step two: infiltrate.

Step three: mobilize these resources for his use, and then—

He stared at his own reflection in the glass.

In the reflection, the boy's mouth twitched slightly. The curve was tiny, showing no kindness, only a kind of extremely restrained ruthlessness seeping from the cracks in his bones.

"The guy who pretends to be a god behind the scenes."

His voice was pressed down so low that only he and the coiled giant python inside him could hear it.

"This time, I will definitely find out who you are......"

His fingertip dragged a harsh screech across the glass.

The crack widened.

Lu Yu withdrew his hand.

The crack stopped expanding, but it did not disappear. The imprint of five fingers was deeply embedded in the surface of the bullet‑proof glass, its edges blackened, as if scorched by something.

"I will use the whole world as a stage, and carve you out alive from that position."

"Strip you of your divine throne."

"Let you also taste what it's like to become prey, to be fooled and slaughtered by others."