For a moment, Chen Ke felt like he was the bad guy.
He had heard lines about justice from the mouths of monsters for the first time, yet regardless of their motives, their actions had already led to unacceptable consequences.
As for the Diner's behavior, Chen Ke could only deliver Flame Bullets.
Dodging a flurry of fruit knife slashes, Chen Ke retreated while executing targeted shooting at the monsters, a signature technique of the C.A.R. system's central weight lock technology.
With nine consecutive pulls of the trigger, the bodies of these monsters erupted in fierce flames. Soon they were engulfed in red fire, the flames crawling over their bodies. Some monsters' arms were directly burned off and fell to the ground. After burning the monsters to a crisp, the flames did not spread to other flammables, which was quite environmentally friendly. Whoever could create such bullets was truly a genius.
Amidst the agile maneuvers, the Diner roared again, her resentful voice assaulting Chen Ke's eardrums and sanity, making the countdown of his life tick away wildly.
"You're going to die here! You're going to die here!"
The Diner, knowing she was no match for Chen Ke, did not engage in combat but maintained a certain distance to inflict psychic pollution.
It felt like thousands of steel needles non-stop jabbing at his brain, or a thousand three-year-olds screaming in his ears. Even while consuming his life, Chen Ke's head was splitting in pain—after all, life could only block physical assaults on the mind, pain had to be endured where deemed necessary...
These starved monsters had no emotions or memories, so they could act unaffected by any emotional or mental influence, but this Diner appeared much more emotionally rich. Perhaps the trigger of wrath could work on her.
Chen Ke took a step back; behind him, a sense of murderous intent surged as he launched a swift attack at the Diner.
The woman was surrounded by a pale red murderous intent and then squeezed tightly by it. She seemed to be bound by an invisible lasso, pausing for a second in surprise.
But soon, she regained her senses and looked towards Chen Ke in horror.
Although there was only a brief moment of vulnerability, the opening was wide enough. Chen Ke seized the opportunity, aimed his gun at the Diner's head, and pulled the trigger.
The Flame 9mm Bullet spun towards the Diner's forehead, flying for 0.4 seconds before piercing her lifeless eye socket and exiting through the back of her head, blowing out a handful of brain matter.
Before she could even wail, a violent flame burst from within her brain. Her neck seemed to be topped with a lantern, and with a crackling sound, her head was burned off and fell, rolling on the ground like a black ball.
She lay on the ground, leaving behind a headless corpse, a speck of light congealing above the body.
Chen Ke crouched next to the Diner's corpse, grasping that tiny light, and before his eyes emerged fragments of the Diner's memories...
She was sitting in a scorched room, facing three skeletons that had been burned to a crisp.
Two adults and one child.
The woman muttered to herself with tones of bitterness and helplessness.
"Do you know who killed you..."
"They took away your job..."
"This is the taste of vengeance..."
"But what of it... You're already dead..."
A pair of shriveled hands came into view, reduced to mere bones.
...
The night in the slums.
Homeless people huddled around a burning barrel for warmth. The woman hid in the shadows, watching them.
"Joe... Peter... and Bonnie..."
She carved these three names into her left arm. She had already forgotten the people behind those names, but she vaguely remembered that during her toughest times, she had spent time with them.
Just like that group of homeless people.
"I am not just a name, I am an experience... I won't forget myself."
The woman clutched her head, struggling against the symptoms of memory deterioration.
...
"I have companions now, they have lost themselves, but I can help them remember..."
In a room, the woman used a black stone to carve a sentence into the wall.
She turned to look at the room; the walls were filled with words and phrases.
Emaciated figures stood by the door, shaking hands and embracing one another.
"From today, we are family."
...
The woman and her companion, holding candles, moved ahead through the sewage-ridden sewers that resembled a labyrinth.
They arrived at a confluence and stopped at the entrance to a pitch-dark passage.
"Kneel."
In the darkness, an indifferent voice came through, sounding neither human nor inhuman, with an indistinguishable gender.
The group knelt on one knee, sewage submerging their ankles and knees.
"Hear my summons, become my servant, and your wish shall be granted," the voice wafted from the darkness.
"We hear your summons and wish to become your servants," the woman bowed her head and whispered into the darkness before her.
"State your wish," the voice commanded again.
"I want... to shelter those who wander," the woman said.
"A miracle shall be granted to you."
After responding, the voice fell into a brief silence, followed by a noise like bubbling boiling water coming from the dark passage.
From the darkness, a thick, wart-covered, purple tentacle slowly extended, bringing a colander to the woman's side.
...
The woman carved texts into the wall of her room.
"They have undergone certain changes."
"I don't know if this counts as a miracle... if it continues, they will no longer be human..."
"I should have told them... but what power do I have to protect them..."
"If I can't protect them, what is the meaning of my existence...?"
"Maybe being deformed is a blessing..."
"It's certainly much better than starving to death..."
...
A flash of white light, and Chen Ke came to his senses.
The female diner's body slowly disintegrated, turning into numerous black ashes with a gust of wind, leaving no trace of her in this world.
The answer was now clear, the root of the sin was hidden within the darkness of the sewer!
That wart-covered tentacle-like thing was likely just the tip of the iceberg of the unknown terror; only by delving deeper into the dark could he glimpse its true face.
He analyzed his combat abilities simply, up till now, he seemed to have had things pretty easy as long as he had suitable weaponry, neither the human-faced dogs nor the deformed monsters posed much of a challenge to him. Reflecting on the past ten or so hours since his arrival, it was actually the assassin sent by Pankia who presented the greatest danger.
If it were the investigators, what would they do?
No, they generally wouldn't engage directly with the unknown monsters; the investigators were more responsible for research and exploration, or for entering Black Box Spaces that had been marked and slaughtering monsters less powerful than themselves.
In other words, investigators weren't particularly combat-effective; they were more like hunters in a national hunting ground.
What about the Administration Bureau? They were the first combat units to directly face unknown enemies. They were stronger than investigators, facing more dangerous foes. Perhaps that's why the Administration Bureau collected Holy Relics.
Could it be that facing these strange beasts, Holy Relics were indeed more useful than Spiritual Gun firearms? But Chen Ke believed that if the only advantage of Holy Relics was their ability to "slice through iron like mud," they might not necessarily be superior to firearms.
After all, hand-to-hand combat was a rather primitive way to fight!
Even without considering that modern warfare was racing towards long-range strikes, just the conflicts between humans: outnumbered, a blade would fear a bullet, the more people, the bigger the justice, possession of a gun was the key to power – these were considered cardinal rules.
Not to mention, the Administration Bureau had developed eighteen types of Spiritual Bullets in six categories, this alone indicated that firearms were to some extent more formidable than melee weapons.
Unless, of course, Holy Relics possessed special abilities that he was currently unaware of...
He reassessed the weapons he could wield:
A short sword on the verge of falling apart.
A Glock 17 that shot Flame Bullets.
A Colt Python that fired Flame Magnum Bullets.
A Spiritual Ability Pistol that discharged Punishment Bullets, although firing it would attract the attention of the Administration Bureau.
And... four Holy Relic diamonds that were yet to be identified.