Are you a battle angel too?

At Chen Shang’s command, the slick-haired man immediately sensed something was wrong and tried to stop the youth. But when he glanced ahead again, he realized the boy had vanished into thin air. Indeed, he had simply disappeared on the spot. Though the guards at the factory gate had noticed nothing unusual, the boy had vanished right beneath their noses.

The next instant, his tactical headset crackled with a garbled report:
“Reporting—our sniper on the factory roof has been attacked by an unknown assailant... zzzt...”
“H-help... aaaaaah zzzt...”
As these ominous sounds echoed in his earpiece, screams and the tearing of flesh erupted from the roof above. Someone’s severed arm was hurled down through a skylight, spraying blood across those below.

The contestants still inside, seeing violence break out, all dashed for the factory gate, each hoping to escape.
“Stop! All of you, stop!” the slick-haired man shouted furiously. But naturally, the contestants had no desire to be caught up in the chaos, and no one heeded his words.

Seeing this, the slick-haired man drew his pistol and emptied a magazine into the nearest contestant. The man fell, writhing in agony. The black-clad bodyguards at his side also drew their submachine guns, spraying bullets at the fleeing contestants. Several fell immediately, while the rest, realizing the peril, turned and fired back.

After a brief exchange of gunfire, more contestants lay wounded, but the two bodyguards were also felled by the returning bullets, gravely injured.

Sensing that negotiations had completely collapsed, the slick-haired man dropped his pretense of civility. He tore off his blue suit jacket, revealing beneath the bullet-riddled synthetic skin a mass of metallic machinery.

“None of you are leaving here alive!” he bellowed, transforming into a mechanical killer. From his arm, a Gatling gun barrel snapped into view, and he began to unleash a hail of bullets upon the contestants.

After all, once they were dead, it would be easy enough to submit their withdrawal forms on their behalf, wouldn’t it?

Under the relentless barrage, the contestants were unable to escape; one by one they fell, cut down in the gunfire.

When the last contestant collapsed under a hail of bullets, the slick-haired man turned, casting a vicious glare about the factory interior. He remembered that among those present had been a bespectacled youth who looked barely high school age—but he did not see this boy among the bodies. That meant the child was still hiding somewhere inside.

“Come out, little one,” he called, his voice now warped with electronic distortion, like the butcher-villain from a B-grade horror flick.

Meanwhile, Chen Shang had turned the “pheromone suppressor” to maximum and was crouched in a shadowy corner, quietly assembling a light crossbow from his backpack.

Thwip—!

Suddenly, the slick-haired man sensed a murderous intent behind him. He spun around to see several yellow energy bolts crackling with electricity flying toward him.

“What a naughty boy,” he sneered, arching his body back at a ninety-degree angle to dodge the incoming bolts with uncanny agility.

Having fired, Chen Shang’s position was now completely exposed. The little device in his hand could greatly reduce his presence, but not render him invisible. It was like a stone by the roadside—easy to ignore, unless it suddenly leapt up and struck you where it hurt.

“So there you are... be a good boy and come meet your end,” the slick-haired man said, raising his gun to open fire on Chen Shang.

But before he could lift his arm, he suddenly felt a cold touch at his throat and froze in terror.

Somehow, a man clad in black had appeared behind him like a specter, pressing a plain iron sword to his neck.

Crunch—!

With a flash of cold steel, the iron blade sliced clean through the mechanical neck. The slick-haired man’s head bounced on the ground a few times before coming to rest.

As his vision spun in his final moments, all the slick-haired man saw was a thin, long-haired man in black, wearing a cheap cartoon mask that looked as if it had been bought from a street vendor.

“They’re all dead,” Chu Jianlai said flatly, flicking machine oil from his sword.

“Well done, though you should have left him alive,” Chen Shang shrugged with a smile. “There were some things I wanted to ask.”

Chu Jianlai considered this, then picked up the mechanical head from the ground and pressed it against his own chest.

The “Heart of the Core” engine seemed to sense its master’s intent. Several fine mechanical tendrils pierced through his skin and into the head’s scalp.

A faint light flickered within the head, and the lifeless mechanism began to whir softly.

“Ask away,” Chu Jianlai said, handing the head—now linked to his own heart—to Chen Shang.

“Um, thanks,” Chen Shang replied, grimacing slightly.

The mechanical head slowly opened its eyes, looking bewildered. After all, he was now in a state even more pitiful than a human stump; the head alone was barely conscious, sustained only by Chu Jianlai’s core.

“What... what happened to me?” the mechanical head murmured, trying to move a body that no longer existed. But when he saw his own headless body lying on the ground, he understood.

“The Xu Corporation won’t let you get away with this!” the head threatened. “If you kill me, you’ll be defying the entire syndicate!”

“Xu Corporation? Who the hell are they?” Chen Shang laughed, patting the mechanical head’s cheek. “You don’t really think I’m afraid of some syndicate, do you?”

“You... you lawless lunatic!” the head sputtered.

Chen Shang cleared his throat and pressed on, “Tell me, what will the Xu Corporation do next?”

“Why should I tell you?” the head replied, putting on a look of defiant resolve.

Chu Jianlai calmly patted the engine on his chest. In response, the engine began to whir faster, sending a surge of electricity into the head.

“Aaah... zzt... aaah...” the mechanical head convulsed in agony, whining, “Too much current! I’m about to short out... I’ll talk! Please... stop...”

Chen Shang gave Chu Jianlai a meaningful look, and Chu Jianlai patted the engine again, halting the discharge.

Gasping for breath, the head panted, “We planned... to have you all sign voluntary withdrawal forms, then kill you... and send in actors hired by the Corporation to take your place in the competition...”

“Even if you insist on competing in the preliminaries... it’ll be a dead end for you! Every team in the tournament is from our syndicate—they’ll make sure yours is eliminated first.”

“I see. So the contest will be even tougher than I thought,” Chen Shang mused, stroking his chin.

Originally, with a dozen teams all competing against each other, he could have slipped by unnoticed. But now, it would be all of them against his one team. If he wanted to win, he’d have to eliminate every other team himself.

“Interesting,” Chen Shang chuckled, then gave a low order, “Swordsman, finish him off.”

“Okay,” Chu Jianlai nodded.

“Wait! You can’t kill me! Do you really want to go up against the Xu Corporation?!” the head screamed in terror.

“If we don’t challenge the syndicate, should we bully the poor instead?” Chen Shang replied with a deep, enigmatic smile.

Before the head could say another word, Chu Jianlai crushed it in his hand, the fragments scattering across the floor.

Chen Shang whistled, then made a call to Black Calista. “Did you record everything that just happened in the factory?”

“I got it all with the drone,” Black Calista replied lazily. “Want me to play it at the Grand Tournament’s live broadcast?”

“You’re getting to know me better and better,” Chen Shang grinned and hung up.

He waved to Chu Jianlai. “Let’s get out of here. We’ll leave the rest of this mess for the Xu Corporation to clean up.”