For some reason, the moment Xi Renjie saw those hollow eyes, his heart sank.
“The—the warehouse!” one of the enforcers shouted, drawing everyone’s attention to the depths of the warehouse behind the crimson-robed figure.
An overpowering stench of burning plastic and charred meat poured from the warehouse. Amid the flames, countless blackened centipede corpses lay curled on the ground, their bodies torn apart—covered in bite marks and missing limbs. The scene resembled a meticulously arranged hellscape.
Whether it was the visual horror or the suffocating stench, several enforcers clutched their stomachs and dry-heaved on the spot.
All dead?!
Xi Renjie stared at the warehouse floor littered with calamity corpses, his mind reeling. From the moment this figure had lured the creatures away to now, barely ten minutes had passed—and yet, every single one had been annihilated?
And judging by the bite marks on the corpses…
Xi Renjie’s gaze snapped back to the crimson-robed figure, his wariness skyrocketing.
“Who… are you?” he demanded, eyes locked on the fluttering red opera robe.
Then—a breeze swept across the wilderness.
The crimson robe swayed gently in the wind, and from its sleeves, a scarlet butterfly fluttered out, drifting lightly past the stunned onlookers.
This butterfly had no patterns, no discernible organs or limbs—as if cut from red paper. Its wings flapped, blood-red and unnatural.
Then came a second. A third. A fourth…
With a flick of the figure’s sleeve, a flood of butterflies surged forth, a swirling crimson tide that engulfed Xi Renjie and the others!
Xi Renjie instinctively raised his arms to shield his face. Through his fingers, he saw the crimson robe itself dissolving into butterflies, blotting out the world in a haze of scarlet.
“Where did all these butterflies come from?!” An enforcer squinted against the fluttering wings, panicking as he fumbled for his gun.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Gunfire rang out, but the butterflies didn’t disperse. Instead, Xi Renjie’s furious roar followed:
“Idiot! Who told you to shoot?!”
The crimson figure might be mysterious, but he’d saved Xi Renjie’s life and drawn away District Three’s calamities. Even if his motives were unclear, that didn’t make him an enemy—which was why Xi Renjie hadn’t drawn his sword or gun yet.
But now, with this fool opening fire, what if the figure took it as a declaration of war?
The shooter froze mid-panic. Before he could react, the swirling butterflies before him suddenly coalesced—
The crimson-robed figure materialized inches from his face, hollow eyes staring into his soul.
The enforcer screamed, instinctively raising his gun again—but as the figure’s sleeve flicked, the weapon in his hand suddenly felt lighter…
When he finally lifted it, what he clutched was no longer a gun, but a fresh yellow banana, pointed squarely at Chen Ling’s forehead.
A banana?!
The enforcer gaped at the fruit in his hand, his brain short-circuiting.
Before he could process this, the crimson sleeve swept again—
The butterflies around him twisted, elongating into slender snakes that coiled around his body like ropes. Their forked tongues flicked against his cheeks, icy and damp.
The horror shattered the enforcer’s sanity. He shrieked, thrashing to escape, but the snakes clung like a second skin.
“AAAAHHH—!! HELP! HELP ME!!”
As he screamed, Xi Renjie gritted his teeth, drew his steel sword, and charged forward—slashing through the snakes binding his comrade.
The severed snakes fell away, revealing the enforcer’s bare torso beneath… Both men stared, rubbing their eyes.
Had his clothes turned into snakes? Or had the snakes been his clothes all along?
An illusion?
Then—a ghostly crimson figure appeared behind Xi Renjie.
Every hair on Xi Renjie’s body stood on end. He spun and swung his sword without hesitation!
The blade shrieked through the air—
But as his vision blurred, the steel sword in his grip morphed into a charred wooden stick, whistling toward Chen Ling’s head!
For a split second, Xi Renjie’s heart lurched. But remembering how his sword had cut the “illusionary” snakes earlier, he convinced himself this was another trick—that he still held an unbreakable blade. He tightened his grip and swung harder!
Crack!
The stick snapped in half.
Xi Renjie stared blankly at the broken piece in his hand.
Because blocking his strike was none other than his own steel sword—now wielded by Chen Ling. Like the enforcer before him, Xi Renjie’s brain blue-screened.
Wait… what?!
Weren’t the butterflies and snakes just illusions?!
Just as Xi Renjie accepted reality as false, the false became real again. And when he dismissed it as illusion, reality reasserted itself. He could no longer distinguish truth from deception.
The only constant was the eerie, chilling smile on the crimson-robed figure’s face.
The steel sword whistled down, narrowly dodged by Xi Renjie. Desperate, he yanked his gun from his holster, shut his eyes, and pulled the trigger—
No gunfire came.
His fingers touched something smooth.
Xi Renjie opened his eyes in disbelief. The gun in his hand had transformed into… a banana.
“This can’t be real.” His mind blanked. This has to be fake… Or is it?
Then he watched as Chen Ling slowly raised a banana of his own—
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Three bullets slammed into Xi Renjie’s body. Though his [Iron Clad] softened the blows, his mind might as well have died on the spot. There’s no winning this.
He couldn’t comprehend the logic behind this absurd battle. His thoughts drowned in endless scarlet, leaving only Chen Ling’s haunting visage.
When the false becomes real, the real becomes false.
As if all of this—every twist, every trick—had been conjured into existence with a flick of that crimson sleeve…
A scarlet sleight of hand.