In Lin Cheng’s old team, there had once been a genius sniper. He had specifically asked that man for advice on how to hone his marksmanship, and the response had been straightforward.
Aim, then shoot.
Easier said than done—spare me next time.
But the truth was that simple. Good marksmanship boiled down to aiming and firing. Earlier, he had precisely hit those seven mid-tier bloodsucking bugs by predicting their trajectories and calculating the bullet’s travel time from barrel to impact, achieving perfect hits.
The explosive bullets packed their blast into a tightly contained radius, making their destructive power especially terrifying. Their manufacturing process remained a mystery to this day. Litchi had obtained so many only because the Fruit Shop had a cooperative relationship with the Alliance, which was obligated to provide the shop with some research results.
“I don’t understand.” The Bloodsucking Bug Queen’s body began to twist, its flesh ripping apart Lin Cheng’s clothes. Now standing before him was its true, complete form.
With its clothes shredded, it still retained a humanoid shape, but its skin had transformed into shimmering red scales that gleamed coldly. Several more red eyes had opened on its cheeks, each flickering with crimson light, while drool still dribbled uncontrollably from the corners of its mouth.
“You’ve clearly been to the Abyss. You bear its mark. You should understand me.” The Bloodsucking Bug Queen spoke slowly.
“Back in the Abyss, I could crush bugs like you by the hundreds with one hand.”
“But you’ve grown old now.” The Bloodsucking Bug Queen replied unhurriedly, once more dodging the bullet Lin Cheng fired. Its speed was so blinding that even his predictions couldn’t track it—it waited until he pulled the trigger before evading with absolute velocity. Every bullet grazed past it by a hair’s breadth.
“I suggest you abandon these futile efforts. I still desire to cooperate with you.”
Even as it dodged bullets, the Bloodsucking Bug Queen inched closer to Lin Cheng step by step. Its movements weren’t rushed, fully demonstrating its patience, but Lin Cheng’s expression remained unchanged—solemn and cold.
He twisted a dial on the handgun, and the barrel’s engravings lit up. This time, the bullets he unleashed glowed as they poured out. The Bloodsucking Bug Queen instinctively dodged their paths, but the rounds detonated right beside it without touching anything.
The Bloodsucking Bug Queen let out a low roar. The explosion tore into its right arm, shattering the chitinous armor and exposing the scarlet flesh beneath. In that instant of stiffness, Lin Cheng fired a second shot, then a third.
The two bullets struck true—one in its chest, the other in its head—detonating and cracking its armor. But inside its skull was only more flesh. As that halted its advance, Lin Cheng swiftly retreated, slamming in a fresh magazine.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Each shot landed precisely in the breaches blasted open in the Bloodsucking Bug Queen’s armor. Repeated explosions rippled through the air like waves. Its head had now shattered across the ground, like a smashed watermelon.
Yet its body pressed on, new eyes and mouths splitting open across its chest.
“Flesh is merely one form. You know this. This isn’t my true body. Such alchemical tools can’t kill me.”
“Then tell me where your real body is hiding.” Lin Cheng fired while asking.
“The heart.” Astonishingly, the Bloodsucking Bug Queen answered. In a flash, Lin Cheng aimed at its heart. The bullet hit its chest dead center, exploding there and carving out a crater—but the crystal core at the heart’s core remained unscathed.
The crystal core was slightly translucent, with the faint outline of a red worm visible inside.
Lin Cheng kept shooting and retreating as the Bloodsucking Bug Queen advanced relentlessly. Now he was nearly at the cliffside guardrail. The sunset on the horizon had faded, and he seemed to have nowhere left to go.
“I don’t understand.” The Bloodsucking Bug Queen spoke again.
“Nor do I understand why you’re so patient chatting with me.” Lin Cheng’s ammo was spent. He holstered the handgun back into the ear clip and faced the grotesque, fleshy abomination before him.
“You are a higher existence than me. Lower ones… must submit to higher ones. That’s the Abyss’s rule. Even if this isn’t the Abyss, its rules are etched into my core. You humans might call it a habit. If I had a choice… I’d prefer to cooperate with you, not parasitize. Coexisting with you would be my honor.”
“But your eyes look full of greed to me.”
“Devoured too many humans. Forced to learn human greed. This isn’t the Abyss. Perhaps I shouldn’t follow its rules.” Doubt crept into the Bloodsucking Bug Queen’s voice. It moved again, taking a step forward. Lin Cheng now stood at the very edge of the cliff, his breathing steadying as it approached. He raised his hand, touching the ear clip once more.
The Bloodsucking Bug Queen halted abruptly.
Because it saw what had suddenly appeared in Lin Cheng’s hand. To it, that was an alchemical tool brimming with energy—an instinctive fear made it freeze.
To Lin Cheng, it was a jet-black sword etched with dense runes along the blade, through which dark golden light now flowed.
“This… is a human-made alchemical tool?” The Bloodsucking Bug Queen’s voice trembled.
“Yes. An old acquaintance lent it to me. But when I went to return it… I couldn’t find her.” Lin Cheng gripped the hilt tightly. That old friend had once told him the sword’s name was Branch Snapper—one of humanity’s greatest alchemical creations.
But for Lin Cheng, its real value right now lay in the energy stored within the blade. He could draw that energy into himself. Clutching the hilt, he recalled the sword manual she had given him. Its sixth form gathered all energy into one point.
He had once asked her about the secrets of swordsmanship. Her answer? Strike wherever the opponent is weakest.
Sound advice, he thought.
If memory served, the sixth form of the sword manual was called Branch-Pulling Strike.
The blade ignited entirely, its dark golden runes blazing to life. Energy surged from the hilt into his body, granting him brief power. The sword’s arc cut through the dim air like a full moon, until its edge met the crystal core in the Bloodsucking Bug Queen’s chest. With a resounding clang, the crystal shattered, and the sword cleaved the red worm inside into two.
Lin Cheng stowed the sword away immediately. Its power diminished with every use—he hadn’t drawn it in years. His arm trembled uncontrollably. The Bloodsucking Bug Queen’s body collapsed before him. The severed worm raised its head toward him, and Lin Cheng received its telepathic message.
“I don’t understand.”
He sensed the confusion and bewilderment in its emotions—no sorrow, no rage. For the lowliest creatures of the Abyss, death held no terror.
The Abyss in its words was the source of the Catastrophes. Three years ago, Lin Cheng had stumbled into it once. There, he’d seen far too many Bloodsucking Bug Queens like this one. If they all descended upon the world, it might take only months to turn the planet into a breeding ground.
Yet they were the Abyss’s bottom-feeders.
“Why should a bug try to understand humans?” Lin Cheng approached the wriggling worm and crushed it utterly underfoot. Without its blood crystal shielding, a bloodsucking worm was fragile—even a six-year-old could pinch one dead. Their strength lay in their larval stage’s insidious parasitism, clinging like maggots to the bone, notoriously hard to excise with current human methods.
This bloodsucking worm was likely just a larva that had slipped through a space rift. Through repeated parasitism, fission, and reproduction, it had evolved into a Bloodsucking Bug Queen. But since it had arrived in this world so recently, it hadn’t fully matured beyond control. In human power rankings, its strength hovered between B-Rank and A-Rank.
Lin Cheng had once faced an S-Rank Bloodsucking Bug Empress. Its true form towered several meters, its chitin as hard as diamond.
He glanced at his leg. The Bloodsucking Bug Queen’s body had dissolved into a pool of blood, seeping into the ground. Lin Cheng knew their habits well—it was truly dead, with no chance of revival. No need to call in the cleaners, then. If Litchi found out, she’d nag him endlessly. Lately, she was trending from youthful beauty toward naggy mom territory.
Lin Cheng headed toward his parked motorcycle. Midway, a sharp pain stabbed his chest, followed by uncontrollable nausea. He spat out a mouthful of blood, the mist splattering his white T-shirt. Otherwise, he felt no different. He stripped off the shirt, wiped his mouth with the cleaner part, then touched the ear clip. Out came a flamethrower. He incinerated the shirt to ashes and, for good measure, roasted the little worm he’d crushed—call it a humane cremation.
Bugs couldn’t comprehend human thoughts, just as humans couldn’t fathom the Abyss.
Lin Cheng remounted his motorcycle, bare-chested. The wind chilled his skin as night fully fell. Streetlights flickered on along the Coiling Mountain Highway. He switched on the high beams and rode back to the city, pulling up at a roadside night market stall to buy a new T-shirt.
After parking, Lin Cheng dismounted. His bare torso—with its ugly scars contrasting sharply defined muscles—drew plenty of stares. He quickened his pace to grab some clothes, but his eyes snagged on a pair of white silk-stockinged legs at an earring stall.
Familiar legs.
He passed by her, and she had just finished paying. Turning, she spotted him immediately—his shirtless state was too eye-catching. Lu Xiaoxiao broke into a grin and stepped in front of him. Her gaze raked him from top to bottom, expression odd. “What… happened to you?”
Lin Cheng waved it off. “Hooked up with a rich babe at her place. Her hubby rolled in, so I bolted in just pants. Lucky I was quick.”
“…” Lu Xiaoxiao rolled her eyes at him.
