The light inside the prison remained dim.
The number of guards in this facility didn’t actually exceed fifty. Thanks to the alchemy matrix, a handful of them could easily manage the entire place. But at that moment, the same alchemy matrix was slowly sealing away those guards’ powers. The process wasn’t instantaneous, but how could a few dozen B-rank and A-rank guards hope to stop the two hundred ruthless villains standing before them?
Green Hair’s fingertip brushed the tattoo on his left shoulder again. He drew out a glowing orb and tossed it lightly into the air. In an instant, it burst against the ceiling, bathing the entire prison in light as bright as midday.
The prison grounds weren’t vast. Aside from the guards, fully operational alchemy equipment filled the space. Devices in the main hall had already activated, but Green Hair disabled them effortlessly without anyone behind him lifting a finger.
In under three minutes, Green Hair had led the group to the exercise yard where prisoners normally took their airings. A single old man stood on the grass.
Green Hair had cracked every alchemy checkpoint in the prison with ease, but this elder made his expression turn wary. With a helpless glance at the man—a lean, slightly stooped figure who looked to be in his late sixties or early seventies—Green Hair sighed.
He was the prison’s warden, an SS-rank special-type ability user named Ming Si, who personally oversaw everything in this facility.
Green Hair met the man’s gaze. Unhurried, he drew a cigarette from his left shoulder and placed it between his lips. Someone snapped their fingers, lighting it for him. He narrowed his eyes behind his glasses, gazing at the warden, and sighed helplessly. “Old timer, you can’t stop us.”
“Stopping one is one,” Ming Si snorted coldly, his eyes fixed unyieldingly on Green Hair.
“Your ability is unique. You’ve spent too long inside this alchemy matrix—it can weaken you by at most thirty percent. But give us another minute, and everyone’s strength here will fully recover. The people behind me have already been sentenced to death. I don’t want to kill anyone here, and I have no intention of offending you. Just step aside, and I guarantee your safety won’t be threatened in the slightest.”
Green Hair’s tone was polite and earnest, but the only response was a curt, “Out of the question.”
The politeness faded from Green Hair’s face, replaced by a mocking smile tugging at his lips. “Fair enough. You’re just a bag of old bones anyway. Death doesn’t scare you—only how gracefully you go matters.”
“But is it really worth dying for this fractured Alliance, existing now only for selfish desires?” Green Hair’s cigarette burned down quickly. He flicked the butt to the ground and crushed it underfoot, then took a step back and addressed the crowd behind him with a light chuckle.
“Everyone, I’ve brought you this far. The rest is up to you. Cherish this one chance at freedom in your lives. We have at most an hour—don’t disappoint me.”
He retreated another step, melting into the crowd. In the next instant, they surged forward like a swarm of bees. Ming Si snorted coldly, and black mist rose across the entire yard. Shadows coalesced within it, forming ghost-like warriors that stood guard around him.
The ghost warriors gripped long knives forged from the mist itself—the most loyal servants in existence. They slashed at anyone who drew near. But the swarm slowly encircled them. Ghost warriors shattered, only to reform, yet among the two hundred were psychic-system ability users. Their mental powers bore down on Ming Si in an instant. Energy shielded him, but his back bent a little lower still.
Energy delayed human aging. Ming Si was actually eighty-seven.
Once, he had been the Alliance’s most celebrated adjudicator, fending off catastrophes time and again, slaying monsters from the Abyss, earning countless honors. War had left him without wife or children; he’d lived alone until three years ago, when the source rift of the catastrophes finally closed. He retired to this quiet post in the Alliance, reading the news and sipping tea in the prison, occasionally trying to talk sense into the young ones who still had a chance at redemption.
But every prisoner here was a bloodthirsty monster. When Ming Si first arrived, he’d hoped to make use of his twilight years, maybe guide a couple of wayward youths back to the straight and narrow. Gradually, he’d abandoned the idea.
They would never repent.
Greed was like a snowball rolling downhill—once it started, it never stopped. Their “regret” was only for getting caught, for not being cunning or cautious enough. Nothing more.
Ming Si knew he couldn’t stop two hundred of them. He was old, riddled with hidden injuries from countless battles, his core energy nearly depleted. But with one foot in the grave already, why fear death?
These people couldn’t be allowed out. Not a single one. Letting even one go could mean hundreds or thousands dead later. His mind burned with nothing but the urge to kill—to slaughter until they feared him, until they crawled back to their cells and never dreamed of crossing the thunder pool again.
Yet the thirst for freedom ultimately conquered fear.
Even as his ghost warriors cut down a dozen men on the grass, their blood spraying two meters high, no one faltered. No one fled. The crowd’s emotions had been inflamed, distilled into savagery. Human morality was gone; what remained was a pack of beasts tearing into one another.
Only when an ice-forged dagger plunged into his gut did Ming Si slowly accept the truth.
He was very old— no longer the fierce warrior of his youth. Pain stiffened his body for a moment, and two ghost warriors dissolved. The crowd grew wilder, eyes like starving wolves, eager to rip him apart and devour his flesh.
In the black mist, all became beasts.
A dazzling sword gleam suddenly pierced the black mist.
It nearly tore the night into day. Wherever the blade passed, flesh and blood flew. At its reach, countless foes were hurled back by its power.
Ming Si’s head hung low. He forced his eyes wide, staring at the tall, lean figure now standing before him. The man turned, revealing a demon face mask that was half cry, half grin.
The Si Ming Mask of a hero wasn’t elegant or noble—it was downright eerie. Worn on a dark street, it might scare children to tears.
“Old man, you alright?” Lin Cheng’s voice had changed, colder than his own, but the concern in his words was undiminished.
“You brat… how are you here?”
“Sensed the space rift in West City. Went to check it out—turns out it was man-made, so something big was brewing. Felt the energy fluctuations and came to look for you. Not too late, right?”
“I’m fine. The wound’s not serious.”
“Take a breather.” Lin Cheng patted his shoulder lightly.
His right hand still clutched the black-runed long sword named Branch Snapper.
The blade’s power was nearly spent. It had been used once to kill the Bloodsucking Bug Queen, once against Shadow Sting. This time, it would likely exhaust the last of its stored energy.
“You…”
“It’s got just enough left. It’ll do.” Lin Cheng thrust the sword into the grass and turned to face the crowd. Green Hair, who had been quietly smoking on the steps, shot to his feet, eyes bulging as he stared at the demon face mask.
No one failed to recognize Si Ming. No one didn’t know that mask.
“Go back to your cells. Or die.” Si Ming spoke slowly.
“I’m no longer an adjudicator. I don’t care about killing anymore. One steps up, one dies. Ten step up, ten die. A hundred step up, a hundred die. You have ten seconds. Go back.”
“Ten!”
The crowd exchanged uneasy glances, eyes full of reluctance.
“Nine!”
Unease flickered in their gazes.
“Eight!”
Fear began to creep in.
“Seven!”
Fear turned to near-despair.
“Six!”
One man stepped forward—perhaps driven by longing for freedom, or still lost in the bloodlust. But before he could take a single step toward Si Ming, his body collapsed.
Not collapsed—shattered. Like a wall whose every brick crumbled at once, leaving only a pulpy mess on the ground. Si Ming flicked the sword tip, shedding the blood.
“Five!”
Si Ming advanced a step.
The crowd scattered in an instant, fleeing back through the prison’s freshly demolished gates. The frenzied swarm became meek sheep before a prairie wolf.
Green Hair rose from the steps and lit another cigarette.
Overly proud as he was, facing this legendary figure, his legs began to tremble uncontrollably. He could sense everything in the prison through the alchemy matrix, but Si Ming registered as nothing—like he didn’t exist. He stood right there, yet the matrix detected no power from him at all.
Damn. This was the famed Si Ming? What was his ability? How could he completely ignore the alchemy matrix?
When Si Ming’s gaze shifted to him, Green Hair’s arm started shaking too. Even his voice dropped instinctively. “Si Ming…”
