Chapter 104 Part 1: The Face Behind the Back

Wang Ziming’s legs went weak first.

His knees buckled, and with a thud, he fell to the ground, his whole body crashing down heavily.

Before he could recover, he immediately started kowtowing.

His forehead slammed against the stone floor of the tomb chamber, pounding with a dull thud.

“Please, spare me… I really know I was wrong…”

“I truly had no ulterior motives. I honestly just wanted to bring you here to get rid of this menace…”

Peace didn’t speak. She just watched him quietly.

Wang Ziming kept kowtowing, blood already starting to show on his forehead. “I just wanted to—”

“You went to all this trouble to bring us here just to take something from the Mayor.” Peace spoke, her voice as flat as water. “The malice on you can’t be hidden.”

Wang Ziming froze mid-kowtow, his whole body stiff.

He looked up at Peace and saw in her eyes no room for negotiation, as cold as a frozen lake in winter.

He recognized that look.

It was the look one gives a dead person.

He jerked his head around and started kowtowing desperately to White Night.

“Little sister, please say something for me. I really never had the heart to harm anyone…”

White Night didn’t move. Her soul body shrank further into the bike basket, her gaze not shifting, but she said nothing.

Wang Ziming turned to Little Frost, scraping his knees on the ground as he crawled forward. “I can tell you’re a kind-hearted person. Won’t you help me, please?”

Little Frost’s gaze swept over him indifferently, finally landing on the edge of the small scooter’s basket. She didn’t even return a single word.

He turned to Mu Yingying. Mu Yingying rested her chin on her hand, lazily swinging her legs. “Hey, bro, don’t kowtow over here. This floor is pretty solid, don’t want you cracking your forehead open.”

Wang Ziming turned back to Peace.

He kowtowed once, then again. Blood was already seeping from his forehead, trickling down the bridge of his nose.

There is no dignity when a person is fighting to survive.

As he kowtowed, Wang Ziming suddenly seemed to think of something that might save him. He shuffled forward on his knees, inch by inch.

He crawled to the already cold corpse of the Mayor, split in two, and reached trembling hands into the rotting pile of organs, frantically digging.

He dug urgently, green, half-coagulated blood plasma coating his hands and arms.

He pushed aside several layers of sticky gunk and finally found it.

A heart.

Greenish, a full size larger than a normal human heart, its surface covered with faint cyan-green veins. It was still slowly, rhythmically pulsing, contracting and expanding, emitting a faint, cold glow.

With trembling hands, he cupped the heart.

He continued to shuffle on his knees, inch by inch, until he was in front of Peace.

Like presenting a treasure, he raised the still-beating heart high.

“I know how precious this thing is,” he said, looking up, a faint glimmer of hope for survival kindling in his eyes. “This is the source of the Mayor’s power. If you eat it, you can inherit all his abilities… that invisible protective force field, that air-severing force that can tear the air apart… you can have it all…”

“I am now offering this precious thing to you…”

His throat bobbed, his voice dropping so low it was almost inaudible.

“Giving it all to you, I only ask that you spare my life.”

The entire tomb chamber fell silent for a moment.

Peace didn’t reach out.

Mu Yingying glanced at the still-beating green heart and clicked her tongue. “Bro, that’s a pretty ugly way to offer a treasure, isn’t it? You sure eating this thing won’t turn you into that green-faced, fanged monster from before?”

“No, no!” Wang Ziming frantically shook his head. “This is pure essence of power. There are no side effects…”

“Eating it will most likely turn you into the same half-human, half-monster mess you are now.”

Peace spoke calmly, cutting him off.

The smile on Wang Ziming’s lips froze instantly.

“None of us need that kind of filthy power,” Peace said.

She was telling the truth.

White Night had the RV System, her power steadily rising through points—clean and natural. This evil path of turning people into monsters and strengthening oneself by devouring hearts was something they had no interest in.

Wang Ziming’s hands, cupping the heart, suddenly shook violently.

He had thought that this thing would at least buy him his life.

At worst, it would get him a useful position to continue living.

But she said she didn’t need it.

Three light words that extinguished the light in his eyes.

Wang Ziming slowly lowered his head.

His eyes were hidden by the hair on his forehead.

A faint, eerie green light flickered through the gaps in his hair.

No one saw it.

The next second.

He suddenly raised his hand and shoved the still-beating green heart into his mouth with all his strength.

Such a big heart, and he forced it into his throat.

Once it was in, he bit down hard. With a crunch, green juice sprayed from the corners of his mouth, splattering all the way down to his chin and neck.

His eyes stared wide, his Adam’s apple bobbed violently, and he forcibly chewed and swallowed the thing.

“Holy crap!”

Mu Yingying drew the Tang Dao from her waist in one smooth motion.

The blade left the sheath with a sharp ring that echoed through the empty tomb chamber.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Peace standing there.

Those eyes just calmly watched Wang Ziming after he swallowed the heart, with no intention of stopping him or any sign of urgency.

Mu Yingying stopped her movement.

What’s the rush?

The big shot was right there.

She let out a breath, sheathed the sword, and stepped back, ready to see what trick Wang Ziming would pull.

At worst, it’d just be an uglier monster.

Wang Ziming slowly lifted his head.

His face was already beginning to warp and distort.

The whites of his eyes turned a murky green, and the skin under his eyes began to rapidly bubble up with dense, tiny blisters. Each blister that popped released a puff of pungent white smoke.

Blue-black veins crawled from his neck up his face, like small snakes buried under his skin, writhing and undulating one after another.

He opened his mouth.

His gums were receding rapidly, each tooth twice as long as before, growing sharp and pointed.

He looked down at his own hands.

His nails were growing at a terrifying rate, turning black, emitting faint clicking sounds.

His entire skin took on an ugly, bruised blue-black hue.

Patches of skin began to rot and peel off, revealing the dark green, glistening flesh underneath.

Stench.

The stench was even worse than the bloody smell from the Mayor’s corpse. Mixed with the sour rot of decaying meat, the rankness of pus, and a certain indescribable cloying sweetness, it wafted from him in waves.

He lifted his head, glaring at Peace.

His eyes were bloodshot and crazy.

“Why? Why do you get to be so high and mighty?”

His voice was hoarse, like two pieces of rusty sandpaper grinding together.

“Why were you born with such powerful strength, while I have to struggle just to survive?”

“I can’t stand your expressions of not caring about anything, of looking down on everything!”

“What did I ever do wrong?”

The more he spoke, the more agitated he became. His chest heaved more and more violently.

The calmer Peace was, the more frenzied he became.

That calmness, in his eyes, was nothing but mockery and contempt.

Peace looked at him, her eyes like she was watching a clown.

She didn’t respond.

Wang Ziming took a sudden step forward.

His feet no longer looked like feet. The soles of his shoes had burst, revealing black, sharp claws.

The moment he took that step.

Peace raised her hand.

It was still that index finger.

A faint black light flickered at its tip.

Just a flicker.

Thump.

Wang Ziming’s head fell off cleanly.

That head hit the ground, rolled several times, and finally stopped about a meter from his body, face up, staring at the ceiling of the tomb chamber.

That face still wore the savage expression from the moment he stepped forward.

Eyebrows furrowed, eyes wide, mouth half-open, as if still roaring.

It just froze there.

One second.

Two seconds.

Something moved on that frozen face.

The furrowed eyebrows slowly relaxed.

The eyes even blinked once.

That twisted, savage face gradually relaxed from its ferocity into…

pure shock.

Wang Ziming’s head realized it was still alive.

He wasn’t dead.

Even though his head had left his body, he wasn’t dead.

He could feel his own gaze, he could blink, he could breathe… he could even clearly hear the breathing of everyone in the tomb chamber.

What… what the hell was going on?

What kind of monster had he become?

“Man, that’s too ridiculous,” Mu Yingying said, her eyes wide as saucers. “This dude’s head is on the ground and he can still think?”

“This is just disgusting.” She took a half-step back in disgust. “This isn’t some weirdness, this is disgusting—disgusting squared!”