The corridor of the apartment building was narrow and dimly lit.
Not far from his door, two figures lay sprawled on the filthy floor. Beneath them, a massive pool of dark red blood spread out, not yet fully solidified.
Their bodies were covered in crisscrossing wounds, some deep enough to reveal bone, as if they had been hacked apart by a sharp weapon in a frenzy.
The surroundings were deathly silent, save for the buzzing of flies beginning to gather.
He Denghong’s stomach churned, but he forced himself to stay calm.
This scene was not the first time he had witnessed such things in this chaotic district. He reached a conclusion almost immediately, just as he had many times before —
“Damn it… who is it this time? Someone who couldn’t go on, or some drug-addled lunatic… taking it out on society?”
He cursed in a low voice, subconsciously clenching his fists before powerlessly letting them go.
In the days that followed, He Denghong fell into a state that was both fractured and perpetually tense.
He was like a machine following a set program, struggling to shift gears between the survival of his main body and the duties of his avatar.
During the day, he rushed between various construction sites, warehouses, and restaurant kitchens, working various short-term and odd jobs.
The scents of sweat, dust, and grease clung to his exhausted body.
At the same time, the vast majority of his consciousness was focused on He Jiulu in the distance.
Battles became frequent. The infiltration of Guiyi in Yulin City seemed to increase along with the activity of the Gongjishi branch and the intensification of cosmic overlap.
He Jiulu, Sui Luowen, and later Luba became regulars on the city’s front lines.
Every battle was accompanied by the synchronized transmission of intense pain.
Fractures, lacerations, burns, and even more bizarre sensory violations — everything He Jiulu endured was mirrored perfectly onto He Denghong’s nerves.
At first, he nearly screamed out or fainted at the construction site due to the sudden, agonizing pain.
But he quickly found a way to cope — by using the power of Autocracy.
He used Autocracy on himself. It was not to control his consciousness, but to precisely suppress and numb the neural regions of his brain related to vocalization and the intense reflexes of pain expression.
Regrettably, Autocracy could only suppress certain functions of the human brain or tamper with the depths of consciousness; it could not directly sever the brain’s perception of pain.
The effect was significant. No matter how horrific the injuries He Jiulu sustained, while He Denghong’s body would instantly stiffen, break into a cold sweat, and his muscles would spasm from the agony —
His vocal cords remained locked. He could only produce extremely suppressed, muffled groans squeezed from the depths of his throat, sounding as if he were suffocating.
This was arguably worse than screaming. The intense pain had no outlet, crashing wildly within his body and bringing a sense of dizziness and suffocation, as if his chest were about to explode.
But he had to endure. He could not be fired from his job for being mistaken for a psychotic having a sudden fit, and he certainly could not attract the kitchen knives or bullets of his neighbors in the apartment.
This extreme suppression caused his expression while working to always appear abnormally pained.
His brows would knit into a tight knot, the corners of his mouth would turn down, and his face often turned pale or flushed from holding back the pain. His forehead was constantly covered in a fine layer of cold sweat.
“Hey, He Denghong, you okay? You’re just moving bricks. Why do you look like you’re being tortured?” his coworker, Li Qiang, would sometimes ask with a mocking tone.
“It’s… it’s nothing. Just a… bit of an upset stomach.”
He Denghong would always grit his teeth, forcing the mumbled explanation through the gaps in his teeth before forcing himself to keep moving, even though every step felt like walking on the edge of a blade.
Over time, everyone began to think of him as a frail, eccentric man who couldn’t control his expressions and always looked miserable while working. But it stopped there. At least he didn’t suddenly go crazy or bother anyone else.
To handle unexpected battles, He Denghong made further preparations.
He would sometimes appear very impatient. Especially when he sensed strong Guiyi fluctuations, He Jiulu would often charge in directly using her nature as an avatar and her own flesh and blood without waiting to fully construct Autocracy —
Trading injury for injury to end the fight as quickly as possible. This avoided any delays that might cause the main body to reveal even greater weaknesses while working.
This style of fighting was undoubtedly more brutal, and the damage sustained was more direct.
He could only grit his teeth, using his willpower to deadbolt his throat and let the pain burn through his internal organs in silence.
Furthermore, whenever he had the chance, he would keep his main body in the relative safety of his apartment and always kept the Autocracy stave in his main body’s hand.
This way, no matter where He Jiulu was fighting, he could immediately activate Autocracy through the main body to suppress his vocal instincts, ensuring he would not lose his composure in public.
This became his most important insurance measure. It ensured that even if He Jiulu encountered an accident and lost hold of Autocracy, the main body would not cry out.
Combat brought not only physical trauma but also psychological shadows.
This was especially true for the young Sui Luowen and Luba, who was essentially still a “newborn consciousness.” Certain Guiyi attacks that transcended human understanding and struck directly at the depths of one’s consciousness were enough to leave deep psychological scars.
And then there were the psychological shadows caused by seeing horrific, unwatchable injuries.
He Denghong noticed this. After Sui Luowen faced an Anomaly capable of weaving illusions of fear, although she successfully sealed it —
The girl became noticeably silent afterward, and a hint of nearly imperceptible dread would occasionally flash in her eyes.
He Denghong made a decision. He used Autocracy deeply once more, but this time, the target was not suppression, but “transfer.”
He carefully extracted the intense memories of fear and psychological trauma that had just formed in Sui Luowen’s mind and forcibly transferred them into the depths of his own consciousness.
The process was extremely dangerous, like performing delicate surgery on fragile nerves.
Once finished, it was as if a thousand-pound weight had been lifted from Sui Luowen. While her memories of the battle remained clear, the bone-deep sense of fear had vanished. She soon recovered her usual state.
He Denghong’s main body, however, felt inexplicable palpitations and chills for several days afterward, with fragments of terrifying visions that did not belong to him flashing through his mind.
He Jiulu said to Sui Luowen, “The power of Autocracy helped clear your psychological shadows. Get some rest and be careful next time.”
Later, he did the same for Luba.
When Luba’s cognitive filter was briefly breached by an information-polluting Strange Object, causing her core logic to fall into brief chaos and produce emotions akin to a “breakdown” —
He Denghong similarly endured the massive mental burden, transferring that chaos and trauma to himself.
“Your system has undergone a safety reset. You are fine now,” he told Luba, whose eyes had just seen the flow of code stabilize.
He believed this was his responsibility as the only adult in the team. It was more important for the two children to head into battle with a light heart rather than be crushed by the cruelty of combat, even if it meant he had to endure more pain himself.