As a forbidden product created by the Angel of Slaughter project, Ling Ling naturally had no one to teach her any combat techniques.
She received knowledge directly written into her cerebral cortex—one of the Cradle’s most brutal technologies.
It could forcibly engrave massive amounts of information into a test subject’s brain in a short time, but at the cost of severe cranial nerve damage and mental collapse. The test subjects who survived this kind of indoctrination were one in ten thousand.
But the young woman before him had not only survived, but turned that knowledge into her own instinct—though it also wiped out most of her emotions.
Of course, she wouldn’t tell Surtr any of this.
In response to the question, Ling Ling could only answer with an even more storm-like offensive.
Facing the white-haired girl’s relentless onslaught, Surtr couldn’t help but force two words through gritted teeth.
“Monster…”
“Right back at you.” Ling Ling tilted her head.
“As a Knight of the Round Table of the Cradle, to ordinary superpowered individuals, aren’t you also a ‘monster’?”
Surtr didn’t argue. She just recalled a certain file she had seen not long ago. Even as a Round Table knight, she didn’t have much clearance to access these things.
One of the organization’s most secret projects, the Angel of Slaughter. The file didn’t reveal much about the project’s inner details. It only briefly mentioned that six months ago, there were two successful test subjects in the project: Zero and Nine. They had massacred the entire facility and escaped.
Her intuition told her that the young woman before her was most likely Zero, one of the two successful test subjects who had escaped the facility.
After the recollection, she took a deep breath and held her flaming sword horizontally in front of her. In her amber eyes, murderous intent intertwined with some complex emotion.
“You know, Bai Ye? The codename ‘Surtr’ was given to me by the organization. As the fire giant of Norse mythology, it was destined to destroy the world in Ragnarok. Ironic, isn’t it? Someone treated as a weapon of destruction by the organization has a codename that is a world-destroying monster.”
Ling Ling said nothing.
“But you’re even more pathetic than me, Miss Zero.”
A mocking smile curled at the corner of Surtr’s mouth. “At least I know what I am. But you? You don’t even know what you are.”
“In the six months since you escaped the Cradle, what have you been doing? Playing the role of an ordinary person, then playing a ‘urban vigilante game’ like a child’s play house?”
Her voice turned sharp.
“We are both weapons, Zero! From the moment we were created and raised by the Cradle, we were destined to be weapons. A weapon should have the self-awareness of a weapon!”
Surtr knew she had no chance of defeating the young woman before her now. She could only pin her hopes on her guess about the girl’s identity and the trash talk she was spewing. If these words could shake the girl’s mind and make her hesitate for a moment, she might find an opportunity to counterattack.
But she couldn’t finish.
Ling Ling’s fist had already slammed into her face.
This punch had no superpower enhancement—it was pure physical strength. But Surtr’s entire body flew off the ground as if hit by a high-speed train. She crashed heavily into a wall ten meters away.
The concrete wall dented into a huge hollow, cracks spreading like a spider web.
Surtr slid down from the wall, kneeling on one knee. Blood dripped from the corner of her mouth, and her amber eyes were full of shock.
Ling Ling stood still, maintaining her punching posture.
In her crimson eyes, obvious emotional fluctuation appeared for the first time.
It wasn’t anger.
It was cold, pure, undisguised killing intent.
“Are you done?”
Ling Ling’s voice was flatter than usual—so flat it felt as if it came from the bottom of a deep winter lake.
“If you’re done, it’s my turn.”
She withdrew her fist and walked step by step toward Surtr. Each step left a shallow footprint on the concrete floor. Not because of superpowers, but because she was releasing her suppressed power without reservation.
“I am a weapon? Maybe. But this weapon of mine chooses what it wants to do by itself.”
Another step.
“Is the life of an ordinary person laughable? Maybe. But that is something my sister and I earned with our own hands after crawling out of hell.”
Another step.
“You might have guessed my identity, but so what?”
She stopped in front of Surtr, looking down at the kneeling Round Table knight.
“You ask what I am? I am the sum of all these things. Not the number the Cradle gave me, not the codename the Countermeasures Section gave me, not anyone’s definition of me.”
Ling Ling crouched down, meeting Surtr’s eyes. Her crimson irises were right there, like two shining red fell stars.
“I want to live as an ordinary person. You, who have even forgotten what you want for yourself, have no right to judge that.”
Surtr’s eyes widened.
She wanted to argue, but no sound came from her throat because Ling Ling’s right hand was already pressing down on her head, five fingers gripping her skull.
“Also,” Ling Ling’s tone suddenly became a bit lighter, “you called me a monster? Thanks for the compliment, but you got one thing wrong.”
She leaned close to Surtr’s ear, her voice as light as a breeze.
“I am not the twilight of the gods. I am the one who drags you false ‘gods’ down from their thrones, one by one.”
Then she slammed Surtr’s head into the ground.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the battlefield.
The fight between Lin Jiu and Artyom had turned into a one-sided slaughter.
Most of the silver wire net restraining Artyom had been broken, but Lin Jiu’s attack frequency hadn’t decreased at all.
On the contrary, as Ability Silence continually weakened Absolute Rigid Body, each of her attacks dealt more damage than the last.
There were already dozens of wounds on Artyom’s body.
A piece of muscle had been torn off his left forearm, revealing the white tendons underneath. His right shoulder was pierced by fingernails, leaving a bloody hole.
The tactical vest on his chest had been shredded, revealing his metal-gray skin. It was covered with dense scratches, and the deepest one exposed the outline of his ribs.
Lin Jiu was also injured.
Although she dodged most of Artyom’s counterattacks, the power of an S-class superhuman, even weakened, was not something an A-class body could fully withstand.
Her left forearm was visibly bent, and at least three ribs on her right side were cracked. Every breath brought sharp pain.
But she seemed completely numb to the pain.
Or rather, she turned the pain into an even stronger desire to attack.
“Why are you still fighting!?” Artyom finally couldn’t help but roar.
He was “Iron Wall,” the top-ranked S-class superhuman in the Defense Department, a battlefield fortress known for absolute defense.
But in front of Lin Jiu, his defense was like a dam being constantly nibbled by ants. Though each bite was tiny, the dam would eventually collapse when enough accumulated.
“Because it’s fun.” Lin Jiu answered with a smile, her voice as light as if she were talking about what to eat today.
“Fun!?”
“Mm. The feeling of chipping away at an S-class Absolute Rigid Body bit by bit.”
Lin Jiu tilted her head, a wild fanaticism in her blue eyes. “It’s like peeling an eggshell. The outside is very hard, but if you can find a crack, keep tapping, keep tapping…”
She extended her right hand, fingers together like a short sword stabbing into the scratch on Artyom’s chest.
“That’s what’s inside will come out.”
Her nails pierced in.
Artyom grunted.
The Absolute Rigid Body defense on his chest had finally been breached. A small hole was opened. Lin Jiu’s fingertips pierced into his chest, only about a centimeter deep. But it meant one thing.
His absolute defense was no longer “absolute.”
“Found it.” Lin Jiu’s eyes lit up.
She pulled back her right hand, fingertips stained with Artyom’s blood. Then she put her fingertips into her mouth and licked the blood clean.
“Now, let’s turn this small hole into a big one.”
She pounced again.
This time, Artyom truly began to feel fear.