Ch35 - “Level Five User, ID—Holy Sacrifice”

Zhongdu User Committee, Maintenance Department.

After Xiao Jinyu asked if ‘there was anything different between this blood and the blood of ordinary people’, Li Xiaoxiao continued to think about what the person behind the scenes intended to do with Pope’s Crown’s logic skill. 

There were plenty of logic skills in the world that could kill and rather, those types of logic skills like Meat King’s, which were completely non-violent, were rarely seen. And if it was used correctly, it wouldn’t be impossible to use Meat King’s logic skill to kill.

Just like how the plotter had killed White Garden; his logic skill was also a very good tool for killing. It might even be faster and simpler than Pope’s Crown’s logic skill and their hands won’t even be stained with blood.

But the plotter picked “Pope’s Crown”.

Li Xiaoxiao narrowed her eyes. 

Under the bright lights, dozens of staff members from the Maintenance Department gathered and sat before the table. From the day Pope’s Crown had awakened his logic skill, the data from all the tasks he had accepted since then were all dug out. Everyone began to investigate what was special about his logic skill.

In the end, Li Xiaoxiao took all the information collected by her subordinates, her finger harshly pointing at the four words: “physically and mentally pure”.

The most special thing about Pope’s Crown’s logic skill was that everyone who entered his logic skill must be physically and mentally pure!

“Go check the information on the marchers! Check if all of these ‘marchers’ are all virgins!”

“Yes!”

Ten minutes later.

The information on a hundred marchers appeared on the large screen in the Maintenance Department, densely packed.

Currently, there were three thousand victims in the march, and compiling the information on all of them would take a very long time. Right now, time was of the essence and ten minutes was too short. Even if the government came and helped, they could only compile a hundred people’s information. 

But even a hundred people was enough for them to confirm one thing.

Li Xiaoxiao’s expression was grim: “These people are all virgins!”

Although it would be impossible to directly ask the people who had lost their minds and joined the march, but according to the descriptions given by their friends and family, the probability of these marchers all being virgins was as high as 99%.

“Virgin blood. Or in other words, a pure heart’s blood…” 

A staff member shouted: “Department head, this is a cult sacrifice! Many medieval church sources recorded that offering virgins could summon the devil!”

“Yes, when 004 gave Pope’s Crown this user ID, it might have also felt that only people who are physically and mentally pure could enter this logic skill, this point is very evil.”

“Pope’s Crown and that nun who appeared in Haidu… does that nun want to make a sacrifice?”

“She wants to summon the devil?” 

…

“There is no devil in this world, not to mention a God.”

A clear, male voice sounded from the door of the Maintenance Department. The crowd immediately became silent, looking back at the door.

The temporary leader of Haidu’s Extermination Squad, Xu Qi, strode into the Maintenance Department with a cold face. He quickly said: “The blood on the snow is continuously decreasing. The devil is swallowing that blood? Hehe, what devil?! This is a logic skill, a logic skill that needs to swallow blood!” 

The clean cut youth walked over to Li Xiaoxiao, his eyes grim: “I’ve already had my people collect some of the blood on the snow and sent it to your Logic Research Institute. They’re currently separating the blood and preparing it for an experiment. Right now, they don’t know if it’s a user or polluter that needs this blood. But there is one thing that only the User Committee can check.”

“What is it?”

We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.

We Hl uglaafv tlr affat: “Jtfmx lo atfgf jgf jcs erfgr atja tjnf yibbv jr j xfskbgv bc atflg ibulm rxlii. Pa wluta yf atf mjerf bg atf foofma, bg fnfc j obgx bc la. Dea cb wjaafg ktja, fnfc lo la lr j obgx, la wera yf j nfgs lwqbgajca obgx. Ccv qijmf sbeg obmer bc atf ofwjif erfgr… Vtf wera yf atja cec!”

*** 

Fumin Community was an old community built before the Type-A radiation.

Its buildings weren’t that high, every building had only 12 floors, meeting the government’s standard of one elevator, two households. Just considering the years since its construction, it was older than the Changmei Community and even the Kangren Community Xiao Jinyu lives in. But the brownish-yellow outer wall only had a few faint pieces of the wall peeling off. It was built with high quality paints and materials, so even after being abandoned for twenty five years, it would still look newer than the high-density Changmei Community.

After confirming that polluter 008 wouldn’t contaminate anyone and would only obediently sit in the black box and sing, Wang Tao led several members of the Extermination Team out of Area 81 to maintain order outside of the contamination area. 

The towering steel plates surrounded the entire Fumin Community.

Other than a few team members who stayed to clean up, only Xiao Jinyu and Su Jiuzhou wandered around the community to collect the remaining pollution factors in the air.

With Polluter 008, who could slow down humans by hundreds of times, Xiao Jinyu wasn’t in a hurry to use Fourth Perspective to clean up the black light dots.

At night, the steel plates could stop the cold wind and snow from coming in, but the negative five degree weather was still like a fine needle, the chill penetrating through the gap in his clothes and clinging onto his skin. 

After cleaning up another black dot again and sending it into the White Garden space, Xiao Jinyu softly sighed, forming a tiny white mist in the air.

He calmly walked to the next black dot in the air.

Xiao Jinyu had just raised his foot when the sound of footsteps of the same pace sounded from behind him. Xiao Jinyu didn’t look back.

At this moment, he had already completely calmed down. He methodically solved the black dots floating in the air, but once his eyes began to sting, Xiao Jinyu would immediately turn off Fourth Perspective. Once his eyes returned to normal, he would continue to use his logic skill. 

He didn’t want to go blind.

Even more, he didn’t want to consume his lifespan here.

Only if he was alive could he find the real culprit behind the scenes and also see the murderer receive their punishment they deserved.

Calm down. 

Calm down again.

Keep thinking.

After dealing with all the black dots between buildings 18 and 20, Xiao Jinyu closed his eyes and slightly gasped. He turned around and said: “Colonel Su, the majority of Pope’s Crown’s logic factors have been cleaned up, but there are still some that have drifted to the other parts of the community.”

Su Jiuzhou smiled: “I’ll follow you.” 

Xiao Jinyu slightly nodded, not replying. He turned around and brushed past Su Jiuzhou, walking to the next building.

The youth’s movements were very swift. As soon as he found the “ashes”, he would immediately use his flying fist and send them into the White Garden space. Once he felt pain in his eyes, he would close them and rest.

Su Jiuzhou originally wanted to just see what had happened to this meticulous, yet never able to upgrade level one user, that caused him to be different from normal. But slowly, as he looked at Xiao Jinyu’s busy, yet calm back, he stopped his steps.

But it also seemed like nothing had changed? 

An hour later, Xiao Jinyu called Wang Tao, asking about the marchers outside. After learning that the marchers hadn’t stopped their action of picking their heads off, he softly said, “Then I’ll continue to look for the ashes”, before hanging up.

As long as the air contained just one black light dot, then that would mean that Pope’s Crown’s ashes haven’t been sent into the White Garden space, and the logic skill wouldn’t be broken off.

The worst situation would be that Zhao Hen used Sexy Samba too late and that some black dots floated out of their blockade without Xiao Jinyu’s notice.

Not even half an hour later, Xiao Jinyu found the pollution factor between the steps in the building, then threw it into the White Garden space. A minute later, Wang Tao called, his voice unable to contain his joy: “Xiao Jinyu, the marchers have stopped trying to take off their heads. Pope’s Crown’s logic skill has been completely broken off!” 

…

Now, the “Sacrificial Head-Picking March Incident”, that shook the entirety of Zhongdu, was finally over.

***

21:38, November 20th, 2046. 

Xiao Jinyu walked through the small door under the steel plate, walking out of Fumin Community.

The snow stopped.

The dark clouds were blown away by the wind. The bright and clear moonlight shone through the cold air before illuminating the earth.

Stretching out from Contamination Area 81, countless people were weeping on the snow covered streets. The marchers all fell into a coma after Pope’s Crown’s logic skill was broken. Their family and friends hugged their cold bodies as they waited for medics. 

The streets were full of broken arms.

Bloody heads rolled down the sides of the road and like the aftermath of a rainstorm, because of the slight inclination of the road, the blood flowed from the asphalt into the sewer. But this wasn’t rain, it was the blood from countless necks.

Xiao Jinyu stood where he was, silently looking at this scene.

Suddenly, his sight froze, eyes widening. He stared at a colored dot of light floating out of the blood. 

A logic factor!

Xiao Jinyu immediately focused. He quickened his pace, carefully observing all the blood on the ground.

Little grains of colorful logic factors flew out of the blood of these marchers, into the sky before slowly disappearing.

Xiao Jinyu quickly found Zhao Hen. He grabbed the other party: “Department Head Li’s contact information!” 

Zhao Hen froze, then without asking any questions, he handed his phone over.

Xiao Jinyu anxiously called, yet before he could open his mouth, Li Xiaoxiao’s urgent voice sounded first: “Is this Xiao Jinyu?”

Xiao Jinyu was stunned in surprise.

“Zhao Hen wouldn’t call me at a time like this.” Li Xiaoxiao quickly said, “Xiao Jinyu, our previous guess was correct. This was a logic skill, a logic skill that needs blood! Blood is the cause of this logic skill and only by offering blood can this logic skill be activated. However, according to the information collected by the User Committee, this user just needed blood at level three, there is no requirement for the blood provider to be a virgin. However, it’s definitely her!” 

When Li Xiaoxiao said “virgin”, Xiao Jinyu immediately froze, a trace of surprise flashing through his mind.

But he didn’t have the time to dwell on it. He asked: “Who is she? Why is it definitely her?”

“Because we’ve already investigated that, one hundred years ago, the Howard family didn’t leave China by boat at all. They were stopped in the harbor by the enemy army. In order to escape the war, the Howard family left Haidu and went to Zhongdu to live in seclusion. And twenty-six years ago, the Howard family’s last descendant, that nun, lived in Fumin Community. She was five then!”

He clutched the phone, his fingertips turning white from the pressure. Xiao Jinyu’s expression was calm as he asked, word by word: “Who is she?” 

At the same time, Haidu, Puxi.

This was a beautiful and secluded, old house.

At the beginning of the last century, a large area of Puxi was rented out to the French, becoming the French Concession. Many foreign officials, soldiers, and merchants came to this concession and established their own commercial empires, exploiting the already devastated land of China.

Rows and rows of houses also sprung up in this land from that time. 

The snow in Zhongdu stopped, yet the snow in Haidu fell for an entire night.

At the end of Haoming Street, lush vegetation protruded from the white fence, blocking the view of outsiders. A few towering trees grew in the small courtyard and a red and white three-story house stood quietly in the center of the courtyard.

Snow fell, covering the steps.

“Crunch—” 

A boot stepped on the dead leaf on the ground.

The next second.

“Boom!”

The building’s front door was kicked open. 

The snow reflected the dim lights from the street outside the courtyard, shining into the house and illuminating the grand piano in the small living room.

Directly opposite the double front doors was a statue of a weeping Virgin Mary with a baby in her arms. In the snow-white sculpture, the Virgin Mary looked sadly at the son in her arms.

The young woman wearing a nun’s black robes clasped her hands and knelt before the statue, praying reverently. She didn’t seem to notice that the door behind her was kicked open, or that someone was standing in the doorway, staring at her with cold, sharp eyes.

She continued to kneel before the Virgin Mary, whispering prayers. 

“A18, Holy Sacrifice.”

The woman standing at the doorway opened her mouth. The steady voice was mixed with anger, each word gritted out of her mouth.

“I should call you Huo Lanxu…

“Or, Lanxu Howard?” 

The nun in front of the statue seemed to have finally realized that someone had broken into the room. She stood up, then turned her head.

A soft gaze fell on the woman in the doorway.

“Meat King wasn’t killed by me.” She pitifully looked at the woman who had just lost her husband.

Pope’s Crown’s logic skill didn’t have the time to activate on Meat King before Meat King was killed by the hands of Beauty’s Fragrant Scarf. 

Meat King’s death really had nothing to do with the Head-Picking Incident.

Luo Sheng smiled.

Snowflakes drifted across the porch, landing on her silver-grey hair, flying into the house. The next second, heavy rain poured down. The snow still was falling onto the ground, yet at the same time, in negative five degree weather, torrential rain fell at the same time.

A freezing cold rain heavily poured into the house. 

This rainwater suddenly stopped by Luo Sheng’s side, before floating around her. In an instant, it turned into a spiked cage, rolling towards the nun beneath the statue of the Virgin Mary.