Chapter 1 The Beginning

The lamp above crackled with a buzzing electrical noise, the light flickering in sync with the holographic screen.

The light source died the next instant.

The entire bedroom was plunged into darkness.

Gu Shen immediately rose to pull open the curtains. Turning sideways, he saw that even the few streetlights that usually illuminated the old, unfinished building were extinguished, leaving nothing but pitch-black.

Someone wanted to kill him.

They had already made their move… Cutting off the power was just the first step.

"Meow."

A calm meow sounded in the darkness. The orange cat, lazily sleeping in its nest, had appeared beside Gu Shen, tiptoeing to nudge his pant leg.

The words of Chu Ling echoed in his mind—

Gu Shen froze. "Could it be…?"

The orange cat merely nodded coolly, raising its paw to point towards the door.

Accompanied by a "thump, thump, thump," sound, a hissing, burning vapor seeped through the door crack. The lock was being corroded. This outdated, old residential security door couldn't resist such erosion. The doorframe trembled, and the uninvited guests outside would soon break in.

"Meow."

The window was opened. Daju gracefully leaped onto the windowsill, gesturing for Gu Shen to hurry.

"Are you kidding me… this is the seventh floor…"

Gu Shen's expression shifted.

Daju meowed, launching itself out. It landed steadily on an external air conditioning rack, coldly looking back down at Gu Shen.

Gu Shen took a deep breath, glancing at the doorframe, which was on the verge of collapse. He decisively chose to jump.

He didn't have much time. He couldn't afford to hesitate!

His physical skills were actually not bad. He climbed out of the window, jumped lightly, used the air conditioner unit as a springboard, grabbed a pipe, and stepped onto the outer edge of the old building wall. The protruding stone was only big enough to support half of his foot.

"Phew… made it…"

Gu Shen sighed in relief. Just as he was about to rest for a moment before sliding down the pipe, Daju urgently called out, signaling him to climb upward.

Upward… Was the path below a dead end?

Gu Shen didn't hesitate. He quickly followed the orange cat, climbing upward.

"Boom!"

The next instant, a violent explosion of air pressure erupted from below. A rolling wave of air surged, shattering the glass. The sound of the heatwave seemed to carry several weak screams, which were swallowed by the flames before they could be heard.

Gu Shen's face turned pale.

The gushing fire painted his peripheral vision a crimson red. The pipe became scorching hot, but under the pressure of the crisis, Gu Shen climbed incredibly fast. The old, unfinished building had eleven floors. Reaching the top, he found a wide rooftop, where layers of rolling clothes and bedding were hung on iron racks, rustling in the hot wind.

"Is there no justice? Is there no law?!"

Gu Shen couldn't believe what he had just witnessed.

He braced himself against the edge of the rooftop, barely able to stand, and looked down, feeling a wave of dizziness.

These guys were insane. What they just did was more than just breaking into a house and murdering someone… Did they want to blow up the entire building?

The sudden explosion shattered the silence of the night. Many people were awakened by the loud noise. By now, the fire had spread rapidly from the seventh floor. From close up, the old, unfinished building stood tall amidst the raging inferno, swaying like a ghostly mirage in the swirling flames. However, the real disaster was more than just this fire—

The awakened people tried to dial their phones, but failed. For some reason, the signal was unusually weak. The power and the internet had been cut off.

When disaster struck, humans themselves were too insignificant.

They couldn't do anything but watch as the scene of a living hell unfolded—

Several charred, blurry figures thrashed in the flames, trying to shout for help.

Even without hearing their voices, one could feel the suffering and despair of the afflicted at this moment.

This sudden explosion trapped the innocent residents above the seventh floor in the fire.

Some chose to jump out of the windows to survive.

"Crash— Bang!"

Burning bodies fell through the air in broken arcs, landing on the ground with a crisp sound. The black charcoal shattered into pieces, still glowing with sparks.

These people who jumped from the building didn't know that the flames in this explosion were mixed with a strong corrosive power.

Seeing this scene, Gu Shen clenched his fists silently. He realized that he had made an incredibly correct decision at the critical moment… If he had fled downwards, he would already be a charred corpse.

But now, he was trapped in the fire. What should he do?

Those who were hunting him… coming with such surging killing intent, would soon reach the rooftop…

At this moment, Gu Shen was calmer than ever. Because of the massive explosion, his body was still trembling from a physiological reaction, but his fingers had stopped shaking.

He looked towards Chu Ling… that orange cat, standing imposingly at the highest point of the rooftop, also looking at him.

Their eyes met.

In that second, inspiration struck. Gu Shen took out the "silver ruler" that A-009 had given him.

The orange cat spoke again, its voice still in cat language, "Meow" and the like.

But after hearing it, Gu Shen unbelievably understood the cat's thoughts.

"There are two enemies. They are expected to arrive on the rooftop in 20 and 40 seconds… The escape route has been sealed off. You need to use the 'Ruler of Truth' here to counterattack."

Ruler of Truth… So that was the name of this ruler!

"How do I use it?"

Gu Shen held his breath, anxiously looking towards the rooftop door lock… Time was running out. Perhaps it was a hallucination, but he could hear heavy footsteps!

The orange cat said quickly, "Inject your mind, imagine the scene. The Ruler of Truth can transform thoughts, making them come true… The stronger the mental power, the more successful the transformation of thought."

"Thump—"

A heavy sound.

The door lock was almost broken by the powerful impact.

Gu Shen grasped the silver ruler with both hands, focusing his attention, staring intently at the direction of the door.

His mind was blank. All of his mental power was concentrated on one point. The scene of Nan Jin fighting A-009 flashed through his mind, and the silver knife domain pieced together by those two long knives seemed to have transformed into a condensed light.

The scale of the Ruler of Truth lit up little by little.

Wind arose from nowhere, sweeping across the rooftop, and rows of clothes and bedding were blown up—

"Boom!"

After a brief silence.

The second impact shattered the door lock directly. A tall, dark figure crashed sideways through the door, his body as robust as a wild bull!

And it was at this moment that the silver ruler burst into bright light.

The clothes and bedding thrown into the air were cut by millions of thin threads, instantly cracking into countless tiny gaps. The silver blades, layered upon each other in the swirling wind, instantly collided with the reckless, bull-like figure—

Nan Jin's two knives shook off Madame Eight Feet.

Gu Shen aimed the ruler at the tall man.

Now, then, the two scenes were strikingly similar, except that the latter… was more bloody and tragic.

"Ugh…"

The tall man crashing onto the rooftop let out a horrified groan. That brief moment of silence was originally his cat-and-mouse game. According to intelligence, the target this time was just an ordinary person.

But he never expected… to be greeted by such a grand display of killing intent. His petrified skin was torn apart in an instant by countless overlapping blades. The great inertia after accelerating the door crash propelled him into the abyss of no return—

Countless blades hung on the rooftop.

The tip of the Ruler of Truth, wrapped in silver light, engraved the rooftop into Gu Shen's "imagined" Nan Jin knife domain.

The reason it was an "imagined" knife domain was that Gu Shen couldn't understand how Nan Jin had created the knife domain at that time… So he used his imagination to reconstruct a knife domain.

The other party's behavior was simple and presumptuous… casually setting an entire building on fire, most likely a person who disregarded life… So it was only natural to treat him as an ant…

Thinking of all this in an instant, Gu Shen decided to set up the rooftop as a mire with hanging blades.

And this "intruder" who crashed into the mire at breakneck speed, at this moment, looked like a willing suicide victim being sliced into a thousand pieces… In this static picture, he was actively cutting himself apart—

Showers of blood erupted.

And a shower of warmth splashed on Gu Shen's face.