Chen Xiao folded the paper, waved Liu Mingqing away, then turned back to Liu Ruyan with a single question. "Where is this third-order new human?"
"Thirty miles out—at the old Cangzhou Grain Warehouse," she answered. Her voice dropped. "The people there… they're all dead."
Chen Xiao rubbed his chin. An evolution opportunity had evidently attracted something enormous to that site, and whatever it was had taken possession. "Take me there."
Liu Ruyan hesitated. She'd just begun to warm to him—raising her guard to earn favor—yet Chen Xiao pushed urgency like a fever. She swallowed and climbed into the driver's seat.
The road out of Cangzhou was a bumpy half-day. Fatty had slipped away to deal with his quotas; the back seat stayed empty. Chen Xiao and Liu Ruyan traded small talk that drifted into silence as the ruined landscape closed in. When the car finally stopped, the sight that met them sucked the air out of the day: a collapsed grain complex, blood matted into the dirt, corpses scattered like torn flags. The place smelled of iron and old violence.
"Are you sure you want to go in?" Liu Ruyan's sixth sense—normally infallible—buzzed like a trapped bee. She'd seen the aftermath of killers; this was a war scene. Chen Xiao's smile was small and steady. "It's only a third-order." He took her hand. She stayed cautious, but she stepped down beside him.
A dull thud from the rooftop made both of them look up. Under Chen Xiao's Dragon's Breath the air turned clear; two powerful signatures hovered on the roof. Two third-order signatures? Impossible—such beings rarely shared territory. They climbed the rusted stair and crested the rooftop into a moonlit tableau.
There, sparring as if in a private dojo of ruin, were two figures: a five-meter behemoth of a new human and, opposite him, a lean man in black. The huge thing moved with blunt gravity; the slender man danced around it, using the giant as a living training partner. The sight froze Liu Ruyan in place.
"He can command new humans," she breathed. The idea was absurd—new humans dominated regions alone. She'd come to Cangzhou expecting a brutal landlord, not a master of beasts.
A slow, cold voice came from the shadow. "Scared, Yakuza Witch?" The lean man's lips curled. He flicked an idle gesture and the giant obeyed like muscle to a leash. "Why are you courting death tonight?"
Chen Xiao laid a calming hand on Liu Ruyan's shoulder. "It's just a third-order," he said quietly, but his tone carried the edge of a challenge.
"You don't know what he did," Liu Ruyan whispered. "He ended the Yakuza Madman with one blow. There were no weaknesses." The story tasted like defeat on her tongue; the Madman had been an apex enforcer. To fall to a single strike meant the third-order's power was obscene.
The giant shifted and stamped—rebar cracked underfoot—and then launched a move that felt like mountains moving: a crushing "Mountain-Pressing Top" that blurred the air.
Chen Xiao's eyes sharpened. He didn't spare Liu Ruyan another look. "Run," he said, and she vanished—Camouflage folding her into the night like a shadow being swallowed.
Chen Xiao watched her go, the corner of his mouth curving. Then his voice dropped into a low, steady chant—one word at a time, deliberate and cold as a blade: "Gate… of… the… Spirit… Realm!"
The syllables hung in the moonlight. Something ancient answered.