Chapter 730 - 86: Madman
Su Changxing swaggered into the military camp at East Port, only to find the sentries sitting in a pile playing cards.
What they were playing was a point-gathering card game that, although using playing cards, had a gameplay somewhat like mahjong.
There were shouts, sighs, and noise; they were having a great time.
Su Changxing noticed a soldier leaning against the wall smoking a cigarette next to the sentry post, humming a tune with a dagger in hand, continuously toying with it.
He walked over leisurely as if taking a stroll, not attracting any attention from the other side, a shabby, paint-stripped baseball bat suddenly appearing in his hand.
[Shabby Stun Baseball Bat: Upper Rank B, with enough Power, hitting the target’s back of the head can make them enter a short state of stunned Status.]
With a crisp sound, that soldier collapsed to the ground with a cigarette still in his mouth.
"Have a good sleep."
Su Changxing placed a hand on the soldier’s forehead, shifting him from a stunned state to a sleeping state. This was mandatory and could last a long time, at least until the next morning, unless someone woke him up midway.
He skillfully stripped the soldier of his clothes, then threw the body into the bushes outside the camp, and put on the white and blue uniform.
"Not bad, fits pretty well."
The man’s build was not much different from his own, a little fatter, but not taller, so the clothes roughly fit.
Recalling the soldier’s recent actions and expressions, Su Changxing tidied up the uniform, put on the hat, lit a cigarette, and swaggered towards the camp.
There were many people in the army, and many didn’t know each other, so he wasn’t afraid of being seen.
"Give me one, give me one."
A man who looked like an officer approached him, wrapped an arm around his shoulder, slurred his words, and had a strong smell of alcohol coming from his body.
Su Changxing knew he meant "give me one" and referred to a cigarette.
Smiling, Su Changxing handed him a cigarette, struck a match to light it: "This cigarette of mine tastes pretty good, give it a try, sir."
As the ember brightened, the officer took a deep drag with a face full of enjoyment: "Yes, it’s indeed nice."
The two walked shoulder to shoulder, with the officer’s consciousness getting fuzzier as he muttered to himself.
"I heard there are still survivors in the West City; some people are still alive," Su Changxing said tentatively.
The officer’s face suddenly changed, speaking coldly: "So what? It’s none of our concern. That massacre was done by those nobility lords, we didn’t get involved."
"Now they’ve also locked us out, probably fearing someone among us is carrying the plague, especially since some had gone to West City before."
Su Changxing said worriedly: "If the plague spreads here, won’t those nobility lords slaughter us too?"
The officer, shaking his head, gazed at the moon in the sky, patted his head, and laughed: "You boy, you look like a wooden soldier who knows nothing. There was an order long ago that anyone found with the plague is to be executed on the spot, their bodies thrown into the sea."
"You better be careful yourselves, catching the plague is a dead end; even pleading to the marshal won’t help."
Su Changxing thought this was a good measure for the army; if it couldn’t be cured, solving it from the source at least prevents a large outbreak.
"I heard those still alive in West City want to smuggle themselves over; has anyone infiltrated our camp these days?" Su Changxing asked bluntly, wanting to know if Kasmin had been discovered by these people.
He estimated probably not, but still wanted to confirm.
The officer appeared gloomy: "There aren’t many people left; who would think of breaking in? At most, we guard against incoming ships from elsewhere."
Then.
He casually found a tent, threw the officer inside, and walked forward, arriving at the back of the camp, seeing the electrically lit curtain from afar.
"This is completely different from what Weilian and the others expected. There’s a curtain here, and it’s a massive one, climbing over won’t be easy."
Su Changxing frowned, momentarily at a loss on how to get inside. Due to mechanical corruption, abilities like White Feather Flashing for spatial relocation couldn’t be used.
Kasmin must have gone in, but who knows what method she used.
From this, it could be inferred there must be some sort of flaw in the curtain, and Kasmin knew about it, hence she could slip in easily.
However.
Su Changxing walked around the edge of the wall yet found no flaw, except for the towering walls and the electric curtain.
He couldn’t find a clever way to get in, so he decided to climb. In a more concealed spot on the wall, he began climbing up under the cover of darkness.
Having climbed a third of the way up, he found the exterior wall wrapped in a slippery sheet of metal, sloping outward.
It was nearly impossible to climb up.
Su Changxing tried and realized he couldn’t make it, so he took out a pair of cat claw gloves from Pocket Galaxy and put them on.
[Cat Claw Gloves: B crown, Upper Rank, made from materials of the Black Curtain Cat’s Claw, capable of adhering to various materials for climbing.]
These gloves were also brought from the Land of Slaughter.
Back then, a female player used these gloves to climb the edge of a snowy mountain, but still ended up dying at his hands.
The cat claw gloves feel very gentle on the hands, like stroking a cat’s fur.
After putting on the cat claw gloves, Su Changxing could easily climb up, and his speed increased significantly.
While climbing, he still carried the walking staff on his back; just having it on him boosted his movement speed, and his climbing speed improved as well.
On the city wall, there were long-range lights and cannons, and quite a few guards patrolling. However, the patrolling frequency was not high, as if it was merely for show.
Su Changxing flipped over the edge of the city wall and looked around. No one noticed him, and he breathed a slight sigh of relief, crouching as he walked along the wall towards the inside.
"I heard bodies over in West City are piled higher than houses, with wild dogs everywhere and swarms of rats."
"I heard someone in the second team saw demons appearing in West City, but who knows if it’s true or false."
"Demons? How could that be possible? It must be someone making things up; how could such legendary creatures appear?"
"It’s true. Many people are talking about it now. Quite a few have seen the demon; it appeared in West City, and even rune warriors have been destroyed."
"Whatever that thing is, it can’t enter the city. There’s a curtain blocking it, so what are we worried about?"
"That’s true."
...
Su Changxing heard several guards discussing not far away, and his attention was immediately drawn.
He had seen real demons, and they were absolutely extremely terrifying creatures.
If they hadn’t teamed up later, probably no one would have survived the Slaughter Game.
If demons truly appeared in West City, it’s certainly not good news. The demons born in such an environment can rapidly grow in strength, reaching a terrifying level.
After all, with corpses everywhere, they don’t need to hunt, just gnaw away.
Su Changxing circled about on the city wall, avoiding all guards, then reached the edge on the inside of the wall, turned around, and jumped down, sliding along the wall all the way down.
Going down was much easier than coming up. In just over ten seconds, Su Changxing silently reached the bottom of the wall, the other side of the curtain.
The air here was fresh, and the streets looked clean, contrasting sharply with the corpse-littered West City.
This is the difference between heaven and hell.
One is hell on earth, the other is heaven on earth.
It wasn’t too late now, so there were quite a few pedestrians on the streets. Some hurried along, while others strolled with relaxed expressions, seemingly forgetting about the events in West City.
East City was vast, almost twice the size of West City, but the population was only a tenth of West City’s. Those living here were either noble or rich and powerful.
Eric’s Mansion was on the other side of East City, in a secluded spot. It was a massive research facility with numerous installations and an expansive warehouse.
Su Changxing hid in the bushes of a flowerbed by the city’s edge, changed into ordinary clothes, then followed the main road, heading towards Eric’s Mansion.
East City’s defense forces were all arranged on the walls, leaving the city largely undefended; guards patrolling were scarce.
However, Su Changxing could spot rune warriors crouching in flowerbeds like white decorations.
These were certainly not decorations but killing machines ready to activate at any moment, yet people here seemed unaware of the danger.
These flowerbeds with crouched rune warriors were evenly distributed; every so often, there was one, showcasing the technological achievements to outsiders.
Su Changxing thought that with such a distribution, if one were to massacre the city, it could be done within half an hour, and no one would escape.
"Am I mad, or are you all mad."
Su Changxing muttered with a frown; the nobility of this world were quite peculiar.
A normal person wouldn’t think ahead to massacre the city they manage.
But Eric clearly had such arrangements; these flowerbeds connected together formed a massive killing array.
Once activated, this place would turn into hell on earth.
Massacring a city isn’t something an Upper Rank of the Empire would ponder; those who do such things are typically madmen, criminals, demons.
The only ones to benefit from a city massacre could be beings like Evil Gods.
When you discover one cockroach, the house often has more than just one, and when you know Divine Spirits exist, there’s usually not just one Divine Spirit.
"The mastermind behind the Mai City massacre might not be Eric or the Duke, but likely a Divine Spirit, an Outer God, or an Evil God."
As Su Changxing walked, he suddenly stopped, gazing at the pure white tower in Eric’s Mansion, its top adorned with a moon-shaped sculpture emitting faint fluorescence in the night sky.
At this moment.
Clouds gathered densely, shrouding the sky. There, it resembled a real moon, eye-catching, beautiful, and captivating.
The entire city was enveloped in the light emanating from that moon, the stone-paved streets covered in a faint silver-white sheen,