Free Web NovelBai Liu’s hand paused midair.
One second. Two seconds.
Silence.
Lu Yizhan cautiously cracked open one eye.
Bai Liu had already lowered the gun. His face was blank.
With undisguised contempt in his eyes, he tossed the pistol back. “I’m not going to shoot you. Don’t pull this kind of pathetic stunt on me again. It’s revolting.”
Just as Lu Yizhan would never point a gun at Bai Liu, Bai Liu would never harm Lu Yizhan.
It was an unspoken certainty forged through ten years of trust and understanding.
Whether Lu Yizhan held Bai Liu at gunpoint or Bai Liu aimed a weapon at Lu Yizhan, neither of them showed the slightest change in heartbeat or breathing. They both knew the other would never pull the trigger. That certainty had long since sunk into instinct, to the point that neither could even feel nervous anymore.
Lu Yizhan fumbled to catch the gun Bai Liu tossed back at him.
“Careful! Don’t just throw it around! The safety’s off!”
“If you’re dumb enough to shoot yourself with your own gun,” Bai Liu replied lazily, sweeping him with a bored glance, “then I won’t have to waste the effort killing you myself.”
The moment Lu Yizhan saw Bai Liu’s expression, he knew this person was in a terrible mood.
Usually, whenever Lu Yizhan managed to suppress Bai Liu’s urge to do something evil—through endless lecturing or some other method—Bai Liu would enter a state bordering on autistic withdrawal for a while afterward.
Like a troublesome child whose dangerous toy had been confiscated by a well-meaning adult.
In Lu Yizhan’s eyes, Bai Liu’s foul mood came from that same suffocated frustration: resentment at being denied the “game” he wanted to play.
Fortunately, Lu Yizhan was already extremely experienced at dealing with Bai Liu in this condition.
From childhood all the way into adulthood, he had lost count of how many times Bai Liu had nearly caused some disaster, only for Lu Yizhan to desperately drag him back at the final moment.
His tone became even gentler, patient and coaxing, like he was calming a child throwing a tantrum.
“How about we head outside first?” Lu Yizhan suggested carefully. “Or maybe put away all these dangerous things?”
Bai Liu stared at him for a moment before habitually extending his hand.
“You want me to do something?” he asked flatly. “Where’s the reward?”
The moment Lu Yizhan saw the outstretched palm, he understood immediately.
“I’ll treat you to hotpot for a year—no, two years!” he blurted out. “Eat whatever you want for two whole years. My treat. Deal?”
Bai Liu continued staring at him silently.
Lu Yizhan instantly understood.
Not enough.
His heart ached for his wallet as he reluctantly raised the offer.
“Three years... four... five...” Lu Yizhan looked ready to cry. “Leave me enough money to marry someday, Bai Liu! Don’t be so inhuman!”
Bai Liu let out a cold laugh.
“I stopped being ‘human’ a long time ago.” He raised one finger. “Ten years. Final offer.”
Lu Yizhan: “...”
Tears practically welled in his ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) eyes.
“...Fine. Deal.”
This was probably the most miserable transaction Bai Liu had ever completed in his life.
There wasn’t even a close second.
Even after Lu Yizhan agreed, Bai Liu continued staring at him with those lifeless, exhausted eyes.
Rarely did Bai Liu feel this drained after making a deal—so drained he couldn’t even summon the motivation to fulfill it and only wanted to break the contract outright.
Every single time he struck a bargain with Lu Yizhan, Bai Liu experienced an indescribably suffocating feeling.
Like a boss paying one month’s salary while demanding three months of unpaid overtime.
After such a long time, Bai Liu once again felt like an overworked corporate slave.
Lu Yizhan looked at him expectantly.
“Hurry up and take back your divine powers! I already agreed to ten years of hotpot! Ten years! Aren’t you tempted at all?! That’s an amazing deal!”
Bai Liu: “...”
Not even slightly.
Still, he coldly pulled the vibrating coin from inside his collar.
The moment he closed his fingers around it, the trembling gradually ceased.
Then he lifted his eyes toward Lu Yizhan.
“It’s done.”
Lu Yizhan finally let out a long breath of relief and wiped the cold sweat from his forehead.
...The feeling was exactly like discovering your own disaster of a child in someone else’s house, gleefully swinging around a collection of priceless limited-edition figurines, only for you to stop them one second before catastrophe struck.
A true post-disaster survival experience.
His legs genuinely felt weak.
Lu Yizhan didn’t even dare imagine what would have happened if Bai Liu had really decided to “play” this obviously absurdly expensive base into destruction.
After calming down a little, Lu Yizhan glanced around before turning back to Bai Liu in confusion.
“How did you even get here?”
Bai Liu tilted his head toward the room behind him and leaned lazily against the wall, his gaze fixed on the tiny welded observation window set into the door.
“During the riot just now,” he said casually, “I sensed Tawil’s aura from inside this room.”
Lu Yizhan looked up.
The door was abnormally tall and massive, more like the entrance to a tunnel than a room.
Stamped on it was the number:
[0001]
Below it was a crimson warning sign bearing a skull symbol.
[Ultra-Hazardous]
—
The team members stared blankly at the heretics around them.
Moments ago, the creatures had been violently rampaging.
Now they had all abruptly stopped.
The heretics stood motionless where they were, as if every ounce of strength had suddenly been drained from them.
Containment instantly became far easier.
Tang Erda surveyed the eerie scene before slowly reaching into his pocket and gripping the reverse crucifix inside.
As expected—
It was no longer burning hot.
The crucifix now lay cold and lifeless in his palm.
“...Bai Six actually stopped,” Tang Erda muttered with a frown.
“Once he establishes a connection with the reverse crucifix, nobody can interrupt the ritual unless he willingly stops himself. Not when he’s praying to summon evil gods and those things.”
Moreover, rituals like this came with a horrifying cost.
Every use consumed half of Bai Six’s lifespan.
If things went wrong, the summoned monsters could even devour him through backlash on the spot.
And yet this time, he had stopped voluntarily.
That alone was completely unlike Bai Six.
The cost-performance ratio was far too low.
With Bai Six’s usual insanity, once he had already paid half his life to activate a high-risk ritual of this scale, the only “return” worth seeing would have been watching the monsters slaughter the entire base.
“Captain!!”
A shocked shout suddenly erupted from the communicator.
“The surveillance system is back online!”
Tang Erda immediately snapped back to attention.
“Can you locate Bai Six?”
“I’m checking now— Ah! Found him!” the team member reported rapidly. “Captain Tang, Bai Six is on the lowest floor right now! I don’t know how he got there, but he’s standing in the Forbidden Zone outside Heretic [0001]’s containment room!”
“Heretic [0001]?” Tang Erda’s confusion deepened. “What is he doing there?”
The member sounded nervous.
“Captain Tang... what exactly is contained in there? Bai Six isn’t planning to release it, is he?”
Tang Erda fell silent for a moment.
“...I don’t know either.”
The member froze.
“Even you don’t know?!”
“Heretic 0001’s file is classified at the highest level,” Tang Erda said quietly, eyes darkening as he leaned against the wall. “My clearance isn’t high enough to access it.”
“But there’s no need to worry about Bai Six releasing it for now.” Tang Erda lowered his gaze. “He can’t.”
“Heretic 0001’s containment chamber has no door.”
“It’s a completely sealed hexahedral structure forged from multiple metals and materials extracted from heretics themselves.”
“A room built without an entrance, without a key, and without any exit.”
“No one knows what’s inside, because no one has ever entered it.”
“And whatever’s inside definitely can’t come out.”
Tang Erda tilted his head back slightly, recalling something from long ago. freewёbnoνel.com
“In the entire base, only one person ever had authorization to view Heretic 0001’s file.”
“The Captain of the First Branch.”
The voice on the other end of the communicator turned even more bewildered.
“But Captain Tang... the First Branch Captain died years ago...”
The member swallowed hard.
“And... he went insane before his death.”
“He committed suicide.”
“I know.” Tang Erda’s tone remained utterly flat.
“Before he died, he destroyed every file and all data related to Heretic 0001.”
“So now...”
“No one knows what’s inside that room anymore.”
