Chương 29: Death

From the glamorous, array-purified air of Westpoint Magitech High School back to the commoner districts of the Seventh Abyssal Hive was a journey spanning only a few city blocks. Yet, the distance of those few blocks felt like crossing into an entirely different world. When Rowan stepped off the mag-train and entered the Scrap Iron District where he lived, his acute senses immediately picked up an anomaly in the air.

At this hour, the bottom-level streets should have been raucously loud, filled with the hawking of black-market peddlers and the brawls of drunks. Instead, they were terrifyingly dead silent. Blinding, alternating red and blue police sirens brutally tore through the dim, damp smog of the underhive. Three heavily armored anti-riot patrol vehicles sat perpendicular to the intersection, completely blocking all exits.

Over a dozen heavily armed Public Security Enforcers, clad in exoskeleton armor and wielding high-pressure magitech pulse rifles, were conducting violently brutal door-to-door kick-in searches.

"Halt! What's your business here?" Just as Rowan approached the police cordon, two Enforcers with bloodshot eyes and extremely agitated expressions blocked his path. The muzzles of their rune-engraved rifles were pointed unceremoniously at his chest. In terms of raw power, these standard-issue [Grey Wolf Type-I] magitech rifles might not match a spell of the same tier. But within the D1-grade, they were an incredibly intimidating ranged deterrent.

Compared to spells that required constructing a mental model, the mana channeling of etched weapon runes was undeniably much faster. Rowan's body instantly hunched over by an imperceptible fraction. He lowered his eyes and extremely cooperatively raised his hands above his shoulders. His face displayed the exact, precisely calculated trace of terror and cowering expected of an underhive commoner facing the violent apparatus of the state.

"Officers, I'm a student living here. I just got back from taking the monthly mock exams at my school," Rowan said, while exceedingly slowly using two fingers to pinch his West Point High student ID from his pocket. The burly Enforcer on the left snatched the ID and scanned the information. His tightly furrowed brow loosened slightly. In the Seventh Abyssal Hive, although few West Point students lived in the slums, they were ultimately registered within the Federation system.

Even those lunatic thugs usually weren't stupid enough to impersonate them.

"Look closely, kid." The Enforcer tapped his wrist tactical terminal a few times, projecting a highly blurry holographic photo directly into Rowan's face.

"Have you seen anyone carrying a black dagger like this in the nearby black markets recently? Or any unfamiliar faces acting abnormally?" The design of the dagger in the photo was bizarre. The blade was a dead, non-reflective black, and the hilt was carved with grotesque patterns resembling twisted crescent moons. It looked like some sort of ritual dagger. Merely glancing at it caused Rowan's mental perception to instinctively feel a trace of revulsion. Rowan shook his head, half-feigning, half-truthful.

"No, sir. I've been preparing for my exams these past few days."

"Then has anyone tried to peddle low-grade [Snow-Silver Herb Potion] to you?" the other Enforcer interjected impatiently.

"The kind where the price is absurdly low. Listen to me, those shady black-market goods of unknown origin have massive side effects. Once injected, not only does it cause the mana circulation in your entire body to stagnate, but your body temperature plummets to that of a corpse! If you've bought any, you'd better confess right now!"

"Officers, looking at my appearance, do I look like someone with spare cash to buy potions?" Rowan offered a bitter smile, spreading his arms to highlight his faded, frayed hoodie. The two Enforcers looked Rowan up and down. That destitute appearance indeed didn't look like someone who could afford supernatural potions.

"Get in! And don't wander around aimlessly at night for the time being. If you end up dead, no one's going to collect your corpse!" The Enforcer waved a hand dismissively, tossing the student ID back to Rowan before turning toward the next shivering commoner stopped outside the cordon. Rowan picked up his ID, kept his head down, and quickly crossed the police line. But beneath the shadows of his hood, his gaze instantly returned to its icy calm. A black ritual dagger...

A low-grade Snow-Silver Herb Potion that causes mana stagnation and plummeting body temperatures... Rowan silently chewed on these two critical pieces of information in his mind. The Public Security Bureau conducting a dragnet search like rabid dogs was absolutely not just to catch a few smugglers pushing fake drugs. Something major had definitely happened recently in the Seventh Abyssal Hive.

Returning to his familiar, cramped rented room, Rowan immediately pulled down the rusted iron roller shutter, locked the three physical deadbolts tight, and finally activated the crude, low-end soundproofing matrix he had scavenged for cheap. Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings. Only after the blaring police sirens and the cursing of the Enforcers were completely sealed away did Rowan let out a long sigh.

He walked over to the bed and sat down, temporarily suppressing the clouds of doubt in his mind. Then, he pulled the sealed box from his pocket. With a soft click, the box opened. A data crystal disc radiating a faint silver luster rested quietly on the velvet lining. D-Rank Mental Technique — [Mind-Splitting Art]. This was his true spoil of war from the exam today. Without hesitation, Rowan pressed the crystal disc against his forehead. His mental power probed into it like tentacles. BOOM!

A torrent of data instantly flooded into his mind. Rowan closed his eyes, and like a high-end computer running on overclock, he calmly parsed the incredibly precious technique. A moment later, he opened his eyes, a flash of profound shock and gravity crossing his deep blue pupils. This technique was far more extreme and hardcore than he had imagined! It wasn't a spell for launching mental shockwaves; it was a highly dangerous "mental micro-surgery."

The principle of the Mind-Splitting Art was to use one's own mental power as a scalpel, forcefully carving out an independent "Secondary Core Circuit" within the incredibly fragile mental sea. It was exactly like forcibly welding a second processor onto a motherboard that originally only had one. Once successful, his mental power could be split into two streams.

Paired with the corresponding techniques in the manual, Rowan would be able to achieve something ordinary people wouldn't even dare dream of at the Tier 1 stage: "Dual Casting"—condensing the extreme chill of the Frost-Chill Gauntlets with his left hand while simultaneously unleashing the berserk Minimalist Water Blade with his right. But the price was enduring the agonizing pain of having his mental sea literally torn apart during practice. Rowan took a deep breath.

Channeling his mental power along the route dictated by the manual, he attempted the first "incision" at the edge of his mental sea. Hsssss—! In a mere fraction of a second, an agonizing pain—as if his very soul were being ripped in two—descended from the top of his skull! Rowan let out a muffled groan, his entire body violently curling into a ball. His hands gripped the bedsheets in a death grip, cold sweat instantly seeping from his forehead. He gasped heavily for air.

It took a full five minutes before the tearing, spasmodic pain gradually receded.

"No wonder West Point High offered this technique as a top-five reward." Wiping the cold sweat from his brow, Rowan let out an incredibly rational, cold sneer.

"If the recipient wasn't a Tier 1 Mage, an ordinary mortal would be terrified out of their wits after trying it just once." But Rowan was different. Having survived the inhuman torture of eating giant crocodile meat raw and letting the Furnace Melding Art tear apart and reforge his flesh, his pain tolerance had long since transcended the realm of ordinary humans. He closed his eyes, precisely calculating his progress in his mind.

"With my current mental resilience, even with the nourishing aid of the high-purity mana from the alternate world, forcibly constructing the 'Secondary Core' will take at least three days. Three full days of sleepless, soul-tearing ascetic cultivation..." Just as Rowan gritted his teeth, preparing for the second attempt. Buzz—Buzz— The communication terminal on his wrist suddenly vibrated violently. The screen flashed with a crude, highly encrypted code. It was Rad. Rowan accepted the call.

Before he could speak, Rad's deliberately lowered, yet intensely irritable voice came through.

"Rowan! You make it home yet? Your joint didn't get raided by those Security Bureau pigs, did it?"

"Just got back. They interrogated me a bit." Rowan's tone was calm.

"What's going on? It's crazy out there. They even brought anti-riot vehicles into Scrap Iron Street."

"Of course it's crazy! The sky over the Seventh Abyssal Hive is about to collapse!" Rad cursed over the comms. The grating sound of his heavy mechanical arm grinding could be heard in the background.

"I just heard the real inside scoop at the black market! You know why those pigs are going rabid? Victor is dead!" Rowan's pupils contracted violently. Victor. The only son of the Deputy Chief of the Public Security Bureau. The Consortium scion Rowan had crossed paths with in the classroom just a few weeks ago. No wonder he hadn't shown up for the mock exams today. He was already a corpse.

"I heard the death was gruesome. Found dead in a high-end apartment in the Inner City." Rad's voice carried a trace of dread toward the unknown.

"Someone inside the Bureau leaked it: the scene was arranged like a slaughterhouse, with black arrays painted all over the floor. It was done by those lunatics hiding in the sewers running cult rituals!" After the call disconnected, Rowan sat quietly in the dim room. His thoughts spread out like a spiderweb. The Deputy Chief's son. A black ritual dagger. Snow-Silver Herb Potion with side effects causing mana stagnation and plummeting body temperatures.

"In past years, I've only ever heard of cults targeting defenseless commoners in the underhive," Rowan analyzed the intel in the dark.

"But this time, they actually targeted a Consortium scion with a top-tier security detail and considerable personal strength.

"Just what the hell are those lunatics planning?" Rowan straightened up, opened his terminal, and booted up the hidden browser for the Dark Web. He typed in a few highly encrypted keywords: "Seventh Abyssal Hive," "Black Ritual Dagger," "Heretics." The loading bar began to turn slowly, the faint blue light illuminating Rowan's cold, sharp profile. Suddenly. Thud. Thud. Thud. Three incredibly dull, heavy knocks rang out abruptly against the rusted iron door of Rowan's apartment.

This was absolutely not the violent, frantic pounding of Security Enforcers conducting a raid. The sound was unhurried, perfectly paced to the rhythm of a human heartbeat, radiating a suffocating, dead silence. Rowan's fingers froze instantly on the keyboard. Without hesitation, he hit the power button on the terminal. The glow of the screen vanished instantly, plunging the entire room into absolute darkness.

Like a panther lying in ambush within the shadows, Rowan stood up, pressing himself against the wall without making a single sound. His left hand slid down with supreme naturalness, locking in a death grip around the hilt of the D1-grade High-Frequency Tactical Straight Sword at his waist. Deep within his heart, the Source Crystal Core began to vibrate faintly.

Deep blue water-element mana gathered at his fingertips, drawn but unreleased, suppressed within his body by his terrifying control without leaking a single trace into the air. In this dead-silent building that had just been swept by the Public Security Bureau, Rowan held his breath, staring dead at the thin iron door. Outside the door, it was so quiet he could only hear a microscopic, faint rustling of fabric friction.