Chương 49: Starting From Zero

"Guards! Drag this kid out of here!" Cassius Lowe shouted.

"Do you think the men outside can still stand?" Ryan's face was dark; one glance at the weeping Lucy and rage boiled up, beyond containing. Since you've delivered yourselves to my door, don't blame me for being merciless. Die! His gaze sank; under the 10x movement speed he was before Cassius in an instant, driving a full-force blow into his chest. Crunch! The tremendous force punched Ryan's fist clean through Cassius's chest.

"You…" Disbelief flickered in Cassius's eyes—he'd never imagined Ryan would simply kill him. His vision dimmed, his heart shattered by a single punch, and he crashed into a pool of blood, dead beyond all doubt. He should never, ever have laid a hand on Lucy. In his last life, powerless, Ryan had watched his sister waste away under disease until she slipped from the world; he owed Lucy too much. So in this life, no matter what, he would not let her suffer the slightest wrong.

For daring to harbor such filth toward her, Cassius Lowe deserved to die a hundred times over. Blood on his hands, Ryan went to the bed and untied her.

"Bro!" Lucy threw herself into his arms, not minding the blood at all, and dissolved into tears.

"It's all right. I'm here." He held her gently, soothing her. This was his sister—he would let no one harm her.

"Bro, go check on Sister Rosalind and the others! Edwin Shaw just took them away!"

"Edwin Shaw?" Ryan paused—and then, as if seizing on something, his whole aura plunged. So it was him.

"Lucy, come with me." He'd keep her at his side, guard her safety. Bang! He kicked open the door in the farthest corner of the second floor, startling Edwin within.

"You—" Smack! Without a word, Ryan's fist drove out and ended Edwin Shaw's life.

"Lucy, go free them." With that, he left the room. The sound of fists and feet still came from outside. Looking at the bodies strewn about, Ryan frowned. He hadn't expected to kill, so soon after his rebirth. In his last life, with virtual and real merged and danger everywhere, human life was cheap as grass; death he'd long grown numb to. He bore the people of Slaughter the World no deep hatred—it was only a game; play it however you liked.

But for them to drag that grudge into the real world—then he wouldn't hold back. Some things, once you decide to do them, you must be ready to pay the price. This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience. But the merging hadn't yet begun, and killing now broke a grave taboo.

"So be it. Looks like this place can't be stayed in." Ryan sighed, murmuring to himself.

"Lucy, let's go." Back in the room, he spoke without expression.

"Mm." Lucy nodded obediently and followed him out.

"Where… are you going?" Conflict flickered in Rosalind's eyes; she wanted to keep him, yet couldn't. Ryan had killed; she couldn't shelter him.

"To wander the world." With that, he took Lucy's hand and left the villa. Rosalind and the others watched their retreating backs, mouths parted, wanting to say something—and in the end saying nothing at all. …

"What did you say? Ryan killed both Cassius Lowe and Carson Lee?!" In-game, handling guild affairs, Violet got the report from a subordinate and went pale, springing up from her chair.

"Lock down the news, now! Bury it! Don't let it spread!" Fighting to stay calm, she said into the comm, "And—find a way to reach Ryan! Tell him to come to the club; I'll have a brand-new set of identity papers ready for him! Fast! Hear me?"

"Yes!"

"That kid—reckless beyond belief!" She hung up and slumped into her chair as if drained, fingers kneading her brow. Carson Lee, fine. But Cassius Lowe was no one you could just kill! So worrisome. No—she had to reach Ryan at once. This couldn't wait. Uneasy, she logged off and left the game. …

"Bro, you were amazing just now." On a rooftop, Lucy leaned against him, murmuring.

"You're not afraid? I killed people."

"I'm not! I know there must be a reason you did it!"

"A reason? Perhaps…" Ryan paused, smiling bitterly. If this life followed the last, Edwin Shaw betrayed humanity and Slaughter the World defected to the Calamity Race—so killing them counted as cutting off future trouble. Only, in doing so, he'd bent this life's course of history, which might cast no small shadow on the future and make the world murkier still. No matter—one step at a time.

What he should fret over now wasn't this, but the bank cards about to be frozen, being wanted, and his identity problem for when Lucy's illness needed treatment. Any one of these alone was headache enough. Impulse really is the devil… he thought. Yet if it all happened again, his choice would not change. Men like Cassius Lowe and Edwin Shaw—spare them once and they wouldn't repent; they'd only scheme harder, waiting for the next chance. What he'd done was pull the weed out by the roots. Only, the cost was steep.

He now owned nothing but a game-login device and some cash. His phone? Keep it, and the Azure Alliance could track him—carrying it would be digging his own grave. …

"Miss Violet, this young man, Ryan, has destroyed every device on him that could locate him." A technician in silver-rimmed glasses spoke timidly to the frowning Violet.

"…Cautious, isn't he. So why was he so hot-headed when it came to killing?" Violet bit her lip, anger surging.

"And that Cassius Lowe—an idiot too! Going to find the kid offline for no reason!"

"Miss, what do we do next?" a sweet-faced girl beside her asked.

"What else? All we can do now is get on the game and wait for him to log in!" Violet sighed and turned to leave. … In the world of Heaven's Descent—the Endless Abyss. On an ancient, eerie bone-burial altar, twenty-odd gray soul-auras drifted up, each steeped in the deepest resentment. A black vortex appeared from nowhere and swallowed them whole.

"Burp—" Deep in the rolling dark clouds, two flashes of blood-red light winked out, and a satisfied laugh drifted across the Endless Abyss sky: "Hahaha, delicious! If only there were a little more…" And in the same moment, in the real world, the rhomboid gems set in the game-login rings of Edwin Shaw and the others Ryan had killed bloomed with countless fine cracks—and at last shattered completely.