After leaving Liang Wan's apartment, Lin lan drifted through New York without purpose.
He needed the Golden Blood Pool—to restore his human form.
But the thrill of acquiring the Void-Piercing Divine Ring had dulled his caution. He'd never pressed Shen Daolun for details, only knowing the pool belonged to the Blood Clan.
That knowledge alone was useless.
New York was vast.
And this world was foreign.
Somewhere along the way, he crossed a bridge without realizing it—Manhattan fading behind him, Brooklyn swallowing him whole.
Only then did he understand the problem.
He was lost.
And that was dangerous.
Returning to the Nine Netherworlds required the Sky-Piercing Divine Ring—and that ring only functioned near the Nine Netherworlds Divine Jade.
Without it, there was no way back.
Lin lan frowned, irritation simmering beneath his bone-white skull, when sudden gunfire shattered the night.
Heavy. Continuous.
Not street-level noise.
Curiosity stirred. He moved toward the sound—hoping, at the very least, for distraction.
Instead, he found Liang Wan.
Pinned down.
One step away from death.
Their encounters had been awkward. Tense.
But Lin lan respected her—her bluntness, her refusal to flinch in the face of danger.
Watching her now, trapped beneath overwhelming firepower, something in him snapped.
He drew the Blood Slaughter Bone Blade.
And stepped into hell.
Two grenades screamed through the air—
Lin lan moved.
A single arc of blood-red light carved across the darkness.
Boom. Boom.
The grenades detonated midair.
Lin lan landed in the center of the courtyard, unmoving.
Crimson light flowed lazily along the blade in his hand, casting twisted shadows across the shattered concrete.
Silence fell.
Police officers stared.
Gunmen froze.
No one moved. No one breathed.
Skeletons belonged underground—or on lab tables.
Not here.
Not standing tall.
Not blocking grenades.
This shattered every rule they knew.
Every belief.
"My God…" a policeman whispered. "Did hell open tonight?"
Another shook uncontrollably. "Is that the Grim Reaper?"
Someone else dared to think it.
Or… is he saving us?
Ruth swallowed hard.
Hope—fragile, irrational—crept into his chest.
That thing… whatever it was… had blocked the grenades.
For them.
For Liang Wan.
Ruth clenched his fists, eyes locked on the skeletal figure.
For the first time in his career, he understood this truth with absolute clarity:
Their lives were no longer in human hands.
Lin lan lifted his skull and looked upward.
To him, darkness meant nothing.
The fifth-floor corridor was clear as day.
Twenty… thirty gunmen.
Military weapons.
Every barrel aimed directly at him.
Lin lan tilted his head.
Almost amused.
He raised the blade.
"Leave," he said calmly.
A pause.
"…or die."
His voice echoed unnaturally, crawling into the bones of every man above.
Even hardened killers felt it—fear crawling up their spines.
All eyes turned to their leader.
Charlie.
"Damn it…" Charlie thought. This is the most cursed night of my life.
A core member of the Donners—New York's largest mafia family—he'd been personally dispatched by Mike Donnar himself.
This deal wasn't about drugs.
It was about an artifact.
Something powerful. Something dangerous.
Something worth fifty million dollars.
With it, they could move drugs and weapons without ever being traced.
Failure wasn't an option.
Charlie glanced at the Colombian drug lord beside him.
Half the men here answered to that man.
"What do you think?" Charlie asked, voice tight.
The drug lord didn't hesitate.
"Kill everyone," he said flatly. "No witnesses."
Charlie's jaw clenched.
Behind him—fifty million dollars' worth of merchandise.
In his pocket—the artifact.
If this deal failed…
The Donners would make sure he didn't die quickly.
He wanted to retreat.
He truly did.
But fear of his own family outweighed fear of a skeleton.
We're armed.
We're trained.
We can kill it.
He nodded.
The moment he did—
Gunfire erupted.
Bullets screamed toward Lin lan like a storm.
The soulfire in Lin lan's eyes flared.
Cold.
Furious.
He hadn't come to slaughter.
Even as a skeleton—even after countless undead battles—he still thought of himself as human.
That was why he gave them a choice.
They rejected it.
"So," he said softly, "you've chosen."
His foot struck the ground.
The concrete shattered.
Lin lan launched upward like a cannonball.
Bullets missed—tearing through empty air.
Spiritual energy surged into the blade.
One swing.
A blood-red arc over a foot long tore through five men at the waist.
They screamed as they fell.
Lin lan landed on the fifth-floor corridor.
Another swing.
Three more bodies collapsed—no longer recognizable as human.
Blood flooded the floor.
The Blood Slaughter Bone Blade drank deeply.
Its crimson glow intensified, pulsing like a living thing.
Forged from the bones of an ancient ferocious beast, its savage nature—long suppressed—was finally unleashed.
Lin lan didn't notice.
But his soulfire flickered.
Darkened.
Corrupted.
A grin spread slowly across his skull.
For the first time—
He realized something terrifying.
He was enjoying this.