The Sanguine Fiend was caught so quickly?
Kaelen froze for a moment, a look of genuine astonishment flashing across his face. He was completely caught off guard by the news.
But the bold, blood-red headline trending across the local net couldn't be faked.
[Jianghai City Serial Killer Case Solved! The Sanguine Fiend Has Been Apprehended! A Great Relief to All!]
After all, the Sanguine Fiend had been wreaking absolute havoc for the past few weeks, plunging the entire metropolis of Neo-Veridia into a bloody reign of terror and leaving the working class in a state of paranoia.
To reassure the public and appease the corporate board, the Aether Enforcer Bureau had naturally cast a massive dragnet to capture him. It was only a matter of time.
"I can't believe this. Why couldn't they have caught him sooner? If they'd nabbed him one night earlier, I wouldn't have gotten busted in that raid at The Platinum Mirage!"
Xander recalled the traumatic events of his arrest, growing more intensely irritated the more he thought about it. He furiously forwarded a few links to the trending stories to Kaelen's datapad.
DING!
Kaelen tapped the link and casually glanced at the comments flooding below the official Enforcer post. Without exception, they were all praising the authorities:
"The Enforcer Bureau is amazing! They finally caught that monster!"
"Great work! I heard they mobilized several tactical squads. It was a massive effort."
"My uncle's family... they were victims of this psycho. May their souls return to the Astral Sea."
"He looks so terrifying. Thank god he's been caught. Now we can all stop living in fear."
Kaelen scrolled through the comments, then clicked the second link to see a leaked crime scene photo.
The background was a deserted, overgrown amusement park in the outer ring. Gloomy neon light slanted across a rusted carousel.
A middle-aged man knelt in the center, his limbs and neck locked down by five heavy-duty, Aether-suppressing riot forks, pinning him brutally to the concrete. He couldn't move an inch.
His ashen face was twisted into a ferocious, beast-like snarl. A crimson, sickly light swirled in the depths of his sinister eyes, radiating a chilling, evil aura that bled through the screen.
He stood in stark contrast to the dozen or so fully armored Enforcers standing behind him. He looked like a caged demon, ready to tear their throats out at any moment.
"Tsk, tsk. Old Kaelen, have you seen the photo? This Fiend is seriously terrifying. Don't tell me all rogue Cultivators end up looking like this?"
Xander shook his head and sighed over his synthetic noodles. "I heard that when they caught this monster, he was still gnawing on some raw meat. No idea what kind of animal it came from."
"Most who fall to the demonic path and consume forbidden Aether end up like this."
Kaelen shrugged, feeling a sense of mild relief himself. The monster who had been roaming free was finally caught. This meant the city's alert level would drop.
Otherwise, with heavily armed patrols on every street corner all day, it would be difficult for him to move around freely without drawing unwanted optical scans.
"Three days. In three more days, this guy is dead," Xander said with utter conviction, stabbing a noodle.
"Three days?" Kaelen raised an eyebrow.
"Yep. This monster's crimes are too extreme; he's drained too many corporate citizens. After three days, once the Enforcer Bureau extracts all the information they need from his mind, he'll be publicly executed via Aether-guillotine!"
"I see."
Kaelen felt at ease. The Sanguine Fiend's recent, endless slaughter had thrown the city into a panic. Making a public spectacle of his execution would not only reassure the public but act as a brutal deterrent to other rogue Cultivators.
Just as Kaelen was reflecting on this...
Suddenly, the familiar, mechanical voice of the System detonated in his mind!
[DING! HIGH-RISK RIFT ENTITY DETECTED: SANGUINE FIEND!]
[WARNING! EXTREME FATAL DANGER!]
[Host, please evacuate the area immediately! Find a secure bunker and conceal yourself at once!]
The urgent, electronic sirens rang like a death knell, sending a jolt of adrenaline through Kaelen's entire body.
Huh? Sanguine Fiend?
Kaelen's expression changed, then broke into an ecstatic, greedy grin.
Is the System bugging out again?!
Is another one of those little critters that gives me god-tier loot hiding in here?!
"Where? Where is the Sanguine Fiend?!"
Kaelen rubbed his hands together and began aggressively scanning the library cafeteria, searching for the 'threat' the System was screaming about.
Yet, after scanning the area with his Awakened-Tier perception, he couldn't find a single small animal. Not even a cockroach.
"What are you looking for, Old Kaelen? Spot a beauty in corporate pencil skirts?"
Seeing Kaelen's strange behavior, Xander curiously followed his gaze. But aside from a female janitor pushing a hover-cart, he didn't see anyone.
"Buddy, I think you're really desperate." Xander sighed, facepalming, and clapped Kaelen heavily on the shoulder. "When you've got time after work, I swear I'll take you to The Platinum Mirage and show you the ropes. You need to relieve this tension."
Kaelen: "..."
Kaelen paid no mind to Xander's degenerate teasing; he was just intensely disappointed. He hadn't found any sign of a bug.
Is this damn System just messing with me now?!
Just as he was thinking this, the alarm on his datapad went off. It was time to clock back in. He put the puzzle aside for now and headed back to Sector 1.
...
The ground floor of the library was no longer as packed as it had been during the Fiend's rampage.
Before, the library had been packed with citizens who were pretending to read but were really just taking advantage of the building's high-end energy shields, seeking "refuge." Now that the threat was gone, things were returning to normal.
Who's to say another demon won't show up in the future? I can't let my guard down.
Kaelen walked toward the section containing movement and evasion arts. He had made terrifying progress with his Sword Dao, but he couldn't neglect his escape capabilities.
Even if I can't win a fight, I have to be able to outrun the explosion.
After some searching, he pulled down six different basic evasion manuals.
If I fuse all these basic footwork manuals with my perfected Seven-Star Void Step, could I create a new, Omni-directional movement art?
Let's try it!
Kaelen didn't hesitate. He closed his eyes, his consciousness plunging into the grey void of his Aetheric Mindscape.
In an instant, images of the various techniques materialized. The leap of a shadow-cat, the dive of a void-ray, the unpredictable shifting of the original Seven-Star step...
Kaelen ruthlessly extracted their essence, violently fusing them into a coherent whole.
A moment later, a brand-new, Ascendant-Level movement art took form!
Formless as a phantom, swift as tearing space... I'll call it the Phantom-Weaver Void Step!
Kaelen was ecstatic. Creating high-tier martial arts is literally a piece of cake!
...
[Three days passed in a flash.]
Kaelen and Xander were eating in the cafeteria.
"I've got something good to show you, Old Kaelen. Don't go sharing it around the corporate net," Xander said mysteriously, beaming over a highly encrypted video link.
"What is it? A leaked holovid from the Mirage?" Kaelen asked, genuinely expecting the worst.
"Get your mind out of the gutter. This is the leaked video of the Sanguine Fiend's execution. A friend of my dad's in the Bureau sent it."
Hearing this, Kaelen's curiosity was piqued. He tapped play.
However, just as the video started rolling...
The System's mechanical voice, which he hadn't heard in three days, violently rang out once more!
[DING! EMPEROR-TIER RIFT ENTITY DETECTED: ABYSSAL BLOOD-LEECH!]
[HOST, PLEASE EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY!]