Wilber stretched out his right hand—its fingers were mutated into long, pus-slick talons, the nails sharp as hooks. Using the very tip of one cw, he carefully felt around the deepest ssh on his shoulder.

  A sticky feeling of muscle rubbing against something foreign met his touch.

  He frowned, fighting the pain, and slowly dug out… something from inside the wound.

  It wasn’t a metal bullet.

  It was a dark yellow “maggot,” as thick as his little finger, still wriggling slightly. Its body was slimy, ringed with fine, tight patterns. Its head had no eyes, just a mouth part constantly opening and shutting, dripping foul, dark green venom.

  This was one of The Scalpel’s signature moves—Worm Bullets.

  These special “bullets” woke up when they hit, digging deep into flesh. They released corrosive poison to wreck tissue while eating the host’s life force to grow. If you didn’t get them out fast, they could chew through bone and into your organs, causing slow, deadly internal damage.

  “These ‘seniors’ who have consolidated their power at third rank for years… their strength is no joke,” Wilber muttered, his tone complicated as he stared at the poison worm squirming on his fingertip. “Without the ritual array boosting me, I’m… just not on their level. I need a lot more work.”

  He flicked the pulled-out worm onto the floor. It kept wriggling stubbornly, looking for a new home.

  Wilber didn’t finish it off right away. He kept using his cws to pull more of the same “Worm Bullets” out of his other wounds, one by one. Every pull came with the fresh tearing pain of muscle and the burn of venom. Cold sweat beaded on his temples. His lips trembled a little from the hurt.

  But his mind kept repying the brutal fight from before. Even though he’d lost bad and run in the end, he hadn’t come away empty. At least he’d gotten a taste of The Scalpel’s creepy, deadly fighting style and all the little tricks of his ability use. That was valuable experience.

  “I wonder… between The Scalpel and Lord Aldrich… who’s stronger?” he thought as the idea drifted through his head.

  By then, Wilber had pulled seven poison maggots out of various parts of his body. They twisted and rolled on the floorboards, their secreted venom eating little smoking pits into the old wood.

  Looking at these disgusting things, a cold flicker of disgust passed through Wilber’s eyes. He lifted a foot and, aiming at one of them, brought his thick boot sole down hard.

  SPLAT!

  An indescribable feeling—a mix of bursting slime and cracking shell—came up through the sole of his boot. Then the second stomp. The third… He crushed every single worm into paste without mercy. The weird sensation of juice popping under his foot was enough to make his scalp prickle and his stomach turn.

  “Alright…” After he was done, Wilber let out a long, ragged breath that smelled of blood. “Time to go back and report to Lord Aldrich.”

  Saying that, he didn’t move yet. Instead, he reached into a hidden inner pocket in his clothes and carefully pulled out a thumb-sized crystal vial. Inside, about two-thirds full, was a liquid. In the weak light, it gave off a soft, faint, pearly-white glow, like watered-down moonlight.

  A little bel was stuck to the bottle, written in elegant script:

  【Sloughing Decoction】.

  This was a pretty valuable third-rank healing potion. Drinking it would kick the user’s metabolism and cell regen into high gear fast. It could fix most outside wounds in a very short time, and even repair deep damage from special abilities—the kind your own healing would struggle with.

  Of course, a effect that big came with strict rules. The user had to be in a retively stable, safe spot. Absolutely couldn’t use it during a fierce fight or while the body was under massive strain. The whole process of the potion working and the wounds closing needed at least ten minutes of undisturbed “quiet.”

  Using it here in this dead bakery wasn’t the safest pick. But Wilber had checked the area carefully earlier. No powerful mutant zombie auras nearby. And The Scalpel’s crew clearly weren’t coming after him.

  So, using the potion now, healing these ugly wounds as fast as possible to stand before Lord Aldrich looking more decent, more “in one piece”… wasn’t a bad call.

  Thinking that, Wilber pulled the cork, tipped his head back, and drank the thick, pearly-glowing liquid in one go.

  It slid down his throat, carrying a strange warmth that spread quickly to his arms and legs, his bones. He could clearly feel the wounds on his body start to itch and grow hot. His muscle tissue began to squirm, grow, and knit back together faster, pushed by some outside force. A thin, see-through yer, like new skin, began slowly seeping out and hardening over his surface.

  It was like… forming a special kind of “scab.”

  Just five more minutes, and this yer of “old skin” would peel right off his body, taking all the wounds and grime with it, leaving behind newly healed skin with only faint red marks.

  The quiet, the st rexing smell of baked bread in the air, the warm, repairing feeling of the potion working inside him… All of it made Wilber’s tight nerves rex without him meaning to.

  He leaned on the wall, closed his eyes, and started thinking about how to report tonight’s crushing defeat to Lord Aldrich. How to expin losing the ritual array. How to find good excuses for any possible mistakes he’d made…

  But just as his thoughts started to drift, just as that see-through “scab” had covered most of his body, a vibration—tiny, but crystal clear—suddenly popped up in his awareness!

  The movement was so small it was almost nothing. But the second Wilber felt it, every hair on his body stood straight up. A feeling of extreme danger, like being targeted by a natural predator, washed over him like ice water, soaking his bones in a cold instant.

  “What’s going on…” He snapped his eyes open, pupils shrinking in shock.

  Before he could finish—

  BOOM!!!

  ………………

  Inside a treehouse somewhere.

  The space was tight and hidden. Nicole was curled up inside, her body almost blending into the rough wooden walls. She watched the distant bakery through a specially modified periscope—the lens part cleverly disguised to look like a knot on a dead tree.

  Her breathing was faint, almost silent. Her gaze, though, was locked tight on the area now swallowed by explosion and dust—the bakery ruins.

  The moment she was waiting for had come.

  She counted down in her head.

  Three.

  Two.

  One.

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