Inside an apartment, Chen Ye gazed calmly out the window at the rain while sipping coffee. The noise outside had been incessant—sirens blaring, chaos unfolding.

  “Social unrest,” he muttered.

  Those people are useless. It’s been so long, and they still haven’t delivered any news.

  “I’ll handle it myself.”

  Chen Ye picked up a vial of liquid from the table, unscrewed the cap, and downed it in one gulp.

  Gulp!

  Thud!

  “What… is this?”

  His eyes widened abruptly as his limbs began to convulse and twist. Strange, silken threads materialized around him, weaving an eerie web.

  Meanwhile, at Nanyan Hotel.

  The Queen Bee suddenly received a message from Chen Ye.

  “Huh?”

  Li Yuan, now in human form with his wounds fully healed, turned to her. “What now?”

  She placed her phone on the table, displaying the message for everyone to see.

  “The Master is asking… if we’ve obtained the blood.”

  Blood? What blood?

  The group exchanged confused glances.

  Li Yuan frowned. “What blood? The Master ordered us to kill him, didn’t he?”

  “Wait… Did we misinterpret the mission?” someone interjected.

  “When did the Master ever say to kill Chu Yang?” the Queen Bee retorted. “Are you sure he didn’t ask you to retrieve blood?”

  “I… I thought he said to ‘eliminate him’ over the phone…”

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Eliminate? Or extract? The Master mentioned needing materials. That kid might be the key ingredient for his serum. You idiot, you misheard!”

  The room fell silent as the realization dawned.

  The Queen Bee slammed her hand on the table. “So the Master wanted him alive, but we just killed his precious material?!”

  “This is…”

  Li Yuan paled. If the Master had truly wanted Chu Yang captured alive, their blunder would provoke his wrath. None of them had ever witnessed the Master’s anger—but that was precisely why it terrified them.

  The Master grants power… and can just as easily take it away.

  Or worse.

  “Are we… dead men?”

  “Maybe. The Master might slaughter us as punishment.”

  “Wait! Chu Yang could still be alive!”

  “Alive? You mean the guy the police took?”

  “Possibly! We need to confirm—now!”

  “But… hold on. Did we forget something?”

  A chilling silence followed.

  “003 is already en route!”

  “Quick! Call him back!”

  A massive car crash erupted outside the city hospital.

  Police cars lay mangled in a pile, flames and black smoke billowing as casualties mounted. The worst part? One of the injured pulled from the wreckage had been on those very police transports.

  Wang Haonan lit a cigarette, surveying the carnage. “Done.”

  As he turned to leave, his phone rang.

  “003. Is it over?”

  “Yes.”

  “…Is the target dead?”

  “Dead.”

  “We’re doomed…”

  Wang exhaled smoke. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. Return now,” the woman’s voice replied.

  “Understood.”

  He flicked the cigarette into a puddle and vanished.

  Meanwhile, a charred figure crawled out from the wreckage.

  “Cough… Thank the abyss for that last Deepsea Breath… Ugh… I’m falling apart…”

  The Next Day.

  The incident made headlines—but was dismissed as a “fire and accident.” The deaths of Beiling’s officers went ignored, their superiors indifferent.

  The Queen Bee’s influence had suffocated the city. By infiltrating the elite with her pheromone-laced drinks, she’d silenced dissent. Every police report, every plea for help, dissolved into nothing.

  At Beiling Police Headquarters, the Chief pounded his desk.

  “This city is trapped in a web. Someone’s pulling the strings, burying the truth. We’re fish in a net, dogs in a cage. No one hears us. No one cares. The monsters act freely because they have help.”

  Help from humans. How absurd.

  “The higher-ups are compromised! I’ll go to the capital myself!”

  An officer entered, clutching a file.

  “Chief… Captain Yang’s final request. He insisted you see this.”

  The Chief’s hands trembled as he accepted it.

  Yang Yan…

  He’d survived the building collapse, only to die in that inexplicable crash.

  Maddening.

  The file’s title read: ?Project Nine-Tails.

  Opening it, the Chief found Yang’s parting words:

  “If you’re reading this, I’m dead. Don’t mourn me. I knew the risks when I became an officer.”

  The document detailed Yang’s theories on humanity’s war against the supernatural. He proposed an organization to study, contain, and control these entities.

  “Break the chains of conventional thinking. These beings defy logic. To defeat them, we must think like them—embrace the unimaginable. The answers lie within the monsters themselves.

  We contain. We control. We protect.”