The two death-eaters who'd put Fireworks rounds into Great Vajra were dead, and Shen Cong's mood had improved considerably.

Responding to violence with violence was deeply satisfying. That had always been true.

But after killing over thirty death-eaters in sustained combat, he was beginning to feel the strain. The death-eater officers had started injecting themselves — one after another, the stimulant going in, and their combat output surging.

This was one of the three special compounds developed by New Hope Laboratory. A short-duration stimulant that activated the user's Activity reserves aggressively, a self-destructive mechanism that roughly doubled fighting capacity for a limited window. Death-eater officers who had been injecting C1 continuously were already sitting at ten-bull strength or more; the stimulant on top pushed them to thirteen or fourteen.

Still well below his nineteen-bull. But enough to slow him down, force him to work for every exchange rather than simply dominating.

The cost was a week of recovery and genuine damage to the body's long-term potential.

Against stimulant-boosted officers, he couldn't close fights instantly. And if he stayed in contact too long, the officers could coordinate to surround him — their sharkskin was high-grade enough to shrug off Zhao Zilong's rifle fire, which meant only he could deal with them, which meant they could afford to be patient.

CRACK.

He launched ten meters clear of the encirclement and let himself breathe. Twenty minutes of sustained high-intensity combat — even at his level, the heat was building faster than his body could shed it.

He scanned quickly.

Zhao Zilong's people were performing adequately against the death-eater rank-and-file but had nothing to offer against the officers. When an officer appeared, they ran. The battle's momentum was tilting toward the death-eater formation.

He retreated to Great Vajra — still in slow autopilot — and took up position inside, working the sling through the firing ports while he cooled down. Without his forward pressure, the death-eaters consolidated their own fire. The Fireworks appeared to be exhausted — no more shots came — but centipede bombs and conventional weapons were plentiful. Zhao Zilong's group got…