Exhilarating.

Shen Cong hadn't known until now that killing could feel like this.

He'd always positioned himself as the weaker party against the Eastern Theater Command — always assumed they could eliminate him whenever they chose, living with that pressure, pulling his punches even knowing what he was capable of. That constant bracing against threat had compressed something in him.

But right now.

Right now Shen Cong felt genuinely powerful. The sensation of moving through the battlefield like this, taking life with each stroke — it was electric. Intoxicating. Every time the blade completed its motion and a life ended along its edge, the feeling of holding someone else's fate in his hands rang through him like a struck chord.

Wasn't this exactly the strength he'd been fighting toward?

He could let himself sink into it.

He didn't.

He throttled it back, immediately and deliberately.

As Luoli had once told him: in this world, it's easy to do bad things. Don't take the easy path. Don't let this world contaminate you.

His body was already being contaminated. His mind didn't have to follow.

"Hah."

I only need to be master of my own fate.

He flicked the blood from the Tyrant Broadsword and gathered himself back in — back to the cold, careful state that was his usual operating mode.

His killing had drawn Zhao Yang's attention. Just as Shen Cong had been watching him, Zhao Yang turned and found Shen Cong looking back.

Zhao Yang was formidable — but the white lab coat was in shreds. The sharkskin underneath had taken damage across multiple points. Blood was seeping through in several places, and more was trickling from the corner of his mouth.

He licked it. Then he looked at Shen Cong, gave a vicious smile, and ran.

He had no intention of engaging.

A thousand thoughts crossed Shen Cong's mind in an instant as he watched that retreating figure. A smile — he's already filed this away as a grudge. He ran instead of fighting, which means either he hasn't taken stimulants, or the crash from them doesn't affect…