Chapter 267: Payment
Lin Wei stretched lazily, but her nose caught a faint scent of blood.
The source of the smell was the darkest corner of the room.
Lin Wei cautiously walked over.
A large, bulging black garbage bag sat in the corner.
The bloody odor was emanating from inside it.
Lin Wei hesitated for a moment, then reached out and untied the tightly fastened opening.
An even stronger wave of metallic blood scent assaulted her senses.
Curled up inside the bag was the corpse of a man, his face ashen, eyes wide open, a trace of terror frozen within them.
The fatal wound was on his neck, a single, clean, and efficient strike.
Lin Wei examined him carefully and was surprised to find that this man was actually an Awakened individual, with a strength roughly around the second stage of the Stream Realm. Beside the corpse lay a crumpled piece of paper, with a line of words scrawled on it in what seemed to be blood-stained fingers:
【This is your payment. You are free.】
Lin Wei held this piece of paper, stunned for a long time.
The next second.
She nearly collapsed, sitting down on the floor.
That lord had truly let her go.
He hadn't killed her to silence her, and had even paid her.
A second-stage Stream Realm Awakened individual. Once she absorbed him, her own realm would definitely improve!
This far exceeded Lin Wei's expectations.
In her view, merely surviving was already a stroke of luck. She never expected the other party to be so... true to their word.
Among Aberrants, such an action could be considered merciful.
...
Su Zhan now wore an entirely new face.
He wandered leisurely through the streets and alleys of Lincheng.
This was the first time in over a year he dared to do something like this.
A new face, a new identity, and also a new beginning.
Lin Wei held no more value for him. He had let her go and even prepared a payment for her.
Naturally, this payment was his handiwork.
Su Zhan felt he had become somewhat cold-blooded now.
If it were before, he would never casually lay hands on a stranger.
But reality had continuously battered him, causing the faint glimmer of hope he once held for humanity to gradually, gradually sink away.
Killing the innocent indiscriminately.
Hah...
Su Zhan had completely lost such moral concepts.
Over a year of surviving in the Mist had gradually worn away part of his humanity.
Indeed.
He was an Aberrant by nature, so why did he ever possess such good moral principles before?
How laughable...
Su Zhan dared not say he now stood on humanity's side, nor dared he say he stood against them.
After all, the Mist should be the common enemy of both Aberrants and humans.
The Mist's invasion of Blue Star naturally made it humanity's enemy.
Aberrants, because of the Mist, became Aberrants, turning into monsters that needed to constantly hunt humans. They gained power, but also increased their risks.
But if all humans died out, how would Aberrants hunt humans to evolve?
During his over a year in the Mist, Su Zhan ate and drank nothing, surviving on the Mist's nourishment.
But he wasn't sure if this was due to his special constitution or if all Aberrants were like this.
Even if all Aberrants were like this, they could only meet their basic nutritional needs within the Mist, utterly incapable of advancing.
If humanity went extinct, the Aberrants' realms might be permanently fixed.
And that was the best possible scenario.
Aberrants were a product of the Mist's invasion of Blue Star.
After humanity's extinction, would there even be a need for Aberrants to exist?
Would the Mist be so kind?
Su Zhan believed it would not.
Moreover, one could not place one's own life in another's hands, begging them for mercy.