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Chapter 14: Going Back Again
"Anna!!!" At the very moment the frail girl plummeted downward, Leon, who had been observing the scene through the sniper scope from an adjacent building, felt as though he had fallen into an icy abyss.
In that instant, his mind could not even process the concept of death. His consciousness blanked, and it felt as though an invisible hand had seized his heart, gripping it tightly and cutting off the blood supply to his entire body. His limbs turned cold and rigid, frozen as if lifeless.
The world seemed to freeze at that moment. Everything—time, sound, and motion—stopped, all centered on the pale, helpless face of the girl falling through the air. Leon could do nothing but watch his sister plummet, his eyes filled with despair.
"BOOM!!!"
A deafening crash reverberated through half the street. It was followed by the sound of shattering glass and the deep, grating screech of metal bending under immense force.
The majority of the hospital’s windows exploded from the impact, and the outer wall of the fourth floor took the brunt of the crash. Metal beams embedded in the wall buckled outward, dislodging bricks that scattered in every direction, leaving the street below in utter disarray.
Yet, to Leon’s overwhelming relief, Anna had not hit the ground. She was suddenly halted mid-air, suspended between the first floor and the ground.
Though she was unconscious, likely from the massive force of the impact, and her thigh appeared to be cut by shards of glass, Leon could see through his scope that her chest was still heaving. She was alive—at least for now!
Thank you… thank you! I owe you my life!
But as Leon stared in disbelief at Anna, who was being gently lowered to the ground, his heart swelling with gratitude for the reliable "bandaged woman," the voice of the black goat cut in sharply: Oh no, this is not good!
That’s right! Leon snapped out of his daze upon hearing the black goat's words. He quickly realized that the crash’s point of impact was Anna’s hospital room! And the bandaged woman was still inside!
Though the fact that she had managed to grab hold of Anna and stop her fall proved she was alive and her soul remained stable, the scale of that collision was immense. Could she really have emerged unscathed?
I’m not saying Emma is in danger, don’t worry, the black goat reassured, shaking its head. That bandaged woman has one of the best survival abilities in the entire Cleansing Bureau. Even if you were dead, she wouldn’t necessarily die.
Leon’s tense soul seemed to settle slightly, but the black goat continued with a deeper frown: What I mean is… this whole situation doesn’t feel right. That out-of-control Contaminated Individual is almost certainly not a ‘natural’ occurrence. He probably knows about the Cleansing Bureau.
Now that you mention it... it really seems like it! Leon’s face darkened further as the black goat’s words sank in, and he also started to realise something was off.
The situation did feel too deliberate. The hospital only gained its soul the moment the bandaged woman stepped inside. Then, just as she was pulling Anna out of the window, completely unable to evade, the collision struck the ICU ward perfectly. Everything was too precise, as though someone had deliberately set a trap targeting the bandaged woman.
So… does that mean there might be accomplices? That staying outside isn’t necessarily safe for me either?
Watching as Anna was carefully untied from the curtain and carried off by the nurse who had been saved first, Leon took a deep breath, forcing himself to suppress the fear urging him to flee. Instead, he focused on searching for traces of the soul of the Contaminated Individual while gritting his teeth and asking, Does the Cleansing Bureau… Do we have enemies?
Too many to count, the black goat replied with a smirk.
Demons, corrupted gods, contaminated individual, prehistoric civilizations, and ancient moon creatures. The Cleansing Bureau has no shortage of mortal enemies! If all of them ever joined forces, even if your Bureau were ten times stronger, you’d all be wiped out!
The black goat’s tone grew more serious: Fortunately, they’re not united. In fact, their hatred for each other is often greater than their hatred for your bureau. Whenever one side looks like it’s gaining the upper hand, another will step in to sabotage them—or even sell their weaknesses to the Cleansing Bureau outright. For now, at least, you’re relatively safe.
Seeing Leon’s increasingly grim expression, the black goat chuckled: Relax. These aren’t concerns for someone at your level to worry about. Just focus on your job! As for Emma, she’s a veteran of the Bureau. She’s already figured out that something’s off about this situation. All you need to do is track the souls, and when it’s time to act, take the shot without hesitation!
---
Sure enough, something is indeed amiss with the Contaminated Individual this time.
Even before the black goat felt it, Emma—the bandaged woman—had realized something was wrong. The moment the bolts inexplicably snapped and a metal cabinet came hurtling toward her, her suspicions were confirmed.
From the lobby to the fourth floor, everything had seemed calm. Yet, at the exact moment she was saving Leon’s sister, with no way to dodge, the attack came.
This Contaminated Individual clearly knew about the Cleansing Bureau and understood that ordinary attacks wouldn’t work against its agents. That was why it had waited for such a precise moment to strike.
Even knowing this, Emma didn’t let go or evade. Instead, she stood her ground, silently bracing herself as the collision hit her full force.
The impact was devastating. Her thigh bone bent backward under the pressure, and her entire spine twisted unnaturally. She crumpled onto the slanted windowsill, limp and lifeless.
---
“Is she dead?” At some point, the young nurse who had been clinging to the outer wall and begging for rescue grew eerily calm. Her expression turned indifferent as she assessed Emma’s state.
Emma’s body was a wreck—multiple fractures, unfocused eyes, her chest caved in from the windowsill. Bandages lay scattered around her, and her condition appeared definitively fatal.
Like a bizarre lizard, the nurse climbed upward along the wall and slipped inside through the window. She approached Emma’s body, using her mangled, bloody right hand to remove the mask from Emma’s face and check for breath.
“She’s indeed dead.” Disgusted, the nurse tossed the bloodstained Night Crow Mask aside and turned to leave. However, she paused, noticing that even in death, Emma’s hand remained tightly gripping the curtain. Her knuckles were white, refusing to let go.
“How pointless. With her physical strength, she wouldn’t have died even if she jumped outright. And yet she didn’t even try to dodge…”
Sneering, the nurse glanced downward, spotting the older nurse freeing Anna from the curtain. Picking up a large shard of glass from the windowsill, she prepared to hurl it downward—
“Ah, so it was you.” A calm voice interrupted her from behind.
The young nurse turned in horror to see Emma standing, her bandages writhing like living snakes. They coiled around her limbs, twisting her joints in unnatural directions.
“CRACK!”
“AAAAHHHH!!!”
Watching the nurse’s mangled form, now bound into a ball of contorted limbs, Emma shook her head. “For someone capable of setting a trap for me, you had potential. But your execution? Still far too crude.”
Reaching out to push against the corner cabinet with force, the woman wrapped in bandages hurled the heavy obstacle aside and slowly stood up. She began methodically resetting her dislocated bones one by one.
Even the dent in her chest caused by slamming into the windowsill gradually inflated back to normal as she breathed steadily. If not for the blood-soaked bandages, she would appear entirely unharmed.
“Hey, they chose to escape through the window because you guided them, didn’t you? The plan wasn’t terrible, but there were way too many flaws,” she said calmly.
Squatting beside the nurse tied up in a ball and pulling off the bandage covering her mouth, the bandaged woman asked with a placid expression: “For someone who exposed themselves so easily, you don’t seem smart enough to have orchestrated this kind of elaborate trap. Someone must’ve taught you what to do. Be honest, you brainless fool. If you don’t want to suffer, then tell me who’s behind you.”
“Heh... hahaha!” The young nurse gasped for breath, her face contorted with rage. Staring directly at the bandaged woman, she spat venomously: “You’re the fool! Don’t think you’ve caught me yet. This woman is just a puppet under my control. You’re finished!”
As if to prove her words, the nurse’s expression abruptly shifted. Confusion flickered across her face as she seemed to realize she was tied up. The searing pain in her limbs dawned on her a moment later, and she let out half a scream before fainting from the agony.
Was this the wrong person?
The bandaged woman frowned. Just as she was about to test whether the young nurse was faking unconsciousness, heavy footsteps suddenly echoed from outside the intensive care ward.
“Do you believe me now?” Walking through the scattered bodies of patients, the chubby head physician who had arranged for Anna to stay in the ward stopped outside the door. Smirking, he said: “Everyone in this hospital is my tool! I can manipulate them however I want! You don’t even know who I am, so there’s no way you can catch me. Oh, and you might want to look down at your feet, you stupid woman.”
Pointing at the bandaged woman’s legs, which were now sinking into the floor, the “chubby head physician” smugly lifted his layered chin and continued: “Beyond controlling this hospital, my real power is devouring the infected! Within the confines of this building, anyone infected can no longer resist being consumed by the hospital.
“Understand? The only reason I didn’t act against you earlier was because you were wearing that mask. But now it’s gone! You’re finished!”
“…” Six years of caution, and now this? Had she really slipped up?
The bandaged woman sighed in frustration as she looked at the laughing, rotund head physician. Half her body was already consumed by the floor, and her immobilized legs made escape impossible.
She could rip this guy to shreds in a second, but as he had said, these people weren’t his true form. Killing them wouldn’t change a thing. She had indeed fallen into his trap this time.
She had gambled on using her near-immortal body to lure him out instead of relying on her bandages to block his powers. But the gamble had failed. She’d not only caught the wrong person but also lost her mask, which had been her key defense against his abilities. What a fool.
Still… part of the reason she took the risk was to garner some pity from that rookie, earning herself a favor for later. But now it seemed she’d have to rely on him for rescue instead. When the chief found out in three days, who knows how much she’d laugh at her?
Shaking her head helplessly, the bandaged woman closed her eyes, too irritated to engage any further. Yet, as if the head physician wasn’t satisfied, he gathered several other doctors and nurses, standing smugly outside the ward to mock her in turn:
“You thought you were smart? You’re the dumbest one here! With over five hundred people under my control, I’ll only grow stronger!
“Hahaha, you wanted to know who’s targeting your bureau?
“I’ll tell you! The one preparing to take you down is a great true god!”
Huh?
Hearing this, the bandaged woman, who had been prepared to stay silent for three days until her teammates arrived, couldn’t help but twitch her eyelids, secretly overjoyed.
This guy is even dumber than I expected!
Not only did he freely disclose the extent of his powers, but he also revealed his backer? If that so-called “true god” knew how idiotic his minion was, he’d probably descend right now to kill him in fury.
Unaware that his intelligence had hit rock bottom in her mind, the “chubby head physician” continued to stand tall, his face feverish with zeal. Raising his arms in a dramatic pose to embrace the sun, he declared with fanaticism:
“Listen well, you foolish woman! My lord was born of the chaos…”
But just as the bandaged woman pricked her ears, ready to capture this vital piece of information, the faces of the dozen doctors and nurses froze simultaneously. As if receiving an unseen command, they all collapsed to the ground at once. Her legs, previously bound to the floor, were suddenly “spat” out.
Looking up in bafflement, the bandaged woman barely registered the piercing sound of a turbulent air current exploding from the mall rooftop across the street.
“Bang!”
---
“Kid, that was a pretty good shot!” Watching the dim, malevolent soul on the hospital’s sixth floor extinguish in an instant, black goat smacked its lips in envy before chuckling in approval: “Nearly three hundred meters, and you got him in one shot. You might just have a knack for firearms!”
A knack for firearms? Leon knew he didn’t have any. The only reason his shot hit was thanks to the bandaged woman arranging his position beforehand, which greatly reduced the difficulty to aim, and a bit of help from his “special assistance.”
Shaking his head silently, Leon glanced at his badge slots. Two badges, flickering with gray-black light, had just dimmed.
The efficiency boost from [Probationary Worker], paired with the accuracy increase from [Shooting Rookie], seemed to create a synergistic effect.
In the instant before he fired, both badges had activated. A subtle instinct guided him to adjust the gun barrel upward by about two millimeters.
That slight adjustment turned what might’ve been a grazing hit into a perfect kill.
As for identifying the target…
“This Contaminated Individual wasn’t exactly a genius,” black goat muttered, stifling laughter. “The idiot didn’t realize that controlling someone makes their soul’s resonance match his exactly.
“If he’d just controlled one person and stopped, it’d have been hard to find him. But no, he had to control person after person, even using them to surround the bandaged woman… uh, Emma, creating a bunch of identical soul ripples. Way too obvious.’
Leon added, lips twitching with faint amusement: “Once we found those matching soul ripples, the only one who hadn’t gone to the fourth floor was clearly the Contaminated Individual… By the way, you mentioned the bureau tracks performance?”
“Oh, absolutely! And there are extra perks.” The black goat nodded enthusiastically, so much so that if it had a body, it might’ve raised a thumbs-up.
“You’ve been on the job for just three hours, but under my guidance, you’ve already located and eliminated a Contaminated Individual, rescuing a senior agent in the process. The rewards will definitely be substantial!
“And, haha! With how smoothly this mission went, even if that red-haired woman is a total piece of work, she’s gotta treat us a little better now, right?”
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