Chapter 370 312: Li Kang and Wall Announcements... A Laughable Death

"???" The guards stared at the small sphere, their faces blank with confusion. For a moment, they couldn't process what was happening—they had never seen a sphere like this before!

The small sphere suddenly glowed red and began to BEEP... Then, with an ear-piercing BOOM, it unleashed a blinding light.

Then, the mechanical dogs charged.

Clearly, the Gatekeepers of this special prison weren't particularly powerful Transcendents. Transcendents were a finite resource, after all. Not to mention, many were already occupied with maintaining order in Jinghai City, while others were specifically assigned to target Chu Bamboo and the union.

Amidst an ear-piercing RAT-A-TAT-TAT, the few Transcendent Gatekeepers who had only been severely wounded by the explosion were gunned down on the spot.

The military-grade drones stood guard at the entrance.

Their frames were too large, making them ill-suited for indoor flight.

A swarm of smaller, civilian drones, working in tandem with the mechanical dogs, began to push inside.

However, there were no other guards inside the prison.

"? What's going on...?"

"??? Someone's breaking in! Damn, what kind of hero is this?"

"Such audacity! This is the first time I've seen a prison break."

Astonished voices echoed from behind the iron doors, but some were ecstatic, frantically banging on the metal. "Get me out! I'll pledge my loyalty to you..."

"I'm—I'm the guy who robbed the Industrial Development Bank! Let me out... I have a huge sum of money."

"My name is Hai! Of the Hai Family! I have a great idea... No matter who you're here to save, you should free all of us! That way, you'll create a diversion and scatter the attention of whoever comes after you..."

Chu Bamboo: "???"

'He remembered this Hai guy, wasn't he...'

'Wait, no, that's not right. Why is the masked robber gang locked up in the Zone Two special prison? Aren't they just ordinary people? And... what do you mean you robbed a bank? Did you even succeed...? And you have a huge sum of money! Who are you kidding?'

'Could it be...' Chu Bamboo realized something, his expression turning extremely complicated. 'Are they planning to forcibly inject these people with Fushui to see if they can be turned into Transcendents? If they die, who cares, and if they live, they get thrown into a nuclear facility?'

'Well... as absurd as it was, it seemed to fit his current impression of the Daqian Dynasty.'

Finally...

Chu Bamboo reached a cell deeper inside. He silently gazed at a middle-aged woman huddled in a corner, targeted by one of the drones. The woman's face showed a hint of panic, but she didn't appear to have been tortured much; her clothes were still intact.

"...Aunt Xu!" Chu Bamboo pursed his lips. This woman was Li Kang's wife, Xu Duoduo.

A mechanical dog suddenly rushed forward. After a few shots, it blasted the lock apart. One of the dogs charged in. Terror filled Xu Duoduo's face, but then she heard the large metal dog in front of her speak. "...It's me."

"???" Xu Duoduo froze, then said cautiously, "Bamboo... Bamboo..."

"Do you know where Uncle Li is now?" Chu Bamboo got straight to the point.

"He should be in... the interrogation room." Xu Duoduo realized this wasn't the place for a long conversation, and her voice grew urgent.

Thoughts raced through Chu Bamboo's mind. His expression grim, he continued to direct the mechanical dogs forward.

Soon...

He burst into the interrogation room.

He saw Wall Announcements, his face filled with terror, locked inside a cage. Strapped to an interrogation table was a man whose body was contorted and covered in fine hair. His muscles were grotesquely twisted, and he occasionally let out sharp roars.

And then there was the interrogator, his face a mask of astonishment, who was in the middle of using a small knife to make cuts on the man's body and collect his blood.

"...You, you people, you!" The interrogator, Hong Gan, felt his mind go blank. The scene before him was simply too surreal: drones and mechanical dogs bursting in, one after another. The dog's eyes glowed red, the machine gun on its back aimed right at him.

He raised his hands in terror. He was just an ordinary... First Realm Body Cultivator. His physical strength certainly surpassed that of a normal person, but that was the extent of it!

"I... I, I! I was secretly collecting Transcendent blood. It's a major crime... Please don't kill me!" Hong Gan's first thought wasn't about a prison break. It was that his own crimes had been discovered!

After all, it was common knowledge that only official organizations controlled large numbers of drones. Still, he had to admit, this direct assault was quite puzzling...

"..." Silently, Chu Bamboo directed a mechanical dog at the doorway to lead Xu Duoduo, who still hadn't entered the interrogation hall, in a different direction.

Xu Duoduo was completely bewildered. She had no idea what was happening, as she hadn't actually entered the interrogation room. Plus, she didn't know the layout of the prison; she only knew her husband had been taken to an interrogation room, so she dazedly followed the mechanical dog...

Once he confirmed Xu Duoduo was out of earshot of the interrogation room, a mechanical dog rushed up to Wall Announcements' cage. Chu Bamboo's calm voice emanated from it. "Is that Uncle Li?"

"...Yes, that's the Captain!" Wall Announcements swallowed hard, a vague realization dawning on him.

"The Captain... he lost control?" Chu Bamboo paused, then skipped the pointless chatter and got straight to the heart of the matter. "When did this happen to him? No... When did he lose control?"

"..." After a brief silence, Wall Announcements's eyes turned red. He felt like crying but knew this wasn't the time. He choked back a sob. "It was... probably not long after we arrived at the prison. Last night? He, he found out his wife had been brought here too... and he just... he just roared! He asked what crime he had committed, and then... then that guy said, 'We'll arrest you if we feel like it!' And then... then... this bastard started bleeding him... He even drank it, right in front of me..."

Wall Announcements's account was a jumbled, incoherent mess.

But Chu Bamboo fell silent. He keenly sensed the implications behind Wall Announcements's words...

'The most important thing was the timing...'

'Last night?' A deep weariness washed over Chu Bamboo's face.

'In other words, he couldn't be saved?'

Suddenly, Chu Bamboo felt the urge to laugh, and a laugh actually escaped his lips. Even he didn't know why his first reaction was to laugh.

'You said you wanted to die on the battlefield! To die protecting the people... But... you lost control?! And you lost control for... for a reason like this...'

'Betrayed by the very Daqian he wanted to protect.'

'The interrogator didn't even bother to give him a pathetic excuse... like saying they were just targeting Chu Bamboo, and he was merely implicated?'

'They just said they'd arrest him because they felt like it?'

'They even dragged his wife into it...'

'And after he lost control... the interrogator actually started secretly drawing his blood! To use as Cultivation Resources...'

'This guy actually knew that Cultivation Resources are the blood of those who've lost control? Right, of course... he's an interrogator in a special prison. Specializing in this industry... he must have heard some inside information! He's just not allowed to spread it around, at most.'

Chu Bamboo suddenly stopped laughing. He murmured, "You would have been better off dying yesterday, dying in my place... I'm the one who lost control!"

Chu Bamboo forced his lips into a tight line, reining in his emotions. He wearily closed his eyes.

It wasn't that Chu Bamboo couldn't accept Li Kang's death. It was as he'd thought before—having been in the dreamscape for so long, even with his Power of Reset, he had witnessed the deaths of many friends...

He simply couldn't accept... that Li Kang would meet this kind of end!

'How could he die like this?'

'To die such a worthless death?!'

Chu Bamboo slapped his cheeks. After several breaths, he slowly opened his eyes again. His gaze had turned chillingly cold. A thousand unspoken words ultimately condensed into a single sentence.

"Nuwa No. 17... kill Hong Gan. Kill this worthless dog that belongs in a museum. Kill that idiotic interrogator." At that moment, every word seemed to be forced through his clenched teeth...

Under Nuwa's control, the mechanical dog abruptly swiveled its gun.

"You, you, you can't kill me..." Hong Gan shrieked, his face contorted in terror. He stumbled backward, fell flat on his butt, and scrambled away on all fours, despair filling his eyes. Even though he still couldn't make sense of the situation... he at least understood what they were about to do...

"Aren't you... Aren't you official Transcendents and Judges? If you kill me... you'll... No, I didn't really do anything! I only did what anyone would do..." But Hong Gan couldn't even finish his plea before a deafening volley of gunfire erupted.

Blood... soaked the walls of the interrogation room.