Chapter 111: Enforcer, Nothing More

Cold Rain Street.

"Mom, Mom...?"

A girl, covered in blood, walked slowly forward, leaning against the wall. Her left leg was unnaturally twisted. Her eyes scanned the dead silent, thick fog, and her face was filled with fear and despair.

A strange hiss echoed from the front of the street. The girl's face immediately turned pale as she huddled against the wall, her body trembling uncontrollably.

Just then, a hand gently patted her shoulder.

The girl gasped, instinctively recoiling forward. She looked up in terror to find that behind her was not a monster, but a young man in a black trench coat.

"Little one, what's wrong?" Xi Renjie forced a gentle smile onto his pale face.

Perhaps because of that smile, some of the fear on the girl's face dissipated, and she whispered:

"I... I got separated from my mom."

Xi Renjie looked around. On the foggy street, not a single person could be seen.

"When did you get separated?"

"Just now..."

"Which way did she go?"

The girl stretched out her hand, pointing towards the deserted street ahead.

Xi Renjie sighed and bent down. "I'll take you to find her, okay?"

The girl nodded. Xi Renjie carried her on his back, one hand gripping a blood-stained steel sword, and trudged into the thick fog.

After several hours of searching and fighting, Xi Renjie's body was nearing its limit. But he couldn't rest yet; with Han Meng gone, he was the pillar of District Three. He absolutely could not fall before all streets were cleared.

Xi Renjie slowly walked on, carrying the girl. The shopfronts on both sides of the street were covered in bloodstains, and mutilated corpses were exposed to the air, their blood already dried...

"What's your name?" Xi Renjie suddenly asked.

"Xiao Qi."

"Xiao Qi, close your eyes first. Will you open them again when I find your mom?"

"Okay." The girl obediently closed her eyes.

Xi Renjie walked through the silent streets. After walking for over ten minutes, a series of clamorous sounds came from a distance.

Someone else!

Xi Renjie immediately quickened his pace.

As he got closer to the noise, he saw inside a house on the street corner, a group of people gathered around a mangled body, anxiously discussing something.

"I told you he can't be saved... Let's go!"

"Yeah, if we don't leave now, those things will chase us again!"

"But he's still alive! We can't just leave him here. He just saved our lives!"

"I think running further out is more dangerous. Maybe staying inside the house is safest."

There were about six or seven people in the house, their faces covered in dust and blood, as if they had been fleeing from other streets. At that moment, two or three people were surrounding a severely injured man, urgently bandaging him.

Hearing their voices, Xiao Qi, who was on Xi Renjie's back, suddenly opened her eyes and cried out in surprise:

"Mom!"

Everyone inside the house turned their heads simultaneously.

They saw Xi Renjie in his black trench coat outside the door and froze. Then, one middle-aged woman abruptly stood up and anxiously ran towards the door.

"Xiao Qi!! Where did you go? Mom has been looking for you for so long..."

"Stop!"

Xi Renjie's low growl suddenly echoed.

This shout immediately startled everyone inside. The middle-aged woman, who was halfway to the door, also stopped, her gaze at him filled with confusion.

Xi Renjie grabbed Xiao Qi's arm just as she was about to jump off his back, protecting her as he retreated step by step. He clutched his steel sword tightly, his gaze fixed on the people inside the house. Enveloped by the thick fog, their shadows writhed in the darkness.

This group of people had all been targeted by the calamity.

"Mom..." Xiao Qi reached out towards her mother, but could only get further and further away. Her eyes were filled with confusion.

"Officer, what do you mean by this?"

The middle-aged woman frowned, anxiously wanting to get her child back. But Xi Renjie, with a swift motion, opened the door of the house across the street, pushed the little girl inside, and locked the door from the outside.

"Mom!"

Swish—

The moment the middle-aged woman stepped half a pace out of the door, dark shadows suddenly surged out of the house. In the confined space, they instantly pounced on the nearby figures. In an instant, screams and the sounds of flesh tearing wildly intertwined!

Seeing this, Xi Renjie's eyes turned bloodshot. His body, stained with a black hue like steel armor, rushed into the house without hesitation, holding his steel sword!

He tried to save the middle-aged woman closest to him, but by the time he brought his sword down on the shadow centipede, most of the woman's head had already been bitten off. Even though Xi Renjie maimed the shadow centipede with one strike, it was impossible to save her life.

The bloody massacre was completed in an instant. All the centipedes rapidly crawled along the walls, completely blocking the doorway. The figure in the black trench coat was trapped inside the narrow room, surrounded by crawling centipede legs from all directions.

Xi Renjie clutched the hilt of his steel sword tightly. He took a deep breath, and the sword's blade was tinged with the same black color as his body, a cold aura emanating around him.

After such a long battle, his stamina had long since reached its limit. But now that it had come to this, he absolutely could not retreat...

Eight shadow centipedes, close at hand, surged forward simultaneously. In that instant, Xi Renjie's steel sword sliced an arc around him. A razor-thin black line swept out from the sword's tip, cutting the three closest centipedes in half with a single strike!

As Xi Renjie tried to dodge, two centipedes had already bitten into his shoulder. At such close range, he had no room to maneuver or dodge.

At the same time, the remaining centipedes swarmed him, enveloping him like a writhing black ball. They bit into Xi Renjie's body; even though most of his skin was covered in black and hardened like steel, small areas were still gnawed at, and crimson blood stained his trench coat...

Xi Renjie's eyes were wide open. Just as he prepared for a desperate fight, a figure, like a fluttering red butterfly, lightly landed outside the door.

At this moment, all the shadow centipedes stopped moving. They simultaneously turned their heads to look outside. In the swirling thick fog, a figure held seasonings in their left hand and a blazing torch in their right, looking into the house with narrowed eyes.

"Who?!" Xi Renjie instinctively asked.

Chen Ling casually twirled the torch in his hand as if making a sword flower, and chuckled softly. "Law enforcer, you're nothing special."

As his words fell, he vanished outside the door in a flash. Simultaneously, the shadow centipedes clinging to Xi Renjie went wild, scrambling out of the room through doors and windows, chasing after the rapidly departing trail of flames!