Doomsday Sequence Highway: Stay away from cities!

The Grim Reaper clone emerged from behind Iron Hammer, moving slowly but with an irresistible sense of oppression with every step.

The human-faced spider also felt that sense of oppression.

Its eight legs stopped at the same time, and its blood-red compound eyes stared at the approaching Death's clone. For the first time, fear appeared on that human face.

"What...what are you?" it asked, its face filled with fear.

The Grim Reaper clone did not answer.

It raised its sickle, moving very slowly, as if someone were slowing down its movements.

But it wasn't really slow; it was more of a feeling that time was distorted.

The black blade sliced ​​through the air without making a sound.

There was no sound of wind, no sound of air being cut, nothing at all.

It's as if that knife cut into the "sound" itself, severing the sound completely.

The spider with the human face tried to get away, but its body wouldn't obey its commands.

Its eight legs seemed to be nailed to the ground, and it couldn't lift them no matter what it did.

It could only watch helplessly as the black scythe came crashing down on its neck.

"Click—"

The scythe struck the spider's neck with a crisp sound.

The human head rolled off the spider's body, bounced twice on the ground, and rolled to the side of the road.

No blood spurted from the severed neck; instead, a thick gray mist billowed out, condensing into a gray flower in the air before slowly dissipating.

The spider-faced body swayed twice, its eight legs drooped limply, and it collapsed to the ground with a "thud".

But its head was still moving.

The face lay in the roadside garbage heap, its mouth opening and closing, still speaking.

"Why...why did you cut off my head? I...I hadn't finished explaining the product to you yet...Our insurance...is really good...high coverage...low premium...comprehensive protection..."

The voice grew softer and softer until it became a faint murmur, the words of which were indistinguishable.

Those blood-red compound eyes slowly lost their luster, turning into two murky gray blobs, like two boiled eggs.

But Chen Bo didn't hear the system notification in his mind.

The spider with the human face is not dead yet.

The Grim Reaper clone gave it no chance to breathe.

It walked up to the head, raised its scythe, and slashed down.

This strike didn't cut off the head, but rather the writhing gray mist beneath it—the life essence of the human-faced spider, its last line of defense as a Sequence 7 monster.

The moment the sickle struck the mist, the whole world fell silent.

The silence was more profound than ever before—there was no wind, no breathing, not even a heartbeat.

Then a sharp screech exploded out.

The sound didn't come from the spider-faced creature's mouth, but from the mist itself. It was like countless voices screaming simultaneously, each screaming differently, but all saying the same thing—

"Buy insurance...buy insurance...buy insurance..."

The mist was split in two by the sickle, like a piece of torn cloth.

The two halves of mist struggled in the air for a while before slowly dissipating, like two wisps of smoke blown away by the wind.

The spider-faced head stopped speaking.

Those cloudy gray eyes closed completely, and his mouth shut as well. The expression on his face changed from anger to peace, as if he had finally accomplished his task at the last moment.

[Ding! Killed a Human-Faced Spider (Sequence 7) x1! Gained Growth Value +20000!]

[First kill of a Sequence 7 Mysterious Being - Bonus Reward: Growth Value +8000!]

Current growth value balance: +17882

Chen Bo looked at the balance on the system panel, his eyes getting a little wet.

Finally, it's no longer a negative number; the loan is finally paid off.

But Chen Bo had no time to be happy, because the hammer malfunctioned.

The Grim Reaper clone vanished, disappearing silently into the air like smoke blown away by the wind.

Iron Hammer's body had returned to normal, but his face was as white as paper, his lips were bloodless, the gray light in his eyes had completely disappeared, and the two ghostly flames deep in his pupils had also been extinguished.

"Iron Hammer!" Fang Lin scrambled up from beside the garbage heap and limped over.

Hammer glanced at her and grinned.

His smile was as innocent as a child's, but paired with his pale face, it made one's heart ache.

The price of summoning a clone of the Grim Reaper must be enormous.

"Sister Fang... I'm a little sleepy..." Tie Chui's voice was very soft, as if it came from a very far place.

Then his knees buckled, and he fell forward.

With a loud thud, the over 200-pound body crashed to the ground, raising a cloud of dust.

"Chen Bo!" Fang Lin shouted, "Come here!"

Chen Bo staggered over and looked down at Tie Chui's face—pale, ashen, like the face of a dead man.

If it weren't for the faint rise and fall of his chest, he would have almost thought Iron Hammer was dead.

"Is the cost of this Sequence 8 skill very high?" Chen Bo asked.

"For someone at Sequence 8, it's practically a life-for-life skill." Fang Lin's voice was cold, and her hands were trembling.

"Can he still live?" Chen Bo asked.

"Go back soon. With Ruoxue there, you can survive!" Fang Lin replied.

She took a roll of bandage out of her pocket and began to bandage the wound on the hammer.

Her movements were very skilled, but her hands kept shaking, and she couldn't wrap the bandage properly even after wrapping it several times.

Chen Bo took the bandage from her and helped her wrap it.

His right arm was still bleeding, and his left hand wasn't working very well either, but he bandaged it faster than Fang Lin.

He quickly bandaged up the main wounds on Iron Hammer's body. Although the bandages didn't look very nice, at least the bleeding stopped.

"How are you?" Fang Lin asked, looking at him.

Chen Bo looked down at himself.

The wound on my right forearm reopened, and blood seeped through the cloth strip, staining the entire sleeve red.

The old wound on my left shoulder was also bleeding, leaving a large dark red stain on my clothes.

The pants below the right knee were badly torn, the skin was peeling and covered in dust and gravel.

"I won't die," Chen Bo said.

Fang Lin picked up the silver light gun from the ground and handed it to Chen Bo.

Chen Bo took it, and the gun shuddered, evaporating the remaining black bloodstains and revealing its original silver-white color.

"Where's your shield?" Fang Lin asked.

Chen Bo glanced down at the Watcher's Shield hanging at his waist—it was palm-sized, dark, and the light spot on the palm pattern on its surface had dimmed, as if it had run out of energy.

Fang Lin turned to look at the corpse of the human-faced spider.

The enormous spider's body lay on the ground, its eight legs curled up like a crushed crab.

The human head rolled to the side of the road, its face serene, with even a slight smile on its lips.

"What do you think it was thinking when it died?" Fang Lin suddenly asked.

Chen Bo thought for a moment: "Probably because—we finally don't have to sell insurance anymore."

Fang Lin sighed softly.

Chen Bo glanced at her; her face was covered in bloodstains, and the wound on her left cheek stretched from her cheekbone all the way to her chin, with the flesh torn up, making it look horrifying.

"Let's go." Fang Lin stood up, supporting her lower back. "It's getting dark."

Chen Bo looked up at the sky.

The sun was already close to the horizon, and its hazy light tinged the whole world with a dull orange hue.

On the horizon, a dark red hue is slowly creeping upwards.

The red moon is about to rise.

Chen Bo staggered over to the corpse of the human-faced spider, his eyes lighting up.

Ma Fendou has a pretty high drop rate.