My whole family was brutally murdered? I awakened the thug system and went on a killing spree.

He unleashed a flurry of punches with his right fist into Qin Meng's temples, back of the head, and cervical spine.

Each punch carries with it a high-intensity, high-dimensional shockwave.

Qin Meng's head was knocked so hard it swayed left and right, and blood from his nose sprayed all over Ji Wudao.

The left eardrum ruptured, and a large black spot appeared on the retina—the optic nerve was being damaged.

The system panel is flashing red.

[Warning: Brain tissue damage reaches 17%, nerve signal transmission efficiency decreases by 41%. Immediate disengagement is recommended.]

Qin Meng's answer was to grit his teeth and clench his fingers even tighter.

He ignored the warnings on the panel.

"You...you're insane!" Ji Wudao's fist slammed into Qin Meng's skull.

The skull crack widened, and cerebrospinal fluid seeped out from the crack, instantly evaporating into white smoke due to the high temperature on the body surface.

Has Qin Meng gone mad?

No, he's betting on a time difference.

The antimatter furnace devoured the crystal skeleton very quickly, but Ji Wudao's reorganization and repair speed was not slow either. The crystal on his left wrist was being devoured while it was reorganizing.

The key variable is the information core.

The information core is the key to reorganization. If the antimatter furnace consumes the information core first, the reorganization will stop.

The crystal layer is less than two centimeters away from the information core.

Ji Wudao was also aware of this, so his attacks became frenzied, no longer aiming at weaknesses, but instead turning into all-around high-dimensional energy explosions.

The entire crystal framework began to glow, releasing waves of destructive, regular pulses.

These pulses did not distinguish between friend and foe; even Ji Wudao's own crystal framework showed fine cracks during the pulses.

Qin Meng's skin cracked, healed, and then cracked again under the pulse impact.

The antimatter furnace was simultaneously devouring crystals and enduring massive bombardment of regular pulses.

Overload.

The antimatter furnace generated unprecedented high temperatures.

Qin Meng's stomach wall temperature soared to a dangerous level.

[WARNING: The antimatter furnace is overloaded. Core temperature is approaching physical limits. Continued operation will result in irreversible organ meltdown.]

One centimeter.

Ji Wudao's right fist pierced through Qin Meng's left shoulder. The entire arm was temporarily paralyzed by the high-dimensional shockwave.

But Qin Meng's right hand was still tightly gripping his left wrist.

Five millimeters.

Ji Wudao let out a shriek devoid of human emotion, draining all the energy reserves of the crystal skeleton at once and pouring it into his right palm, which he then slammed towards Qin Meng's crown.

That slap landed squarely.

Qin Meng's skull was cracked into a spiderweb pattern.

Cerebrospinal fluid and blood gushed out along the fissure. Vision went completely black. Hearing disappeared. Touch remained.

He could see nothing and hear nothing.

But the five fingers on his right hand are still there.

My fingertips felt a tiny, hard particle that emitted an unusual vibration frequency.

Information core.

Qin Meng's last conscious thought was concentrated on his right index finger and thumb.

Two fingers together.

Pinch it.

The antimatter furnace concentrates the last five percent of its power onto the skin at your fingertips.

Swallow.

A high-dimensional information node, smaller than the tip of a pin, was torn apart, decomposed, and annihilated by an antimatter furnace.

Ji Wudao's shriek abruptly stopped.

The black crystal skeleton remained frozen in mid-air for 0.5 seconds.

Then, from the core outwards, it shatters layer by layer like dominoes.

There was no explosion, no light.

Only the soft cracking sound could be heard.

Black crystalline powder scattered across the sky above the capital, where it was blown away by the wind and turned into wisps of black smoke, dissipating in the dawn light.

Ji Wudao.

The God of War in the Capital.

The highest holder of the human superhuman system.

died.

Qin Meng fell from a height of two thousand meters.

He didn't slip, didn't slow down, and his legs were out of control.

The body rotates freely during the fall.

The shattered skull is slowly repairing itself under the influence of advanced immortality, but at a rate far below normal – calorie reserves are almost depleted, and the nutrients needed for repair are severely insufficient.

"Bang--!"

Qin Meng crashed onto the streets of the capital. The ground sank into a crater fifteen meters deep.

At the bottom of the pit, Qin Meng lay on his back.

His left arm has not yet regained sensation, and the crack in his skull has mostly healed, but the microscopic damage to his brain tissue will take at least three days to fully repair.

The pads of his right index finger and thumb were burned through by the overloaded high temperature of the antimatter furnace, revealing dark golden bones.

My vision is slowly recovering, and blurry light is leaking down from above.

The system panel displays settlement information.

[Slayed Transcendent Realm martial artist Ji Wudao. Gained 1.2 million Violence Points.]

[Absorbed extraordinary crystalline matter. Physique +45.]

Current physical condition: 1300.

[Life level assessment in progress... Assessment complete. Sixth leap not triggered. Physical reserves insufficient.]

Qin Meng lay at the bottom of the pit, looking at these numbers.

One million two hundred thousand Violence Points, forty-five points of Physique.

It was earned through a concussion, three broken ribs, a fractured skull, nerve damage in the left arm, and an overloaded antimatter furnace.

Did you make a profit?

He wasn't sure.

But at least Ji Wudao is dead, and that's enough.

Qin Meng tried to sit up. The moment his abdominal muscles engaged, a dull, tearing pain shot through the broken ribs.

He gritted his teeth, used his right hand to support himself on the ground, and slowly straightened his upper body.

A ring of heads appeared around the edge of the pit.

They were not enemies, but ordinary residents of the capital.

After the battle, the passageways in the refuge area were loosened by the shockwave, and some brave citizens crawled out. They saw the scattered black powder. They saw the collapsed Martial God Tower. They saw the steaming crater in the ground.

And there's that man covered in blood at the bottom of the pit.

No one speaks.

Qin Meng looked up and met the gaze of a boy who looked about seven or eight years old.

The boy stared intently at him, his mouth slightly agape. He clutched a bag of potato chips he'd somehow found.

Qin Meng stared at the bag of potato chips and licked his chapped lips.

"Little brat," his voice was hoarse like sandpaper scraping metal, "what flavor are those potato chips?"

The boy paused for two seconds.

"Tomato flavor..."

"Throw it down."

The boy threw the potato chips into the hole.

Qin Meng caught it with one hand, tore open the packaging bag, and poured all the crushed potato chips into his mouth.

The antimatter furnace is operating at a snail's pace. Even potato chips are being converted into calories, though the amount is practically negligible.

A stomach at 10,000 degrees Celsius is digesting a bag of tomato-flavored potato chips.

Qin Meng chewed twice and swallowed.

Delicious my foot!

But it's better than an empty stomach.

He gripped the pit wall with his right hand and slowly climbed up.

The onlookers automatically made way for him, and no one dared to come within three meters—the residual heat on his body was still evaporating the moisture in the air.

Qin Meng stood on the ruins of the capital city, looking around.

The Martial God Tower was reduced to a pile of dark gold scrap metal scattered across more than a dozen city blocks.

Fragments of the Taiji particle barrier continued to fall, like an unusual white snowflake. A large gap appeared in the distant natural barrier, and broken carbon nanotubes wailed in the wind.

He yawned.

Sleepy.

One side effect of brain damage is extreme drowsiness, as the body forces the patient into a state of rest in order to repair the nerves.