Today, they too are going to their deaths.

Cui Xun stood outside the railing of the rooftop, with a concrete overhang half a hand's width beneath his feet.

A safety rope was attached to his lower back, with the end of the rope fastened to the rusty railing behind him.

When the wind blew, his body swayed, and the rope taut, making a faint creaking sound, like the sound of some dying animal squeezing something out of its throat.

Cui Xun ignored him, he just kept his head down and carefully observed his target.

Looking down from this height, the road surface shines brightly under the lights of the office buildings on both sides, like a black ribbon soaked in oil.

The intersection he was watching was sparsely trafficked at the moment, with only a few late-night private cars crossing the zebra crossing, their taillights leaving two dark red streaks before being swallowed up by the green light at the next intersection.

That place was no different from any other intersection in the city, except that in ten minutes a black Chiron Seychelles truck carrying cult leaders would drive through that intersection.

It was a super luxury car made of carbon titanium alloy, combining lightness, sturdiness, and coolness with the money Cui Xun couldn't earn in his entire life. It was as if "I'm super rich, idiots get out of the way, beauties come in" was blatantly printed on the car body.

But Cui Xun decided to blow up the car.

To this end, he began preparations a week in advance, hacking into nearby surveillance cameras, comparing the cult's activity process and the behavior of its leaders over the years, and finally, three days ago, he determined the inevitable route of the vehicle, used equipment he had taken from the laboratory to cut open the road, and buried the explosives he had synthesized himself.

Nearly forty kilograms of liquid high-energy explosives and three miniature detonators were pressed against the road surface, while the remote control that set them ablaze was quietly in Cui Xun's pocket.

Cui Xun had repeatedly rehearsed the details of the explosion in his mind.

Because of the speed limit, that Chiron Saike will pass through this area at 40 kilometers per hour.

Based on his explosive charge, he has a golden opportunity of about 15 meters, or 1.35 seconds.

If the operation is carried out at the right time, the high-energy explosives will detonate the fuel tank after ripping up the road surface. The high-temperature gases and shrapnel will tear the luxury car to shreds, leaving only flames and wreckage.

Perhaps some poison gas will remain?

In short, no one made it out alive.

Cui Xun glanced down at his watch.

With five minutes and twenty seconds left in the countdown, enough time to smoke another cigarette, he neither smoked nor drank alcohol, and even when seeing someone off, he didn't touch a drop.

Not to mention that he used painkillers and stimulants to prepare for what he was about to do, and the scoundrel would kill him even faster than the cultists could retaliate.

Cui Xun had made thorough preparations for this attack; if the remote detonation failed, he would take matters into his own hands.

Gliding cloak, electromagnetic crossbow, explosive arrows, pneumatic grappling hook gun, second explosive charge... These items weighed nearly twenty kilograms in total, heavy but did not hinder his movements in the slightest.

He tried it; as long as he loosened the safety rope and stomped hard on the wall, he could spread his cloak and glide lightly through the sky.

In the worst-case scenario—the remote control malfunctions, the vehicle doesn't follow the planned route, or there are unexpected security measures—he would switch from gliding to diving, land at the second intersection the vehicle would inevitably pass, use the electromagnetic crossbow to take out the bodyguard, use the grappling hook to close the distance, then stuff the second explosive charge into the target vehicle, pull the fuse, and that's it.

Cui Xun didn't mind handling it personally. Or rather, he never considered "handling it personally" as an alternative from the beginning.

This is the romance of revenge—you can't just stand at a distance, press a button, and tell yourself it has nothing to do with you.

You must get close enough to see your enemy's face, and close enough for them to see you, to deeply etch your image into their minds, to make them regret and beg for mercy, to make them display their ugliest side, and then kill them without hesitation.

Otherwise, it wouldn't be revenge, at least not the kind of revenge that Cui Xun could accept.

The wind suddenly changed direction, and Cui Xun squinted.

The ambush site is still quiet. Traffic is sparse and the streetlights are on, but in a few minutes, it will be engulfed in flames.

Firefighters, paramedics, and police will arrive within fifteen minutes, set up a cordon, and retrieve incomplete parts from the deformed vehicle.

The news will report it, social media will explode, some will applaud, some will condemn terrorism, and some will delete their browsing history on a certain cult forum overnight.

The mentally challenged professor would denounce himself for not knowing the terrorist, his classmates would talk about the taciturn, crazy foreign youth as a topic of conversation, and his stingy landlord might advertise his house as a celebrity residence, setting a ticket price high enough to empty the credit card of a rock 'n' roll idiot.

Cui Xun had thought about all of this, and he was also very clear about the pursuit he might face afterward.

The gliding cloak could help him escape the scene, but the city's surveillance cameras were as dense as pores, and his facial features, body data, and movement trajectory would eventually be pieced together.

He'd either be caught or die in some alley. He didn't particularly prefer either outcome, but if he could, he'd probably take the opportunity to kill a few more people who deserved to die.

Politicians? Gangs? More cult members?

Anyway.

Cui Xun had no ties to anyone. His parents had long since passed away, and his family ties were so distant that they didn't even bother to check his name when sending New Year's greetings to everyone.

No mortgage, no car loan, no girlfriend, not even close online friends, and he doesn't even own a dog like some famous senior.

In his phone's contact list, apart from deliverymen, couriers, and his tutor's nonsense, there was only one other person in the last three months of calls.

That person is no longer here.

Cui Xun is not the kind of person who dwells on pain repeatedly.

He didn't toss and turn every night, unable to sleep, recalling the details before his friend's disappearance. He didn't unfold those memories like old photographs and rub them repeatedly. Nor did he stand at the door for a long time on the day his friend's rented house was sealed off.

He simply pinpointed the reason for his friend's disappearance, located the local stronghold of the cult known as the Snake Worshippers, then investigated their beliefs, modus operandi, and social influence, obtained explosives and equipment, and prepared for the attack.

For more than a month, he didn't tell anyone about it, didn't write a suicide note, and didn't post any suggestive messages on social media.

He ate, slept, and did his research as usual, and he thanked the cashier as usual when buying discounted items.

The only change was that he stopped paying attention to forums that discussed urban legends.

Four minutes left in the countdown.

Cui Xun checked the equipment one last time.

At this moment, the slow-moving traffic was still flowing into the night sky.

Some of the people sitting in the cars were listening to the radio, some were cursing the traffic, and some were thinking about what to eat tonight, which client to meet tomorrow, and where to take the kids to play on the weekend.

Cui Xun once felt that there was something between him and these people.

It's not a sense of superiority, nor a sense of alienation; it's more like a disagreement about direction.

They all have places to go, homes to return to, and specific reasons why they must live.

He did not.

He lived for twenty-two years and never found anything worth dying for, nor anything that made him feel he "had to live to continue doing."

Neither.

Cui Xun felt that he was like a piece of wood thrown into the river, drifting with the current, neither sinking to the bottom nor reaching the shore, occasionally hitting a rock and then changing direction to continue drifting.

Until he met Wang Yu.

They met in a university lab, but their most frequent social activity was turning their inspirations into reality in a rented studio.

He studied data engineering, and Wang Yu studied aerodynamics, but in reality, they were both interdisciplinary geniuses with one inspiration after another. The prototype of that gliding cape was something they had tinkered with not long ago.

Wang Yu talks a lot, which is the exact opposite of him.

Wang Yu would suddenly stand up during an all-nighter, holding a cup of ice-cold instant coffee, and give a speech to the empty room. His speech ranged from room temperature superconductivity to human immortality, from extraterrestrial civilizations to the unknown ecosystem beneath the ice layer of Europa. He spoke rapidly, made exaggerated gestures, and didn't even bother to wipe up the coffee that spilled on the floor.

"You know what," Wang Yu once said, it was 2:40 a.m., and the two of them had been working for sixteen hours straight in their rented studio, but they were still as excited as they had been at the beginning, "Every man has two things in his bones. First, to die a glorious death for a noble ideal. Second, to fall asleep peacefully in the arms of his lover."

He was squatting on the ground checking the connections of the various parts, without even looking up: "You're talking about yourself, aren't you?"

"No, I'm talking about what's etched into the genes of human men." Wang Yu propped his feet up on the worktable, reclining his chair at a precarious angle. "Look at history, look at mythology, look at all the great stories. There are only two possible endings for men: either they die on the battlefield, or they die in the arms of their lovers. No other way to die is dignified."

"What if they die from illness?"

"shameful."

"And then die of old age?"

"That's called barely surviving."

He stood up, dusted off his knees, and pressed, "So, which one do you plan to choose?"

Wang Yu put the chair leg back on the ground with a bang.

He tilted his head and thought for a moment, then grinned, a smile that carried the excitement of staying up all night and a strange seriousness.

"I want both. And I also want to build a secret base in Antarctica, a real underground base, dug out of the ice. It will have a whole set of laboratories and living quarters, heated by geothermal energy, powered by a small nuclear reactor, and communicated via encrypted satellite links."

"Then we'll be there—you, me, and a few like-minded people—like a mysterious organization in a story, researching things that can truly change the world. Not the kind of research that leads to publishing papers and getting promotions, but research that can truly determine the future of humanity."

"The day the fate of the entire world hangs by a thread, we will issue a coded command from Antarctica, and everyone—all countries, all governments, all powers—must do as we say. Then we will sit in front of the observation window of the base, drinking hot cocoa, watching the aurora, and deciding the future of humanity with a few words."

He was silent for a moment, then questioned, "That base has observation windows? Inside the ice?"

"This is just an image!" Wang Yu slammed his hand on the table. "Don't worry about the technical details."

He continued, "You just said you wanted to study things that could truly change the world, and now you're telling me not to worry about the technical details."

Wang Yu slumped back down, rolling his eyes: "Your personality is really awful, you know that."

Cui Xun did not refute.

His personality is indeed unlikable, and he knows it himself.

He is not proactive, not enthusiastic, and not good at maintaining any social relationship for more than three months. He always gives his own unique answer after thinking about it, like an old computer with too high latency.

He won't laugh along when others tell jokes; he'll coldly point out others' mistakes when they're angry; and he'll never tolerate a boss he dislikes asking him to toast.

Wang Yu was one of the few people who could tolerate him. This idiot didn't care about other people's reactions at all, and he talked so much that he could fill every gap in his silence.

Wang Yu had mentioned the Antarctic base more than once, and it eventually became a recurring joke between the two of them.

Every time an experiment fails or a paper is rejected, Wang Yu would lean back in his chair, put his hands behind his head, and say, "It's okay. Once our Antarctic base is built, the editors of these journals will be begging us for manuscripts, but we won't give them any. We'll just watch them cry."

Every time Wang Yu sees news reports of foolish decisions, short-sighted policies, and absurd accidents, he says, "Look, this is the consequence of not having us in control of the situation in Antarctica."

Cui Xun never took those words seriously. He thought they were just the romantic fantasies of an engineering student, like all the ramblings of someone who'd stayed up all night, something that would be metabolized by dawn. But when Wang Yu said those words, the light in his eyes didn't seem fake.

Cui Xun had seen that kind of light in many places—in the eyes of the people waving to the camera from the roof of a polar research station in documentaries, in the eyes of the scientists who announced the discovery of faster-than-light particles at press conferences, and in the eyes of the people who landed on the moon in historical photos.

That's the light that comes when a person finds something worth dedicating their whole life to.

Cui Xun didn't have that kind of light. He just watched Wang Yu's light from the side, feeling that if he got a little closer, he could also feel some of the warmth.

It's like a rogue knight who usually drinks, eats, kills, and abducts women meeting King Arthur, then standing next to his beloved horse, pretending to have learned honor, and thus becoming a great Knight of the Round Table.

Then Wang Yu disappeared.

Wang Yu didn't specifically investigate the matter of cults.

He stumbled upon a "psychological counseling center" that seemed suspicious—a classmate approached him saying that his mother was being held inside and wouldn't be allowed to leave, and that calling the police was useless because his mother had "voluntarily" signed the membership agreement.

Wang Yu has a quirk: he gets itchy to intervene when he sees injustice, especially when someone offers him a favor. It's like a taxi driver talking about politics—it's an instinctive reaction.

He began his investigation, collecting evidence and organizing materials. He then wrote a seventeen-page whistleblower letter, attaching photos, recordings, and bank transfer records, and sent it to three different departments.

As a result, he disappeared.

He didn't come on the first day. He didn't come on the second day either. On the third day, Cui found the house Wang Yu rented and saw that it was sealed off, citing fire safety hazards.

Two minutes left in the countdown.

Cui Xun held the remote control in his palm.

He couldn't find anything worth dying for.

Wang Yu was found, but before he could die in front of the observation window at the Antarctic base, he disappeared in a worthless place.

Cui Xun didn't know what Wang Yu ultimately went through, nor did he need to know. He only needed to know who should be held responsible and make those people pay the price.

This isn't some lofty ideal; it's not even justice. It's just a simple account: debts must be repaid, lives must be repaid—as simple as the most basic law of conservation of energy.

He didn't really want to be sipping hot cocoa and watching the aurora from the observation window at the Antarctic base.

His personality means he'll probably never have a lover in his life, so he can't be expected to find comfort in anyone's arms.

He didn't want to die voluntarily, because voluntarily dying would mean admitting that living is unbearable, and he didn't find living unbearable; he just felt that living was unnecessary.

The difference is subtle, but it is important to him.

He simply doesn't mind spending his entire life doing something.

Sixty seconds left in the countdown.

Cui Xun saw a special spot of light in the traffic in the distance.

Chironsek, that supercar, stood out conspicuously in the night. It sped through the warm-colored streetlights, across the black ribbon-like road, and headed towards his prepared trap at a steady speed of forty kilometers per hour.

Cui Xun held the remote control to his chest, lifted the protective cover with his thumb, and placed his fingertip on the detonation button.

He took a deep breath, the wind filling his lungs, cool and carrying the scent of the city at dusk.

His heartbeat was so slow that he could count the intervals between each beat.

Thirty seconds.

He thought about Wang Yu one last time.

It's not about recalling a specific scene or a particular sentence, but rather a feeling—the studio in the early hours of the morning, the bitterness of instant coffee after it has cooled down, the sound of chair legs dragging on the floor, and the lively atmosphere of someone talking incessantly next to you.

The lively atmosphere made even the humming of the air conditioner seem less noisy.

Five seconds.

Four seconds.

three seconds.

Cui Xun's thumb involuntarily pressed the detonation button.

He wanted to stop the car from moving, then drag the man out himself and kill him like a disgusting, red-eyed stray dog ​​killed by the roadside.

Nothing happened.

two seconds.

He pressed it again.

The ground didn't crack, and flames didn't erupt. Chironsek smoothly rolled over the trap, passed the intersection, and its taillights cast two calm red streaks in the twilight, like someone leisurely turning a page of a book.

So, Cui Xun threw away the remote control.

He no longer had time to think about where things went wrong, nor did he have time to be angry or frustrated.

Chironsek has already left the pre-set kill zone. The vehicle will then arrive at another cult stronghold, which has an underground parking garage, security scanning, and multiple layers of access control, making it almost impossible to get close again.

So he took out the electromagnetic crossbow, turned it on with his thumb, and after it emitted a slight buzzing sound of being energized, he placed the armor-piercing arrow on the track.

Then, he removed the safety rope.

Gravity grabbed him in that instant.

His stomach swelled, his eardrums bulged, and the wind pressure pounded on his face, but he still managed to step on the wall and successfully push himself out.

The cloak unfurled freely in the night sky, transforming into his wings. The wing membranes tightened under the wind pressure, and his descent trajectory was drawn into a smooth arc within half a second.

Then he saw it.

It was as if someone had torn off the curtain of the entire sky in an instant, and the city was turned upside down in front of him.

It is not a metaphorical reversal, nor some kind of optical illusion, but a physical, gravitational, and spatial reversal.

Skyscrapers, residential areas, and commercial plazas were all lifted off the ground, as if uprooted by an unimaginably large hand and suspended upside down above his head.

The building's foundations were exposed, with soil and broken pipes still hanging on the concrete piles. The entrance to the underground parking garage was wide open, and the vehicles parked inside hadn't fallen out, as if they were still firmly held in place by some force.

The streetlights shone down from above, illuminating the zebra crossings, roadside trees, and bus stop signs hanging upside down on the street, but everything was reversed: the tree canopies faced downwards, and the words on the road signs were written upside down.

What should have been the sky is now the ground.

A gray, flat, and featureless expanse of ground stretches out in all directions until it meets the skyline of the inverted city at the horizon, forming a huge, closed semicircle.

Cui Xun flew right in the middle of this semicircle, the wings of his cloak cutting through the air, his body about three hundred meters away from the inverted buildings.

In the current space, he could no longer distinguish which side was up and which side was down.

Then he saw the monster.

It sits in the very center of the upside-down city, coiled around the office buildings, like a sea serpent dwelling in a coral reef, only a thousand times larger.

Its body is long and slender, covered with copper-green scales, but with each breath, the inner silvery-white luster occasionally shines through.

Its tail hangs down, forked into three strands at the end, each strand tipped with a cluster of thorns, swaying slowly in the air like aquatic plants at the bottom of the water.

Most importantly and strangely, there were eight arms on the snake's body.

They extend symmetrically from both sides of its body, each half the length of its body, with joints structured between those of a human arm and the limbs of an insect.

The surface of the arm was also covered with copper-green scales, but dark red soft tissue was visible in the gaps between the scales, constantly contracting and expanding as the arm swung.

Moreover, each elbow joint has an eyeball.

These are not decorative spots or mimicry patterns, but real, living, and rotating eyeballs.

Some were looking to the left, some to the right, some to the upside-down city overhead, some were half-closing their eyes, some had their pupils dilated, and some were blinking slowly, their transparent nictitating membranes stretching across the surface of their eyes, leaving a wet reflection.

Eight arms, eight eyes.

These arms moved through the air as if swimming in the sea, causing the monster's body to rise and fall constantly, as if it could fly away in this absurd place once it was freed from its entanglement.

Cui Xun's brain processed all the information in an instant and then drew a conclusion.

He was going to kill the monster.