We offered you a summer job, but you went and became a mercenary?

Dragon Kingdom, capital city, underground command center.

When the last photo was sent back, the entire command center erupted in a thunderous cheer that could have lifted the roof off!

"We won! We won!"

"My God! He single-handedly wiped out an army of ten thousand!"

The intelligence chief was so excited that he hugged the staff officer next to him. The two old men, who were nearly a hundred years old combined, jumped and danced like children.

Commander Li stood there, watching the figure on the screen, driving a beat-up jeep, gradually disappearing into the distance under the rising sun.

His weathered face was full of smiles.

"A true national hero!"

He turned around abruptly, his voice hoarse with excitement, yet carrying an unprecedented sense of pride and determination.

"From today onwards, raise Lin Ye's security level to the highest level! He is our Dragon Nation's walking nuclear weapon! Our ultimate trump card to deter global powers!"

Inside a temporary command vehicle 100 kilometers away from Arkham.

Su Qingqing covered her mouth tightly to keep herself from crying out loud.

Her face was already covered in tears.

It wasn't fear, nor lingering dread, but a profound sense of awe and reverence that came from the depths of my soul.

She stared at the figure on the screen, humming an off-key song and driving a beat-up car, a strange light gleaming in her beautiful eyes.

······

The jeep drove for another hour or so on the desert highway.

Lin Ye finally saw the outline of the city in the distance, and his mood became increasingly pleasant.

He even started planning whether to go back and have a proper meal of Lanzhou noodles or spend the whole night playing League of Legends at an internet cafe.

Just as he was happily fantasizing about his future life...

【Ding dong! 】

The phone rang.

Squeak—!!

Lin Ye slammed on the brakes almost reflexively, and the already nearly broken military jeep left two long black tire tracks on the desert highway.

His eyes, which had just been looking rather content as he hummed a tune, suddenly sharpened, and all the muscles in his body tensed up in an instant.

Who's the blind fool again?

He expressionlessly pulled the cracked-screen phone out of his pocket, assuming it was another dark web kill order or a threatening message from some clueless idiot.

However, when he turned on the screen, the expected blood-red warning or encrypted message did not appear.

On the screen, there was only one message from the university.

The pop-up window is titled: [Warm Reminder from Jiangcheng College of Arts and Sciences].

The following line of text:

[Lin Ye, there are only thirty days left until the registration day for new students at Jiangcheng College of Arts and Sciences!]

Lin Ye: "..."

He blinked to make sure he wasn't seeing things because he hadn't slept all night.

The next second, a visible hint of panic appeared on his face, which had remained unfazed by tank bombardment and being surrounded by thousands of people.

Holy crap!

A phrase filled with shock and anxiety escaped his lips: "National essence."

He slapped his thigh suddenly, instantly switching from the mercenary king "Shura" who had slaughtered his way through the Middle East back to a soon-to-be college student who was about to start school but hadn't prepared anything yet.

"I forgot school's starting soon!"

His voice carried a hint of panic that he himself was unaware of.

"I haven't packed my luggage yet! I haven't bought a blanket! I need to buy new washbasins and mosquito nets too! And where did I put my university acceptance letter?!"

"We need to go back and prepare in advance!"

Killing someone is just a matter of beheading them, but being late for the start of school will get you publicly criticized by your counselor!

What if I lose another participation grade and it affects my graduation certificate?

Lin Ye took a deep breath and forced himself to calm down.

One should finish what one starts. This trip was basically a summer job, and with the summer vacation coming to an end, he had to go through the formalities of leaving his job with his boss.

But before that, let's sell off the useless stuff.

He restarted the nearly scrapped jeep, turned it around, and stopped heading towards the city with a proper border crossing.

Two hours later.

In the chaotic black market of Arkham City.

Lin Ye conducted an incredibly efficient clearance sale of the items in the [Temporary Storage Space].

Most of the heavy weapons seized from the Blood Fox Mercenary Group's vault were sold in bulk to a local arms dealer who looked like a villain.

He didn't even bother to appraise the scattered gold bars, diamonds, antiques, and bearer bonds he had looted from several bases of the "Destroy Luo Alliance." He sold them all to a pawnshop with a sign that read "Underground Business Department of UBS" at a price that would make even black market merchants tremble.

Seeing Lin Ye's "I'm in a hurry, you decide how much to pay" attitude, the other party's manager thought he had encountered some incredible bargain and was so excited that his hands were shaking.

He had no idea that what he saw as a "huge sum of money" was nothing more than a burden to Lin Ye.

Ultimately, all the scattered and inconvenient assets were exchanged for a thin Swiss bank black card without any identity information.

After doing all this, Lin Ye felt completely relaxed.

He carried an empty, vintage-looking red, white, and blue striped snakeskin bag and wore blue flip-flops washed clean by the river, standing amidst the endless yellow sand outside Arkham.

In the distance, silhouettes of a chaotic city and the cacophony of voices can be seen.

Before him stretched an endless desert leading eastward.

"I worked for two months during the summer vacation and only earned a little over six thousand."

"I've been working part-time as a mercenary these past few days and have made over a billion US dollars. This summer job has been truly a success."

Lin Ye let out a long sigh of relief, feeling that the past few days had been more fulfilling than the previous eighteen years of his life combined.

He sat on the hood of the Jeep, opened his mobile banking app, and stared at the string of numbers he was too lazy to count. An unprecedented sense of emptiness suddenly welled up in his heart.

It seems I've already made enough money.

He has so much money that if he returned to China now, he could easily buy Jiangcheng College of Arts and Sciences and turn it into his own internet cafe.

How did a rich person achieve this so easily?

Lin Ye scratched his head and muttered to himself, "Never mind, I'll go and resign first."

······

Arkham City.

Official offline intermediary service for the dark web.

This gray building, which usually gathers outlaws from all walks of life and trades countless bloody intelligence, is now a scene of utter devastation.

Expensive Persian carpets were torn to shreds, and antique firearms hanging on the wall were scattered on the floor. The air was thick with the smell of gunpowder and blood.

The owner of the dark web brokerage firm was trembling as he hid under a desk made of a special alloy.

He regretted it.

He shouldn't have flown all the way from Europe to this godforsaken place to visit this legendary Asura.

Who would have thought that no sooner had he arrived than a group of uninvited guests burst through the door!

Outside the door, the elite bodyguards he had hired at great expense, who were touted as retired Navy SEALs, were now letting out mournful screams.

"Pfft! Pfft! Pfft!"

The muffled gunshots rang out continuously; it was the bodyguards firing their MP5s.

Strangely, when the bullets hit the attackers, there was no blood, only dull thuds, as if they were hitting pieces of tough cowhide.

The attackers didn't even flinch!

They wore jet-black combat uniforms and menacing gas masks, obscuring their expressions. They moved as fast as cheetahs and possessed the strength of brown bears.

Just as a bodyguard emptied a magazine and hadn't had time to replace it, a dark figure flashed in front of him.

"Snap!"

The bodyguard's neck was twisted 180 degrees and he collapsed limply to the ground.

"Monsters! They are monsters!"

The bodyguard captain's desperate screams came through the communicator before he died.

The real estate agency owner hid under the table, so terrified that he soiled himself.

"boom!"

Suddenly, the alloy door, strong enough to withstand a grenade, was punched inward by a tall, dark figure, causing the hinges to break and the door to collapse with a thud.

A team leader, over two meters tall and with muscles bulging like a monster, strode in.

His eyes, peering through the lenses of his gas mask, scanned the messy room before finally settling on the trembling desk.

He flipped the table over and, like picking up a chick, dragged the agency owner off the floor.

"Tell me, where is Shura?"

The tall team leader's voice was devoid of any human emotion.