My health recovery is incredibly fast.

Xia Zuo discovered from the blood mark left on Scarface that the other man was running towards the dam. He immediately realized that Ross was leading Scarface closer to the place where pressure-sensitive bombs were buried, in order to use the pressure-sensitive bombs to restrain the enemy.

Xia Zuo immediately controlled Servant No. 6 to fly into the bushes.

Ross was about to be caught by the enemy, and the first thing that struck him was a snake whip rich in venomous parasites.

A crisp crack echoed through the forest.

A huge wound appeared on Ross's back. His armored weapon, reinforced with plates, was as fragile as paper in the face of the dark red serpent whip.

Ross coughed up blood and fell forward to the ground, barely managing to shield himself with the arc gun.

"Snap!" Another lash came, knocking the arc gun in Ross's hand aside and breaking it in two.

"Heh heh..." Scarface panted heavily, letting out a sinister laugh. He gripped the snake whip with both hands, gave it a flick, and then raised his right hand, ready to lash out...

Just then.

About ten meters behind Scarface on the left, in the bushes, Xia Zuo's No. 6 servant had just set up the firing device.

The view was blocked by layers upon layers of bushes.

But it's okay.

Hemoglobin labeling is the best indicator.

He held his breath and entered a shallow meditative state, aiming his gun at Scarface's location through the perspective of Servant Number 6.

"Bang!" A gunshot rang out.

"Pfft!" That was the sound of flesh and blood exploding.

The shot was very effective, hitting Scarface's exposed back!

Take advantage of his illness to kill him!

Xia Zuo pulled the trigger repeatedly.

"Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!" The remaining 5 bullets in the reel were all fired!

"Pfft! Pfft! Pfft! Pfft! Pfft!" A gunshot rang out, followed by the sound of flesh exploding, interspersed with Scarface's screams of pain.

After a short, rapid burst of gunfire, came the sound of heavy objects falling to the ground, crushing bushes and branches.

The message about the cheat system came to Xia Zuo's mind.

But I don't have time to check it right now.

From the perspective of Servant #4, Andrew, who was searching for his companions in the bushes, noticed the gunshots coming from the woods. He assumed that Ross was fighting Scarface with his sidearm and quickened his pace toward the location of the gunshots.

Xia Zuo immediately ordered his servant No. 6 to fold up the firing device and disappear into the depths of the bushes.

When Andrew arrived…

But unexpectedly, it was discovered.

The gunshot came from about ten meters behind Scarface's corpse, while Ross was still under the effects of the bacteriophage.

"Is there a fourth person here?" Andrew gripped his pistol with both hands, looked around, and shouted, "Friend! Thank you for your help!"

It was quiet all around.

Ross lay stiffly on the ground, making gurgling sobs in his throat.

Andrew remained vigilant.

Because he couldn't be sure what the fourth person present was up to, his words just now were merely to show that he had no hostile intentions.

Andrew knelt down next to Ross, took out a vial from his pocket, and forced Ross to drink it.

"Ross, what just happened?" Andrew patted his companion on the shoulder, trying to calm him down.

"Cough cough... cough... Andrew... cough cough... I thought I was going to die... Didn't you save me?" Ross coughed repeatedly, his words aggravating the wound on his back. He stood up with Andrew's help.

"No, it wasn't me. It was too dark in the woods. I came here because I heard gunshots."

As Andrew spoke, he turned Ross away.

He took out a packet of wound powder from his pocket and sprinkled it on the other man's wound to stop the bleeding. Then he took out a spray bottle and sprayed the mist, leaving a layer of wound gel on Ross's back to prevent the injury from worsening.

"Alright, your injuries have stabilized. I'll bandage you again once we get back to the carriage."

"Thanks, Andrew, I feel much better." Ross tried to move his back muscles, feeling a cool, comfortable sensation, without the burning pain.

Andrew put away the spray, looked at the arc gun broken in two on the ground, and then glanced at the bloodied and mangled scar on his back. "Put on your insulated gloves and clean up the arc gun. I'll dig out the bone sac when I get back. I'm going to check the place where the gunshot came from."

“Okay, Andrew.” Ross looked around warily. “What’s that guy trying to do? He saved me but won’t come out.”

“There shouldn’t be any malicious intent.” Andrew put the pistol back in its holster, pointed to Scarface’s back, and raised his voice:

"That was the sound of a revolver. The person fired from more than ten meters away. If you look at the dense bullet impact points, it's not hard to guess that this is a highly skilled, calm, and experienced marksman. I wasn't even confident that I could fire six shots in a row from this distance with a revolver and hit the target every time."

After Andrew finished speaking, he glanced at the bushes again, but still no one came out.

---Aside---

Thanks to Night Whisper, freefeteey, ervya, Diving Monster 9527, Book Addicts Are All Lonely, stand-proud, seriece, Overseas Person, disspator, Little Peanut's Dad, Book Friend 20190528220920352, and pecket for their monthly votes.

Thank you to all the readers who voted for this book.

Chapter 14 Post-War Cleanup

Andrew put the rifle into his alchemy pouch, raised his hands to indicate that he was not carrying a weapon, and slowly walked toward the source of the gunshot.

About three minutes later, he walked back, looking completely bewildered.

Ross rarely saw the other person show such an expression.

He put the damaged arc gun into the metal box, took off his insulated gloves, and asked, "What's wrong? Did you find anything?"

"That's strange..." Andrew muttered, "Was the person who saved you a child?"

He bent down and gestured at his knee. "The bushes there were bent over. Based on the bends, I deduced that a child who was about 30 or 40 centimeters tall fired six bullets from the bushes from a distance of more than ten meters."

Andrew pressed his forehead, a hint of horror creeping over his confused expression. "The most unbelievable thing is... I crouched down in those bushes and looked over. When that guy fired, Scarface's back was obscured by the bushes... So... those six bullets were fired blindly..."

Ross shuddered when he heard his words, also feeling that something was amiss.

"Forget it, let's just ignore him and not try to find out anything." Andrew sighed and decided to stop pursuing the whereabouts of the mysterious fourth person to avoid attracting hostility.

He walked over to the scarred man's body, knelt down, pulled a sharp axe from his waist, and pried open the scarred man's helmet.

"Damn it!" Andrew stared at Scarface's face in astonishment. "This is unbelievable! Isn't this the executioner who slaughtered the collateral branches of the Ossie family? Could this be Scarface's true face?"

Ross crouched down, pulled out a notebook covered in wanted posters, and compared it to the portraits on the pages. "It really is Carpenter! Why is he here? Uh... wait, Andrew, how can you be sure it's Scarface? Isn't Scarface covered in scars? How did he end up like this?"

“This involves classified information about the V-type alchemical bio-armor. You’ll find out later.” Andrew waved his hand, revealing no further details.

He swung his axe, chopped off Scarface's head, placed it on the ground, and then slowly pried open the skull, digging out the bone sac buried inside the brain.

Andrew said with deep emotion, "At least a dozen people died because of this thing the size of a finger bone. Now these tragedies are finally coming to an end."

He took out a metal test tube, inserted the bone sac into it, sealed the test tube with a threaded metal cap, and then hid it in the pocket of his undergarments.

Through the perspective of Servant No. 4, Xia Zuo silently observed the two detectives from the Alien Group and overheard their conversation.

At that moment, a small detail caught my eye.

After Andrew preserved the bone sac with a metal test tube, he put the metal test tube in his clothing pocket, not his alchemy pocket.

Rexol once mentioned that spiritual things are incompatible with storage spaces; they cannot be put into storage spaces, otherwise it will cause the loss of spirituality or abnormalities in the storage space.

Andrew put the bone sac into an ordinary bag, suggesting that the sac possessed a spiritual quality—Andrew himself may not have known this and was simply acting according to common sense.

Nature—Body—Soul—Ocean of Spirit.

This is the process by which a tool enters the spiritual ocean from nature—a concept taught in the basic meditation techniques. (Note 1: Volume 3, Chapter 6.)

The so-called spirituality specifically refers to a certain object that can enter the body from nature and then enter the spiritual ocean through the soul.

Andrew dug the bone sac out of Scarface's head.

So, did this bone sac ever enter Scarface's mental ocean?

Let's assume that before Scarface died, his bone sac was located in his spiritual ocean.

After Scarface died, the bone sac detached from the ocean of consciousness and appeared in his head…

Does this mean the soul resides in the human brain?

Or it could be another situation.

Although the bone sac possessed spirituality, and Scarface donned alchemical armor through a coupling ritual, he did not incorporate the bone sac into the spiritual ocean.

Xia Zuo controlled Servant No. 4 to fly out of Andrew's collar and examine the blood-soaked scarred head up close.

Where the bone sac originally was, there was a noticeable depression, and the surrounding brain tissue was pushed aside by the bone sac.

It's clear that the bone sac had been inside Scarface's head for a long time, which is why it squeezed out brain tissue and created folds and indentations.

Therefore, it is more likely that the bone cyst did not enter the mental ocean of the scarred face.

Xia Zuo nodded thoughtfully and picked up his pen to write down this detail in his notebook.

As he pondered these things, Andrew was squatting beside Scarface's body, wearing gloves, using tweezers to pry open the six revolver bullets from Scarface's back.

At this point, the warhead had already been removed.

Andrew put the bullet back into his pocket, then dragged the body by one leg and said, “Come on, Ross. Let’s find a safe place and burn this body.”

Ross lifted the corpse's other leg. "What about the armor on the corpse? Should we strip it off and take it back?"

"You mean this?" Andrew patted his mud-covered leg armor. "These are just bones and jerky that look like metal. They'll burn to ashes when they get on fire."

"Bones and jerky?" Ross leaned closer to examine them. "Could they be from the Black Iron Python?"

“Don’t bother investigating, Ross,” Andrew advised. “In our line of work, the less you know, the safer you are.”

"Okay, I'll do as you say."

The two dragged the body to an open space next to the reservoir wall, took out accelerant from their alchemy bag, poured it on the body, and lit it with a match. The sour, putrid stench rose into the sky with the black smoke.

Ross was injured and had some difficulty moving around. He had been groaning softly in pain while they were dragging the body.

Andrew was left to handle the aftermath; Ross only needed to stay by the fire a few meters away to prevent it from spreading into the woods.