A high-end black sedan drove along the suburban highway on the outer ring of Lungmen.
Inside the car, the roar of the engine mixed with the static of the car radio:
"Emergency Broadcast: Early this morning, a jewelry store in the Lower City was robbed and its occupants murdered by masked assailants. A chainsaw pattern was left at the scene."
"On the morning of the same day, a clinic primarily serving the Infected suffered a similar robbery and murder. The two cases and the gangs involved are highly similar..."
"However, citizens are advised not to panic. The Lungmen Guard Department has launched a special operation, arresting a total of 17 gang members imitating the Chainsaw Killer in recent days and confiscating 24 replica chainsaws. Please maintain your confidence in us, but avoid traveling alone at night..."
Denji, sitting in the passenger seat, sighed. "Lungmen is really getting crazier and crazier. They won't even spare medical workers helping vulnerable groups?"
These days, he no longer needed to kill people himself.
A large number of copycats were committing crimes everywhere under the banner of the Chainsaw Killer, continuously funneling fear to Denji.
As the public's fear of chainsaws continued to rise, Denji's strength and agility grew day by day. Coupled with the fact that he didn't need to commit the crimes personally, it made it increasingly impossible for the Guard Department to catch him.
And this made Denji's imitators even more fanatical, believing that the Chainsaw Killer could truly remain above the law.
All in all, Denji was like a certain multi-time champion of the Vanilla Billboard and famous Lateranan cellist; although he hadn't personally done many bad things, he had drawn out the innate maliciousness in many people's hearts.
However, Denji was also very clear that Lungmen's public security becoming increasingly Gotham-ized was inextricably linked to him.
Although he never regretted his decision to acquire power for self-preservation, he still felt somewhat guilty about it.
During his free time from training with Waai Fu and Rope, he would also have Ah Fa contact credible charities to do some good deeds, conveniently taking out a few villains along the way to make up for it.
"You don't know the half of it, Boss. Those black-hearted clinics deserve it!"
Rope, sitting in the back seat, poked her small head forward and said:
"After seeing the world with you, Boss, I looked into Oripathy suppressants. It turns out that all the suppressants in the world are produced by a medical company called Rhodes Island!"
"But the thing is, Rhodes Island doesn't have a branch in Lungmen. The medicine on the market entirely relies on middlemen, and the selling price in Lungmen is at least ten times higher than the original price! Those clinic bosses only know how to make dirty money, so they brought this upon themselves!"
Ah Fa, the only one with a Lungmen driver's license and the one responsible for driving, gripped the steering wheel and said coldly:
"Every injustice has its perpetrator, and every debt its debtor. What's the point of killing those small clinic bosses and employees? If we're really going to take action, we should go after those big shots manipulating the prices. It's just that they all live in the Upper City and have massive backing. With our current strength, we can't touch them yet—unless we can cooperate with a large, influential organization like the Reunion Movement."
Denji leaned back in the passenger seat, falling into deep thought.
Aside from tacitly allowing the copycats, Rope had initially given him two other routes to power up: one was to cooperate with Reunion, persuading them to use chainsaws as weapons, thus harvesting power through the world's pre-existing, venomous fear of the Infected and Reunion.
Anyway, according to Rope, the targets of Reunion's havoc were the Ursus people, whom Lungmen citizens generally had no good impressions of.
The other was the entertainment route: shooting horror movies featuring chainsaw elements to let the fear spread through the silver screen.
And this idea happened to coincide with Denji's own thoughts: the horror movie tropes from his past life were far more abundant than those in the world of Terra. Even just copying a few concepts over would surely be a box office hit.
It was just that investing in the film and television industry in Lungmen required certain connections. Denji's outing this time was precisely to get in touch with a big shot in the record industry.
As for the route of cooperating with Reunion, in Denji's view, it was too dangerous.
Rope and Ah Fa weren't bad by nature, but as Infected, their years of experiencing discrimination had buried a deep anger in their hearts. Now, backed by his power, their desire for revenge had been amplified to some extent.
And in Ursus, where Reunion was located, the conflicts were even sharper than in Lungmen.
Based on Denji's experiences in his past life, if a group of Infected consumed by anger gathered together without a sufficiently mature leader and an action plan, rather than protecting Infected rights, it was far more likely they would turn into a mob solely seeking to vent their rage.
Although Denji had currently made quite a stir in the Lower and Middle Cities, he hadn't yet alarmed the true upper echelons of Lungmen. But once he authorized the use of the "chainsaw" emblem to Reunion, he might end up drawing fire upon himself.
Therefore, he was heading to the Sunset Boulevard bar to cooperate with that entertainment industry big shot.
Bang—
The car jolted violently, then lost power, slowly coming to a halt by the roadside.
Denji and Rope were just about to complain about Ah Fa's driving skills when they suddenly heard the ear-piercing roar of motorcycle engines coming from all directions.
"Biker gangs blocking the road to rob us?"
The three inside the car instantly realized: the reason the car broke down was highly likely because the tires had run over a spike strip or a similar trap set by a biker gang.
Three motorcycles sped over, completely surrounding the high-end black sedan.
The thugs on the bikes were all wearing helmets. After stopping, they all took out logging chainsaws from their bikes and pulled the cords, letting out ear-piercing roars.
"The Chainsaw Killers are here! Hand over your money if you know what's good for you!" the thugs shouted arrogantly through the car windows.
Ah Fa turned to look at Denji, asking with his eyes: Should we make a move?
Rope cleverly leaned forward and whispered, "Boss, since this is a spot the biker gang uses to stake out targets, there definitely aren't any cameras. Feel free to take action!"
Denji, however, shook his head. He put on a pair of sunglasses and a mask, rolled down the window, and took out a few Lungmen bills, intending to suffer a small financial loss to avoid trouble and save time.
Unless necessary, he couldn't be bothered with fighting and killing, which would only increase the risk of exposure.
But seeing how readily Denji handed over the money, and glancing at the high-end sedan he was riding in, the three bikers sneered and said:
"Oho, a rich guy! Pretty generous, but is this little bit of money enough to dismiss our Chainsaw Killer gang? Consider yourself unlucky running into us today. Get out of the car right now and hand over everything of value on you!"
Another biker stared at Rope in the back seat and whistled. "And this beauty here, come down and have some fun with us too!"
"We're not rich, we're from a Lower City gang too! We'll probably see each other around, so let's leave some leeway for everyone!" Ah Fa flashed the gang tattoo on his arm and said.
"People from the Lower City gang dress this sharp?"
The biker gang wouldn't let it go. "That young master over there, stop pretending to be a big star! Take off the sunglasses and get out of the car with that chick!"
Rope hurriedly said, "I'm an Infected! And we have backing, don't court your own death!"
"Court our own death?"
The three bikers laughed together. "What a coincidence, we're Infected too! We don't have a tomorrow anyway, so who cares if you're Infected or rich? We're definitely taking advantage of you today!"
Before they could finish speaking, Denji helplessly took off his sunglasses.
The next moment, he placed his finger on the rip-cord on his chest, and a roaring engine sound emanated from within his body:
"Are you done talking? You're the Chainsaw Killers? Then who am I?"
The smiles on the bikers' faces instantly froze. Although they had never seen the true Chainsaw Killer in person, the overwhelming oppressive presence hitting them in the face, along with the engine sound coming from inside his body, immediately made them guess the most terrifying possibility!
The most cowardly among them was so terrified that he immediately started his motorcycle, turning the front wheel to flee.
"You insisted on seeing my face, and after seeing it, you still want to live?"
Denji sighed as he opened the car door.
Rope thoughtfully handed him the grappling hook. "Boss, don't get the car dirty!"
Denji took the grappling hook, flicked his wrist, and the metal hook flew out with a swish, accurately snagging the escaping rider's neck right under his helmet.
He waved his hand and gave a sharp twist. With a teeth-aching crack of breaking bone, the rider's body tumbled headfirst off the motorcycle, his neck twisted at an angle impossible to survive.
Denji immediately retracted the hook. Throughout the entire process, not a single drop of blood splattered onto the car or the hook.
"Great aim, Boss!" Rope immediately cheered, not missing a beat.
The remaining two bikers were so terrified they hastily echoed, "Great aim, Boss!"
Not even caring that it was their companion who had just died.
"We had eyes but failed to recognize Mt. Tai! We offended you, Boss Chainsaw, please give us a way out! We're willing to follow you!"
"Forgive us, Big Sister! We were blind, we shouldn't have offended Big Sister!"
The two of them pleaded for mercy one after another, making Rope's cheeks flush red.
Denji's tone was terrifyingly calm: "I gave you a chance."
"Boss! We're all oppressed Infected! We only imitated you to kill and vent because we had no other way out! We're your admirers!"
The bikers continuously kowtowed, their helmets making consecutive clacking sounds against the asphalt road.
Denji put away the grappling hook and turned to get back into the car. "That proves you don't understand me well enough. I may not be a good person, but I don't kill without reason. If it hadn't been me passing by today, but an ordinary man and woman, what would have happened?"
He closed the car door, his tone still without the slightest ripple:
"Kill yourselves. If I do it, you'll suffer far more."
The men's faces turned deathly pale, but they didn't dare to show the slightest defiance.
Looking at the chainsaws beside them, they ultimately chose to pull out daggers from their waists and slit their own throats on the spot.
Ah Fa silently got out of the car, changed to the spare tire, and restarted the vehicle.
"Truly the scum among Infected! Disgracing the face of us Infected! Punks like these are worthy of impersonating Chainsaw?" Ah Fa complained, somewhat displeased.
Rope gave a hollow laugh, wanting to change the subject: after all, this idea was hers to begin with.
Denji looked out the window and said in a calm tone:
"Actually, everyone has a beastly nature within them; it's just suppressed by things like conscience, order, law, and their future prospects."
"The Infected are just ordinary people too. They aren't particularly noble, nor are they particularly despicable. It's just that they've lost their future, so they act without any reservations."
"That's why I have reservations about cooperating with the Reunion Movement. At the very least, I need to understand their background first."
Ah Fa remained silent for a moment before saying, "Although I don't have a future either, I've known some very noble people."
"Even though I can't stand in the sunlight like them, what I'm doing by following you, Boss Denji, is also very meaningful. After I die of Oripathy, it'll be up to you, Boss, having recovered all your power, to witness the future for me!"
"Ptooey, ptooey! Don't bring up the word 'die' out of nowhere!" Rope laughed it off. "Anyway, I don't plan on thinking about things so far ahead. Life is short; having food to eat and stuff to drink is enough for me!"
Denji could hear that Ah Fa wanted him to realize his dream for him, to make this world a better place. And Rope was equally afraid of Oripathy and death; she just wanted to diffuse the heavy atmosphere.
"In my hometown, there's a saying: 'In poverty, perfect yourself; in wealth, perfect the world.'"
"Or to put it more commonly: With great power comes great responsibility."
"I don't have enough power right now, so I'm only thinking about getting my companions back, I can't afford to worry about anything else. If one day my abilities are enough to change this world, I'll make it a bit more pleasing to the eye," Denji said seriously.
Although he murdered, committed arson, and corrupted the moral climate of Lungmen—seemingly capable of any evil deed—if he reclaimed all his power, and if devils truly existed in this world...
Denji genuinely had the ability to change this land by devouring all kinds of tragedies.
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