A Guide to Humanity’s Extinction

"Kill them, newbie," Black Magic Hand said, keeping his voice low.

The bar was in ruins. At this moment, four men, ragged and riddled with wounds, knelt on the floor. Blood leaked from their bodies like air from a punctured balloon.

"What, too scared to kill a few people?" the red-haired girl whispered, leaning close to Giovanni's ear.

Amid the absolute silence, Giovanni slowly raised his right hand and took the revolver from the girl.

He gave the cylinder a slow spin, raised the barrel, and aimed at the four figures kneeling in the corner of the bar.

With a click, he pulled the trigger, and a silver bullet burst from the muzzle.

One shot. A head burst open. Two shots. A second head burst. Three shots. Three heads.

By the time he lined up the fourth shot, Giovanni finally registered the last man's wailing and begging—mostly the usual nonsense like, "Please let me go, I'll give you whatever you want."

Ke Mingqing had heard those lines a thousand times in movies, but experiencing them in reality carried a completely different flavor. Whether it was the blood smeared across their faces, their features twisted in terror, their trembling fingers, or the dark stains spreading across their crotches, it was almost funny. At that moment, Giovanni finally understood why Jiang Qingzi and Scarlett had brought him to this bar.

This was Death Crow's style. They were bandits through and through, the worst of the worst.

His thoughts reaching this point, Giovanni leveled the gun at the final man's forehead and slowly pulled the trigger.

Bang. The bullet tore through the man's skull. Blood sprayed high, splattering across Giovanni's cheek.

At the same time, a notification box slowly began to Pop-up in his vision.

[Weekly Extra Quest completed: Kill three or more of the super-human species. (Reward obtained: 1 Attribute Point.)]

'To think there'd be such a convenient bonus,' he thought. 'And here I was worrying about how to finish this quest.'

"How does it feel?" Captain Red brushed back her red hair, her lips curling into a smirk. "A pretty boy like you has probably never killed anyone, right?" Giovanni thought about it for a second, then handed the revolver back to her.

"It's a great stress reliever."

Captain Red stared blankly for a moment before bursting into laughter. She threw an arm over his shoulder and doubled over, clutching her stomach as she roared. Finally, she looked up and said, "Then let me show you an even better way to relieve stress."

As she spoke, the massive phantom of a ghost ship suddenly materialized above the red-haired girl's head, like a behemoth released from a box. In an instant, the enormous hull crushed the bar's tables, chairs, and counter. Red wine flowed from shattered bottles, mixing with the pulped corpses until it was impossible to tell if the crimson pools on the floor were liquor or blood.

Then, the floating ship lowered its cannons, aiming the muzzles directly into the bar.

Giovanni stared in shock. He knew this red-haired girl dressed as a pirate was an A Rank esper, but he had never imagined her power would be this spectacular. "Aren't you leaving? Or do you want to be blown to bits?"

Captain Red laughed as she hooked her arm around Giovanni's shoulders. She turned him around and led him out of the underground bar without looking back, heading straight into the corridor.

Black Magic Hand followed closely behind. The moment he crossed the threshold, he raised a hand and conjured a massive magician's wardrobe in the pitch-black corridor.

The wardrobe doors opened.

He offered a slight gesture, signaling Giovanni to step inside.

Giovanni hesitated for a moment before following the two Death Crow members inside. The second the doors shut, his vision was swallowed by profound darkness. An instant later, a deafening roar tore through the space outside the wardrobe.

'Perhaps not just the bar,' he thought. 'Even the residential buildings within a fifty-meter radius will be destroyed along with it.'

"What a bunch of absolute lunatics," Ke Mingqing muttered, taking a deep breath.

Soon enough, the commotion vanished. It wasn't because the explosion had ended, but because the magic wardrobe had transported the three Death Crow members away from the bar.

Black Magic Hand pushed the doors open, revealing a desolate, unpopulated alleyway.

The magic wardrobe that was large enough to hold three people was now perched quietly on top of a dumpster.

Moonlight washed over their faces and illuminated the filthy ground below, picking out scattered banana peels and empty soda cans.

"Couldn't you have picked a better spot?" Captain Red asked, hopping out first.

"It's random," Black Magic Hand replied coolly. "Teleporting this many people is already a hassle. Don't be so harsh on a mere wardrobe." Giovanni hesitated for a moment before stepping out, dropping down into the middle of the alleyway.

Black Magic Hand pulled off his owl mask, revealing his handsome face. He lowered his gaze to Giovanni and asked, "How did it feel?"

"Fine," Giovanni said after a long silence.

"You don't look like someone who kills often."

Jiang Qingzi pulled off his dark cloak and top hat, stuffing both the cloak and the owl mask into the hat.

With a slight toss, he threw the hat into the air. It instantly dissolved into a flock of black doves that flew away.

Giovanni silently watched the doves fly toward the bright moon and vanish into the clouds.

"Since you've joined us, this is something you have to adapt to," Jiang Qingzi said. "This isn't a game."

The red-haired girl smirked. "I've killed more people than I've eaten loaves of bread. Are you mentally prepared for this?"

Giovanni stayed silent for a moment, then raised his eyes to look straight at them.

"If it's just this little thing, then I'm already used to it."

In the moonlight, the young man in the train conductor's uniform spoke without a trace of emotion. The smear of blood still clinging to his cheek made his face look faintly ferocious.

Late that night, in the Old Jingmai District, inside a bedroom of a three-story residential building.

A warm orange bedside lamp remained on, illuminating the young man's face.

Ke Mingqing sat in his swivel chair, listening to the cicadas. He opened his attribute panel and quickly allocated the single Attribute Point he'd just earned from the Extra Quest. [Congratulations. Consuming 1 Attribute Point, your "Strength" attribute has increased from D+ to D++ Rank.]

[Player "Ke Mingqing"'s current attributes are as follows: Strength: D++; Agility: C++; Spirit: D]

Ke Mingqing dismissed the series of panels and stared out at the overpass, lost in thought.

'Tomorrow, the system will issue the notice about a red-named player. Since I can forge my own super-human species panel, changing my player ID should be simple enough, right?'

A silver train roared across the overpass. Ke Mingqing pulled his gaze back, opened his talent panel, and checked the descriptions for his talent skills.

[Notification: The 'Disguiser Talent' will gain new skill effects as your level increases:]

1. The Disguiser Talent allows you to alter your displayed player ID and player level (skill effect obtained at level 5);

2. The Disguiser Talent now allows you to alter your physical height and measurements (skill effect obtained at level 10).]

"I knew it. Now, what should I change my name to?"

A smirk tugged at the corner of Ke Mingqing's lips. He'd originally planned to change his ID to Fanquan. But he quickly remembered a fundamental problem: Fanquan was that guy's forum ID, not his player ID.

Reluctantly, he let the idea go.

After mulling it over, he typed three characters on the panel and hit "Confirm".

[Notification: Successfully used the 'Disguiser Talent' to alter your displayed player ID to: 'Jin Chengwu'. You may revert your displayed ID at any time.]

"All done!" Ke Mingqing stretched his arms, his vision already blurring with exhaustion.

The day's events had left his scalp tingling with exhaustion. He quickly flicked off the lamp, rolled out of his chair onto the tatami mat, and lay on his side with his eyes shut.

Moonlight spilled across his fair cheek, and within minutes, he was fast asleep.

Now that his old man had taken his alien mother away on a business trip, he was free from the stress of being watched by the horrifying Crow Man and extraterrestrial freaks. Even his sleep felt infinitely more refreshing.

The night passed in silence.

Early the next morning, Ke Mingqing got out of bed.

He woke up exceptionally early today and eagerly took a seat on the living room sofa, toying with his phone as he waited for the daily system bulletin.

After a while, he let out a yawn, and the bulletin panel finally appeared.

[Good morning, esteemed player "Ke Mingqing". It is the morning of Monday, July 23rd; the time limit for the 'Exterminate Superhumans' quest has 158 days, 16 hours, and 30 minutes remaining.]

[As of today, the number of surviving players worldwide is: 94 (↓1)]

[The following is an obituary: Player 'Li Wei', whose spawn point was Leijing, has been killed by another player, 'Jin Chengwu'.] [Warning: Player 'Jin Chengwu''s murder of a fellow player is extremely severe. This player has been penalized by the system and has become the first 'red-named player'.]

[The bounty for the player with ID 'Jin Chengwu' is: 10,000 superhuman coins, 8,000 experience points, and a B Rank equipment box.] [If another player successfully kills the 'red-named player', they will receive the corresponding bounty rewards.]

"Is that necessary? Am I really worth that much?"

Ke Mingqing stared blankly, then tilted his head and let out an amused chuckle.

A moment later, he opened the player forum. By now, the forum had completely blown up; the announcement had detonated like a nuclear bomb among the player base.

Of course, Ke Mingqing didn't care what everyone else was discussing. He simply read through their analyses to pass the time while he walked into the bathroom to wash his face and brush his teeth.

Obviously, based on the intelligence these players had on hand, finding him anytime soon was basically impossible.

In the week after he became a red-named player (from July 24th to July 28th), nothing special happened. He reported to the Hero Company every day, sometimes sparring with Team Diamond Man—who were also in the rookie hero squad—and sometimes going out to arrest one or two regularly refreshing low-level super-human species criminals.

On July 28th, his older brother Ke Linye and the coffee shop manager Zorro left Leijing.

The mentor-and-student duo claimed they were heading to Ancheng to research coffee shop operations; what they were actually doing was anyone's guess.

Time flew by, and before he knew it, the calendar on the living room wall had flipped to July 29th.

The time for the Comet Fragments to arrive in Leijing drew ever closer.

Early that morning, Ke Mingqing was sleeping soundly when he suddenly heard a buzzing sound.

He jolted awake from his dream, opened his eyes, sat up, and stared blankly at his familiar bedroom ceiling.

Roosters crowed and dogs barked outside the window. The sky was just beginning to lighten.

He glanced around.

After a moment, he finally realized the noise wasn't coming from his own body, but from his Theater Puppet, Giovanni. Ke Mingqing scratched his head, sighed, and lay back down on the bed. He slowly closed his eyes, synchronizing his consciousness with the Theater Puppet Giovanni.

In another corner of the world, inside an abandoned building, Giovanni slowly opened his eyes. He finally understood the source of the noise—the phone under his pillow was vibrating.

Giovanni let out a yawn. He stroked Bai Ziling's hair, letting her continue to sleep, then grabbed the pink-cased phone and unlocked the screen. At that moment, on the homepage, a pixel-art AI version of Heimeng was angrily waving her arms, with speech bubble after speech bubble beginning to Pop-up above her head: [Disaster! That intel about the Comet Fragments arriving in Leijing on August 15th was fake intelligence meant to confuse us. It's been confirmed that the actual date the Comet Fragments arrive in Leijing is...]

Giovanni froze slightly, looking at the date in the text box.

August 1st.

'Holy shit, doesn't that mean there are only two days left until the Comet Fragments arrive in Leijing?' Ke Mingqing thought, slowly raising his head.

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