A Guide to Humanity’s Extinction

[At exactly midnight on August 1st, the Comet Fragments will arrive in Leijing. That means everyone in Death Crow needs to get ready on the last day of July—which is tomorrow!]

On the phone screen, the AI version of Heimeng paused, a serious expression crossing her face as she clenched her blurry, pixelated little fists.

"Giovanni, today is your last day off, so make sure to cherish it. If you want to take Bai Ziling to the aquarium, you should go today."

Looking at the text in the chat box, Giovanni froze for a moment.

In the dim room, the young man's eyes flickered as his mind raced.

Crap... if the Comet Fragments arrive in Leijing on August 1st, neither my eldest brother nor the old man will be in the city. One of them went to Ancheng, and the other is in America. Neither of them will be back anytime soon.

Without those two peak A Rank fighters, we won't be able to crush Death Crow at all. I can't just let Blue Pigeon die in this battle, can I? Oh, wait. There's still one other option.

If things start looking bad, I'll find a chance to take off Blue Pigeon's helmet right in front of Jiang Qingzi. As long as he knows who I am, he should let me go.

Ke Mingqing and Jiang Qingzi had known each other for years. At least on the surface, they were each other's best friends.

Of course... that's assuming Jiang Qingzi doesn't instantly kill me like some random mob on the side of the road. Otherwise, I won't even get the chance to take off my mask.

At that thought, Giovanni lowered his eyes and stared at the pixelated Heimeng on the screen.

The hoodie-wearing girl was pressing a finger against her chin, tilting her head as she looked at him in confusion.

Giovanni thought for a moment before asking:

"Why don't we intercept the ship carrying the Comet Fragments while it's still at sea? Wouldn't that let us avoid Leijing's security forces? What's the point of waiting until the ship reaches the city?"

The pixelated Heimeng shook her head. A chat box popped up above her, with large, bold red English letters at the very front of the text:

"NO NO NO!"

[Heimeng: There are a few special ability users escorting it, so we can't pinpoint the location of the submarine carrying the Comet Fragments! We can only determine a rough time frame for when the sub will dock at one of Leijing's ports.]

[Heimeng: That will be our chance to strike!]

[Heimeng: Are you scared? Don't worry, the escort team isn't very strong this time. The Magical Girl Three Giants are out of the country, and Rain Crow just went to America for a Roundtable meeting. Only a bunch of small fry are left in Leijing.]

Giovanni was silent for a moment before replying:

"That's good. I was just worried that if I died, no one would take care of Bai Ziling."

Heimeng blinked, then suddenly pulled out a pixelated tissue and wiped her eyes. "So touching! I'm practically in tears! Mr. Giovanni is truly a responsible primitive man."

While the man and the AI chatted, the white-haired girl on the bed woke up. She slowly sat up, tilting her head slightly as her snow-white hair draped over her shoulders.

"What's wrong, Giovanni?" Bai Ziling asked softly.

"Nothing." Giovanni turned off the bedside lamp and shook his head. "I might have to go out for a while tomorrow night. Will you be able to sleep here by yourself?"

Bai Ziling lowered her head in thought, then looked up at him with her red eyes. "Stroh told me the same thing before, and then... she never came back."

Giovanni fell silent. It turns out people who don't know how to look after kids always use the same excuses.

"Can I go with you?" Bai Ziling asked.

"It'll be dangerous," Giovanni said. "Wait for me here."

The white-haired girl stayed quiet for a long time before reaching out to pinch his sleeve and giving a gentle nod.

Meanwhile, in another corner of the city, inside one of the bedrooms in the Xia-Ke residence.

It was the middle of a scorching summer. The sky over Leijing had only just begun to turn a faint blue, and the streets and alleys were still empty, yet the cicadas in the trees were already screaming for their lives. The shrill buzzing was exceptionally annoying, disturbing people's sweet dreams bright and early in the morning. Ke Mingqing opened his eyes on his tatami mat. He rubbed his temples. Despite getting enough sleep, his mental state had still been terrible these past few days, to the point where he had developed dark circles under his eyes.

A moment later, the young man pulled his phone out from under his pillow and checked a newly received text message.

[Lin Yin: Come to the Hero Company. The schedule for the Comet Fragments escort mission has changed... I have to explain the details to you in person. The others have almost arrived.]

[Blue Pigeon: I'm coming, I'm coming.]

After sending the text, Ke Mingqing let his head drop and sighed. Aren't you just screwing over your own teammates?

Complaints aside, he dutifully put on his shoes and headed out. In front of the ticket counter at the abandoned train station, he changed into the Blue Pigeon Battle Suit. Then, he transformed into a streak of rushing lightning and sprinted toward the Hero Company.

Now that his Strength attribute had leveled up, Ke Mingqing's physical constitution had greatly improved.

Even while maintaining the "I Am Lightning" form to travel, he didn't exhaust himself as easily. But that only allowed him to run about one block further than usual. Ultimately, the superhero still found himself panting heavily and had to sit down at a bus stop.

Before long, Blue Pigeon caught a bus.

The pedestrians didn't seem to expect a superhero to be waiting for the bus; they just assumed he was wearing a cheap knockoff suit or was a cosplayer. After a passing glance, they looked away.

The children on the bus, however, had sharp eyes. Standing in the bumpy aisle, Blue Pigeon signed autographs for the swarm of kids, one by one.

As for the adults and the elderly, he could selectively ignore them. There were far too many passengers for him to deal with everyone.

After getting off the bus at a downtown stop, Blue Pigeon walked straight into the Hero Company building and checked in at the front desk.

"Welcome back, our C-Rank Hero, Blue Pigeon. The commander has urgent news. Please proceed immediately to the office on the 15th floor," the automated check-in machine announced in an icy voice.

Blue Pigeon got into the elevator. A moment later, the doors slowly slid open. As he walked into the office, he saw that Top Hero and the young Invisible Giant were already sitting on the sofa, waiting.

The moment Top Hero saw Blue Pigeon, he launched himself over like a spring, draped an arm over his shoulder, and suggested:

"Why don't you just live at the Hero Company with Shadow Woman and the others, bro? It'd make it way easier for me to find you."

"Please, I'm a normal guy who has to go to school. How could I live at the Hero Company?"

Blue Pigeon snapped back, shooting a sideways glance at the young Invisible Giant. "Unlike this brat who ended up in juvie at such a young age... oh, and the Chocolate Bean Girl. They're totally free to live wherever they want."

The young Invisible Giant scratched the corner of his eye, where a blue star was tattooed.

He let out a yawn and flipped Blue Pigeon off, too lazy to even speak. Clearly, he considered Blue Pigeon's words a compliment rather than an insult, so he wasn't angry in the slightest.

Blue Pigeon toyed with his phone and flipped him off in return.

Just then, a hand wrapped in black shadows gently tapped Blue Pigeon's shoulder from behind.

He turned around and saw Shadow Woman clutching a few bags of chocolate beans in one arm while holding up her phone with the other, pointing the screen right at him.

The phone's notepad app read: Chocolate Bean Girl? Are you talking about me?

Looking at the text, Blue Pigeon sweatdropped. He shook his head and said:

"Uh, I was talking about... me. I actually love eating chocolate beans. Yeah. And I'm a girl. Everyone's just been misunderstanding my gender this whole time, haha. I'm the Chocolate Bean Girl."

"Bro, wait, sis, you're a girl?" Top Hero froze and immediately snatched his arm away.

While the four teammates were bantering, a middle-aged man wearing a white coat and rimless glasses slowly walked in from the corridor, carrying a thermos.

Like a homeroom teacher walking into a classroom, the elementary school students who had just been making a racket instantly quieted down.

"Alright, stop fooling around. I called you all here today because of a very important matter," Lin Yin said with a serious expression.

Blue Pigeon tilted his head and asked, "So what is it?"

"The Comet Fragments' arrival time in Leijing has been moved up."

Lin Yin paused to take a sip of hot water from his thermos. After screwing the cap back on, he continued, "It was originally scheduled for August 15th, but the time has been changed to August 1st. Depending on the situation, it might even be earlier."

Apart from Blue Pigeon, the others reacted surprisingly calmly.

"Why didn't you tell us sooner?" Blue Pigeon asked. "This is a massive deal."

"'You have to fool your own people before you can fool the enemy.' That's what the higher-ups told me during our video call early this morning," Lin Yin said with a bitter smile. "Sometimes I truly admire their decision-making. It always catches me completely off guard."

Blue Pigeon lowered his head and let out a soft sigh.

Staring at the Bird Beak stretching out into the air in front of his face, he thought: Please. You didn't fool the enemy, but you played your own people like a fiddle. I guess I'll just play it by ear. At worst, I'll just run away. If I can't beat the guys from Death Crow, I can at least run away from them, right?

"No big deal." Invisible Giant curled his lip. "I thought you were going to say something serious."

"Yeah, yeah, I thought the submarine had gotten intercepted on the way..." Top Hero also shrugged it off.

Shadow Woman kept her head down, quietly chewing her chocolate beans while looking entirely absent-minded. She still seemed to be hung up on Blue Pigeon calling her "Chocolate Bean Girl" just a moment ago.

"Anyway... we only have these next two days to prepare." Lin Yin paused. "Everyone, warm up and get ready for a tough battle. But if we're lucky, we might not run into any enemies at all."

Blue Pigeon nodded. "Let's hope so. I'm going to head to the temple this afternoon to burn some incense first."

"A superhero going to burn incense? That's so lame. If word gets out, you'll completely embarrass our team," Invisible Giant sneered at him.

[Yeah, then I'll go burn some chocolate beans and pray for the God of Chocolate Beans to protect me.] Shadow Woman typed this onto her screen, wanting to make a self-deprecating joke, but after a moment's consideration, she deleted it.

"Oh, right," Lin Yin said suddenly, adjusting his glasses. "Just in case, Team Diamond Man will also be joining this Comet Fragments escort mission."

He lowered his head, peering through his lenses at the photo on the data sheet. "They're also a C-Rank Hero team. Their recent performance has been impressive, certainly on par with yours."

Blue Pigeon raised an eyebrow, lifted his head, and softly muttered:

"Diamond Man?"

He vaguely recalled that Team Diamond Man had a B Rank Esper called "Vending Machine Specialist." If they were coming to help, they would make for pretty good cannon fodder.

"That's great! There's strength in numbers." Top Hero put a hand on his hip.

"When are we supposed to gather?" Blue Pigeon asked.

Lin Yin shook his head. "It's still unclear, but it will most likely be tomorrow night. You need to be on standby at the Hero Company in advance. When the ship is about to reach Leijing, I'll notify you all to head to the port immediately."

"Got it. Then if there's nothing else, I'll head out first." Blue Pigeon sighed.

Lin Yin nodded, signaling that he was free to go.

Blue Pigeon had just stepped one foot out the office door when he stopped abruptly, hearing Top Hero ask:

"By the way... are we certain the people from Death Crow will attack?"

"All we can say is that the probability is very high. That thief organization moves in secret, and our people haven't been able to track their movements." Lin Yin paused. "But it's worth noting that a week ago, an underground bar was blown up. Our investigators determined that the case is connected to members of Death Crow."

Hearing this, Top Hero drew in a sharp breath. "Let's pray those mad dogs don't come knocking."

While the two were talking, Blue Pigeon had already left the office.

What do you mean 'come knocking'... those mad dogs are already waiting right outside our door.

He watched the glass doors of the elevator slide shut as he pondered.

Before long, Ke Mingqing returned to the empty Platform 7. He stripped off the heavy metal battle suit, holding the helmet as he tilted his head back to catch his breath. "Did you get the news?" Suddenly, a voice drifted over from the stairwell.

"Sis, could you be a little more terrifying?" Ke Mingqing jumped, turning his head to ask.

Xia Zili walked up from the tunnel and stepped onto the platform.

"I just got a text from my master saying the Comet Fragments are going to be delivered early," she said. "Then I noticed you were gone, so I knew you had to be here."

"Are magical girls always this casual?" Ke Mingqing shoved his helmet into a locker. "Telling you something this important over a text message... What if there's a hacker among the enemies? Wouldn't they instantly know our movements?"

"If they really had a hacker that skilled, it wouldn't matter how we communicated. It'd be the same either way," Xia Zili said. "You're acting as if we can survive without electronics these days."

Ke Mingqing tugged at the collar of his T-shirt and wiped the sweat from his forehead with his wrist. He glanced up at the early morning sky and let out a soft breath into the hazy sunlight.

"By the way, transform for a second," he said suddenly.

Xia Zili blinked in surprise. "What for?"

"Just transform, okay?" Ke Mingqing said.

Xia Zili crossed her arms and lowered her head slightly, staring at him with a strange expression, as if trying to figure out, You aren't going to do something weird, are you?

A second later, she lowered her eyes, then raised them to meet Ke Mingqing's gaze again. Letting out a soft sigh, she dropped her arms as her body was slowly enveloped by a hazy cocoon of light.

Ke Mingqing watched her in silence.

When the light shattered, a girl in a gothic dress with a crisp, cool aura appeared before him. Her pitch-black hair cascaded down like a waterfall, and the layered hems of her dress swayed in the wind like a blooming black rose. The umbrella named Cinderella was gripped in her hand, its tip pointing to the ground, rippling out waves of magic that looked like fireflies.

"Good... now, fly up, but not too high," Ke Mingqing continued.

"Huh?" Ember frowned.

"Just do it."

Ember fell silent for a moment before glaring at him. Tapping her feet lightly against the floor, she unleashed a wave of black-blue magic and immediately took to the air, hovering mid-flight.

She was now floating just a bit higher than Ke Mingqing.

"Last step. Hold your umbrella horizontally," Ke Mingqing said, looking up at her.

The gothic-dressed girl paused for a second before slowly raising Cinderella horizontally.

"Right. Just hover there and hold the umbrella perfectly still. Thirty seconds should be enough," Ke Mingqing said.

"What are you trying to do?" Ember eyed him suspiciously.

"This is perfect. I was just stressing over not being able to find a place to do pull-ups."

As he spoke, Ke Mingqing reached up, grabbed the handle of the umbrella with both hands, and began doing pull-ups as if treating it like a bar at the gym.

The young man's body moved up and down, his chin rising over the umbrella handle before lowering again.

The gothic-dressed girl was utterly stunned.

She couldn't understand what Ke Mingqing was doing, but she was worried that if she suddenly let go, he would fall. Because of that, she forced herself to keep the umbrella handle perfectly horizontal in mid-air.

A short while later, a notification window slowly popped up in Ke Mingqing's vision.

[Weekly Task 2 completed: Perform fifty pull-ups. (Earned: 1 Spin on the Roulette Wheel)]

Ember watched with half-lidded eyes as this guy used her umbrella to do dozens of pull-ups, finally realizing that she had been played. "You're sick."

She spoke coldly, forcefully shaking the umbrella handle to fling Ke Mingqing off before her feet gently touched the ground.

The girl's body was covered in a hazy cocoon of light as she slowly transformed back to her normal state. Xia Zili turned and walked away without even giving Ke Mingqing a second glance, clearly furious.

What she didn't expect was for Ke Mingqing, who had just finished dozens of pull-ups, to suddenly sprint off without so much as panting. He dashed right past her, running into the tunnel ahead of her.

Watching his retreating back, Xia Zili rubbed her forehead. Having a brother with a screw loose is such a blessing.

Ke Mingqing sprinted through the pitch-black tunnel while opening his roulette wheel panel.

The needle spun rapidly, finally coming to a stop over the prize in sector three: "1,000 EXP."

[Congratulations, EXP has reached the cap. Your level has increased by 1.]

[Current Level Progress: LV.12 (1,200/6,000 EXP)]

Ke Mingqing glanced at his level progress.

Other than leeching a few kills off some D Rank super-human species under the guidance of Black Magic Hand and Captain Red that one day to gain some experience, Ke Mingqing rarely ever hunted down super-human species.

First, he was lazy. Without a weekly task, he had no desire to go out hunting.

Second, Blue Pigeon had been issued a warning. Because he killed someone every time he went on a mission, it had already sparked minor discussions online. Before public opinion could fester, the commander had ordered him to tone it down.

A short while later, Ke Mingqing stopped at the end of the tunnel, looking up at the notification window that popped out.

[Congratulations, you have completed Weekly Task 1: Run 3,000 meters.]

[Reward Obtained: 1 Attribute Point.]

"This is my final upgrade. For now, my priority is making sure my Blue Pigeon and Giovanni identities don't get exposed. Whatever else happens is up to fate..." Ke Mingqing murmured softly. He opened his personal panel and quickly allocated his newly acquired Attribute Point.

[Notice: You have consumed 1 Attribute Point to upgrade the "Strength" attribute from D++ Rank to C Rank. The player's current attributes are as follows: Strength: C; Agility: C++; Spirit: D]

Ke Mingqing leaned against a signboard at the train station's exit. While waiting for Xia Zili to come out, he unlocked his burner phone and sent a text message to his third sister, Xia Ningzhi.

[Anonymous User: Miss Nezha, the arrival time for the Comet Fragments in Leijing has been finalized.]

A moment later, she replied.

[Xia Ningzhi: White Jack?]

[Anonymous User: Who else? Death Crow's attack will take place late at night on July 31st. I suggest you move out early and stick close to your magical girl sister, or she'll probably lose her life.]

[Anonymous User: Even if she gets lucky and survives, we'd probably just see a new witch be born, right?]

After sending that last message, Ke Mingqing blocked her phone number and email without waiting for Xia Ningzhi's reply.

He stayed silent for a long moment before turning his head to look at Xia Zili, who was just walking out of the tunnel, and asked:

"Where did Second Sister go?"

"She said something about going to sit at a cafe," Xia Zili said. "As for which cafe, I can't remember."

Ke Mingqing pondered for a moment.

A cafe? Is it the one that belongs to Zorro and my eldest brother? But neither of them are in Leijing right now. Does Second Sister have the key? Since Second Sister knows that Third Sister is Nezha, she definitely won't just sit by and watch if Third Sister is in danger.

At that thought, he closed his eyes. A Theater Puppet materialized out of the wasteland outside the train station. In that case, all I need to do is give her a little nudge.

In an empty alleyway, White Jack leaned against the wall, hiding in the shadows, and slowly tossed his top hat into the air.

The top hat began to spin rapidly, drifting off into the distance like a spinning top.

A few moments later, the top hat floated down into a commercial street under an enclosed dome.

Because Zorro and Ke Linye had temporarily left Leijing, the Solomon cafe was currently closed. The sign on the wooden door was flipped out, reading "Closed."

The top hat slipped into the Solomon cafe through a crack in the window, allowing White Jack to observe the scene inside from the hat's perspective. At this very moment, a Nordic girl—looking somewhere between a young woman and a teenager, dressed in a black bodysuit—was leaning against the wall with her arms crossed, quietly playing on her phone.

It was undoubtedly his Second Sister, wearing a human skin mask.

It looked as though she had just returned from meeting someone as "Executive Zero" and was now taking a break in the empty cafe. Executive Zero turned her head, glancing at the top hat with her icy blue eyes. She spoke in a cold tone:

"Just a hat? Are you too scared to see me in person?"

White Jack leaned against the alley wall, gently tapping his Magic Cane against the ground. He thought to himself:

Second Sister is currently the only S-class fighter in Leijing. She is the only one who can go up against those monsters from Death Crow. That makes this next part the hardest hurdle.

How... am I going to convince Second Sister?

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