A Guide to Humanity’s Extinction

In the dead of night, Ke Mingwei returned home.

The middle-aged man kept his head bowed, his brow tightly furrowed and a faint light flickering in his eyes.

He took off his leather shoes, hung his police jacket on a hook, and stepped slowly into the dim entryway, making his way toward the living room.

Everyone in the Xia-Ke household was already fast asleep, leaving the entire residential building in silence.

He trod the wooden floorboards with heavy steps, the sound ringing out loudly in the quiet.

Ke Mingwei's mind raced.

Over the past few days, the technical staff at the Hero Company had restored security footage from a bar in Leijing that had been destroyed in an explosion. They had originally attributed the incident to Death Crow, but after reviewing the tape, they realized something was wrong...

In the video, Ke Mingwei saw a man wearing a brown suit and a monocle.

The suited man picked up a glass with his white-gloved right hand, took a sip of liquor, and then looked up at the television mounted on the wall.

The man in the suit suddenly broke into a wide grin, toying with an antique pocket watch in his hand.

In the next instant, he completely vanished.

No matter how many times the investigators rewound the footage or slowed the playback speed, they couldn't capture the man's movements in that split second. It was as if...

Time itself had stopped.

The antique pocket watch left on the bar counter suddenly cracked open, erupting into a violent blaze that swept through the entire bar. Not a single patron survived.

The deafening roar of the explosion had torn through the screen, and it still echoed in Ke Mingwei's ears like a thunderclap detonating in his mind, refusing to fade.

No one understood what this scene meant better than he did.

Clock Maker had returned.

Suddenly, a sharp click from the living room snapped Ke Mingwei out of his thoughts. He looked up to see Ke Mingqing pulling a bottle of Sprite from the refrigerator and twisting off the cap.

A hiss of condensation rose from the mouth of the bottle, and Ke Mingqing quickly leaned in to take a gulp of the ice-cold soda.

He turned his head, glancing at Ke Mingwei with curiosity.

"Old man, what's wrong with you? You look like you're constipated," he asked.

Ke Mingwei stared at his face in silence for a moment before fishing a pack of cigarettes from his jacket pocket.

He clamped a cigarette between his lips and said casually, "It's nothing... It's been dangerous outside lately, so try to go out less. Spend your free time at home with your sister and brother. You hardly see them all year."

"Don't they just run off as soon as they get home, too? Why are you only lecturing me?" Ke Mingqing dismissed the warning.

Ke Mingwei dug a lighter out of his pants pocket, lit his cigarette, and looked up through the smoke at Ke Mingqing.

"They are them, and you are you. Listen to your old man and mind your own business..."

"Yeah, yeah."

"And one more thing. When you're out and about, remember to stand up straight."

"Damn it, you saw the video of Rain Crow lecturing me on the street, didn't you?" Ke Mingqing said. "He is so petty. A grown man messing with me like that—it's just a blatant abuse of power, pure retaliation!"

"Maybe he just wanted to give you a simple reminder... Go to sleep early."

After dropping those words, Ke Mingwei pinched the cigarette between his fingers, kept his head down, and brushed past Ke Mingqing to head upstairs first.

Ke Mingqing turned back, watching Ke Mingwei until the man's silent silhouette was swallowed by the shadows.

So here is the problem... he thought. Since Clock Maker is already in Leijing, when is he going to make a move? He's a time-type ability user. If he wants to kill me, I'll die without even knowing how.

At that thought, Ke Mingqing took another sip of his drink.

But if he doesn't want to kill me right away, then I have time to come up with a countermeasure... I'm not like Grey Owl. If he ties me to a chair and starts a livestream, ten thousand people will kick down the door the very next second.

Still, just in case, I should keep Blue Pigeon out of the public eye for a while. Ke Mingqing figured the Hero Company wouldn't have any objections.

Top Hero had only recently passed away. In the eyes of the public, Blue Pigeon must have taken a massive blow. After all, the two were inseparable on camera and always got along swimmingly.

After such events, the Hero Company usually gave traumatized superheroes some time off to sort out their feelings and adjust their state of mind.

For example, Commander Lin Yin had retired for a few years after suffering the loss of his son, and upon returning, he still held a solid position within the company.

Therefore, for at least a month or two following the comet incident, Blue Pigeon would be permitted to stay out of the limelight. It was one of the Hero Company's rare, relatively humane policies.

Right now, Ke Mingqing had only gotten up because he was thirsty in the middle of the night.

So, after finishing his Sprite, he tossed the plastic bottle into a trash can from over ten meters away, went back upstairs to his bedroom, and fell fast asleep the moment his head hit the pillow.

The rest of the night passed in silence.

........

........

At the same time, at Leijing International Airport.

Due to a flight delay, Jiang Qingzi was currently sitting in the airport, waiting out of sheer boredom.

Slumped in his chair with nothing to do, he glanced up at the bustling crowds, then turned to look out the window into the night sky, where snow-white airplanes with flashing signal lights soared through the darkness.

A moment later, Jiang Qingzi suddenly reached into his pocket.

He pulled out his phone, woke up the Heimeng AI on his home screen, and asked the pixelated girl, "Are you free? ... If you are, help me check where Clock Maker is."

"I'm not free." The pixel girl in pajamas rubbed her eyes. "But I can confirm that he is already in Leijing. I can't find out anything else for now."

"Useless."

"Pedo."

"What is the Boss's attitude toward Clock Maker?" Jiang Qingzi thought for a moment. "I remember Uncle Guchen mentioning before that the Boss and Clock Maker have some bad blood. Is that true?"

"Yeah... Before you joined Death Crow, about ten years ago, Clock Maker killed two members of Death Crow," the pixel girl said. "The Boss fought him back then, but he got away."

She spread her hands and sighed heavily. "It can't be helped. Against a time-type ability user, no one can stop him if he wants to leave."

"Then this will be easy..."

Jiang Qingzi muttered under his breath.

He had been thinking that he had no reason to help Blue Pigeon—at least, not in the eyes of the rest of Death Crow.

But since the Boss had a history with Clock Maker, things were simple... Perhaps when Rain Crow and Blue Pigeon faced off against Clock Maker, Jiang Qingzi could bring along the people of Death Crow to lend them a hand.

"Why do you care so much about Blue Pigeon?" The pixel girl rested a finger on her chin, pondered for a moment, and suddenly asked.

"Wasn't I asking about Clock Maker?" Jiang Qingzi was confused.

"With your strength, it should have been impossible for you to let Blue Pigeon escape, yet you let him go that day," the girl said. "And after that, when you asked someone about Blue Pigeon, you ran off looking totally miserable."

She rested her right hand under her chin, striking the pose of a great detective. "So, I can reasonably deduce that you asking about Clock Maker must have something to do with him."

Jiang Qingzi froze, rendered speechless.

"Wow, you don't have a secret crush on him, do you?" After a pause, the pixel girl asked again.

Jiang Qingzi couldn't be bothered to entertain the quirky AI program. After all, he had argued with it before and lost spectacularly. Human logic was no match for an AI's.

So he silently pressed the power button, the phone screen went black, and pixel Heimeng's suspicious, sly face vanished.

Clock Maker... He seems to have a villain alliance backing him, filled with kids with superhuman talents that he trained. Who knows how strong they are? I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

With that thought, the young man folded his hands over his stomach, rested the back of his head against the chair, closed his eyes, and went to sleep.

........

........

[Good morning, our beloved yet unlovable Red Name Player, "Ke Mingqing."]

[The current time is 09:00 on August 5th, Sunday morning. The remaining time limit for the "Exterminate Superhumans" task is: 145 days, 15 hours, and 0 minutes.]

[Obituary: The player "Joels", located in London, England, died at the hands of the superhuman criminal—"Demon Holmes".]

[As of today, the number of surviving players worldwide is: 91 (↓1)]

Ke Mingqing opened his eyes, stared at the rather festive bright red text of the obituary, and muttered, "They might as well change 'Obituary' to 'Good News'. The idiots dying this early probably aren't normal people anyway; even if they got lucky and survived, they'd only drag us down."

With mixed feelings, he lowered his head and sighed. "How am I supposed to accomplish the grand mission of exterminating superhumans while stuck with these bugs? Still, I hope it doesn't end up with just me and Kuroki Hitomi left alive at the end... If that happens, slitting our throats will really be the only way out for us."

[Detected that today is Sunday. "Weekly Tasks" have been refreshed.]

[Weekly Task 1: Run 3000 meters (Task Reward: 1 Attribute Point)]

[Weekly Task 2: Kill a superhuman species of any grade (Task Reward: 1 chance to use the item roulette)]

He glanced over the task details, let out a yawn, and got out of bed to leave the room.

Just as he was about to walk into the bathroom, Xia Zili suddenly came rushing over.

She was in a hurry, so when her bid for bathroom priority failed, she simply squeezed in front of the sink alongside Ke Mingqing. The two of them picked up their toothbrushes and brushed their teeth in the same mirror, staring at each other wide-eyed.

Originally, Ke Mingqing hadn't planned on going out today.

After all, Kuroki Hitomi and An Youlu were coming over to visit in the afternoon. It was better to just stay home, lest he run into trouble outside and get tied up. If that happened, Kuroki Hitomi would basically be left all alone, surrounded by a pack of wolves.

But at eleven in the morning, Ke Mingqing's spare phone received a message.

[Lin Yin: I need you to execute a mission. Our company's superhero "Train Hero" was captured by criminals during a mission. He needs backup right now. The location is an office building.]

Train Hero was a B Rank contracted hero under the Hero Company; the system's danger rating for him was C Rank.

Blue Pigeon had run into him once in the company elevator. At the time, Train Hero had been wearing a red and black combat suit printed with a vintage train, and his helmet was designed to look like the front of a locomotive.

Ke Mingqing hesitated for a moment. He considered that he still had a weekly task to complete; he could go over there, kill a superhuman species, and instantly run away if things went south. He wouldn't lose out either way. So, he typed a reply to Lin Yin.

[Blue Pigeon: Alright, send me the location. Are Invisible Giant and Shadow Girl coming?]

[Lin Yin: Yes, they will be there... But listen to me first. You guys don't need to wear your combat suits this time. There are a lot of criminals hiding in that area, so getting recognized would be very dangerous.]

[Blue Pigeon: Uh... are you sure?]

[Lin Yin: Yes. You'll disguise yourselves as deliverymen. We've already contacted the delivery company.]

[Blue Pigeon: Time of action.]

[Lin Yin: Around 1:30 PM. There's a package destined for that office building, which likely contains drugs. The delivery company hasn't opened it to check. Anyway, your job is to deliver the package, save the hostage, and leave. Do not drag out the fight, and do not underestimate the enemy.]

[Blue Pigeon: Oh, got it. But is it really okay to not wear masks?]

[Lin Yin: Wear a surgical mask and a hat. If that's not enough, throw on a wig. It'll essentially do the same job. No one will recognize you.]

[Blue Pigeon: I'm heading out then.]

After leaving the house, Ke Mingqing opened his locker at the abandoned train station, pulled on his combat suit, and headed to the Super Hero Company.

By the time he reached the company, it was almost noon. He met up with Invisible Giant and Shadow Girl.

They changed into delivery company uniforms in the prep room's locker area.

Ke Mingqing put on a baseball cap, glasses, a mask, and a wavy wig. When he looked in the mirror, he couldn't even recognize his own face. It was a bizarre feeling, like staring at a complete stranger.

He pushed aside the curtain, stepped out of the changing room, and looked to the side.

Shadow Girl hadn't put on a heavy disguise. The woman left her cool, short hair resting on her shoulders, her features completely apathetic. She slowly pulled on a hat, her bangs slightly veiling her eyes.

As for the Invisible Giant boy, he was too short to bother with a uniform. He simply wore a T-shirt and shorts, looking for all the world like a little tagalong. No one would ever suspect him.

At that moment, the young Invisible Giant tugged down his baseball cap and turned his head to stare at Ke Mingqing.

"What are you looking at?" Ke Mingqing asked.

"Even though you've covered up a lot, you still look like a little kid without your suit. I thought you were some old guy," the Invisible Giant boy said.

"Seems like fifty paces laughing at a hundred paces," Shadow Girl said indifferently.

"Where's the package we're supposed to deliver?"

Ke Mingqing cut to the chase, ignoring their banter.

His schedule was incredibly tight today. After rescuing Train Hero from the office building, he still had to pick up Kuroki Hitomi and An Youlu for their visit to his house.

"Here, I've got it." The Invisible Giant boy pulled a delivery box out of a locker. For some reason, the sound of a spherical object rolling around echoed from inside.

The package had been sprayed with disinfectant, masking any underlying scent.

"What's in here?" Ke Mingqing asked suspiciously, taking the box.

"Who knows? It doesn't matter. The commander told us not to open it, otherwise the other side might get suspicious." The Invisible Giant boy rested his hands behind his head. "Our mission is just to save Train Hero, got it?"

"Leave it to the little kid to understand best," Shadow Girl said coolly.

After that, the three of them left the Hero Company through the back door, where an electric tricycle outfitted with a small cargo box was parked.

They divided the work clearly. Ke Mingqing was driving. Since the Invisible Giant boy was small, he could crouch on the front floorboard, while Shadow Girl hid in the cargo box in the back.

Following the address Commander Lin Yin had sent, they drove toward the office building.

Before long, they arrived at a remote, unnamed block. The ground was covered in gravel and debris. The place looked totally deserted, let alone like someone actually came here to clean.

Solitary, vicious-looking figures sat next to the flat-roofed houses. At a glance, every single one of them had a super-human species panel hovering above their heads.

Ke Mingqing slightly lowered the brim of his hat to avoid making eye contact. Upon seeing his uniform, those people quickly looked away.

The commander was right. If they hadn't come disguised as deliverymen, these vicious thugs would have probably swarmed them by now.

Soon enough, Ke Mingqing rode the electric tricycle right up to the office building.

He parked the vehicle. The building before them was completely unremarkable, standing exactly three stories high. The windows on the third floor were heavily boarded up. It seemed the intel was correct—Train Hero was locked up right there.

"Are you ready?" he asked, looking down.

"Damn it, my game isn't finished yet." The Invisible Giant boy was crouching on the tricycle's floorboard, playing Delta Force on his phone.

"Only a complete psycho boots up a game in the middle of a mission. Quit the match."

Ke Mingqing said this softly as he stepped off the electric trike, walked to the small cargo box at the back, cracked it open, and looked at Shadow Girl hiding inside.

Their eyes met, and he took the delivery package from her hands.

Tucking the package under his arm, Ke Mingqing approached the office building and pressed the doorbell on the wall.

He lowered the brim of his hat slightly, quietly staring at the tightly closed white door.

After a moment, someone came and opened it. Standing in the doorway was a bald man with a scar running down his face, wearing a black tank top and shorts.

"What do you want?" the man's voice was low and raspy.

"Delivery."

Ke Mingqing replied carelessly, glancing up at the space above the man's head.

[Superhuman Codename: Red Scar (Danger Rating: C Rank)]

"Just give it to me."

The bald man spoke coldly, reaching out to snatch the package from his hand.

But right then, he looked down and suddenly saw something unimaginable—a snake-like shadow slithered out from the cargo box of the electric tricycle, darting across the ground at breakneck speed!

Before the man could react, the shadow coiled around his own shadow, its tail wrapping tightly around his body.

The next moment, the man froze in place, completely immobilized, as if he had been bound by his own shadow.

This was Shadow Girl's ability. As long as she controlled someone's shadow, she could affect their actual body.

The bald man's eyes went wide. Ke Mingqing looked up from under his hat brim, met his gaze, and then raised his right index finger, shooting a finger-thick bolt of pitch-black lightning from his fingertip.

In a flash, the lightning pierced right through his forehead.

Not even making a sound, a hole the size of a finger appeared in the man's head. The black lightning had incinerated the blood, preventing a single drop from leaking out.

Everything happened in complete silence. The man remained standing motionless in his tracks.

Ke Mingqing's expression didn't change. He naturally patted the bald man on the shoulder and pushed him inside the office building.

A text prompt slowly popped up before his eyes.

[Detected that you have killed a C-Rank Superhuman. Gained 500 Experience Points.]

[Current level progress: LV.15 (2200/7500 EXP)]

[Weekly Task 2 completed: Kill a superhuman species of any grade. Task reward obtained: 1 chance to use the item roulette.]

Shadow Girl tumbled out of the tricycle's cargo box. She and the Invisible Giant boy followed right behind him, entering the building. They silently shut the door and locked it.

The lobby before them was completely empty, eerily quiet. Ke Mingqing propped the bald man's corpse onto a chair and turned back, making a shushing gesture to the other two.

"He's the only one?" the Invisible Giant boy frowned and asked in a low voice.

"The others might have left, or they might be waiting upstairs," Ke Mingqing mouthed silently.

"Don't drop your guard," Shadow Girl whispered a warning.

The three of them slowly advanced toward the stairwell and crept up the stairs, taking it step by step toward the top floor. Yet, the second floor was just as empty, harboring a stillness that chilled the blood.

"Train Hero is right above us. It's highly likely someone is standing guard..." Ke Mingqing stopped at the second-floor landing, looking up toward the skylight.

"I can send out my Shadow Snake," Shadow Girl suggested.

"No, I'm the fastest." Ke Mingqing shook his head. "Your Shadow Snake will beat the grass and startle the snake. Leave it to me." After saying that, he shoved the delivery package into Shadow Girl's hands.

The package might contain criminal evidence or something important that could be handed over to the Hero Company after the operation. Shadow Girl understood this perfectly, so she silently wrapped the box in a layer of shadows and tucked it under her arm.

Ke Mingqing silenced his footsteps and slowly made his way to the third floor.

Then, he spotted a locked iron door. Using a hand chop laced with pitch-black lightning, Ke Mingqing melted the lock away and peered inside through the gap.

The third floor was also empty. The entire floor was hollow, bearing only a few chairs. The windows were tightly sealed, and the lighting was dim. He couldn't be sure if anyone was hiding in his blind spots.

Ke Mingqing turned his head and gave the other two a look. In the very next second, he violently kicked the door open, stamped his feet on the ground, and transformed into a streak of deep blue lightning as he surged forward.

Shadow Girl and the Invisible Giant boy followed close behind, entering the floor back-to-back with wary expressions.

At that moment, sea-blue lightning flared up in the dim room, illuminating every corner. Yet, Ke Mingqing suddenly stopped in his tracks, staring blankly upward.

Shadow Girl and the Invisible Giant boy momentarily froze before following his gaze up toward the ceiling.

They saw Train Hero. No, to be exact, they saw a mangled array of organs—intestines, heart, kidneys, and stomach. The blood-drenched organs were strung up mid-air by iron chains, swaying gently in the afternoon heat like blooming flowers.

Dead silence.

A deathly silence enveloped the entire floor.

The organs hadn't dried yet; every sway scattered fresh blood, filling the air with a pungent metallic stench. A drop of blood splattered onto Ke Mingqing's cheek.

In that instant, Ke Mingqing, Shadow Girl, and the Invisible Giant boy all froze simultaneously. Immediately after, the very same name surfaced in their minds.

Clock Maker.

Massive dread detonated within their hearts. Shadow Girl and the Invisible Giant boy dared not move recklessly, merely turning their heads to frantically scan the surroundings.

Ke Mingqing, however, made an entirely unexpected move: he closed his eyes.

Using the omniscient perspective granted by the creation of his Theater Puppet, Ke Mingqing looked down from above, taking in every detail within a sixty-meter radius.

After a long moment, he opened his eyes again and said in a hoarse voice, "Relax... He's not here, but I can't be sure if he's somewhere nearby."

"Clock Maker? Holy shit! Train Hero got butchered by Clock Maker?" The Invisible Giant boy was stunned.

Shadow Girl stayed silent, gulping hard.

Ke Mingqing looked up, taking another glance at the organs suspended in mid-air, and suddenly realized something was wrong.

"Wait, where is Train Hero's head? If it was Clock Maker, given his MO, he definitely would have strung up Train Hero's head too, because that's what he's done every single time before, without exception."

Realizing this, Ke Mingqing twisted around to scour the room, searching for Train Hero's head.

Suddenly, an intense, ominous premonition washed over him.

Shattering the silence, he marched over to Shadow Girl and yelled, "Bring out that delivery package! Hurry!"

Shadow Girl flinched, then calmly did as told, pulling out the delivery box swathed in her shadows and handing it to Ke Mingqing.

Ke Mingqing violently snatched it and tore open the package as fast as he could.

Right after, he witnessed a horrifying sight.

Stuffed inside the delivery box was Train Hero's head. His eye sockets were completely empty, dripping with blood, and his mouth was locked open in sheer terror. He had clearly been paralyzed with absolute fear right up until the moment he died.

Resting right beside the head was an exquisitely crafted pocket watch, along with a small slip of paper.

Ke Mingqing's pupils contracted sharply.

Scrawled on the note in purple and red ink was a single English word: "Surprise", as if welcoming the three of them. Then, the pocket watch suddenly began to tick.

In the very next instant... accompanied by a sharp click, the face of the pocket watch shattered.

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