A Guide to Humanity’s Extinction

At dusk, inside a McDonald's in the Old Jingmai District.

Ke Mingqing had released the Theater Puppet that morning, and it had spent the entire day right here, playing flying chess with Bai Ziling.

The tall puppet and the short girl spread the board across the table. They took turns rolling the dice, advancing their pieces space by space.

Bai Ziling picked up her notebook, her pencil scratching softly against the paper, and held it up for him.

"You're not paying attention."

Whenever she saw the thick-headed young man move to the wrong spot, she would reach over and correct the piece for him.

But after a full day of playing, he had made countless mistakes. It was as if he rolled the dice and completely forgot the number a second later, giving Bai Ziling quite a headache.

"I'm not distracted, I just have a low IQ," the Theater Puppet said honestly. "Did you know, little sister? People usually just call me an idiot."

Ke Mingqing was busy taking his final exams while simultaneously playing flying chess with this vampire girl. He was forcing his brain to run like a multi-threaded processor; it would be a miracle if he didn't crash.

Running in that state, he really did feel like an idiot.

Bai Ziling stared at him quietly. After a long moment, she lowered her head and scribbled on the page.

She turned the sketchbook toward the puppet to show a single line:

"You look like a penguin."

Beside the text was a drawing of a goofy-looking penguin.

"Do I?"

The Theater Puppet tilted his head at her.

Bai Ziling tilted her head back to look into his eyes. A strand of snow-white hair slipped past her ear, swaying gently against her cheek.

The hash browns Ke Mingqing had ordered arrived. With one portion each, they sat in the corner and quietly nibbled on them. Bai Ziling sat with her knees drawn up on her chair, eating her hash brown like a little hamster.

Her red eyes were downcast. Occasionally, she glanced up at the Theater Puppet's face, or looked out the window at the crowds passing by.

"I'm leaving," Bai Ziling wrote after a while.

"Where are you going?" the Theater Puppet asked. "Are you mad at me? I'll pay attention to the game, all right?"

Bai Ziling shook her head, setting down her sketchbook and pencil.

"If I stay here," Bai Ziling said softly, "they will find you."

It was the first time Ke Mingqing had heard her speak all day. Her voice was clear and faint, like a snowflake drifting past his ear.

Ke Mingqing knew "they" referred to the criminals from Death Crow. But his entire goal was to wait for Death Crow to come knocking so he could offer them his services.

"All right, but will you still come here tomorrow?" he had the puppet ask.

"Mhm." Bai Ziling nodded. "Could you not throw the flying chess set away?" she asked in a low voice.

"I won't."

The Theater Puppet shook his head. He had acquired this flying chess set at noon by "stocking up" from a toy store one street over.

The owner was probably still confused about why a white top hat had flown into his shop, swallowed the toys on the counter, and packed them away.

After retrieving the game, the Theater Puppet had made the hat vanish without a trace, leaving no evidence behind.

"Thank you." Bai Ziling thought for a moment. "What is your name?"

"Giovanni." Ke Mingqing pulled an Italian name out of thin air. He had already decided to use it when this identity joined Death Crow.

"Giovanni, see you tomorrow."

"See you tomorrow."

Bai Ziling clasped her hands behind her back. She cast a reluctant glance at the flying chess board before turning to walk out of McDonald's.

Bathed in the twilight, the white-haired girl looked so frail she resembled a paper cutout lifted straight from a picture book, evoking a pang of worry.

The Theater Puppet watched her leave.

Then he left the flying chess set with the staff for safekeeping, found an empty alleyway nearby, and crouched down. His form dissolved into a wisp of snow-white smoke and drifted away.

...

...

Meanwhile, in another corner of the Old Jingmai District.

Ke Mingqing stepped on the golden fallen leaves as he walked home, muttering under his breath:

"How is this any different from raising a daughter? Who knows when the Death Crow people will find Bai Ziling. Am I really going to have to play flying chess with her for days?"

He kept his head down, his backpack slung over one shoulder while his free hand held his phone, watching recently uploaded sneak-shot videos.

Ever since discovering his family's secret identities, Ke Mingqing had spent his free time typing keywords like "Ember," "Red Lotus," and "Rain Crow" into the search bar of the Stealth Camera Society's website...

It was an easy way to keep track of his family's daily movements.

The stealth camera operators had a sharper sense of smell than anyone else. Whenever a super-human species incident occurred, the first to arrive on the scene were never the police or superheroes, but these voyeurs scattered across the city, hiding in the crowds.

After all, no matter how fast a leopard ran, it could never beat a swarm of rats already deeply rooted in the city.

Ke Mingqing checked on his family members' whereabouts.

The magical girl Ember had rarely appeared on camera lately, and Rain Crow's movements were erratic, with very few people able to capture him on film.

However, there was a video of Red Lotus from last night. Ke Mingqing raised an eyebrow. The video was titled: 'Red Lotus clashes with an unknown mythic vessel on Leijing Overpass No. 7.'

The cameraman had filmed the battle from a distant high-rise.

In the footage, the mythic vessel was a giant with an incomplete body. It had no lower half, but its upper torso towered over the overpass like a magnificent, fiery red fortress, gripping a massive flaming sword in its right hand.

—The Fire Giant "Surtr," originating from Norse mythology.

Ke Mingqing recognized the identity of the mythic vessel.

The only reason he understood this lore was thanks to a copy of the Chronicles of Norse Mythology sitting on the family bookshelf. His second sister, Xia Lingxue, had put it there, and he would flip through it whenever he had free time.

The mythic vessel in the video had already grown to its final stage, allowing it to summon its "Mythic Form" and rule over the earth with the posture of a god, much like "Zeus," the No. 1 member of the Roundtable Heroes.

Because of this, what appeared on the screen was the remnant body of a fire giant, rather than a human form.

Red Lotus was clearly no match for it. She couldn't even leave a scratch on the fortress-like giant. Constantly on the defensive, she flew on her Wind and Fire Wheels, dodging the relentless swings of the flaming sword.

Although they were both mythic vessels, Red Lotus had yet to reach the fourth stage; the two were on completely different levels.

She raised her gauntlet defensively across her forehead. The Wind and Fire Wheels beneath her feet spun furiously, barely allowing her to steady herself amidst the oncoming waves of heat.

She couldn't even get close, let alone break through the fiery red giant's outer shell.

In the next moment, the Fire Giant Surtr brought its flaming sword down again. The overpass was split in two, massive trenches tearing through the asphalt. A heatwave swept over everything, and the camera lens went dark.

Ke Mingqing fell silent, feeling a bit sorry for himself. He wondered just how difficult this path to exterminating super-humans would be when final-boss-level entities were everywhere.

He sighed, put away his phone, and stopped at his front door, looking at the keyhole.

Patting his school uniform pocket, he realized he had forgotten his keys that morning.

A beautiful figure brushed past him. Xia Zili silently pulled out her keys, unlocked the door, and pushed it open.

"Is that really necessary? You haven't spoken to me in two days," Ke Mingqing said, looking at her.

Xia Zili didn't reply. Instead, she took a bottle of Sprite from her shopping bag, shoved it against his chest, and walked inside.

She didn't even change into slippers. As if unwilling to stay near him a second longer, she kicked off her sandals, picked them up, and walked into the entryway barefoot.

Ke Mingqing was left hanging outside the door.

He watched her back quietly and gave a helpless shrug.

A freezing hand reached out from behind and grabbed him by the hair.

Anywhere else, Ke Mingqing would have instantly transformed into lightning and lashed out. But this was his front door. Did they know how many monsters lived in this house? Whoever dared to cause trouble here was in for a massive "blessing."

"Who is it? So rude,"

Ke Mingqing said, turning his head.

The person who entered his line of sight was a woman in a black trench coat. She wore a pair of stud earrings, her eyes were as indifferent as ice, and she had a lollipop resting between her lips.

Xia Lingxue cast her eyes down, looking at him quietly. Without changing her expression, she ruffled his hair and stuffed an unwrapped lollipop into his mouth.

Ke Mingqing froze as her status panel popped up in his vision.

[Superhuman Codename: Enforcer Zero]

[Type: Esper / mythic vessel (Currently in Stage Four: Earthly Form)]

[Danger Rating: S Rank]

[Superhuman Profile: A high-ranking enforcer for the Hero Oversight Bureau whose ability is ice manipulation. However, during an operation to eliminate a mythic vessel, she accidentally inherited the target's mythic sequence—the "Fire Giant Surtr"—and became a new mythic vessel herself.]

[Known Weaknesses: After advancing to the "Earthly Form," mythic vessels will gradually show signs of losing control and going berserk, eventually leading to self-destruction.]

The Fire Giant, Surtr?

Ke Mingqing stared blankly, taking a moment to confirm he hadn't read it wrong.

Sucking on the lollipop she had just handed him, he realized with hindsight, "I'm speechless... The mythic vessel fighting to the death with Third Sister on the overpass last night was actually you? What a display of deep sisterly love."

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