Chapter 9 – Flesh Manipulation
1128 Words
When Tarreno’s call came in, Chen Qi was just about to head out to meet a lady for an appointment.
He had thought that after breaking up with all those girlfriends, no more trouble would come knocking.
But clearly, he had underestimated Erand. Just that morning, a beautiful woman had called him.
Seeing the note [Target 013] on the caller ID gave Chen Qi a headache.
Still, after a brief round of probing and small talk, Chen Qi ultimately agreed to the meeting.
Erand’s “deal” with this woman had successfully piqued his interest.
“Someone’s watching me?”
The moment Chen Qi stepped out of the Chris Group Building, a strange, subtle instinct warned him.
Ever since his life level had reached 4, Chen Qi had run some tests on himself.
Besides his strength and speed being vastly superior to an ordinary human’s, the most significant change was this intuition.
Chen Qi called it Danger Sense—a kind of integrated signal from all five senses, warning him directly before his brain could even process the threat.
At that moment, he felt as though a needle were pricking into the center of his brow.
“A sniper rifle!”
And right on cue, Tarreno reported that Hu Wanhai might have hired a killer. Chen Qi instantly understood.
Flesh Manipulation.
In the instant danger struck, Chen Qi activated the superpower granted by the Seven of Hearts.
A cluster of purple light bloomed on the back of his left hand, as ten invisible puppet threads spread out from his ten fingers.
The threads pierced directly into his own body the moment they appeared.
The next instant, Danger Sense screamed at full volume—a high-velocity armor-piercing bullet, moving at three times the speed of sound, had just left the barrel, aimed straight at Chen Qi’s skull.
0.1 seconds—that was all the time the killer Black Hawk had given him.
Black Hawk was certain no target could react in time. Ordinary people? Impossible. Even battle-hardened veterans couldn’t dodge within that window.
Human nerve signals simply didn’t travel fast enough—unless the target wasn’t human at all.
But then, something impossible happened before Black Hawk’s eyes.
The bullet passed clean through the target’s body… and obliterated the car behind him.
Yet the man himself was unharmed—not a splatter, not a scratch.
Black Hawk trusted his aim. There was only one explanation: the target had somehow evaded the bullet entirely.
“Retreat.”
He always fired just one shot per job—success or failure, he left immediately. It was how he’d stayed alive in the assassin trade for so long.
But he’d already decided—before the next attempt, he was going to contact his client.
The intel was wrong. The man wasn’t ordinary. The price would have to go up.
“So this is why Erand was obsessed with Flesh Manipulation?”
At that moment, the puppet threads were fully linked into Chen Qi’s nervous system—every decision from his brain was executed instantly by his body, with almost zero delay.
According to Erand’s own experimental data, in this state, human reaction time could be shortened to 30 milliseconds—exactly ten times faster than normal.
That was why Chen Qi could dodge bullets. In fact, his speed exceeded the threshold of human persistence of vision (0.1–0.14 seconds), making it impossible for Black Hawk to even see if he’d moved.
Erand had named this state Godspeed—and it was only a minor application of Flesh Manipulation’s true potential.
In the next moment, two puppet threads slipped into Chen Qi’s eyes.
His pupils rapidly contracted and dilated, and with each adjustment, his vision transformed—turning into a pair of high-definition binoculars capable of spotting ants from a hundred meters away.
Following the bullet’s trajectory, Chen Qi instantly locked onto the killer’s position—
The rooftop of a thirty-story high-rise, over 150 meters away.
“Did he just… see me? That’s impossible!”
Black Hawk was packing up his rifle when he saw his target glance straight toward his location.
Confident that the man couldn’t possibly pinpoint him, he nevertheless reloaded his handgun before heading downstairs, keeping it gripped tightly in his hand.
Ding!
Three seconds later, Black Hawk stepped in front of the elevator. He had already modified it for quick escapes.
The descent was smooth, with no stops along the way.
“The hit failed. The target is definitely not ordinary. I need more intel.
“And more money.”
During the ride, he sent his client an update.
But the client didn’t respond—unbeknownst to Black Hawk, Hu Wanhai’s corpse was still warm.
At the third floor, Black Hawk exited the elevator and took the stairs.
He would never go straight to the ground floor—an ambush in such a confined space would be a death trap.
Gun hidden up his sleeve, black briefcase in hand, he looked every bit the ordinary white-collar worker.
No signs of danger. It seemed his caution had been overkill.
Until—
His face twisted in shock. His arms and legs had “minds of their own,” moving without his control.
Down in the first-floor lobby, just around the corner, Chen Qi paused mid-step.
No need to go any further. His puppet threads had already pierced through the steel and concrete to snare his target.
The threads carried his senses, and even from over a hundred meters away, with only a quick glance earlier, Chen Qi had memorized every detail of the killer’s face—down to each wrinkle.
“Impressive for an elite assassin. I got here in ten seconds, even walking fast to keep my chairman image intact—and he’s already almost gone.”
This killer was professional, no doubt. Just unlucky today.
“What the hell is going on?!”
Black Hawk’s eyes were wide with terror. No matter how he struggled, his feet were nailed to the floor.
Worse still, his left hand slowly raised the handgun… and pressed the muzzle against his own temple.
No… I don’t want to die!
He tried to scream, but his vocal cords had already been seized—he couldn’t make a sound.
Now, he was nothing more than a human puppet.
“Time to end this.”
Chen Qi had no mercy for those who tried to kill him.
It was the one lesson he had carried from the slums.
Bang!
In boundless fear and despair, Black Hawk’s finger squeezed the trigger.
Another “suicide” would be filed at the police station today.
In the first-floor lobby, Chen Qi let out a long sigh and turned away.
If he didn’t hurry, he’d be late for his date.
- Writer
