Infinity: Kill your way through the movie world.

The following night, while the Witcher was still basking in the joy of the Apocalypse being ended, Wu Heng had already quietly left the guild.

Suburbs of Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

The moonlight spread across the wilderness like a layer of pale frost, and the wind whispered through the withered grass.

It's five miles from the nearest road and even further from the nearest house. It's a place no one has set foot in for twenty years, and even wild animals avoid it.

Wu Heng stood in a patch of waist-high withered grass, with frozen ground beneath his feet.

There was a building 300 meters ahead of him.

Or rather, something that was once a building.

The steel frame, like the ribs of a giant beast, pierced through the concrete exterior wall. Most of the roof had collapsed, and the windows were just dark holes. On the crooked sign at the entrance, a few faded letters could still be barely made out: "Sioux Falls Meat Processing Plant - 1947-1978".

The factory died in a pollution scandal.

Groundwater was contaminated by slaughterhouse waste and chemicals, leading to a collective lawsuit by residents of three surrounding villages. The factory closed down, its equipment was auctioned off, and its buildings were abandoned. Forty years of wind and rain have turned it into a festering sore in the wilderness.

It has always stood here, as if it were meant to be.

Wu Heng's eyes glowed slightly in the night, not as a reflection, but as a light film formed on the surface of his pupils by the power of evil spirits, allowing him to see things that ordinary people could not.

He saw the flow of energy surging beneath the warehouse foundation.

Like the undercurrents of an underground river, pale yellow, viscous energy flows slowly along some ancient veins. Where the energy flows, the soil crystallizes unnaturally, wild grasses grow into twisted spirals, and even the air carries a faint smell of sulfur.

This is not a natural formation.

This is the vein of purgatory, the traces of the connection between God's creation of purgatory and the human world, like the sutures left under the skin after surgery. Although the surface has healed, there are still channels deep inside.

Wu Heng remained motionless, like a stone statue.

His way of blending into the shadows is not to become invisible, but to reduce his presence, to let the power of balance envelop his entire body, to let light bypass him, to let sound ignore him, and to let any detection spell judge him as part of the environment.

Even if someone looked directly at this patch of grass with binoculars, they would only see an ordinary patch of withered grass.

He waited for seventeen minutes.

Suddenly, the first shadow appeared on the east side of the warehouse, appearing like a ghost.

It was a moving cloud of black mist, flowing rapidly along the ground.

There was no solid substance in the fog, only countless tiny particles churning around, like coal dust blown away by the wind. The black fog arrived at the warehouse door and, without lingering, seeped directly in through the crack in the door.

A few seconds later, a faint light appeared inside the warehouse.

Wu Heng's gaze pierced through the wall.

He saw the black mist condense and take shape in the center of the warehouse, eventually transforming into a man wearing a dark gray suit.

Slightly overweight, with meticulously combed hair, and carrying a leather briefcase—Crowley, the Crossroads Demon King, or rather, the former King of Hell with the shortest tenure, is now a free-roaming demon merchant.

However, he will probably become the new Demon King again soon, since Lucifer has already been sealed away.

Crowley did not act immediately.

He first looked around, tracing his fingers in the air to check for traps or surveillance spells. Once he confirmed it was safe, he took out a palm-sized piece of bone from his briefcase.

The bone fragments gleamed with an ivory-white luster in the dim light, their surface covered with intricate runes.

This item was made from the rib of the werewolf progenitor.

Killing it requires two conditions: silverware and the Moonlight Charm, plus a negligible amount of demonic power. The ribs must be removed while it is still alive, and then it must be forged in hellfire for seven days and seven nights.

There are no more than three of these Purgatory Keys in the entire hell. Crowley placed the bone fragment on the ground, took two steps back, and began to wait.

The second shadow arrived even more quietly.

There was no black fog, no light, only a slight distortion in the air, like a visual illusion caused by a summer heatwave. The distortion moved to the warehouse entrance and condensed into a middle-aged man wearing a brown trench coat.

It was Castio!

He walked into the warehouse, his steps light, the hem of his trench coat swaying slightly behind him, his face expressionless, his eyes reflecting an inhuman glow in the dim light.

“You’re late,” Crowley said, his voice echoing in the empty warehouse.

“Heaven’s surveillance is stricter than Hell’s.” Castio walked to the center of the warehouse, keeping a five-meter distance from Crowley. “To get the Holy Oil, you need to go through three approvals. I used some tricks to bypass them.”

He took a glass bottle out of the inside pocket of his trench coat.

The bottle is only the length of an index finger and contains a golden, viscous liquid that flows slowly inside, like living honey.

Angelic oil.

Extracted from the blood of an archangel mixed with sacred soil from the Mount of Olives, and blessed seven times, a single drop is enough to obliterate a low-level demon. This small vial requires the sacrifice of the full power of three high-ranking angels to be refined.

Crowley stared at the bottle for a few seconds, then nodded: "The goods are genuine, shall we begin?"

“Wait a minute.” Castio looked at the ground. “Are you sure this is a node in the Purgatory Veins?”

“It took me thirty years, and several interrogations of the monster progenitors, to find this place.” Crowley tapped the ground with his toe. “See those pale yellow energy streams? Those are the ‘gaps’ left by God when He created Purgatory. By using these gaps to open the gates of Purgatory, the energy consumed can be reduced by eighty percent.”

"Otherwise, even sacrificing an entire city wouldn't be enough for just the two of us."

Castio crouched down, placed his palm on the ground, and after a few seconds, he withdrew his hand, his palm covered with a fine layer of yellow crystals.

“It is indeed a remnant of purgatory.” He stood up, shaking off the crystals. “You modified this place.”

“Of course.” Crowley walked to the edge of the warehouse and knocked on the wall. “Did you hear that? There’s a 50-centimeter-thick layer of steel-lead composite panels inside, covering the entire structure from foundation to ceiling, to prevent ritual energy from penetrating the ground and causing an earthquake or landslide. And this too.”

He pointed to the top of his head.

Wu Heng's gaze moved upwards, and on the beam of the warehouse ceiling hung twelve palm-sized leather talismans.

The talismans are strung together with black silk threads to form a circular array. The surface of the talisman is decorated with intricate sealing patterns drawn with silver ink, and a faint dark red luster flows deep within the patterns.

“A suppression talisman made from the skin of a fallen angel.” Crowley said calmly, as if introducing furniture materials. “It must be peeled off while the angel is still alive, and the suppression runes must be imprinted while the nerves are still reacting. Hanging it here can weaken the spatial barrier between purgatory and the human world, making it easier to open the door.”

Castio looked up at the leather runes and remained silent for a few seconds.

“Cruel,” he said.

“But it works,” Crowley replied. “To open a door that God himself has closed, there’s always a price to pay. When you brought the holy oil, didn’t you kill any angels?”

"They volunteered their efforts."

“Voluntary?” Crowley laughed, a dry laugh. “Are you sure they knew these powers would be used to open Purgatory?”

Castio did not answer.

The warehouse fell silent.

Moonlight streamed in through a hole in the roof, cutting out geometric, dim patches of light on the ground, with dust particles slowly floating within the beams of light.

“Let’s begin,” Crowley finally said. (End of Chapter)