High-level martial arts: Contract cashback, invincible starting from the Zerg.

The Tidal Highway rest stop is located 30 kilometers away from Starfish City.

The faded, rusty neon signs flickered in the twilight.

A man wearing a gray wolfskin hood clutched a brown paper bag of food as he walked down the third-floor corridor of the inn, his footsteps making a clattering sound in the quiet environment.

However, when he was about to insert the key into his hand...

Li Chongji, however, noticed something amiss.

At this moment, in front of room 207, the shell-patterned bronze door, which should have been tightly closed, was now ajar, with a few slivers of sickly yellow light leaking out from the crack—like the last glow of a stranded jellyfish before its death.

Clearly, the room had been opened!

Old Li's Adam's apple bobbed.

He suddenly had a feeling that he had stepped into a trap.

At that moment, a woman wearing a light blue wavy silk dress appeared at the corner of the corridor.

She seemed to be carrying a metal ring on her back, from which a faint light, like fragments of the Milky Way, was projected. Her face was also cut in half by the shadow of the hood; her left cheek was as pale as a coral reef under the moonlight, while her right cheek glowed with the eerie blue bioluminescence of deep-sea fish.

Old Li was stunned when he saw the mysterious woman.

Although he didn't recognize the woman in front of him, he knew very well what her rank was.

"You are a bane of magic..." Old Li murmured.

"Mr. Li," her voice boomed like waves crashing against the rusty iron of a sunken ship, "I'm sorry, my master is looking for you."

The next moment, Old Li staggered and fell to the ground, the bag of food in his hand falling directly to the ground.

"Tell your master that I will never compromise..."

Before he could finish speaking, the woman's hand reached out towards Li Chongji, instantly blocking his view.

And at the same time, everything turned dark...

There was also Li Chongji's original conscious state.

......

As consciousness gradually shifts from a state of confusion to a state of clarity.

Li Chongji slowly opened his eyes.

Li Chongji was no longer in the corridor of the car station at this time.

Instead, he sat on a long-backed chair, without any ropes binding him or anyone restricting his freedom.

Li Chongji looked around and found that the place was filled with the atmosphere of disrepair, but there seemed to be very little dust, as if it had been specially cleaned.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

As the sound of metal clashing rang out, Li Chongji looked ahead.

A thin man was standing in front of him with a wrench, repairing the mechanical components below the control panel.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

Li Chongji also stood up and looked around.

There really seems to be no one else here, only that mysterious man in front of me!

Li Chongji then looked at the man again, seemingly trying to figure out what his presence might mean.

Just then, the man with his back to him began to speak.

"Mr. Li Chongji, we apologize for bringing you here in such a rude manner. We have been searching for your traces, all for the secrets of this place's mechanisms that you hold in your mind."

Li Chongji's tightly furrowed brows relaxed for a moment, as if he had understood something.

"You're the card holder? Why don't you just absorb the secrets in my mind?"

The man who was still repairing the control panel smiled.

However, the laughter seemed to carry a hint of coldness, as if what Li Chongji said was utterly ridiculous.

"Putting aside the fact that we have some connection to each other, how could we, old friends reunited, bear to let you disappear from my care?"

Li Chongji sized up the person who slowly turned around.

The man's face was like a masterpiece sculpted by a demon with a craft knife, every contour precisely calculated to evoke fear in the human heart, keeping him forever with a cruel, ambiguous smile.

His skin was like the scales of a cold-blooded animal, gleaming with the cold light of mother-of-pearl.

Below his left eye, a piece of mechanical debris was rigidly embedded, seemingly indicating that a mechanical device had been implanted due to a previous injury.

"You don't look like a citizen of Great Xia," Li Chongji said in a deep voice.

"certainly..."

As the man threw away the screwdriver in his hand, he slowly walked towards Li Chongji.

In Li Chongji's perception, the man appeared extremely cold-blooded.

It gives the impression of a venomous snake lurking in the dark grass, constantly watching its prey and waiting for the right moment to strike.

The man walked up to Li Chongji, raised his hands, which were covered in engine oil, and stroked the contours of Li Chongji's face, as if he were examining a work of art.

"I've always thought that those of us left behind by the times would share the same goals, but I've found you to be very different..." the man said slowly.

"You are a member of the Mechanicus, while I am a law-abiding citizen," Li Chongji said again.

The man stopped stroking Li Chongji's facial features, and a hint of anger seemed to appear in his eyes.

"You seem to have some misunderstanding about us."

The man pulled a small knife from his waist, a cruel smile spreading across his lips.

"Only the people of Great Xia call us the Mechanicus, but I prefer you to call us 'The Forsaken.'"

Li Chongji shook his head.

After a moment, he raised his head and said righteously, "I am happy to hear your story. We have predecessors who suffered the same fate, but revenge cannot change their history. Instead, our actions will only make more people suffer and increase hatred."

"You seem to be an optimist..." the man said with a smile.

"I'm not optimistic, I'm just... um!!!"

Li Chongji was only halfway through his sentence.

The man's knife had already pierced his abdomen repeatedly and rapidly.

Under that cold, bizarre atmosphere and the powerful stirring, Li Chongji's fear of death was amplified to the maximum, and he could only tightly cover his abdomen with his hands to prevent the blood from flowing out too quickly.

Seeing Li Chongji fall to the ground in extreme fear, the man instead let out a happy laugh.

He then raised the knife in his hand and licked the blood off it with his tongue.

"This is just a little lesson for you, but don't worry, I won't let you die. After all, Death doesn't like me, and he won't like you either... Alright, let's see which control panel we need to fix next."

After the man finished speaking, he walked toward the control panel with a sinister grin.

Only the injured Li Chongji remained lying on the ground, breathing heavily.

"If you don't want to get stabbed again, I suggest you start helping me with the work right now..."