The Star River Era! The Dimensional Freedom Demon

"Hello everyone, both citizens and online viewers, this is the Happiness Building live broadcast..."

"After more than an hour of pursuit, our Public Security Bureau finally cornered the murderer, Chu Junhui, inside the Happiness Building..."

"It's appalling and utterly heinous. Even while on the run, the murderer Chu Junhui didn't forget to kill innocent citizens. In the Happiness Building, he was incredibly cruel, shooting and killing 26 residents, with more than 50 others injured or affected. How brutal! And he was a senior in college. It's truly heartbreaking. Our education system..."

"Please rest assured, viewers, we will definitely bring this villain to justice today!"

On a local television station in D city, the virtual AI host was highly emotional and his face was filled with indignation.

However, after Ji Chen arrived at the building, he did not indiscriminately kill a single innocent civilian, except for the secret agents.

Those unnecessary casualties were either due to the agents' poor marksmanship or their disregard for the lives of civilians.

However, the police department does not delve into the underlying causes.

All they need is a name to take the blame—

Therefore, all the bloodshed and destruction were unhesitatingly attributed to Ji Chen.

The online comments section exploded instantly.

"Wait, when did Da Xuan have shootings? Is this still in China?"

"666, you didn't invite me to open a dungeon."

"Hey upstairs, I just checked. Happiness Apartment is pretty close to your college, huh...tsk tsk..."

It was just dawn, and normal social interactions had not yet begun. Citizens who lived further away were unaware of what had happened that night.

So, the student who was huddled under the covers was jolted awake by this reminder and started screaming in the dormitory.

"Big head! Big head! Big job!"

Strangely, his roommate, who used to be eager to discuss family history with him at the slightest noise, was still lying in bed, fast asleep.

"What? You weren't that energetic when you played Delta yesterday."

After muttering a few words, the students who had stayed up all night huddled under their blankets, continuing to watch the news broadcast with a mixture of fear and excitement.

. . . . . .

The comments section has already accumulated to more than twenty posts.

"I heard this murderer is a rich kid; his dad used to be the richest man in our city. I never expected this..."

"Whoever he is, this kind of scum who indiscriminately kills innocent people deserves to die. I hope the police will execute this piece of trash as soon as possible!"

"Indeed, the rich are a menace; they killed every innocent person!"

"A rich kid? His life's been too easy, he wants to find some excitement?"

"The person upstairs is again using their meager imagination to speculate about the rich guy's stimulation threshold. What do you know? His dad messed with CATN..."

(This comment violated the rules and has been deleted.)

Ye Xiao was also watching the live stream that suddenly popped up, and when he saw this comment, a glint of light flashed in his eyes.

Technological aristocracy.

He understood what the netizen meant.

In his previous life, during the period of order reconstruction in D City, he had heard of the reputation of the technological aristocracy.

They know that the tech aristocracy is very likely the culprit behind the impending apocalypse.

Moreover, before the apocalypse arrived, that is, before 24:00 today, they purged all those in high positions who might take advantage of the period of disorder to quickly seize power throughout the world, and then they themselves disappeared into the underground base.

"Unfortunately, it's not just living things that mutate during the apocalypse."

Ye Xiao chuckled coldly, recalling the rumors from his previous life about an underground base mutating into a "Transformer" hundreds of meters tall with unfathomable energy, capable of causing localized earthquakes with a single strike, which devoured certain technological elites.

"But was the sudden transformation of that bastard Chu Junhui into a villain also due to the influence of the tech aristocracy?"

Ye Xiao thought this explanation was acceptable, but...

He watched as the live stream showed the Happiness Building's firing position, where various weapons were being used to suppress the police force, leaving them unable to raise their heads.

"How could someone who could withstand the recoil of a machine gun and fire indiscriminately, while carrying a weapon weighing over a hundred pounds to provide support, possibly die so uneventfully in his past life?"

A shadow fell over Ye Xiao's heart.

Beside him, Liu Yan, carrying a full bag of supplies, looked worried.

Liu Yan felt incredibly unlucky. The wealthy man had become a ruthless killer, and the most capable person was spouting awful apocalyptic rhetoric. If it weren't for the need to extract more secret martial arts knowledge, she would have been tempted to run back to the rented apartment Chu Junhui had helped her rent and lie there for three days straight.

Her pitiful appearance immediately aroused Ye Xiao's protective instincts. He disregarded the fact that he was carrying a heavy bag weighing more than 50 kilograms, and sweating profusely, he used his free hand to support the bag from behind Liu Yan to reduce her burden.

"No matter what skills you have, if you dare to hurt my senior Liu Yan, I will never forgive you."

Ye Xiao made up her mind.

He was confident that in this life, he had prepared sufficient resources to help him awaken quickly.

Then, relying on the experience of advancing his superpowers summarized in the refuge area in his previous life, he collected advancement resources and became a third-tier awakener at a speed beyond everyone's imagination.

. . . . . .

"Where did he get so much firepower?!"

The deep sorrow between Sergeant Su's brows was impossible to dispel.

The assault on the building had been going on for two and a half hours, but the SWAT team members were killed before they could even get to the third floor.

As for the two buildings in front and behind, even if someone were lucky enough to rush into the high-rise, they wouldn't be able to show their face at all.

But anyone who dared to expose themselves within Ji Chen's firing range and attempted to set up a gun was ruthlessly killed.

Even with the assistance of drones, Ji Chen managed to keep over forty of them from showing their faces.

Suddenly, a column of gray-black smoke shot out from the fifth floor of the Happiness Apartment across the street, tracing a crooked trajectory as it rushed toward the command post.

Sergeant Su's pupils contracted sharply, and without thinking, he grabbed his subordinate and tackled him to the ground.

Suddenly, the command vehicle behind him exploded into a ball of orange-red fire, followed by a low "hum"—the vibration of the air being torn apart. It rolled along the ground, making Chief Su's heart ache.

His eyes, dripping with bloody tears, saw his subordinate seem to shout something, but he couldn't hear clearly, and blood was also flowing from his ears.

His subordinate gritted his teeth and suddenly pulled Sergeant Su a long way around.

then

The expanding orange-yellow fireball covered their original position. The sheet metal flew upwards like pieces of paper, and the car door, still burning, traced an arc before slamming into the broken wall ten meters away with a muffled "bang." The wall plaster crumbled down in a shower.

The hot air hit us, burning our skin.

After a long while, Sergeant Su, whose tinnitus had subsided, suddenly shouted:

"RPG!"

His voice was dry.

This guy is no longer just a villain; even international terrorist organizations might not have this kind of firepower!

He gave the intelligence officers a thorough dressing-down.

They can't even figure out what weapons the enemy has. What kind of intelligence personnel are they?!

"Who were those people Chu Junhui killed before? How did they manage to possess firearms, including RPGs?!"

Hiding in a corner, the disheveled and disheveled Chief Su immediately dialed his superior's number.

"...Old Su, logically speaking, someone of your level shouldn't need to know information at this level. However, the situation has changed recently, Chu Junhui and..."

The more Chief Su listened, the darker his face became.

He could understand the overstepping of certain rules by the powerful elites, but he never expected that there would be such an outrageous thing as a secret service organization, something that only exists in dictatorial governments.

Has the democratic parliament been eaten?!

"I don't care, the situation is far beyond our control with this amount of firepower. At most, we can only surround the area. Without follow-up fire support, we will abandon this mission without hesitation!"

The live stream had already been cut off by the police after the previous failed attempt to storm the building.

The three buildings, now resembling ruins, made the bloodstains in some corners stand out starkly in the rising sun.