III+

Changnan.

Outside a club, a group of armed soldiers stood guard, their faces tight with tension. Moonlight glinted off their weapons, casting shadows that shifted uneasily.

"Leader, what are we detaining in there?" one of the soldiers asked, his voice low and filled with curiosity.

"I don't know," the leader replied tersely, "but if you value your life, don't ask questions."

"Not even a hint?"

The leader's expression darkened. "I said I don't know."

Another soldier leaned in, lowering his voice conspiratorially. "I heard we're escorting some rare beast. The organization's planning to use it for an experiment."

Before anyone could respond, the glint of moonlight on a gun barrel caught something—a reflection, a fleeting human face.

"Leader!" The soldier spun around, aiming his weapon, but nothing was there.

"What's wrong?" the leader barked.

"I swear… I saw something."

The leader stepped forward, his spear in hand, eyes scanning the area. "Strange… there was definitely—"

Crack!

The sentence never finished. His neck twisted with a sickening snap, blood and bone spinning in a gruesome arc. Another soldier stumbled back, only to have his head explode in a mist of blood under the eerie moonlight.

In the chaos, a figure strode forward, majestic and silent, pushing open the door to the underground structure.

Inside, the bright lights of the subterranean complex reflected off pristine walls and mirrored floors. Han's shadowy form moved through the gleaming reflections like a ghost. Soldiers patrolled the corridors, their movements mirrored eerily on every surface.

A flash of crimson, and heads rolled to the ground, lifeless before they realized they'd been struck. Han's figure glided through the reflections, a phantom made real, until he reached the deepest part of the underground labyrinth.

There, in a massive cage, lay a giant snake, its body coiled like a living mountain of scales. Han gazed at the creature, frowning.

"Not here," he muttered.

Just then, a voice cut through the silence. "Look who decided to show up."

Han turned to face the voice. Behind him stood a man with snake-like eyes, scales rippling over his arms, and a tongue that flicked like a serpent's.

"003, Heaven had a way, but you chose not to walk it. Hell had no door, yet here you are, rushing in." The man's grin widened, showing teeth sharper than they should've been.

Han narrowed his eyes. "You must be Cobra."

Cobra chuckled, revealing a small snake coiling around his arm. "Ah, yes, that's me. I missed you last time. Quite the waste of my special abilities."

He stepped forward, his scales glinting in the dim light. "You know, all of us… our powers come from a single piece of candy."

Han raised an eyebrow. "A candy?"

Cobra nodded, eyes gleaming. "Whatever we desire in our hearts, the candy gives us. I needed a way to fight invisible enemies, so I got these heat-sensing eyes, like a snake."

Han stroked his chin thoughtfully. "So your powers are based on desire. Why not wish for invincibility?"

Cobra shrugged. "Invincibility isn't what you think. One guy asked for it, and now he can turn his body into nothingness. Technically, he can't die. No one can touch him. But he can't do anything either. Useless."

Han laughed. "And you didn't think of eating more?"

Cobra's smile faded. "One guy did. Ate two pieces, turned into a puddle of blood and pus."

With a flick of his wrist, the small snake coiled tighter around Cobra's arm. "Enough talk. Ready to die?"

But before Cobra could react, Han's figure blurred, disappearing from sight.

Cobra grinned, his eyes widening to scan for heat. But his grin faltered. There was no heat source nearby. His confusion lasted only a second before something sliced through the air—Poof!—his head tumbled to the ground, severed cleanly.

Blood sprayed the walls as Han reappeared, standing behind the fallen body. "Your intel is outdated," he said with a smirk. "No one uses invisibility anymore."

With a casual glance at Cobra's decapitated corpse, Han turned and walked out of the club, vanishing into the night.

Moments after his departure, the air shimmered. A crack opened in the space Han had just left, and from it, Mei stepped through, her presence pulling reality itself apart at the seams. She tossed Cobra's headless body aside with a disinterested glance, turning her attention to the giant snake still caged before her.

"Ah…," she murmured with a smile, "I feel like I can create something wonderful from this."

The snake, once menacing, now cowered before her, trembling uncontrollably as if death itself had approached. Mei's hand reached through the bars, her fingers gently stroking the top of the snake's head.

"Don't be afraid," she whispered. "He's just an ingredient. But you... you will evolve. You will become something beyond beautiful."

With a single, effortless pull, Mei tore the cage apart and dragged the trembling creature into the void with her.

...

In another place, a void-like black room suspended between the boundary of reality and the spiritual realm, Mei stood amidst a curious collection of items. Here, no physical laws held sway, and the room itself existed nowhere within the known world. Piles of strange, twisted flowers, experimental instruments, and a peculiar vase cluttered the space. The vase—small, delicate—seemed an unassuming thing, yet it was anything but ordinary.

Now, added to the surreal collection, was the body of a giant snake and a lifeless male figure.

"No need to be nervous," Mei said softly, her voice echoing unnaturally in the space, "Relax. This won't hurt."

With a precise motion, Mei sliced through the male body, severing it cleanly into pieces. One by one, the pieces were tossed into the vase. From head to torso, she fed them into the small, ordinary-looking vessel, yet miraculously, the vase remained unchanged—its capacity never exceeded the humble 100 milliliters it had always been.

...

Kitsune Headquarters

"Cobra is dead."

The room fell into shocked silence.

"What?!"

"Who did it?!"

The tension grew thick as the implications sank in. One of the researchers tapped a few keys, pulling up surveillance footage on the screen. "Based on the remaining camera feeds, it had to be 003."

"Impossible," someone snapped, disbelief coloring their voice. "Cobra's abilities were designed to counter 003. Even if Cobra underestimated him, it shouldn't have been this easy."

Another voice cut through, low and grim, "Unless... 003 has evolved."

The suggestion hung in the air like a looming storm.

"That's not possible," the lead scientist argued. "006 is dead. By our calculations, no new monsters should have been created, and without 006, there shouldn't be any further evolution."

A third voice, quieter but no less intense, interrupted. "Have you forgotten? We once speculated that the creation of monsters wasn't solely 006's doing but came from something else—an object."

The group exchanged uneasy glances.

"If that hypothesis is true, then 006's death wouldn't have stopped the process. Someone… or something, may have taken over."

They fell silent, remembering an unsettling conversation long past. "Do you recall what Enko asked 006 before he died?"

The room grew even quieter. Enko, one of their brightest containment experts, had questioned 006 with deadly seriousness on his final mission.

"'If we kill you, will it all stop? Will no more monsters be born?'"

"And 006 replied…" the lead scientist murmured, "'Are you sure?'"

The weight of those words settled like a shroud over the room.

"This... could be troublesome," someone whispered.

Without another word, one of the senior officers walked straight toward the containment wing. His steps were heavy with urgency, eyes set on the room ahead—Containment Unit 002.

Through the thick pane of reinforced glass, the officer stared into the room. Chino sat inside, his arms bound, his expression calm despite his imprisonment. Sensing eyes upon him, Chino lifted his head, his lips curling into a sly grin.

"So," Chino drawled lazily, "Why haven't you dealt with me yet? You're running out of time, you know."

The officer's brow furrowed. "What do you mean by that?"

Chino's smile widened. "On the surface, death is coming."

Before the officer could react, a flicker in the mirror caught his attention. His eyes widened in terror.

Shhk!

Both he and his companion hadn't even had a moment to process it before their heads—reflected in the mirror—rolled from their shoulders and dropped to the ground.

From the glass, Han stepped through, as if emerging from another world. Blood slicked the floor behind him as he stood before Chino, unfazed by the carnage.

"It seems this time, I've found the right place," Han said coolly.