Volume One: Entering the City Chapter Twenty-Two: Seeds of Malice

Fang Hao seemed to have anticipated this outcome. He calmly surveyed the surroundings and quickly noticed the footprint on the wall. He soon confirmed that the tread pattern matched the shoes Deng Zhi was wearing. Then, crouching down, he inspected the deformed battery, and sure enough, there was also Deng Zhi's footprint on its slightly warped surface.

This final disturbance pushed the battery to the end of its life; it began to emit black smoke. The Emperor Ao, expressionless, waved his sleeve and instantly encased the battery in ice, while Fang Hao stood up and glanced around.

"Captain, we've saved him," Xia Rong suddenly hurried out to inform the Emperor Ao, but as she caught sight of Deng Zhi's corpse, her face changed dramatically. "How did this happen?"

Lu Yi was also carried out from the room by someone else. Fang Hao noticed the wound on Lu Yi's neck. "Was that cut made by an electric wire?"

"No, it must be an old injury," Xia Rong replied offhandedly.

Hearing this, Fang Hao's eyes sharpened, and he glanced toward the room where Lu Yi had just been. "So that's it. This is the Reaper's backup plan."

Both the Emperor Ao and Mad Blade were perplexed by Deng Zhi's death. Hearing Fang Hao's words, they immediately urged him to explain.

Fang Hao looked at the two of them. "It's simple. Think about it—what would have happened to Lu Yi if we hadn't come?"

"He would have died, of course," one of the Emperor Ao's teammates answered casually.

"Exactly. Our arrival allowed Lu Yi to survive. Now, recall what happened when we came upstairs."

"The battery fell. But wasn't that the Reaper's attempt to attack us?" Lu Ningyu asked, puzzled.

"That interpretation is possible," Fang Hao replied, "but you all experienced what happened last night at the food court. Even after the Emperor Ao blocked the stove cart, the Reaper's plot didn't end. This time, after we stopped the falling battery, nothing else happened—it's been quiet ever since. If this was truly an attack from the Reaper, then both the intensity and frequency are off."

"Therefore, I believe the battery's fall was a supplemental trap, set by the Reaper after realizing that experienced challengers had arrived. But because Deng Zhi left early, these latent dangers were triggered, causing his death," Fang Hao concluded, looking at the others.

In fact, Fang Hao hadn't spoken his thoughts in full. According to his logic, if Lu Yi had simply run out of the room when the crisis struck, he would have been fine. But was that really possible?

In Fang Hao's mind, the stairwell had long been set up by the Reaper. Such intricate traps would have been more than enough for Lu Yi alone, but with more people, they became harder to control, so the Reaper made some adjustments. A faint smile flickered across Fang Hao's lips before he concealed it. The Reaper had set traps in the kitchen, the living room, and the stairwell. Lu Yi had already faced two crises. Judging from the kitchen scene—if nothing had happened, Fang Hao would never believe it. Even so, once the Reaper realized that experienced challengers would save Lu Yi, he optimized his design again.

In other words, on this second day—or the third, counting the first night—Lu Yi was hit by a triple assault meticulously prepared by the Reaper.

Unfortunately, Lu Yi was still unconscious at this moment, and Fang Hao didn't know that, before this, the Reaper had already used coincidences to kill two of the native residents. Lu Yi was the third target.

The third day, the third victim, thre