William Carter was immersed in an indescribably wonderful sensation; at this moment, it felt as if the whole world was within his grasp. “Bang bang bang…” A burst of thunderous gunfire rang out. Among them, Samuel Bennett’s Desert Eagle was especially piercing. Each time the Desert Eagle fired, a scream of agony followed.

William Carter was startled by the gunshots and picked up his speed, rounding a sharp bend in an instant. He saw Samuel Bennett standing swaggeringly in the middle of the mountain road, leisurely exchanging fire with more than a dozen police officers behind the police cars. On the mountain road, three police officers were already lying in pools of blood.

“Master Hong, isn’t refraining from wanton killing one of our sect’s precepts?” William Carter shouted from a distance. His shout seemed to have an effect—Samuel Bennett stopped shooting, letting the police bullets leave streaks of marks on his body. Samuel Bennett turned and gave William Carter a meaningful smile, then suddenly released a burst of dazzling golden light around him. In the golden light, Samuel Bennett’s figure slowly faded away and disappeared without a trace.

Watching Samuel Bennett’s figure miraculously vanish, William Carter was filled with unease. After the so-called “empowerment” ritual, William Carter’s mind-reading ability had become even sharper. In Samuel Bennett’s final smile, William Carter could clearly sense his contempt, mockery, and even pity. These emotions were the kind people usually felt when watching a fool do something foolish. “What exactly is wrong here?” William Carter lowered his head in deep thought. But with his experience and wisdom, how could he possibly make the right judgment in such a short time?

And Samuel Bennett’s miraculous disappearance made William Carter realize even more that, no matter what schemes he had, he himself seemed powerless to resist. This conclusion left him feeling especially helpless.

“Don’t move, hands up…” Several police officers surrounded William Carter with their guns raised, as if facing a formidable enemy.

Chapter Five: Fate

Facing several fierce-looking police officers, William Carter didn’t dare make the slightest move and obediently raised his hands.

Immediately, two officers forcefully pressed William Carter to the ground from behind, pulled his hands back, and cuffed him with two pairs of handcuffs. Only then did the other officers breathe a little easier. Just now, Samuel Bennett had left them with too many shadows. The young man before them was clearly connected to that person and had to be restrained.

To William Carter, the officers pressing down on him felt like scarecrows—light as a feather, with no weight at all. Even the two pairs of handcuffs seemed as if he could break free with just a little effort. But faced with the empire’s machinery of violence, and with the good-citizen habits he’d developed over eighteen years, William Carter didn’t dare resist at all, and very cooperatively let the police subdue him.

“Zhenhai, Lao Yu, and Shan Zi are all dead, damn it, you bastard…” A tall, dark-faced officer, eyes red with rage, strode over and grabbed William Carter by the hair, slapping him more than a dozen times. Each slap was delivered in anger, with full force.

In the past, just these slaps would probably have knocked out half of William Carter’s teeth. But now, William Carter only felt as if someone was gently patting his face—there was no pain at all, not even any redness. Yet being grabbed and slapped like this filled William Carter with a special kind of humiliation and anger. He glared fiercely at the officer, starting to regret saving these so-called lawful thugs—what a fool he’d been!

Seeing William Carter’s defiant look, the dark-faced officer grew even angrier. He shouted, “If I don’t make you cry for your mama, I, David Clark, will take your surname!” As he spoke, he was about to strike again, but someone nearby reminded him, “Boss, don’t hit the face…” David Clark thought for a moment, let go of William Carter, took two steps back, and suddenly delivered a straight kick to William Carter’s right side.

David Clark had practiced martial arts since childhood and had worked as a police officer for nearly twenty years, with a wealth of real combat experience. This straight kick was powered from the waist and abdomen, using the hardest part of the heel as the point of force. For an ordinary person, not only would their ribs break from such a kick, but their internal organs would also suffer internal injuries, even making it hard to breathe. This move could inflict maximum harm without being fatal—it was David Clark’s favorite technique for dealing with hardened criminals.

As the deputy captain of the criminal police squad, David Clark had lost three colleagues on this mission. He was both heartbroken and furious, and after beating William Carter, he was further provoked by William Carter’s defiance. Unable to restrain himself, he used excessive force on this suspect. Whether or not William Carter was actually involved, in his rage, David Clark—already accustomed to rough policing—no longer cared.

Bang! David Clark felt as if his kick had landed on an iron plate wrapped in cotton; all his strength was bounced back, and his leg immediately went numb. Seeing William Carter completely unfazed, David Clark finally realized something was wrong. Everything about today’s events was bizarre: first, there was a man who couldn’t be killed by bullets, then that man vanished in a flash of light. Although David Clark believed it was just a trick, he couldn’t help but feel a nameless fear.

Then there was this young man who had suddenly appeared. Amid the deafening gunfire, he vaguely heard the youth call that man “Red Lion.” From this, he deduced that the two must have an unusual relationship. It was his hatred and fear of the vanished Samuel Bennett that was the real reason David Clark had used such force on William Carter. But that fierce kick just now had only injured himself, making David Clark realize that William Carter was no ordinary person either.