"Are you confident in the surgery's success?"
A strikingly handsome man with long pale-blonde hair—a man who looked practically identical to Xia Yan—asked. This was Xia Ji, Xia Yan's twin brother.
Xia Ji had been in an incredibly good mood recently. Not only had he received confirmation of his brother's death, but the elite executives he despised the most—Edward Wu and Tokita Niko—had also been slaughtered.
Through sheer luck and process of elimination, he had suddenly vaulted to the position of Supreme Head of the Worm. His lifelong dream had finally been realized. Because of this, he currently found everyone profoundly pleasing to the eye.
Even the deeply repulsive, twisted man standing before him.
"I am fully prepared. There is a 100% guarantee of success. Rest assured, by the end of the day, the Connector will be successfully partitioned into the 'Dragon' and the 'Tiger'," the Violator replied, a highly unsettling smile twisting his features.
"Once his ultimate wish is fulfilled, I suspect he will no longer involve himself in your affairs. At that point, you will truly be the sole, undisputed ruler of the Worm—the absolute Emperor of the underworld."
"You're quite perceptive. Don't worry. Once you succeed, I'll officially appoint you as a Regional Director," Xia Ji chuckled, utterly euphoric.
It was true. He didn't care what anyone else thought, but he had always deeply feared and fundamentally despised Shen Wulong.
The Worm had always been a massive, autonomous global syndicate. His brother had inherited the organization from their father, and now Xia Ji had inherited it from his brother. He had crawled his way up, carefully surviving the shadows, just to become someone else's obedient dog?
No.
He wanted absolute, unquestionable authority. He wanted to be the undisputed dictator of the Worm, free from the Connector constantly pulling the strings and forcing the organization to clean up his messes.
"Haha, I look forward to it," the Violator, code-named 'The Devourer', replied smoothly before turning around and entering the sterile operating room.
The exact microsecond the heavy steel door clicked shut behind him, his obsequious smile vanished, replaced by an incredibly dark, paranoid scowl.
The absolute strongest combatants serving directly under the Connector had been completely wiped out. This catastrophic intelligence placed an immense, lethal pressure on the Devourer.
The Adjudicator deployed this time is incredibly abnormal!
He had initially assumed he could just take a nap and wake up to find Lu Li's corpse waiting for him.
Instead, he had received news of the hit squad's complete annihilation.
This catastrophic failure forced him to drastically alter his master plan and genuinely commit to performing the surgery on Shen Wulong.
In his original grand design, after Lu Li was dead, he intended to secretly assassinate Shen Wulong while the Connector was anesthetized on the operating table.
By doing so, he would achieve an impossible feat that countless Explorers before him had failed to accomplish.
The Kengan world was notorious within the Terminus Space as a terrifyingly resilient "nail house"—a Tier 1 derivative world that was virtually unconquerable.
Was it because the native fighters possessed absurd, superhuman stats?
Absolutely not.
It was entirely due to the existence of a single, localized anomaly: Shen Wulong.
To completely "conquer" this world, an Explorer had to defeat its absolute ceiling.
But given the strict limitations placed on Tier 1 Explorers—even a maxed-out Level 10 Explorer with a full 30-point stat block—defeating Shen Wulong in a direct confrontation was functionally impossible.
Tier 1 Explorers simply didn't possess the necessary techniques or reality-warping hax to break through Shen Wulong's absolute "Principles."
The fundamental gap in their combat proficiencies was astronomically wide.
Attempting to suppress him with raw, overwhelming stats was useless; Shen Wulong would simply redirect the kinetic force with flawless precision.
Therefore, the moment the Devourer arrived in this world, he immediately drafted an assassination plot.
In his eyes, all previous Explorers had been braindead idiots.
Challenging a Grandmaster like Shen Wulong in a head-on, honorable deathmatch was exactly what an idiot would do.
He just needed to get Shen Wulong onto an operating table and kill him quietly in his sleep.
That was how it was supposed to happen...
"That bastard, Lu Li..." the Devourer muttered under his breath.
If it weren't for Lu Li's anomalous strength, he could have just killed Shen Wulong today.
But now, he desperately needed the Connector's help to execute the Adjudicator.
He couldn't afford to kill Shen Wulong just yet.
"Are you ready?"
A deep, commanding voice suddenly echoed from the corner of the operating room, instantly causing the Devourer's nerves to pull agonizingly tight.
He turned his head stiffly.
The man standing in the shadows had a face identical to Shen Wulong's.
But he wasn't the Connector.
This was Shen Wulong's very first clone in the current era: Shen Luohan.
This was the person the Devourer currently hated the most in the entire world, specifically because Shen Luohan's sudden intervention had completely hijacked his grand plan.
Shen Luohan operated a massive, global military contracting syndicate known as the "Death Dealers."
What the Devourer found truly absurd was that in this supposedly grounded, martial-arts-focused universe, Shen Luohan literally had access to functional, operational nuclear weapons!
Based on his psychological profiling of Shen Wulong, the Devourer knew that upon hearing of Xia Yan's death, the Connector would immediately prioritize avenging his friend before undergoing the surgery.
The Devourer had planned to use that exact opening to have Shen Wulong execute Lu Li, after which he would quietly assassinate the Connector on the table.
But he had severely underestimated the complexity of this world, and perhaps his own luck was just incredibly poor.
Before Xia Yan even departed for Ganryu Island, Shen Wulong had already begun prepping for the procedure.
And the critical intelligence regarding Xia Yan's death had never actually reached the Connector's ears.
Shen Luohan had orchestrated an absolute information blackout.
He ensured Shen Wulong proceeded with the scheduled separation surgery completely oblivious to the outside world.
And the moment Shen Wulong was put under deep, systemic anesthesia, Shen Luohan cornered the Devourer and violently threatened him.
He didn't want the Connector partitioned.
He wanted Shen Wulong's entire, absolute memory and ego.
Yes.
Shen Luohan wanted to forcefully overwrite himself and become the new, complete Shen Wulong.
As the Connector's first clone, Shen Luohan already possessed terrifying, rule-breaking strength—easily surpassing the combined might of Xia Yan, Edward Wu, and White Niko.
Yet, he could never ascend to the absolute pinnacle solely because he wasn't the true Shen Wulong.
Shen Luohan had never imagined such a perfect, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity would present itself.
After the Devourer demonstrated his anomalous ability to physically divide and fuse living tissue, Shen Wulong had immediately authorized the separation surgery.
"You drastically underestimated the inherent malice of humanity..." Shen Luohan murmured, staring down at the anesthetized Connector on the operating table.
Shen Wulong was incredibly naive.
To casually undergo deep anesthesia without a fiercely loyal guard dog like Xia Yan by his side?
It was supreme arrogance.
Today, Shen Luohan would ascend.
He would become the new Shen Wulong.
As for whether he would inherit the Connector's profound existential boredom or internal conflicts... he didn't care.
He could deal with that later.
If he ever genuinely suffered from an identity crisis in the future, he could always just force the Devourer to perform the separation surgery then.
But he would make damn sure his own fiercely loyal subordinates were monitoring the procedure with guns drawn.
"Are you absolutely certain? Once the ego integration is complete, you will no longer fundamentally be 'you'," the Devourer asked one final time.
He genuinely didn't want to perform this specific operation.
Once Shen Luohan integrated with the Connector, the newly formed entity might not be as "reasonable" or easy to manipulate.
"This is my ultimate desire. And in return, you will become my new Supreme Executive. As for the pathetic idiot outside... let him die," Shen Luohan smiled wickedly.
Xia Ji was a complete fool; he had absolutely no idea Shen Luohan was even in the facility, genuinely believing he had secured the position of Supreme Head.
But the very first thing Shen Luohan intended to do upon ascending was execute Xia Ji.
Keeping such a monumental idiot alive was a severe detriment to the organization's collective IQ.
"I don't care about the Executive position. All I want is for you to execute Lu Li for me. I need his corpse," the Devourer stated firmly.
He was trapped between a rock and a hard place.
If he refused the surgery, Shen Luohan would instantly kill him.
If he tried to sabotage the procedure or kill the Connector mid-operation, Shen Luohan had positioned ten heavily armed stealth submarines directly off the coast of the isolated island facility.
If anything went wrong during the integration, the island would immediately be carpet-bombed by missiles.
In the worst-case scenario, Shen Luohan had authorized a tactical nuclear strike.
Given the Devourer's current capabilities, escaping a nuclear blast zone was physically impossible.
Therefore, he had no choice but to flawlessly execute the integration surgery.
"Not a problem. To the man who is about to become Shen Wulong... Lu Li is nothing more than a trivial insect. As an arms dealer, my absolute core principle is credibility. Your wish will be fulfilled," Shen Luohan grinned.
"Now. Begin the integration."
Meanwhile, entirely oblivious to the "software update" currently being installed into the world's Final Boss, Lu Li was happily drowning himself in the profound ocean of martial arts.
Three days had passed since the catastrophic climax of the Kengan Annihilation Tournament.
The day after order was violently restored to Ganryu Island, Lu Li and Kuroki Gensai had officially concluded their interrupted duel.
In a highly controlled spar—where Lu Li deliberately restricted his raw physical output to match Kuroki's—they engaged in an incredibly intense, pure technical exchange.
The result, however, was unsurprising: Lu Li emerged victorious.
To the vast majority of the Kengan Association executives, this was the expected outcome.
Chairman Metsudo had ruled the underworld for so long that very few actually believed a tournament could genuinely dethrone him.
But what utterly shocked the entire corporate world was Metsudo's final decision.
Having secured the absolute right to nominate the new Chairman, Metsudo Katahara didn't nominate himself.
Instead, he nominated the man who had initiated the tournament: Hideki Nogi.
Lu Li wasn't surprised in the least.
The old man was simply too old; he just wanted to find a competent, reliable successor to run the syndicate.
The tournament was basically just a highly elaborate, blood-soaked retirement party for his own amusement.
Following their spar, Lu Li and Kuroki Gensai engaged in a deeply respectful, profound discussion on martial theory.
By exchanging insights, both men significantly refined their techniques.
Having crossed fists, they formed a strong mutual respect and parted as good friends.
Immediately afterward, Lu Li returned to the Kure Clan's compound and buried himself deep inside their classified archives.
As the absolute savior of the Kure Clan, Erioh had given him unrestricted access.
As long as he didn't leak the information, he was free to study any technique in their arsenal.
Lu Li became a ravenous sponge, rapidly absorbing decades of refined, lethal martial arts theory.
By mentally simulating the techniques and integrating them with the brutal, high-tier combat experience he had gained over the past few weeks... he felt his core combat proficiency levels actually creeping upward.
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