Deviant: No Longer Human

"Z-Zhenxi!?" Her voice shook as she turned toward the child, eyes wide with disbelief. "Your eyes… you said he healed them?"

Zhenxi, happily hugging Little Fattie on her lap, blinked up at her, completely oblivious to the situation. "Mm! He did!" she chirped with a bright smile, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"???"

Chen Meili\'s breath caught in her throat, her mind racing. \'Healed her? How could that be possible? The doctors said it was impossible, that nothing could fix her blindness!\'

Her eyes flickered in disbelief as they darted from Zhenxi\'s now-clear eyes to the world outside the taxi. \'How did this happen? How is this even real?\'

She felt what had just occurred settle over her like a heavy fog, leaving her both speechless and terrified.

Chen Meili\'s hands trembled as she fumbled with her phone.

Rather than taking Zhenxi home, she dialed a familiar number. Her breath hitched, heart pounding in her chest as she made the call.

"Xinxin?" Her voice was tense, almost breathless. "I need you to meet me at the city hospital. It\'s urgent."

There was a brief pause on the other end. "What\'s going on?"

"I\'ll explain when I get there," Chen Meili replied, her tone sharp, betraying her usual calm. "Please… just meet me. It\'s about Zhenxi."

After hanging up, she leaned back, her eyes flickering over to Zhenxi, who sat innocently with her panda cub in her lap.

The little girl glanced up, her bright, clear eyes blinking in curiosity.

Chen Meili stared at her, \'Can she really see everything now?\'

It still didn\'t feel real.

Her mind kept replaying Zhenxi\'s words, trying to grasp the impossible.

"Meili, why are we going to the hospital? I can already see, we don\'t need to visit there anymore..?" Zhenxi asked, her tone light, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

Chen Meili\'s hands tightened in her lap.

She couldn\'t answer, not until she knew exactly what had happened—until she saw the truth with her own eyes.

___

At night, the world seemed still, but Wang Xiao moved with quiet purpose, tracing the aura of the captain who had come to his home earlier.

His steps were soundless as he drifted through the night, the faint shimmer of his presence resembling a ghostly mist, two sharp eyes gleaming from within the fog.

The captain\'s trail carried him far to the outskirts of the city, where the faint glow of a barricaded, steel-wired establishment came into view.

Wang Xiao hovered effortlessly in the air, surveying the area with a glance that missed nothing.

"A garrison?" he murmured to himself, his voice no more than a whisper on the wind.

Below him lay a heavily armed facility, surrounded by steel barriers and barbed wire.

Seven hundred soldiers patrolled the grounds, all armed to the teeth.

Yet, what caught his attention was the second facility inside the compound.

This one housed two hundred more soldiers, and as Wang Xiao\'s divine sense swept over them, he couldn\'t help but frown in disdain.

"Only ten years of lifespan left?"

The soldiers in this inner facility, though muscular and powerful, had the faint marks of death clinging to them.

Their lifespans had been cut short, no doubt from the use of genetically modified drugs designed to enhance their physical abilities.

Their auras screamed of strength—some even at the Grandmaster and Great-grandmaster levels—but it came at a cost.

With only ten years left to live, they were nothing more than tools—mindless puppets trapped in the twilight of their existence.

Wang Xiao\'s gaze shifted across the garrison.

Hundreds of staff manned the control centers, which oversaw the armory packed with tanks, helicopters, and advanced jets.

Even the walls were lined with unmanned thermal machine guns, anti-aircraft guns, and electronic field barriers designed to protect against aerial threats.

It was an impressive show of force, fitting for Magic City—the financial hub of the Qing Dynasty—but the soldiers\' fates left him with a sour taste.

\'To sacrifice one\'s life to become a puppet for some fleeting power? Worthless.\'

Whoosh!

In an instant, Wang Xiao descended from the sky, his form shifting through the air like a dark cloud.

He landed silently atop the head of an anti-aircraft gun, his aura barely detectable as he surveyed the garrison below.

BOOM!

Without warning, the anti-aircraft gun exploded beneath his feet, ripped apart like paper.

Wang Xiao tossed the torn nozzle casually toward another gun, sending it crashing into the weaponry with an earth-shattering explosion.

Sirens blared!

The entire facility was drenched in the flashing red lights of alarms, loud enough to wake the dead.

Soldiers scrambled to their posts, confused and panicked as they tried to make sense of what had just happened.

But Wang Xiao wasn\'t finished.

BAM! BAM! BAM!

The unmanned guns roared to life, unleashing a torrent of bullets at Wang Xiao. The rounds struck his body, but to no avail—they crumpled like paper before falling uselessly to the ground.

BOOOM! BOOOM! BOOOM!

Explosions echoed as anti-aircraft guns fired, sending plumes of smoke into the night.

The garrison was a scene of utter chaos, red lights flashing and alarms blaring.

"Target on the left square! First Squad—engage immediately!" barked an officer into his radio. "Kill on sight!"

The barracks erupted with movement as battalions of soldiers flooded out, boots slamming against the ground in perfect unison.

The rhythmic thud, thud, thud of their march blended with the deafening hum of helicopters as they took to the sky, blades slicing through the air.

Yet, as the soldiers neared the site of the destruction, they were met with a terrifying sight—one side of the facility had been obliterated.

Buildings lay in ruins, shattered in the span of just a minute.

In the center of the carnage, stood Wang Xiao, nonchalant as he ripped the head off a soldier with terrifying ease.

His hand clenched, and the sound of tearing flesh echoed in the still air.

Blood sprayed in arcs as he smiled—a cold smile.

SMASH!

With a flick of his wrist, he hurled the severed head at the steel fence, and it exploded into a fine mist of blood and bone upon impact.

Gasp!

Three battalions, each with sixty soldiers, had gathered before him, but their presence did little to faze him.

His eyes scanned them lazily before they fell on a particular figure—the captain of the second squad.

The same one who had spoken to him earlier at his home.

Wang Xiao\'s grin widened, dark and mocking.

He stepped forward, each step sending the hearts of these man to deepest chamber of hell.

"You," he said, his tone deceptively casual, "You were going to make me pay, Captain?"

The captain visibly paled, but his grip on his weapon tightened.

Wang Xiao tilted his head slightly, his eyes gleaming with a terrifying calmness. "How about it?" he continued, his voice soft but deadly. "I\'m already here. Why don\'t you make me pay... now?"