Chapter 520: The Show Begins

Although this service area was abandoned, its basic facilities were all intact, especially the surveillance system, which basically covered every corner of the gas station, the front of the main building, and the two commercial streets.

However, the power to the service area was currently cut off, making everything unusable... but for Chen Ling, that wasn't a difficult problem.

As long as the power could be restored, the surveillance covering the entire service area could be reconnected. They could record everything here and simultaneously broadcast it to anyone on the internet.

This era had the internet; even if there wasn't a single audience member here, there could be countless viewers online "witnessing" this murderous performance!

But the problem now was... where to find these viewers?

Chen Ling could naturally project the footage onto every electronic device, easily allowing millions of people to watch, but this was, after all, a murder performance. If he really did that, it would cause an extremely negative social impact, and the police or military would likely arrive here before he and Nie Yu finished fighting.

The scale of the audience didn't need to be too large, and it couldn't include children or innocent people; it would be best if they wouldn't call the police...

Such an audience could perhaps only be found in one place.

【Audience Expectation +1】

Chen Ling took a step, his figure descending from the clouds step by step.

He landed lightly on the roof of the service area's main building. It was about five stories high and also the highest point sandwiched between the two commercial streets.

"He really came..."

At this moment, on the second floor of a shop on the commercial street, Nie Yu saw this scene through a gap in the curtains, a chilling cold light flickering in his eyes.

He took a deep breath, his hand gripping the hilt of the hunting knife in his chest, and slowly pulled it out...

The sharp blade withdrew from his flesh, and gurgling blood splashed onto the floor as the blade broke through the air. Nie Yu’s face was as pale as paper in the reflection of the rain-covered glass.

Although he hadn't cleared the 【Demon-Subduing Blood Map】 and his rank was still locked at Tier 4, the current situation didn't give him time to slowly purge it... Only by killing Chen Ling and leaving this place would he have the chance to do more.

He held the blood-stained hunting knife in one hand, his hunting rifle slung on his back, his eyes fixed on the figure on the roof not far away, like a hunter with extreme patience searching for a flaw.

But Chen Ling’s next move exceeded his expectations.

Chen Ling walked up to a cabinet resembling a transformer, touched it slightly with his palm, and dense electric arcs exploded directly from the cabinet. At the same time, thunder rumbled in the clouds!

Boom—!!

As a bolt of lightning tore through the sky, Nie Yu saw Chen Ling on the roof, the corners of his mouth curling into a slight smile...

Immediately after, neon signs that had long been silent in the darkness began to light up one by one, from the building at Chen Ling’s feet to the two commercial streets!

Ding-ding-ding-ding—

Neon signs of various colors from every shop tore through the sudden rain curtain in the darkness. The abandoned service area seemed to be thoroughly awakened by Chen Ling, blooming with dreamlike brilliance in the night rain that no one cared about.

These neon signs gradually illuminated the streets, and also illuminated Nie Yu’s face in the darkness, lighting up everything here in his stunned gaze...

At the same time, what Nie Yu didn't notice was that the surveillance cameras scattered throughout the streets also started up silently.

Blinding electric sparks gushed from the electrical cabinet like bright spotlights before a stage performance. In front of these spotlights, Chen Ling raised his hand and tore forcefully at his chin!

Rip—

A layer of skin drifted away into nothingness with the wind. The bright red opera robe danced wildly in the torrential rain. The surging electric sparks reflected half of Chen Ling’s face, and his smile, amidst the interplay of light and shadow, became even more brilliant...

The audience is in place, the stage is in place, the actor is in place;

He slowly squatted down, his fingertips touching his lips, then landing on the puddle beneath him, like an actor kissing the stage before a performance. A ripple in the puddle shattered his face into surging starlight.

He murmured to himself:

"The show... begins."

……

United States.

Las Vegas.

A man in a white suit, holding a glass of red wine, walked calmly through the magnificent casino, his ears filled with the excited shouts of gamblers or the red-eyed roars of those betting everything.

Some people’s chips flew on the tables, some people’s fates were crushed by the roulette wheel, and some people’s red wine swayed in their glasses.

The man just walked quietly through the gamblers, like a ghost that didn't exist;

Just then, the phone in his pocket suddenly vibrated as if a call were coming in. The man took it out naturally, saw the image on the screen, and suddenly stopped in his tracks.

A flash of surprise crossed his eyes.

"Mr. Zhang, would you like me to arrange lunch for you?" a blonde waiter walked to his side and asked respectfully.

"No... no need."

The man’s attention was entirely on the image on his phone screen. He waved his hand, "I need to rest for a while, don't let anyone disturb me."

"Yes, sir."

As he spoke, the man opened the door to the casino’s VIP room. The luxurious crystal chandelier illuminated everything in the room. He walked straight to the desk and sat down, only to find that his computer had also started up at some point, switching to the exact same image as on his phone.

On the computer screen, the dark web URL had opened automatically, and the main page of the site was covered by a live stream... Most importantly, this screen didn't even have an option to close it.

"A forced pop-up window that can't be closed?" The man crossed his legs in the chair, watching the screen with great interest. "The dark web... can actually be hacked? Interesting..."

At this moment, in the upper right corner of the screen, the number of viewers was growing crazily. The "forced pop-up" + "cannot be closed" had locked almost all dark web users here; besides watching, they couldn't do anything else.

The number of viewers had already exceeded ten thousand.

Since it couldn't be closed, the man simply switched the screen to full screen, gently swirling the red wine in his glass, his gaze fixed on the screen... The image quality wasn't clear, as if recorded by a surveillance camera. In the image, a large number of neon signs lit up in the torrential rain, and on the roof of a building in the distance, a figure in red was dancing with the wind.

"The location is in the Mainland?" The man raised his eyebrows slightly in surprise as he saw the Chinese characters on the neon signs.

The image remained frozen there, making the man feel a bit confused. Just as he was gradually losing patience, a blood-soaked figure suddenly stepped through the rain curtain, holding a hunting knife, and walked slowly toward the figure in red.

Although it was only for a split second, the man still saw his profile. The red wine swirling in his glass paused slightly, his eyes narrowing into slits...

"'The Hunter'... is it him??"