38 "Run, Jonathan!"
"Your target is me, and you've been tracking me all the way. Before you started following me, you had already been monitoring my residence. You even chose to strike where there are no shadows. When did you learn about me?" The hunter flicked the blood off his kitchen knife, and from behind the comical children's sunglasses, a pair of eyes brimming with killing intent gazed at him. "Do you have super abilities? Did you learn about me through your superpowers?"
Semanuick's courage shattered at the hunter's sharpness, and he scrambled to his feet.
"Run, run slowly, and I'll kill you slowly," the hunter's mood was especially terrible, and he was more irritable than ever. "You made me pull a knife in broad daylight and prevented me from being a law-abiding citizen. I'm going to slaughter you ten thousand times."
This intersection was newly built and had less traffic. At noon, there were no people around, but a surveillance camera was overhead, and Semanuick didn't know if it was working.
Just as Semanuick struggled to his feet, the hunter kicked him down again. Every time Semanuick tried to get up, the hunter kicked him down, repeating this several times. If he tried to run fast, the hunter would stab him, slowing him down. The hunter would slash his waist and legs if he tried to fight back with his knife.
He ran tens of meters, zigzagging from the middle of the road to the roadside, leaving a trail of blood for tens of meters.
Semanuick's psychological defenses crumbled completely. His face was swollen and bruised, and his body was simultaneously healing and accumulating new wounds.
"Just kill me quickly! Kill me!" Semanuick clutched his head and broke down. "Stop torturing me!"
"Why are you asking me to kill you? Aren't you afraid of dying?" The hunter hesitated. "You're not really unafraid of dying, are you?"
Semanuick: "???"
What kind of monster was this man? How could he be so perceptive?
Semanuick stopped struggling and running, knowing he still had chances to respawn. When time rewound, everything would start again, and he would still have the opportunity to start over.
Semanuick clenched his knife, wanting to decisively slit his throat and restart suicide, but as soon as he moved, the hunter kicked his knife away.
"Is it because you've been driven mad by so-called gods that you're not afraid of dying, or are you just naturally unafraid?" The hunter mused to himself. "Never mind, it's broad daylight, and I shouldn't prolong this too much... You really picked a good time and place... I can't find a more appropriate way to handle this."
At any moment, someone might arrive. On one side of the road was a small park with a fountain. The fountain wasn't spraying water, but water was accumulated in the pool, half a person high.
The hunter seemed to lose interest. With a swift move, he severed Semanuick's spine once again, grabbed him by the collar, and threw him into the fountain pool.
Semanuick, paralyzed from his severed nerves, desperately blew bubbles, unable to even struggle. The fish in the fountain pool swam around him, nibbling on the blood oozing from his wounds.
In the last second, before his vision darkened, Semanuick saw the hunter take out his phone from his pocket, seemingly refreshing a page.
The fourth death and reincarnation.
Semanuick entered a state of hysteria, and after thinking for a while with bloodshot eyes, he decided not to confront the hunter head-on. Instead, he would create a massive gas explosion to kill the hunter. As soon as he respawned, Semanuick rushed to the place where they had first met, but to his surprise, the hunter hadn't yet arrived in Los Angeles at this point, and there was no one in the small motel where he used to live.
Filled with the desire for revenge, Semanuick couldn't wait any longer. He ran to a remote villa and killed a family of three to offer a sacrifice to his god.
The god extended a tiny psychic tentacle, connecting to Semanuick's mind and giving him a revelation. The crazed murmurs, accompanied by scattered, fragmented images, rushed into his brain.
He saw the hunter's face and location! The hunter looked much younger than he had imagined, appearing to be only 18 or 19 years old. At this moment, he was in a tastefully decorated room, accompanied by a beautiful girl. They sat together at a table, and the hunter seemed to be discussing a topic with the girl.
The images sped up, and Semanuick saw the hunter pack up and leave. As the hunter opened the door, Semanuick saw the house number and the road sign on the street! He had all the information he needed!
As the mysterious and insane murmurs faded away, Semanuick disconnected from his connection with the god. Blood streamed from his nostrils, and he wiped it away, laughing uncontrollably with bloodshot eyes.
There was a price to pay for communicating with god. Those who had direct or indirect contact with the god in the secret cult became increasingly insane. This was Semanuick's second time communicating with the god, and his expression was a mix of fierce delight and gratitude. He knelt on the ground and said most devoutly, "Great and merciful lord, thank you for granting your most loyal follower the revelation."
Semanuick immediately set off. He stole a pickup truck and took a remote country road without surveillance cameras to San Diego. To avoid detection, he took a much longer route. By the time he arrived in San Diego, it was already Friday morning.
He couldn't rush this time. Semanuick was eager to teach the hunter a painful lesson. He patiently scouted the area and, in the evening, quietly snuck into the residential community, entering the house of the beautiful girl based on the images he saw.
Disguising himself as a deliveryman, Semanuick knocked on the door, broke in, and knocked out the girl's family members. He started with the girl, who seemed the easiest to intimidate, and forced her to reveal her identity and relationship with the hunter.
However, the girl named Diema was tight-lipped, refusing to reveal the hunter's contact information or his real name.
Just as Semanuick was about to resort to brutal means to continue interrogating Diema, the doorbell rang.
The familiar voice of the hunter came from behind the door: "Diema, it's me. I just remembered I left something behind."
Hearing the hunter's voice, Semanuick's first reaction was to shrink back, traumatized. He immediately looked at Diema, whose eyes were filled with tears, and fiercely gestured for her not to make a sound.
But Diema screamed, "Run, Jonathan!"
It was over!
Semanuick felt the hairs on his neck stand up. In the next second, the hunter's figure appeared. His body passed through the wall, teleporting twice in a blink of an eye to Semanuick's side. He raised his leg and struck with his knee, causing a clear cracking sound in Semanuick's jaw!
The hunter was unarmed, fighting with bare hands, targeting Semanuick's eyes and temples. Even without weapons, Semanuick was no match for him. He tried to escape, jumping out the window.
Diema's room was on the third floor, not high enough for the fall to be fatal. The hunter, however, went to the living room, grabbed a fruit knife, and followed Semanuick out the window. The window was on the shadowy side of the building, and the hunter used the shadows to teleport safely to the ground. He quickly caught up to Semanuick, plunging the fruit knife precisely into the gap in his spine, paralyzing his entire body.
Three meters ahead was a pool. At first sight of the pool, Semanuick knew how he would die this time—drowning.
As expected, the hunter threw him into the pool.
The fifth death.
Semanuick woke up on Friday morning. There was a limit to the number of times he could die and be reborn, and as he continued to die, his respawning interval grew shorter. If his resurrection and death time coincided, he would be dead forever.
He would have to wait for the next seven days, when the cycle reset, to use this ability again.
Semanuick was like an enraged bull, panting heavily. He paced erratically, muttering to himself, praying to his god and cursing the hunter.
He didn't want to flee, but the reality was that he always ended up running away from the hunter, which humiliated him.
"It's because I'm not strong enough..." Semanuick murmured. He could easily kill ordinary people, but not the killing machine that was the hunter.
Semanuick knelt and prayed, "Great and merciful lord, if I offer you more sacrifices, can you grant me the power to kill my enemy?"
The god didn't respond.
The help the god could give him was limited; the god's power couldn't all descend upon him.
Semanuick's eyes turned completely bloodshot. "A gun..." he thought, "If I had a gun, just one gun... I could kill him. No... killing him is not enough; I want to kill everyone connected to him!"
