I Am a Witch

Smiling Face didn’t give him any more time to process it. He pulled something out of his pocket.

A small knife. The same one from last time.

Smiling Face held it out, handle first, in a perfectly polite manner.

This time there was no Han Junhao to intervene. Director Cui took the knife against his own will.

The fear had already begun.

His mind was struggling, but the dread building in his chest was growing faster than he could fight it.

Smiling Face turned around and faced the two agents from the Eye of God Bureau.

Ivy stared at him with a blank expression, her gaze sweeping across his face before flicking to Director Cui, who was trembling behind him.

“The Eye of God Bureau’s order is the full restructuring of the Superpowered Youth Corps.”

Her words came out rapid-fire, as if she were reading an official decree.

“From this moment on, you are the new Director. And the new Demon Witch.”

And with that, she turned and left. Not a single second to spare.

William didn’t follow. His job was to stay here.

Outside, more than a dozen bodies lay scattered across the ground, all of them from the Command Center.

The scent of blood hung heavy in the mountain air.

The Eye of God Bureau hadn’t come for the serum from the very beginning. Nor had they come for the Demon Witch.

They had long since assessed the Demon Witch’s combat capability. Impressive, but not strong enough to warrant their intervention. Not a threat that demanded direct action.

The serum wasn’t the focal point, either.

The real reason the Eye of God Bureau made its move was simple:

The dog wasn’t obeying anymore.

That dog wanted to bare its teeth at its master.

They made their move entirely because Director Cui and the Shouxin Association had been harboring rebellious intentions toward Old Glory and the Eye of God Bureau.

That was why they had shown up here today.

Not for the Demon Witch. Not for the serum.

Those were nothing but smoke screens.

What they wanted was the dog. And when the dog misbehaves, you give it a beating. Of course, dog stew was out of the question—that served no purpose.

So the serum could go to the Superpowered Youth Corps. The Demon Witch could stay. But Director Cui had to die.

And then the dog would go back to being the same dog as before.

Smiling Face looked at William and gave a slight nod. "Alright, I am the Demon Witch now! What comes next is the purge!"

He flipped the helmet over and examined the connectors on the inside.

Behind him, Director Cui was still fighting his last battle.

"Impossible. You can't become the Demon Witch."

Director Cui’s voice had gone completely off-key. The blade in his hand trembled violently, but he never let go.

"The helmet requires genetic verification to link to the vessel... You haven’t been registered... You can’t connect to it."

Smiling Face slowly lowered the helmet onto his head.

"Director Cui, you have a problem. You always assume everyone else is as stupid as you."

He adjusted the helmet into position, and the straps clicked into their slots.

"If I hadn’t prepared for even this step, why would I rebel? The genetic data was taken care of three months ago. While you weren’t around, I wasn’t exactly twiddling my thumbs."

His hand gripped the activation lever.

"Goodbye, Director Cui. Thank you for bringing me out of the orphanage all those years ago. For that kindness, I’ll make sure you keep your body in one piece."

The lever was pulled.

Smiling Face’s consciousness flooded into that mindless, powerful vessel.

Connection successful.

And in the chair, Director Cui had already pressed the tip of the knife against his own throat.

His eyes were wide open, bloodshot and bulging. His lips trembled violently, trying to scream but no sound came out.

Fear had devoured every shred of his sanity. The only thing left in his mind was a single voice:

End it.

If it ends, there’s nothing left to be afraid of.

The blade cut deep across his skin, slashing through his throat and severing his artery.

Blood poured down along the wound. Director Cui’s eyes were still open, but the light in them had already gone out.

On the other side of the battlefield, everything seemed to hit pause.

The Demon Witch hovered in midair, completely motionless. Her arms hung slack at her sides, her head tilted slightly downward, like a puppet with its strings cut.

Neither Eric nor Sam attempted to press the advantage and attack.

Not because they didn’t want to—but because there was no point.

The other members of the Superpowered Youth Corps held their ground as well.

Instinct told them something was off about the Demon Witch.

When an SSS-rank superhuman suddenly loses control in the middle of a battlefield, whatever the reason, charging in blindly is not a smart move.

Everything felt wrong.

Even Song Junhe found himself frowning.

“How is this happening? It shouldn’t be like this.”

“What shouldn’t?” Lin Mo’s clone glanced over.

“The Demon Witch shouldn’t be behaving this way. Something’s severed the connection. Damn it, what the hell is going on.”

As he spoke, his eyes darted across the battlefield.

It was obvious—he knew far more than he was letting on.

The situation on the field was worse than he’d anticipated.

The Superpowered Youth Corps had taken heavy losses in this fight. Many A-rank and pseudo-A-rank supers were either maimed or on the verge of death, and the casualties among B-ranks were nothing short of catastrophic.

Bodies lay scattered across the ruins, some of them with faces far too young—barely eighteen or nineteen—staring into nothing with unclosed eyes.

Still, all of this fell within Song Junhe’s threshold of acceptance.

He’d seen plenty of dead people in his time.

As long as they got the serum, the Superpowered Youth Corps still had a chance to turn things around.

New A-ranks. New S-ranks. All of them could be manufactured with the serum.

The key was the Demon Witch.

He kept his eyes locked on the figure above, muttering under his breath: “Director Cui. Don’t screw this up now of all times.”

Every pair of eyes on the battlefield was fixed on that silhouette hovering in the sky.

Finally, the Demon Witch above began to move.

First, the fingers. Five fingers slowly curled into a fist, then released, as if testing out the state of this body.

Then came the rotation of the neck.

Then a full range of motion.

As awareness settled in, the Demon Witch—now under Smiling Face’s control—took in his position and the power surging through this vessel. He couldn’t help but let out a laugh.

In the distance, Han Junhao looked up. He saw the smile on the Demon Witch’s face and couldn’t stop his brow from furrowing. There was something about that expression that made his skin crawl.

And at that very moment, the Demon Witch’s gaze swept over everyone around.

“All members of the Superpowered Youth Corps—stand down, now!”

The voice wasn’t loud, but it reached everyone’s ears with total clarity, as if it bypassed the air entirely and went straight into their minds.

Everyone froze for a moment.

Though the fighting had already stopped, this was an explicit order to cease.

But the Demon Witch’s reputation carried weight. The A-ranks quickly moved away from the dragon.

They could stop themselves, sure, but who knew if the other side would hold back?

Still, their eyes were full of confusion.

What?

We were in the middle of a fight, and now we just stop?

The other S-ranks also halted what they were doing.

Unlike the ordinary A-ranks, the S-ranks were privy to at least some inside information.

They all knew the Demon Witch was essentially an empty vessel. But this Demon Witch standing before them—there was something in the way they carried themselves that was completely different from Director Cui.

This Demon Witch was smiling.

Smiling widely.

It was the kind of joy that came from the depths of one’s soul—the elation of finally getting what you’ve been after.

That was definitely not Director Cui.

The three S-ranks exchanged wary glances.

Meanwhile, Han Junhao could sense something deeply wrong with the Demon Witch in front of him. Especially since he hadn’t been able to spot Smiling Face anywhere since moments ago.

He had a sinking feeling he already knew what was happening.