Chapter 56: System Crash
"Hell yeah! They finally hit the healthcare industry! Those price-gouging bastards—good riddance to 'em all!"
Next to a hot dog cart in Central Park, Chris, who'd just added another notch to Death's mounting workload, was enjoying some local street food when he heard the vendor shout excitedly while reading the morning paper.
Chris glanced over and saw it was precisely the pharmaceutical executives he'd worked overtime to eliminate last night.
He didn't know what those idiots had been thinking. They'd clearly escaped Chris's operational radius, but after discovering their company's stock had tanked, they'd rushed back at breakneck speed.
They'd even pompously published a statement in the Wall Street Journal to reassure investors and stabilize the stock price.
Although it was only tucked away in a small corner of the business section, Chris had still spotted it during a moment of boredom.
So what else was there to say? Since they'd been so cooperative, he certainly couldn't disappoint them.
On the very night the statement was published, Chris had infiltrated their homes and expedited their delivery to Death's doorstep.
What puzzled Chris was that ever since he'd killed that mercenary sniper, Death had completely gone silent.
From two days ago until now, Chris hadn't encountered a single "accident," and according to his research, the number of accidental deaths across America had actually dropped significantly.
This made Chris suspect whether he'd given Death too much work—literally crashing the system through overload.
But after calculating his kill count during this period, it was just over a thousand people, tops.
Sure, these were all power players whose decisions could influence the fate of entire cities, but that shouldn't be enough to cause Death to completely crash, right?
If it could crash that easily, Chris could only conclude that Death was running on some seriously outdated infrastructure.
So to be safe, Chris decided to randomly select a few more targets, then wait and see if Death had truly been overwhelmed by the massive workload.
With that thought, Chris swallowed the last bite of his hot dog, then asked the vendor who was still engrossed in the newspaper, "Hey, buddy! Can I ask you something?"
"Oh, sure thing! I'm in such a great mood right now. If you hadn't already paid, I'd even throw in a free dog!"
The hot dog vendor laughed heartily, set down the paper, and made a promise he absolutely couldn't keep.
Chris knew this full well, so he completely ignored the casual offer and asked directly, "Which industry's executives do you hate the most? It'd be great if you could mention which city they operate out of."
"Huh? Why you asking?" The vendor frowned, then relaxed and said casually, "Ah, whatever, none of my business. If I had to say which industry I hate most, it'd definitely be Big Oil. Those bloodsucking vampires who dump their environmental damage on local communities!
They destroyed my hometown—that's why I'm here in the city trying to make ends meet. If this mysterious killer's next target is them, that'd be perfect. Then I really would give away a hundred hot dogs for free to celebrate."
The vendor made a praying gesture as he spoke, then recalled, "As for where they live... I think several of them are based in Houston, but I don't know specifics."
"That's more than enough."
Chris got the information he wanted, turned to wave goodbye to the vendor, and then set off for his new hunting grounds.
The hot dog vendor watched Chris's tall figure disappear into the crowd and muttered, "What a weird dude."
By the time Chris arrived in Houston, it was already late afternoon.
Following his usual routine, he stopped at a newsstand to grab a city business directory. A quick flip through would reveal information about the area's major corporate players and taxpayers.
Sure enough, several oil giants had their headquarters there.
After confirming his targets, Chris began researching their organizational structures, then headed for their corporate offices.
His previous operational area had been concentrated around the New York tri-state region, so even if the corporate titans down here knew about him, they'd never flee the country to hide.
After all, in their minds, Chris was probably still lurking somewhere in a county near New York—it'd be impossible for him to travel all the way down to Texas.
One had to understand that company CEOs traveling unexpectedly could seriously tank their stock prices.
That's why those pharmaceutical executives had turned right around after leaving the country—desperate to salvage their company valuations.
As for whether doing so was monumentally stupid, Chris had already demonstrated with his actions that yes, it absolutely was.
But this was inevitable. For those guys, the cost of company bankruptcy was even more horrifying than losing their own lives.
Lamenting how humans become slaves to capital, Chris had already arrived at his target company.
The next steps were beautifully simple: first, confirm whether the main executives were present. If they all were, just walk straight in, snap their necks, and leave. Done.
If a significant number of executives were absent, it'd be slightly more troublesome—he'd have to coerce the highest-ranking executive present to arrange an emergency board meeting, wait for everyone to arrive, then repeat the neck-snapping procedure.
Chris had proven this method devastatingly effective through more than a dozen successful operations.
Even after Chris's reputation as a "corporate executioner" had spread nationwide, the tactic of calling them back for urgent meetings remained consistently successful—never failing once.
One could only say that this oldest trick in the book, passed down through the ages, was truly reliable.
While contemplating his process, Chris had already entered the headquarters of this oil company and begun following his standard protocol.
Fortunately, all the executives of this company were present, which made his job significantly easier.
He directly burst into the boardroom, then following his usual procedure, dispatched them one by one. Chris was ready to leave.
The whole process took only about two seconds—one could only blame the excessive number of executives in this company for it taking so long.
However, when Chris noticed the content displayed on the conference room projector, he understood what was really happening.
"Strategic Plan: Acquisition of New York Capital Assets"
Well, well, well! So everyone present were influential power players from Houston's entire business community!
He'd been wondering why an oil company would have hundreds of executives gathered. Turns out executives from several other major corporations were also assembled here—and not just from the oil industry.
Realizing this, Chris pulled a cigarette from the pocket of a peacefully deceased executive, lit it, and took a contemplative drag.
'Has my luck suddenly turned? Why are things so ridiculously convenient? Could Death actually be trying to butter me up—looking for a truce?'
Such an absurd coincidence made Chris question reality itself. Then, as the cigarette burned down to the filter, a crimson stream of energy merged into Chris's body.
Seeing this familiar life essence, Chris could definitively confirm that Death had indeed crashed from overwork.
After all, even Death's own life essence had been absorbed by him. With his multiverse-level talent certification, Chris couldn't imagine how the entity could possibly still exist!
And after acquiring Death's life essence, Chris didn't feel an increase in his raw power, but he did perceive an unprecedented ability manifesting in his consciousness.
However, Chris didn't immediately understand what these new abilities were.
Instead, Chris had already identified the reason for the current absurd coincidences.
In Chris's enhanced perception, throughout the entire nation of America, a vast and ethereal conceptual force flowed—something that governed the fate of everyone on this land.
The portion of it that managed life and death was exceptionally dim compared to the concepts managing other aspects of fate—so dim it seemed to have nearly disappeared entirely.
This was because the life-and-death portion of the concept had been caused to crash by Chris, directly freezing its operations.
Then, under the judgment of Chris's talent, its life essence had been claimed, which led to this bizarre situation.
In reality, this portion of life essence should have been absorbed by Chris two days ago, but due to interference from the main body of that fate concept, it hadn't been immediately devoured.
It wasn't until today that the main body of Fate could no longer prevent it, thus releasing this life-and-death concept to be claimed.
To even curry favor with Chris, the entity had gathered all these people through manipulation of other fate concepts, so Chris could eliminate them efficiently.
Understanding all this, Chris laughed self-deprecatingly. "Look, I'm not some damn serial killer! If it weren't for dealing with your brain-dead subordinate, I wouldn't have killed nearly this many people!"
He explained to that main body of Fate, regardless of whether it possessed self-awareness or believed him.
Anyway, after Chris finished speaking, his figure completely vanished from this world—just as he'd suddenly appeared, now he suddenly disappeared.
The cosmic ledger had been balanced. Death had crashed.
And Chris had survived the Final Destination.
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