Chen Ye hadn’t wanted Iron Lion to die.

Outsiders might brand him as ruthless, a cold-blooded pragmatist who weighed lives like currency, but he had lines he wouldn’t cross. He would never sacrifice a teammate without cause.

But the world was unpredictable. Chen Ye was a one-eyed man, not a prophet; he possessed no foresight, only hindsight. He hadn’t anticipated the enemy would go for a desperation kill against the Titan.

Iron Lion’s corpse lay on the dune, a stark, bloody line separating his head from his neck. The big man’s eyes were closed peacefully, as if he were merely napping in the sun.

Someone had found a scrap of wood and scrawled a crude epitaph with a marker: Here Lies Wu Haifeng.

It was the first time Chen Ye learned the Titan’s real name. Before, everyone had just called him “Big Guy” or “Iron Lion.” The man never minded, just responding with that silly, honest laugh of his.

Sun Qianqian was kneeling by the grave, a mess of snot and tears. Her delicate features were twisted into a mask of ugly, raw grief. Viscous strands of saliva and mucus clung to her lips as she wailed, her cool, detached persona completely shattered.

Surrounding the makeshift grave, other survivors wept silently.

For the first time since the apocalypse began, Chen Ye felt a pang of genuine sorrow.

He hadn’t expected this loss. In the convoy, Iron Lion had been the glue, the one person everyone liked. When Chen Ye first Awakened, it was Iron Lion who looked out for him, feeding him information about Sequence Beyonders without asking for anything in return.

Back when everyone thought Chen Ye was a Mechanic Sequence, Chen Ye had often fished for information. Iron Lion knew he was being pumped for intel, yet he shared everything anyway—even the secrets of his own Titan Sequence.

If Iron Lion had lived, Chen Ye might have eventually called him a brother. For a man as guarded as Chen Ye, that was the highest honor he could bestow.

“A-Che, it’s getting late,” Uncle A-Bao reminded them gently.

It was already ten in the morning. The desert heat was rising.

Chu Che didn’t answer the old man. Instead, he turned his gaze to Chen Ye.

“You shouldn’t have been so reckless,” Chu Che said. His voice was calm, devoid of blame, but heavy with regret. “At least… you should have told me.”

Chen Ye was silent for a moment. He lit a cigarette, the smoke curling into the dry air.

“You wouldn’t have agreed,” Chen Ye said flatly. “If I had to do it over, I would make the same call. The only difference is I would have warned Iron Lion to keep his head down.”

Chu Che fell silent.

He knew Chen Ye was right. If he had known the plan involved using the team as bait to lure out the enemy leaders, his moral compass would have forced him to object. They would have argued, hesitated, and likely lost the element of surprise.

Chu Che wasn’t soft, but he wasn’t ruthless. He knew about the “gecko tail” strategy—sacrificing the weak to save the strong. He had watched walkers die to buy the convoy time before, rationalizing that they were doomed anyway. But actively setting up a teammate? That was a line he struggled to cross.

Yet, rationally, Chen Ye had saved them. Without Supplies, they were all dead men walking. Mo Huairen and his slavers were monsters; the “cattle” in their trucks proved that.

“You… are too harsh,” Chu Che finally sighed. “Perhaps you are the only one of us fit to survive this world. If I die one day, remember to burn some tea leaves for me every year.”

Chen Ye didn’t respond. He took two drags of his cigarette, found it tasteless, and crushed it into the sand.

Chu Che poured a cup of clear tea onto the sand in front of the grave, scattering a pinch of precious Pu’er tea leaves over the mound. In the wasteland, this was a waste of resources equivalent to burning gold. Chu Che didn’t care.

Chen Ye checked his internal countdown. Two hours left until the deduction of the cultivation method was complete.

“Let’s go,” Chen Ye said. “We—”

“Wait,” Chu Che interrupted.

“What?” Chen Ye paused, hand on his car door.

Chu Che was staring at Iron Lion’s corpse, his brow furrowed in concentration. “Do you know how many branch paths the Titan Sequence has?”

Chen Ye frowned. “No.”

“From what I’ve read, Titan Sequence 1 is called the ‘Flesh and Blood Apprentice.’ But at Sequence 2, the path diverges,” Chu Che explained, his voice gaining urgency. “One branch is the ‘Prying Skull,’ where a third eye grows on the forehead, granting miraculous vision. The other…”

He pointed at the corpse.

“The other is the ‘Two-Headed Giant.'”

Chen Ye listened, dumbfounded. Two heads?

Even Sun Qianqian stopped crying, wiping her face with a dirty sleeve to listen.

“Do you remember Iron Lion had two personalities?” Chu Che continued, his eyes lighting up with a sudden, desperate hope. “There was the gentle Wu Haifeng we knew, and then there was the ‘Mad Lion’ during battle.”

Chen Ye nodded slowly. He remembered vividly. Whenever Iron Lion fought, it was like a demon possessed him—brutal, arrogant, unrecognizable.

“I thought it was just adrenaline,” Chu Che muttered, half to himself. “But maybe… maybe he was already gestating the Two-Headed Giant branch. If that’s the case…”

“You mean…” Sun Qianqian’s voice trembled, hope warring with disbelief. “You mean Iron Lion… might come back to life?”

“Not come back to life,” Chu Che said, his gaze burning. “I mean he might not be dead at all.”

“His head was cut off,” a survivor whispered nearby, horrified. “How can he not be dead?”

“Sequence Beyonders have already transcended humanity,” Chu Che said firmly. “Every Sequence violates the laws of physics in its own way.”

As if responding to his words, the corpse on the sand twitched.

SQUELCH.

The chest cavity suddenly bulged, a massive lump pushing against the skin from the inside. It looked like an alien organism trying to drill its way out.

The survivors gasped and scrambled back, their faces pale with horror. Even those who loved Iron Lion recoiled.

But Chen Ye, Chu Che, and Sun Qianqian stepped closer, their eyes wide.

What happened next was straight out of a nightmare.

A head—bloody, furious, and alive—tore through the skin of Iron Lion’s chest. It thrashed and pushed, struggling against the sinew and bone that tried to hold it back. It was like watching a chaotic birth.

The face was Iron Lion’s, but the expression was twisted into a rictus of pure, unadulterated rage. And it wasn’t growing from the neck. It was bursting from the shoulder, right next to the stump of the original head.

“ROAR!”

The new head unleashed a shockwave of a scream, the force of the sound blasting sand into the faces of the onlookers. With a wet, tearing sound, the head finally broke free of its constraints, locking into place on the massive shoulders.

It was the Two-Headed Giant branch.

“Holy shit…” Chen Ye muttered.

“Ye! Little Girl! Captain Chu!”

The new head spat out a mouthful of blood and grinned—a savage, arrogant grin that belonged to a predator, not the gentle giant they knew.

“What are you three standing there for? Help me up! Didn’t you know your daddy almost died?”

The voice was rough, booming, and utterly lacking in warmth.

Sun Qianqian froze. This wasn’t the “Big Guy” she mourned. She recognized this personality from their battles.

“It’s… Mad Lion,” she whispered.

As if hearing her hesitation, the head laughed loudly. “Hahaha! That’s right! That soft-hearted idiot Wu Haifeng is taking a nap. He needs a few days to regrow. Until then, you’re stuck with me!”

The Mad Lion turned his gaze to Chen Ye, his eyes gleaming with mockery.

“So, Ye! Is the Titan Sequence awesome or what? Decapitation is just a flesh wound for us! As long as a Titan has one breath, we are immortal!”

He leaned in, his grin widening. “I saw that look on your face just now. Guilty? Tsk, tsk, tsk… I didn’t expect a ruthless bastard like you to have a conscience!”

Chen Ye’s face darkened instantly.

This guy… is annoying.

He wasn’t the lovable, simple Iron Lion. He was arrogant beyond measure.

My ‘ruthless demon’ persona… ruined by this loudmouth.

Chen Ye sighed, the tension leaving his shoulders. Iron Lion wasn’t dead. The real one would return in a few days. That was all that mattered.

“Shut your damn mouth,” Chen Ye snapped, turning back to his vehicle. “It’s getting late. Get in the car.”

He checked the time. One hour and forty-five minutes left.

This time, not a single person had died. They had secured massive amounts of Supplies, obtained the coveted ox bone, and even gained a new Sequence Beyonder in the form of the resurrected Titan.

The Fairness Convoy was stronger than ever.