Upon hearing this, Glasses’ eyebrows knitted together.
“This year’s top exam scorer? The one-vs-three guy? Who was that again—”
“Lin Yuan,” Lu Qing said.
Her gaze moved from the Purple Lightning spear on Lin Yuan’s shoulder to his face, her expression shifting from confusion to realization.
The top scorer of this year’s Hangzhou exam by a massive lead, the one who pulled off a one-vs-nine and a one-vs-three, with at least seven rounds of bone tempering at Tier 1, Level 9.
These labels had already gone viral on local Hangzhou forums, and even the student groups at Zhejiang Ability User University were discussing them.
She had seen that video.
The figure in the video overlapped perfectly with the youth standing before her carrying the Purple Lightning spear.
“No wonder,” Lu Qing said.
She didn’t ask any more questions.
For someone who could handle a one-vs-three and easily crush Han Feng from the A-rank weapon system, killing over twenty monsters certainly didn’t require any help.
Da Liu scratched the back of his head and gave a simple, honest smile.
“I knew it. Anyone who can take first place in Hangzhou definitely isn’t ordinary.”
He thudded his half-man-high alloy shield onto the ground, producing a dull boom.
Lin Yuan was already used to this kind of reaction.
From Donghai City to Hangzhou, from an F-rank waste to the top exam scorer, he had grown tired of explaining his cultivation level.
“I’m heading toward the Hexagon Building. Do you know the fastest way?”
Lu Qing turned and pointed toward the northwest.
“Go east for two blocks along this street, then turn right into the entrance of the underground shopping mall.
The roads above ground are mostly blocked, but the underground shopping mall is still passable. It leads directly to the safe point entrance of the Hexagon Building.
We just came from there. There aren’t many monsters on that route; most of them have been drawn toward the West District.”
“Thanks.”
Lu Qing nodded and added a final warning, “Be careful. Even if there aren’t many monsters, strays occasionally wander into the underground shopping mall.”
She gestured to the three behind her and took the lead toward the other side of the street.
Da Liu shouldered his shield and followed.
Glasses took one last look at the monster corpses littering the ground, shook his head, and jogged to catch up.
Before leaving, Xiao He waved at Lin Yuan and whispered, “Stay safe.”
The four figures soon vanished into the firelight at the corner of the street.
Lin Yuan turned and headed northwest.
The further east he went, the fewer monsters there were.
The firelight and howls of the West District were gradually left behind, replaced by an oppressive silence.
Occasionally, one or two Tier 1 Gray-skinned Jackals would crawl out from the manholes, only to be casually run through by his spear.
His ability points slowly rose from 4,150 to 4,350, then to 4,550.
With every increase, he moved one step closer to D-rank.
“Four hundred and fifty more to go,” he muttered to himself as he pulled Purple Lightning out of the eye socket of a Tier 2, Level 4 rock-armored lizard and flicked the blood off the tip.
“A few more Shadow Abyss Wolves should do it. Speaking of which, I haven’t seen a single one since just now. Where did they all go?
How is it that when I want to kill them, I can’t find a single one, but when I don’t, they smash through the wall of the room next to mine?”
...
The entrance to the underground shopping mall was blocked by a half-collapsed billboard.
He squeezed past it sideways and walked forward through a dim corridor lit by emergency lights.
The shops in the underground mall were all closed, with “Temporarily Closed” notices posted on the rolling shutters, some of which had been dented by impacts.
The corridor was filled with a damp, musty smell and a faint scent of blood.
A few scattered Tier 1 monsters lunged from the corners, but he dispatched them in a few strikes, bringing his ability points to 4,650.
When he stepped out of the underground shopping mall, the view ahead suddenly opened up.
The Hexagon Building stood tall at the end of the street.
During the day, he had been here to sell his loot, buy new clothes, and take a hot shower.
Now, a massive hole had been punched through the building’s outer wall, and the fountain sculpture at the entrance lay toppled on the ground.
The water from the pool had spilled everywhere, mixing with dust and bloodstains to form a muddy marsh.
The safe point was right next to the Hexagon Building; cutting through the building was the fastest way to reach the old airport.
But by all accounts, there should have been lights, City Defense Army sentries, and citizens lining up to register for the shelter.
Instead, there were no lights, no sentries, and no sound at all.
The air was thick with the heavy stench of blood, mixed with the smell of burnt rubber and the sulfurous odor of explosives.
As Lin Yuan drew closer to the safe point, his smile began to fade bit by bit.
The sandbag fortifications of the safe point had been torn open, leaving a massive gap.
The wire fencing lay twisted on the ground, snagged with scraps of torn fabric.
The temporary tents had been uprooted, their mangled frames jutting out from the ruins like skeletal remains.
The ground was pitted and scarred, covered in a crisscross of scorched marks from ability explosions and deep monster claw gashes on the asphalt.
The most jarring sight was the bodies.
People in City Defense Army uniforms, others in Ability User Association combat suits, some in the red vests of volunteers, and even a few citizens in plain clothes.
They lay slumped behind sandbags, beside tents, and under the registration desks.
Some still gripped their weapons, while others were frozen in a forward-lunge, but without exception, they were all dead.
Lin Yuan stepped over the fallen wire fence, his pace much slower than usual.
He stopped in front of every corpse, crouching down to check their faces.
It wasn’t Bai Li.
It wasn’t Xiaxia.
It wasn’t Jiang Ran.
It wasn’t Chen Mo.
It wasn’t Song Zhiyi.
He checked them one by one, his clenched fingers loosening slightly with each confirmation.
When he turned over the last body, his breathing finally eased a fraction.
None of them were here.
Bai Li wasn't here, Xiaxia wasn't here...
He straightened his back and stood still for a moment with his eyes closed. When he opened them, his gaze swept over the ruins of the safe point.
It had been thoroughly destroyed, but the deaths hadn't happened all at once.
The distribution of the bodies and the directions they had fallen suggested they had endured at least one wave of impact, with their defensive formations being picked apart one by one.
Near the sandbag fortifications, a person clinging to life moved.
Lin Yuan blurred to his side almost instantly.
It was a young soldier in a City Defense Army uniform, looking to be in his early twenties. His face was so smeared with blood and ash that his features were unrecognizable.
There was a charred mess on his chest—not a burn, but a penetrating wound from shadow energy, left by the claws of a Shadow Abyss Wolf.
Lin Yuan knelt to support his shoulder, pressing his right hand against the wound on the soldier’s back to try and stop the bleeding.
But the moment his palm made contact, he knew it was too late.
The wound was no longer bleeding because there was almost no blood left to flow.
The soldier's chest rose and fell more shallowly with each breath, and his pupils were beginning to dilate.
“Blood... Blood Eye Cult...”
The soldier’s eyes rolled with difficulty, focusing on Lin Yuan.
His lips quivered, his voice coming in fits and starts, every word an agonizing expenditure of his remaining life.
“The Blood Eye Cult and the Shadow Abyss Wolf race... are in league. They ambushed... this place. Run... the Shadow Abyss Wolves... went into the Hexagon Building...”
His blood-stained finger rose slowly, pointing toward the Hexagon Building.
The Hexagon Building.
His finger began to slide down before it was halfway up, and Lin Yuan caught it.
A final, blurred sound escaped the soldier’s throat, as if he still had more to say.
Then, the hand in Lin Yuan’s palm lost all strength.
His eyes remained open, but his pupils were fixed.
Lin Yuan was silent for several seconds.
He reached out and gently closed the soldier’s eyes.
“Thanks.”
He laid the soldier’s body behind the sandbags and stood up.
The Blood Eye Cult and the Shadow Abyss Wolf race.
The Blood Eye Cult again.
From Donghai City to Hangzhou, from that Tier 2, Level 5 cultist to the breaking of the Magic Cave seal, from the ambush on the safe point to this soldier’s final warning.
Those three words were like a dark red thread, sewing together all the chaos and slaughter.
But why did the Shadow Abyss Wolves go into the Hexagon Building?
While it was true that the fastest way for survivors to reach the old airport was to cut directly through the first-floor lobby of the Hexagon Building...
“Could they be hunting down the survivors heading for the old airport?”
But suddenly, a thought struck Lin Yuan.
Just a few hours ago, when he had come to the Hexagon Building to sell monster materials, he had seen something in the first-floor lobby.
A massive statue—a statue of a Shadow Abyss Wolf!
Lin Yuan suddenly had a bold hypothesis: “Could it be that these Shadow Abyss Wolves are here for that statue?!”
Rate on N.U.
