Chapter 105
Chapter 105
Safe Zone 088 No. 3 High School–oh, it should be called No. 1 High School now.
The former No. 1 High School had suffered a total defeat in the four-school joint examination, and several of its top students had been confined to bed with injuries. It had fallen straight to last place, taking the old No. 4 High School’s position.
On the athletic field, Qin Lan stared suspiciously at the mangled corpse that was still just recognizable as Aladdin’s Magic Dong. Then he looked at Wu Rendi.
“You’re saying this anomaly looked like this the moment it came out of the fissure?”
The body was barely humanoid. It looked as though something had blown it apart from within, or as though a giant hand had repeatedly crumpled it like paper. Black liquid pooled across the ground, releasing a nauseating stench of blood.
Wu Rendi nodded vigorously, righteous indignation making the fat on his face jiggle.
“That’s right, that’s right! Even I got a fright… Just look at it. It’s downright indecent!”
“The school is full of the nation’s future blossoms–young seedlings that need careful protection. Something so obscene showing up here is a disgrace to public morals…”
“It could’ve at least censored itself before coming out. What if it corrupted the children?”
Qin Lan waved a hand, cutting off the nonsense.
“Stop playing dumb.”
“I’m asking who beat it into this state.”
Wu Rendi scratched his nearly bald head, his gaze wandering.
“No idea.”
“It was already dead when I got to the athletic field.”
Qin Lan narrowed his eyes, trying to dig something out of Wu Rendi’s expression. All he saw was pure, innocent stupidity.
Or rather, pure, innocent stupidity put on for show.
Qin Lan turned to the Anomaly Hunters who had arrived as reinforcements.
“What about you? Did anyone see the fight?”
The 1-Star and 2-Star hunters exchanged glances, then shook their heads.
They had rushed over as soon as the Anomaly Hunter Bureau sent the coordinates, but all they found on arrival was a corpse–one beaten beyond recognition.
Back then, even Qin Lan and the subway security guards ganging up on the thing in the name of justice had not left it this miserable.
“Principal Wu, are you hiding something from me?” Qin Lan’s gaze gradually sharpened.
He suddenly felt as though this balding fat man were shrouded in an impenetrable fog, like an ancient well with no visible bottom.
These anomalies emerging from the fissures were no longer projections inside instances. Their true bodies had arrived, and they could only be stronger than their instance versions.
Aladdin’s Magic Dong also possessed the formidable close-combat skill “Grow Big, Now!” It could rapidly enhance his offensive and defensive attributes for a short time, making him extremely difficult to handle. Even an ordinary 3-Star Anomaly Hunter would need to put in some effort.
The Anomaly Hunters present could barely have stalled him, much less killed him.
“Hide something from you? How could I?”
Wu Rendi put on a false smile no one could possibly trust and enthusiastically slung an arm over Qin Lan’s shoulders.
“You’re my proudest student. We’re as close as father and son. Why would I hide anything from you?”
“Who the fuck is like a son to you?” Qin Lan flung Wu Rendi’s arm off in disgust.
It was strange.
Qin Lan was fairly certain Wu Rendi had killed the anomaly, yet he could not detect the slightest abnormality from the man.
From beginning to end, Wu Rendi looked like nothing more than a sleazy, greasy middle-aged man who liked to hide in his office and secretly study foreign languages.
The curse energy radiating from him was negligible. By Qin Lan’s estimate, he was Tier 2 at best–the kind of strength possessed by countless United Government officials.
As for his physical condition, that was even more pathetic. Qin Lan felt the Slit-Mouthed Woman could show up and forcibly take his chastity on the spot.
The beer gut straining his belt and the oily, gleaming forehead did not belong anywhere near the word “expert.”
If someone held a competition to crown Safe Zone 088’s king of jerking off, Fatty Wu might genuinely rank near the top. But a man capable of slaughtering a 3-Star anomaly?
Qin Lan found that very hard to believe.
Yet one look at Wu Rendi’s evasive gaze told him there was far more to this than met the eye.
It was like your partner texting you at eight in the evening, “I’m so tired, baby. I’m going to sleep early,” then suddenly bombarding you with messages at two in the morning.
“Baby, I love you so much.”
“Baby, you’ll always stay with me, right?”
You had no evidence, but every instinct still screamed, “Fuck, something’s wrong.”
“Forget it.”
Qin Lan shook his head. He had no intention of digging deeper.
Everyone had secrets, or trump cards they did not want others to know about.
Even if Wu Rendi was hiding something, it had nothing to do with him. Qin Lan himself possessed far more secrets, and far more shocking ones at that.
“Since the danger has passed for now, I’ll leave this place to you.”
Qin Lan looked at the other Anomaly Hunters. He did not speak loudly, but every word was clear.
“If you detect 3-Star curse energy again, contact me. I’ll get here as quickly as I can.”
Without further delay, he turned and headed for the next fissure.
…
For the moment, the fissures’ sudden expansion had caught them unprepared, but the crisis remained manageable.
Guarding one fissure per 3-Star Anomaly Hunter was not difficult in itself. With lower-ranked hunters assisting them, they could quickly stabilize the situation.
Fortunately, only a few 3-Star anomalies had appeared, preventing any severe casualties…
But “not severe” did not mean none.
In just half an hour, more than ten 1-Star Anomaly Hunters and five 2-Star Anomaly Hunters had died, as far as Qin Lan knew.
They too had been the lucky survivors of one instance after another, escaping death more times than they could count.
Whenever they emerged from an instance and felt the sunlight of the Fallen Zone on their faces, they would inevitably think, Fuck me, the goddamn sun feels so fucking warm, and, Fuck your mother, I survived another day.
Then they would rest, recover, and wait for the next mission.
Now they had become a few weightless lines of bold black text on a list.
There was not even time to hold memorial services for them.
Their names would be written in the corner of some file, covered in dust, and forgotten by time.
Every Anomaly Hunter knew they might die at any moment in battle. They might perish in filthy mud with no flowers in sight, or beside a blood-smeared corpse.
They stood closer to death than anyone, and understood the taste of life better than anyone.
A heavy pall hung over every heart, suffocating them.
Everyone was waiting for an answer–when would the fissures disappear? When would the disaster end?
No one could tell them.
Until all this goddamn misery ended, they could only fight with everything they had and hold the anomalies at the fissures.
Even if their blood ran dry, even if their limbs were torn away, even if nothing remained but a head, they could not retreat a single step.
Behind them waited countless civilians. The lights of ten thousand homes. Infants sleeping in their cradles. Old people praying on street corners.
No one backed down.
Fear, hesitation, resentment–whatever they felt, each person carried a different terror in their heart. Yet the choice they made was astonishingly unanimous.
They stood their ground before the fissures.
“Fuck your grandfather! I’ll blow us both to hell!”
One Anomaly Hunter’s eyes were bloodshot. An anomaly had torn away half his body, and his entrails dragged through the blood behind him in a long, wet trail.
Yet with his one remaining arm, he locked himself around the anomaly’s leg and gave his companion the chance to land the killing blow.
His eyes stayed open even in death, glaring at the anomaly as though to say, Worth it.
They screamed and roared, burning through the last of their fury like meteors crossing the night sky–brief, but blazing.
“Fuck your mother! Give me back my brother!”
Another hunter went berserk. Cradling his partner’s broken remains and clutching the heart that no longer beat, he charged with every intention of dying.
Someone else remained perfectly calm. In the final moments of his life, he called the woman he loved.
“Hello? Ah Jiao? There are three words I’ve always wanted to say, but I never got the chance… You’re her husband? Sorry, wrong number.”
The busy tone sounded from the other end. He smiled bitterly, tucked his phone into his pocket, then turned and walked toward the anomaly ripping through the line.
His back looked ordinary, not even particularly broad.
Yet in that moment, it seemed to bear the entire sky.
It was these people’s relentless, self-sacrificing charges that tore open the Anomaly Hunters’ truest scars and displayed them, bloody and raw, before the public.
Ordinarily, people often claimed the work of Anomaly Hunters was “nothing special.” They argued that “the Fallen Zone isn’t actually dangerous,” that “Anomaly Hunters get paid to do nothing,” and that “they’re just spreading panic.” No one typed faster or hurled abuse more viciously.
People online occasionally cursed the Anomaly Hunters for their generous benefits, demanding to know why they deserved good homes and high allowances.
But when horrifying anomalies appeared directly in the city and lunged at the crowds with fangs and claws bared…
When the mouths that usually criticized from behind their screens fell silent…
When fear spread like a plague…
It was the Anomaly Hunters who used their bodies to block the fissures.
One hunter fell, and another stepped forward.
Blood soaked the badges on their uniforms until no one could tell whether it belonged to them or the anomalies.
Only then did people finally realize that the Anomaly Hunters they rarely saw were truly fighting bloody battles in places no one could see.
In corners sunlight never touched, they traded their lives for the “peace” everyone treated as cheap.
The United Government’s elite forces were also fully deployed.
Soldiers in camouflage and helmets. Officers standing beside command vehicles with furrowed brows.
They had no powerful Talents and no assortment of cursed artifacts.
While maintaining order, they sometimes had to reinforce a collapsing fissure line, using flesh and blood to bridge the gap left by their lack of Talents.
When a soldier fell, his squad leader stepped forward.
When the squad leader fell, the platoon commander took his place.
No one fled. No one retreated.
Some of them might never have killed an anomaly in their lives, but when they stood before a fissure, there was no hesitation in their eyes.
The two sides that normally disliked each other, constantly clashing over resources and influence, silently took their places on the same battle line.
No one mentioned the division of power between the United Government and the Anomaly Hunter Bureau. No one argued over who should obey whom. No one dredged up old grudges.
At that moment, they all belonged to a single camp.
Humanity.