Chapter 94
Chapter 94
The Abyss.
When Qin Lan last encountered it, Lu Xingshan had stepped in and stopped him before he could make contact with the existence on the other side.
He was later warned that everything associated with the Abyss was an extreme hazard.
One careless mistake could cost even a 4-Star Anomaly Hunter their life.
Had Qin Lan now stumbled into another instance connected to the Abyss?
He swallowed, a powerful unease rising within him.
That evil aura was all too familiar. When he had stood before the bottomless fissure and gazed into the deep chasm glowing with dim green light, he had sensed the same kind of presence.
No emotion. No feeling. No thought. Only pure evil.
“This is bad… I need to warn Xue Chuan as soon as possible…”
The evil figure in the photograph made the scale of the instance’s problem increasingly clear.
Then another thought occurred to Qin Lan.
“If triggering hidden scenes is the path to learning the truth behind the instance…”
“Then did the replay in the women’s restroom leave behind a similar clue?”
Qin Lan slapped his forehead in frustration.
At the time, he had focused entirely on getting Xue Chuan back to the classroom. When they passed the sinks, he had not even had time to glance around. If the scene had produced a clue, he had probably missed it.
The cause of Dead Silence Academy’s transformation and the evil figure in the photograph might already have appeared in that first clue.
[Mass exercise break concluded.]
[All classes, return to your classrooms in order.]
The sudden announcement made Qin Lan curse inwardly.
He did not have much time.
If he waited through another class, the clue might disappear for good.
In truth, even going back for it now felt rather late.
Qin Lan left the infirmary and reached the stairwell, only to find a bubbling mass of black liquid blocking his path.
It was the Dean of Students.
The churning, viscous substance completely filled the stairwell. Qin Lan had only one way to reach the upper floor–fight it head-on.
His opponent was a 4-Star anomaly with more than ninety Spirit.
Even with amplification raising Qin Lan’s effective Spirit to seventy, a considerable gap remained.
He had also touched that mass of black slime before and knew how violent its mental shock could be. Even if his Spirit also reached ninety, he would probably still lose against an impact of that intensity.
There was only one solution.
Qin Lan drew a deep breath, his expression calm. “This is my first time using a curse on a 4-Star anomaly…”
“I hope it doesn’t disappoint me.”
He focused his mind. Curse energy surged and converged around him, ultimately forming an intricate curse that enveloped the Dean of Students ahead.
[Death’s Curse: Despondency]
Despondency was a curse specifically designed to weaken Spirit. It was perfectly suited for dealing with a purely mental anomaly like the Dean of Students.
As the curse descended, the black slime covering the Dean of Students began to boil violently. A distorted cry of agony came from within.
Qin Lan’s expression was hardly pleasant either.
His curse energy was being consumed at a terrifying rate.
Backup Reaper was a high-level class capable of suppressing even a 4-Star anomaly’s attributes by fifty percent. However, Qin Lan possessed only a Tier 3 Curse Core.
He could not avoid the enormous energy cost.
“Fifty points of curse energy per second?!”
The instant Qin Lan understood how horrifying that number was, he flashed forward without hesitation and slammed into the obstruction.
The moment he touched the black slime, savage agony stabbed through his mind like countless needles. His consciousness nearly collapsed on the spot.
Fortunately, the opponent’s Spirit had already been weakened to around fifty, giving Qin Lan a chance to endure.
Countless voices poured into his mind, as though thousands upon thousands of people were sobbing and wailing beside his ears.
That was not all. Countless images flashed through Qin Lan’s mind and crashed toward him like a vast ocean.
After dying so many times, Qin Lan was thoroughly familiar with the Dean of Students’ mental shock. Even under that all-pervasive assault, he forcibly preserved a thread of clarity.
What seemed like a single second stretched into an eternity for Qin Lan.
Squelch…
Qin Lan burst out the other side of the slime. He staggered and nearly fell.
Fortunately, his reactions were quick enough to steady himself in time. He raced upstairs and escaped the Dean of Students’ blockade.
Qin Lan’s face was pale, and even his breathing had become ragged.
Terrifying was the only word that could describe what he had just experienced.
Every drop of that black slime contained the pain and resentment of an innocent ghost.
While resisting the mental shock, Qin Lan had also been fighting the intrusion of countless chaotic memory fragments.
[You just escaped from the brink of death. Curse Amplification permanently increased by 5%.]
[Current Curse Amplification: 5%]
At the same time, Qin Lan received a notification from his class ability.
“Curse amplification?”
He paused briefly, and even his sprint faltered for an instant.
This attribute had never increased before. He had not expected its first gain to come from Backup Reaper’s ability to grow after escaping the brink of death.
Only after obtaining curse amplification did Qin Lan finally understand what the attribute represented.
Curse resistance determined the threshold for resisting curses. It represented absolute defense.
Curse amplification, on the other hand, was offensive.
Whenever Qin Lan used curse energy, whether he infused it into an attack or spent it on a Talent or class ability, curse amplification would enhance the result.
If he infused a base value of twenty points of energy into an attack while possessing five percent curse amplification, the actual effect would be equivalent to 20 x 105% = 21 points of curse energy.
The difference appeared small.
But this attribute could accumulate.
Five percent might be insignificant, but what about fifty percent?
Or even… one hundred percent?
The potential power of curse amplification left Qin Lan deeply shaken.
He had no time to study it further. The warning bell had already rung, and he had yet to reach the floor where they had triggered the earlier hidden scene.
The brief clash with the Dean of Students had severely affected his condition. His head felt heavy, and his movements had slowed considerably.
Fortunately, his attributes were high enough.
When he reached the restroom, Qin Lan’s gaze immediately locked onto the sinks. Sure enough, a crumpled ball of paper lay soaking in the water.
Without time to think, he retrieved the paper and raced back to the classroom.
He made it inside just before the class bell rang.
“Phew… That was close…”
Qin Lan panted. He had no time to exchange looks with Xue Chuan and immediately unfolded the soaked paper across his desk.
After reading its contents, his heart sank.
[Teacher, last time you asked me to help the new transfer student, so I thought I would help him revise the essay he wrote for the exam…]
[But I discovered that he had written many frightening things on an essay sheet he never turned in. He mentioned many students and teachers too. I don’t know what to do…]
[I plan to talk to him after school. Maybe I can find out why he has such frightening thoughts…]
Water had blurred the childish handwriting, but Qin Lan could still sense how nervous its writer had been.
He clicked his tongue in irritation.
“So it really was that damned transfer student.”
“A transfer student should stick to punching his way to the top of the school, taking command of every delinquent in the neighborhood, and challenging the legendary fighter in an epic final battle before graduation!”
“Not turning a perfectly good school into this disaster!”