Chapter 15
Chapter 15
Zhao Xueru, Chen Jun, and the others stared fixedly at the angel doll in Leng Qingyan’s hand.
“It’s so pure…”
Zhao Xueru was utterly stunned. The faint aura of an anomalous entity in the garbage heap was nothing compared to the angel doll in Leng Qingyan’s hand.
“You got the real Crimson Netherworld ages ago. You used garbage to trick me?!”
Zhao Xueru suddenly understood, and then she completely lost it.
Damn it!
If Leng Qingyan had the real Crimson Netherworld, what did that make all the garbage Zhao Xueru had just eaten?
The oil on those spicy strips had been so rancid it stank!
The rotten apple had been crawling with maggots!
And those plastic bags had been damn near impossible to chew!
She had wolfed it all down. Every last bite.
And now she was being told it really had been nothing but garbage?
While the treasure had been in someone else’s hands all along?
Her mind nearly collapsed.
She had been fiercely competitive her entire life, always desperate to reclaim the pride she had lost before Leng Qingyan. And what had she done instead? Eaten trash Leng Qingyan didn’t want and gloated proudly while doing it?
She had made herself a complete clown.
“I’ll kill you! Aaaah!”
Zhao Xueru went mad. Completely and utterly mad.
Branches burst from her body, while countless vines erupted beneath Leng Qingyan’s feet and twisted toward her.
This was Zhao Xueru’s Undying Yin Locust Tree.
Chen Jun went berserk at the same time, firing his revolver over and over, his eyes blazing with fury.
Scales covered Leng Qingyan from head to toe. They made her so fast that she dodged every bullet and left the vines chasing empty air.
In a flash, she closed the distance to Chen Jun and whipped one of her long legs out in a vicious kick. The revolver flew from his hand, and Chen Jun himself was sent hurtling backward.
“She’s reached B-class!”
Zhao Xueru grew even more furious.
Leng Qingyan had remained at B-minus-class for years. Now that she had obtained Crimson Netherworld, she had advanced directly to B-class. That alone showed how extraordinary the treasure was.
And it should have belonged to Zhao Xueru!
Her face darkened to a terrifying degree. The Undying Yin Locust Tree attacked relentlessly, its eerie vines and branches pursuing Leng Qingyan. A single touch would bind her completely, but none of them could catch her.
The Tear of the Charm Demon’s physical enhancement gave her far too much speed.
“Leng Qingyan, do you honestly think this is enough to win?”
Zhao Xueru suddenly smiled-a vicious, savage smile.
Then she drew a blue bottle from inside her clothes.
Dark blue liquid flowed slowly inside it, almost as though it were alive.
“You know perfectly well what anomalous entity A-402 is. I brought it for Rain, and it can only be used once…”
Her voice turned cold. “But now, you can have the first taste!”
She pulled out the wooden stopper, took out a scale, and dropped it into the bottle.
The scale had fallen from Leng Qingyan’s body during the battle with the Undying Yin Locust Tree years ago.
Zhao Xueru had secretly kept it ever since.
It still carried Leng Qingyan’s presence. Once the anomalous entity inside the bottle locked on to that presence, it would pursue Leng Qingyan until she had been burned away completely.
Leng Qingyan’s expression finally changed.
Just as Zhao Xueru had said, she knew exactly where that thing had come from.
Anomalous entity A-402, codename Heavenly Fire.
Three years ago, Rain’s anomaly domain had engulfed a small city. Just when the authorities were out of options, this object descended from the sky and began burning inside the domain.
Rain vanished soon afterward.
The authorities later gathered the flame seed and named it Heavenly Fire. Their research also showed that although Heavenly Fire was only an A-class anomalous entity, it appeared capable of suppressing the S-class Rain.
That was why A-402 had always been considered one of the Anomaly Suppression Bureau’s strategic assets against the S-class anomaly Rain.
Leng Qingyan had never expected Zhao Xueru to bring it here, much less use it against her.
In the brief instant she spent processing this, Zhao Xueru hurled the bottle.
The dark blue liquid shot out like a snake, greedily scenting its newfound freedom. The scale caught fire at once, and the serpent-like liquid whipped around to lock onto Leng Qingyan.
It moved with incredible speed. In the blink of an eye, it had formed a circle around her.
Then flames roared upward.
Blue flames.
“So powerful…”
Nearby, Qin Yuandong and Gu Xiaomeng stared in shock. They hurriedly retreated, terrified of being caught in the attack.
Even Chen Jun and the other subordinates looked afraid.
Only Zhao Xueru was laughing. Her smile was wild with madness.
The woman who had once surpassed her was about to be reduced to ashes before her eyes.
At the center of the sea of fire, Leng Qingyan’s expression changed drastically. The scales covering her body were already beginning to warp. Death pressed in from every direction.
She had no power to resist A-402’s flames.
Was she really going to die here?
But at that moment…
A trace of cold suddenly touched her scales, sending an inexplicable shiver through her. Even the scorching heat of the anomalous fire seemed to vanish.
She looked down and saw a single raindrop resting on her body.
Her head snapped up. No clouds were visible in the pitch-black sky, yet a fine drizzle had begun to fall.
The rain descended in slender threads, and the entire campus seemed to turn damp in an instant.
Leng Qingyan’s mood inexplicably plummeted. Depression and despair closed around her, as though she had lost all will to survive and wanted nothing more than to die.
The anomalous fire around her reacted violently to the Damp Drizzle, leaping and thrashing. Yet as the rain continued to fall, it gradually weakened.
It was almost as if the rain were about to put it out.
“What?!”
Everyone present stared in horror.
“Anomalous flames are going out… Is this Damp Drizzle?!”
Chen Jun stared in disbelief.
“How is that possible? Damp Drizzle… Is Rain here too?!”
“No. Why would Rain appear here? Anomaly bait that weak could never attract her!”
The anomaly wielders beside him descended into panic.
“Impossible!”
Zhao Xueru’s pupils contracted, her eyes filled with disbelief.
Had she really lured Rain here?
“The Wraith-Mother of the Vengeful Infant and Rain came from the same place. They can sense each other. We wanted to use the mother and child to find Rain, but that means… Rain can sense them too!”
She murmured as the pieces fell into place, too stunned to think straight.
Why would Rain appear at a miserable school like this?
Even more shocking was the fact that A-402, Heavenly Fire, was about to go out beneath the Damp Drizzle.
This was one of the authorities’ trump cards, a weapon specifically meant to suppress Rain.
Three years ago, Heavenly Fire had torn a breach through Rain’s anomaly domain wherever it burned. Yet now, the mere fall of the Damp Drizzle was enough to weaken its flames.
Could the S-class anomaly Rain have grown even more terrifying over the past few years?
That was impossible!
Every S-class anomaly in the world with the potential to evolve was infamous.
Rain was never one of them.
How had she broken through her original limit?
An S-class anomaly was already almost impossible to defeat. If one could continue growing, who in the world could possibly subdue her?
Zhao Xueru was on the verge of breaking down. What kind of damned luck was this?
Of all people, she had run into such an unprecedented exception?
Mingjiang City was enormous, yet Rain just happened to be hiding here-and she had become even more terrifying than before.
Across from her, Qin Yuandong and Gu Xiaomeng were equally shaken.
An S-class anomaly meant everyone here would die.
Fear spread through the crowd.
But that panic soon disappeared.
The Damp Drizzle fell impartially upon every person present.
Everyone’s heart sank straight to the bottom.
Agony filled Zhao Xueru’s eyes. At that moment, it felt as though she had lost her status, her position, and every shred of her power. She had become the helpless girl she once was.
Dejection, misery, despair-she was so depressed she nearly wanted to kill herself on the spot.
Chen Jun and the other subordinates dropped onto the ground. Moments ago, they had been proud and vigorous anomaly wielders. Now they looked like soulless walking corpses.
Gu Xiaomeng stopped paying any attention to Qin Yuandong. She simply stood there in a daze, as though her entire life had collapsed into meaninglessness.
Qin Yuandong lay on the ground without a word. Profound despair filled his eyes, as if nothing in the world mattered anymore.
“No… We can’t let this happen. We’ll die!”
“I don’t want to die. I have to fight this feeling, but… I’m so tired!”
Zhao Xueru, Qin Yuandong, and the others still retained one final thread of reason, but it was far too weak to struggle.
…
On the distant athletic field, a man approached beneath an umbrella.
A silent girl walked beside him under its shelter, her lips pressed tightly together.
She stared at the dark blue anomalous fire burning in the distance, disgust written across her face.
The Damp Drizzle continued to fall. The blue fire had shrunk into a tiny ball, but it stubbornly refused to go out.
The rain could suppress it, but apparently could not destroy it.
Li Que saw the fire as well.
He walked over, raised one foot, and casually stamped it out.
Lin Xiaoyu’s brows slowly relaxed. The rain stopped.
Li Que glanced at the sky, closed his umbrella, and said, “That rain came and went quickly. All right, you can go to the restroom by yourself. I won’t walk you the rest of the way.”
Lin Xiaoyu obediently headed toward the nearby restroom.
The drizzle had faded, and the night lay still. Through the entire process, Li Que and Lin Xiaoyu had acted with perfect ease.
It truly seemed as though a concerned teacher had been walking a student to the restroom, noticed a safety hazard along the way, and casually put out a small fire.
Li Que looked so relaxed, as though what he had done were utterly insignificant.
But everyone watching was shocked to the core.
Dead silence filled the scene.
…
“Codename: Rain.”
“Designation: S-019.”
“Ability: Causes everyone within range to fall into depression and mental collapse, ultimately driving them to suicide.”
“Characteristics: Before manifestation, the anomaly alters the weather. Heavy storm clouds form and the ambient temperature plummets. When Damp Drizzle begins to fall, the anomaly domain fully descends, and no one within its range can escape.”
“Notes: This anomaly caused casualties in several cities. Up to a million people took their own lives under her influence. She disappeared three years ago.”
At that moment, in an alley far from Mingjiang No. 7 Special School…
A gray-clad man and another man in a battered felt hat stared at the dossier on a tablet, terror covering their faces.
“Purple Sparrow… She ran into Rain!” the gray-clad man muttered.
“Go! We have to go now!”
The man in the battered felt hat was utterly panicked.
“Purple Sparrow is finished against an S-class anomaly. Absolutely finished! No one can deal with her unless Master comes in person. Go!”
They scrambled into their car and fled Mingjiang City as fast as they could.
At the same time, inside the Qin family villa…
“Rain… It’s really Rain!”
Qin Zhenye’s pupils contracted. Then a feverish light flared in his eyes.
“She has appeared again. She’s right here! Wonderful! This is wonderful!”
He showed no concern at all for Qin Yuandong and Gu Xiaomeng’s fate. Instead, he was ecstatic.
“Rain most likely appeared because she and the Wraith-Mother of the Vengeful Infant sensed each other. Hahaha! We can accomplish two goals at once!”
…