Chapter 28
Chapter 28
Mingjiang City.
“Huh? The frost is gone! Mom, I’m not cold anymore!”
Inside an apartment building, a child who had been huddled under a blanket suddenly saw the icy patterns vanish from the window.
The bone-piercing chill disappeared in an instant.
The warmth of early summer flooded back into the room.
“What… just happened?”
Out on the street, a man shivering inside a thick coat stared around in bewilderment. A moment ago, the entire city had seemed locked in ice. Now all the frost covering the ground had vanished in the blink of an eye.
It was practically magic!
“The anomaly is over! The Anomaly Suppression Bureau must have stepped in!”
“This is wonderful. It feels so good to be warm again!”
“Does this mean we don’t have to die?”
At that moment, citizens cheered throughout every street and alley in the city.
Moments earlier, frost had smothered Mingjiang City. The bitter cold had carried the chill of death, as though it meant to devour every last person.
Then, in the blink of an eye, it was almost as if spring had returned to the earth!
…
Outside the gates of Mingjiang No. 7 Special School.
“What happened? Is it over?”
Wang Zhong and Zuo Qingting were equally stunned.
Zuo Qingting had just taken out an anomalous entity and was in the middle of activating it, preparing to break through the Sovereign Seal.
But now, all the frost had disappeared.
“Did Frost leave?”
Wang Zhong frowned deeply.
“Impossible. If she had merely left, her anomalous influence wouldn’t have dissipated this quickly.”
Zuo Qingting’s expression turned grim. “There’s only one possibility… Someone destroyed Frost!”
Wang Zhong’s face changed at once.
“That’s impossible!”
Back at the Provincial Anomaly Suppression Department, they had participated in hunts for S-class anomalies before. Every single hunt had taken an enormous amount of effort.
They had to plan in advance, mobilize personnel, and sometimes even gather several S-class and A-class anomaly wielders to fight together. Even then, once the battle truly began, it could drag on for months and still end with devastating casualties.
Frost, however, was an S+ anomaly. She was on a completely different level from the S-class anomalies they had faced before!
Mingjiang City alone could never have handled her. Even the Provincial Anomaly Suppression Department would likely have paid a brutal price!
Yet less than an hour had passed between the moment Frost unleashed her anomaly domain and the moment she was destroyed.
Just what level of anomaly wielder could accomplish something like that?!
“Wait…”
Wang Zhong looked at the school before them, and a chill suddenly crept into his heart.
Frost had unquestionably been inside this school!
Now that she had been destroyed, did that not mean some force capable of effortlessly annihilating an S+ anomaly was hidden within the school?!
Zuo Qingting was frozen in shock as well. He had originally hoped to seize the occult configuration amid the chaos while Frost and Rain fought.
But now, a flash of terror swept through him.
Frost had been destroyed. If they entered now, how would that be any different from walking to their deaths?
“No… What in the world is hidden inside this school?!”
Zuo Qingting murmured without realizing it.
Before today, they had received absolutely no intelligence about this school!
…
And they were not the only ones in shock.
Inside an apartment building across from the school, Shi Xuan stared through a window, utterly dumbfounded.
The frost had vanished in an instant.
So quickly, so completely…
He instinctively turned to look at Xu Changjiang and Leng Qingyan.
This battle-hardened S-class anomaly wielder actually found his throat going dry.
“S+… No. SS-class?!”
Disbelief still colored his voice.
He knew Xu Changjiang would never have laid his plans with such confidence unless he possessed a hidden move or trump card.
But this trump card was far too astonishing!
“SS-class… I’ve only ever seen one anomaly at that level in my entire life.”
Shi Xuan murmured, “There are only a handful of anomaly wielders at that level in the entire country. Every one of them is shrouded in mystery. I’ve never even had the honor of meeting one…”
Yet one had been hidden here in Mingjiang City?
Xu Changjiang had concealed his hand far too well.
Xu Changjiang and Leng Qingyan, however, wore equally complicated expressions.
Based on the clues they had gathered before, they had deduced that Li Que was probably more than merely S-class.
Even so, both of them had still harbored doubts. The factions and anomalies drawn here this time were extraordinary, after all.
And yet…
Frost and the people from the Hall of Anomalies had been inside the campus for less than an hour.
Then Frost was gone, and the crisis hanging over the entire city had vanished with her…
“What exactly is inside this school? What level is it?”
Shi Xuan drew a deep breath and looked at Xu Changjiang with utmost solemnity.
“What faction does it belong to?”
He had question after question.
Until now, he had been able to remain composed and refrain from prying into Xu Changjiang’s secrets.
But even he could no longer stay calm. An SS-class anomaly wielder-or anomaly-was more than capable of shifting the balance of power across all of Jiangdong Province!
If such a being emerged into the open, it could even shake the entire country!
Yet when faced with his solemn gaze, Xu Changjiang merely sighed softly and gave a bitter smile.
“To tell you the truth, Director Shi, we don’t know the answers to any of those questions either…”
Shi Xuan frowned. After considering his words, he asked,
“Then what’s inside the school… a human or an anomaly?”
Xu Changjiang had been about to answer without hesitation, but now he suddenly paused.
Because something had occurred to him.
At first, they had assumed Lin Xiaoyu and the others were human too.
Only later did they learn that every one of those students was an extraordinarily powerful anomaly.
Could Li Que, who looked human as well… also be wearing a disguise and playing a role?
The idea frightened even Xu Changjiang himself.
After all, it was extraordinarily difficult for an unaffiliated anomaly wielder to break through to A-class.
Unaffiliated anomalies were different. S-class anomalies might be rare, but they were not unheard of!
“He is human.”
Leng Qingyan, standing behind Xu Changjiang, spoke up. Her gaze was calm and unwavering.
“A powerful, mysterious, and righteous human being.”
…
Mingjiang No. 7 Special School.
Inside the office of the teaching building.
“Well? Finished reading?”
Li Que took a sip of tea and looked at Qin Shiyu. “Was there anything you didn’t understand?”
Qin Shiyu looked dazed. At last, she felt the pressure on her disappear.
She could finally move freely again.
Despair filled her heart.
“I’ve finished. I understand. What now?”
She now knew that, in front of Li Que, she had no power to resist whatsoever.
They had believed they were conducting a carefully planned hunt. Instead, it had turned into a cat toying with a mouse.
Was she the mouse, being played with to the cat’s heart’s content before it finally killed her?
“Good. Understanding is what matters.”
Li Que remained perfectly composed. “Would you like to sit in on my class? You can see how the students are doing here at school before making your decision.”
Confusion flickered through Qin Shiyu’s eyes. She could not understand why someone as powerful as Li Que insisted on continuing to toy with her like this.
But she also wanted to know whether Frost was still alive. Without a word, she followed Li Que toward the classroom.
As they stepped from the office into the corridor, Qin Shiyu could not help glancing outside the school. When she saw the clear blue sky and the gentle sunlight, her heart trembled despite herself.
She understood what it meant. Frost’s anomaly domain had completely vanished.
For it to have disappeared so thoroughly proved that Frost herself… had been erased without a trace.
Qin Shiyu’s heart sank to the bottom.
The Hall of Anomalies’ mission had failed completely.
The Water God’s Authority has changed hands. I’ve lost…
She murmured inwardly, consumed by despair. If the Hall of Anomalies failed to obtain the Water God’s Authority, how could it withstand that coming disaster?
How many people would die because of this?
By the time hopelessness swallowed her, Li Que had already led her back into the classroom.
Everything inside appeared perfectly normal. There was no sign whatsoever of what had just taken place here.
“Hm? Where did that girl go?”
Li Que asked.
Lin Xiaoyu volunteered an answer.
“Sir… she left.”
Li Que paused. She had just left?
How rude!
Her older sister was still here, yet she had walked off without saying a word.
It seemed there really was something wrong with her.
“In that case, Miss Qin, would you still like to sit in on the lesson?”
Li Que looked at Qin Shiyu as he asked.
Qin Shiyu was not surprised to hear that Frost was dead. But when she lifted her gaze, she suddenly noticed the red cord around Lin Xiaoyu’s wrist.
“That is…”
She stiffened in shock.
“The Water God’s… Authority?!”
Her heart reeled with disbelief.
When had Rain obtained the Water God’s Authority?!
And that red cord was not the Water God’s Knot they had tampered with before!
What was going on?
How had another manifestation of the Water God’s Authority appeared here?!
…