Chapter 58
Chapter 58
“No… How can you possibly be SS-class?”
Inside the auditorium, Nightmare stared at Lin Xiaoyu in utter disbelief, as though he had seen a ghost.
Nightmare himself was SS-class. He knew exactly how difficult it was to reach that level.
In fact, an anomaly’s upper limit was nearly always set from the day it was born. Aside from the rare few with the potential to grow, almost none could ever change.
And according to their intelligence, Rain… had clearly been only S-class!
How could she possibly be SS-class now? What had she experienced inside this school?!
“So what if you’re SS-class and possess divine authority?” Nightmare snarled through gritted teeth.
“I’m SS-class too. Divine authority… I have it as well!”
The ordinary-looking gray coat on his body suddenly transformed into a pale-gray feathered mantle. At its heart, a broken gray feather gleamed faintly silver.
Gray light flowed across the mantle. Nightmare seized control of his darkness once more and sent it crushing toward Lin Xiaoyu.
He remained confident. No matter how strong Lin Xiaoyu was, she had only just risen to his level. He was a veteran SS-class with far more experience than her.
Moreover, his anomalous entity had drifted out of that place. It was extraordinary by nature.
As for Lin Xiaoyu’s divine authority? According to the Hall of Anomalies’ intelligence, she had inherited it from the five wild deities of Five Dragons Mountain. It was nothing impressive.
All things considered, the advantage was his!
“You’re still fighting back? Then I’m really going to use some force!”
Lin Xiaoyu was growing annoyed. Nightmare was Meng Mo’s father, so she had thought it best to be gentle with him, but he was becoming rather obnoxious.
The red cord appeared around her wrist, releasing a soft dragon cry.
In an instant, red filaments flowed from the cord like streams of water and seeped into Nightmare’s darkness.
Then the filaments split apart like the roots of ancient trees!
The entire mass of dark shadow exploded, crumbling into countless flakes of paper ash before vanishing.
“No!”
Nightmare let out an agonized scream. He staggered backward until his body struck the doorframe.
The feathered mantle had lost its luster. Even the broken feather that once shone silver had gone completely dark.
“No… How can your anomalous entity suppress my divine feather?!”
He cried out in shock. His eyes were wide, and even his voice trembled.
His divine feather had come from that place. Though damaged, it still possessed extraordinary divinity. The divine authority of some wild deity from the outside world could never compare!
But hadn’t Rain inherited the Water God’s Authority from the five dragons of Five Dragons Mountain?
It should have shattered effortlessly before him.
Yet he was the one who had lost-and he had been crushed so completely!
There was only one possibility.
“Your divine-authority anomalous entity… came from that place too?!”
He stared fixedly at Lin Xiaoyu’s wrist. The red cord flickered in and out of sight, but his expression had changed entirely.
That thing could not possibly have been left behind by the five dragons!
Nightmare had seen the objects of divine authority from Five Dragons Mountain before. They were nothing special.
“Sir gave it to me. I don’t know,” Lin Xiaoyu replied. “If you keep disrupting order… I’ll have to stop holding back.”
Nightmare’s expression grew even more complicated.
Teacher Li again. Li Que again!
Just how many anomalous entities had that man fished out of that place?
First he gave one to Lin Xiaoyu, then another to Meng Mo… and he might even possess a Divine Seal Fragment!
Nightmare was now almost certain that Li Que had entered that place and shared some connection with it.
There was no other way he could produce so many top-tier anomalous entities!
At the same time, a thought flashed through Nightmare’s mind. If he could enter that place once, might he soar to the heavens too?
He was genuinely envious now. Lin Xiaoyu had gone from S-class to crushing him, and even the divine-authority anomalous entity in his son Meng Mo’s hands was far stronger than his!
He was a mighty SS-class, an honored guest of the Hall of Anomalies. Yet compared with Lin Xiaoyu and the others, he amounted to nothing.
No. He had to find a way to meet Li Que. When the opportunity came, perhaps he could draw Li Que into a dream and extract every piece of information about that place.
The instant that thought arose, an icy chill enveloped him. It was as though the world around him had become King Yama’s hell, and he lay helpless upon Death’s butcher block.
Primal terror swept through his body. Nightmare instinctively raised his head and saw a girl studying herself in a mirror slowly glance sideways at him.
For one impossible instant, she seemed like a death goddess standing above countless forms of divine authority. A single thought from her would be enough to erase him from existence.
“No… That can’t be…”
Nightmare trembled from head to toe. Even his shadow dream domain was on the verge of total collapse.
“Y-you are…”
He could barely force out the words.
The girl spoke calmly.
“Show Sir any more disrespect, and you die.”
“Even if you only think it, you die.”
Then she ignored Nightmare, turned back to her mirror, and continued studying her reflection.
The indescribable pressure vanished in an instant.
Nightmare dropped to the floor, almost dissolving into a puddle of shadow. He stared around in a daze. Everything was normal. He was still inside the auditorium.
Yet a moment ago, he had genuinely felt as though he had glimpsed death.
And she had done it with nothing more than…
One look?!
Nightmare looked at Bai Lu. The proud, quiet girl did not even glance his way, yet he could not stop trembling.
She could read his thoughts!
She could destroy him with the slightest movement of her hand!
Nightmare was utterly shaken. What kind of anomalies were his son’s classmates?
One was an SS-class Water God, while the other… inspired terror in him on an instinctive level.
More frightening still, Bai Lu treated her teacher with such profound respect.
She would not tolerate even the slightest disrespect toward him?!
He could casually give the Dreamcatcher to Meng Mo as a reward, grant Lin Xiaoyu divine investiture, and even had a student at Bai Lu’s level.
Just what kind of person-or anomaly-was Teacher Li?
Nightmare immediately strangled the thought as soon as it arose.
He was truly afraid that he might think something else disrespectful about Teacher Li. After all, the girl with the mirror really could see straight through him!
Though Nightmare was an anomaly, he instinctively mimed swallowing to calm himself.
Then he asked meekly,
“Um… Is there anything I can do to help?”
His attitude had become… exceedingly humble.
Nightmare had agreed to Qin Shiyu’s demand that he remain at the school as a dorm supervisor, but he had never taken the job seriously. It had only been an excuse to find an opportunity to meet Li Que.
Even on the way to the auditorium, he had still been thinking about how he would make his move once Li Que appeared.
But now, he had been shocked completely awake.
For the first time, he understood with perfect clarity that Teacher Li himself was almost beside the point. Any random student from the man’s class was already beyond Nightmare’s ability to provoke.
In that single instant, his entire outlook changed.
Plotting against Li Que and coveting that place had been unbelievably foolish.
Before an existence like this, the wisest choice was to keep his head down, behave like a proper anomaly, and stop entertaining reckless thoughts.
Besides, his son was one of Teacher Li’s students. Nightmare could use that connection to establish at least the faintest indirect relationship of his own.
From everything he had seen, even the smallest scrap that slipped through Teacher Li’s fingers would drive every anomaly in the world mad with desire!
Nightmare urgently wanted to do something to make amends for his earlier disrespect.
Lin Xiaoyu, however, was puzzled.
She had just suppressed Nightmare, but he had clearly remained unconvinced.
Why had a single casual sentence from Big Sister Bai Lu made him so obedient?
Lin Xiaoyu had not sensed anything different about Bai Lu just now.
Still, she did not dwell on it. This was a good thing either way.
“Mm… Sir said Meng Mo will let the visitors witness his dream later.”
“You’re Meng Mo’s father, after all. It might be better if you stay here with him.”
Nightmare blinked. Witness Meng Mo’s dream?
He glanced at Meng Mo and immediately understood.
“A godhood ritual?!”
His son… was going to become a god too?
Nightmare’s feelings were indescribably complicated. This was absurd.
As the boy’s father, he could not even keep up with his own son’s progress!
Then wild delight seized him.
Why had he cooperated with the Hall of Anomalies for so many years? So that the Hall Master of the Hall of Anomalies would use the Divine Seal Fragment to grant him and Meng Mo divine investiture.
Only then could Nightmare fully control the divine authority within his broken feather and find an opportunity to approach that place.
But now, they did not need the Hall of Anomalies at all. Li Que could do it for them!
“Hahaha… My son is going to become a god!”
His eyes burned with excitement. He hurried over to Meng Mo.
“My good son! Come, tell your father whatever you need. I’ll do anything you ask!”
His enthusiasm was overwhelming.
…
Outside the school, everyone was equally stunned.
“SS-class… How could Rain have become SS-class?!”
“Our intelligence said she was only S-class!”
The members of the Jiangdong Chamber of Commerce and the Hall of Anomalies were reeling, disbelief written across every face.
“The intelligence on Rain… was wrong?!”
Li Dao glared furiously at Zuo Yuanshan.
The Eclipse Organization’s intelligence on the Water God had previously come mainly through the Zuo family.
But now it appeared that every one of them had been misled!
If the Li family had known Rain was SS-class, controlled divine authority, and possessed an anomalous entity that had received divine investiture, they never would have participated!
An anomaly at this level was far beyond the reach of a local conglomerate like theirs.
Zuo Yuanshan was equally dumbfounded. His expression had turned hideous.
This was impossible. Rain really had been S-class before!
“Something’s wrong…”
Even Cao Yi’s expression changed completely.
SS-class?!
Damn that bastard Guo Shoubo! Had he set Cao Yi up?
Panic gripped him. The gulf between S-class and SS-class was vast. The Burial Shroud in his hand might also be an SS-class anomalous entity, but it was ultimately a lifeless object.
Rain, meanwhile, was a living SS-class who controlled divine authority!
What the hell was he supposed to do against that?!
He instinctively turned to flee.
But the moment he rushed through the school gates, he nearly crashed into Li Dao’s back. Somehow, Cao Yi had reappeared inside the campus!
“A ghost maze?!”
He stared through the gates in horror.
They stood only a single step from the exit, yet there was no way out!
Cao Yi was an S-class anomaly wielder, and even he had been trapped by a ghost maze. Who would believe it?
“We can’t leave,” Yin Rumei said, her expression complicated. She let out a long sigh.
“No wonder they had the confidence to sit here and wait for us.”
“Everyone, our only choice now is to go and see for ourselves.”
She turned to Shi Xuan.
“Director Shi, please lead the way.”
Everyone else’s expression grew grave.
In that instant, they recognized reality.
Even Shi Xuan stared blankly at the rain falling from the sky.
He knew perfectly well that the Eclipse Organization and Hall of Anomalies had not received faulty intelligence.
Only a few days earlier, Lin Xiaoyu truly had been just S-class!
“Teacher Li… What kind of existence are you?”
Shi Xuan’s emotions churned.
…