138: Chapter 138 Will you die first... or will Rongcheng be destroyed first...?

Instructor Qin Feng sent another message, pushing a tactical map marked with dense details directly to the terminals of Lu Cheng and the other three.

"There are quite a few exotic beasts in the city. I am now synchronizing your terminal maps through the city hub..."

Instructor Qin Feng's voice came through the communication channel, with the background filled with the sound of wind and the muffled thuds of explosions in the distance.

"Please trouble yourselves to handle the Polluted Exotic Beasts in your vicinity!"

Lu Cheng glanced at the red dot on the map closest to them, which was less than eight hundred meters east of the shopping mall.

"Let's go." He put away his terminal, turned his head to look at Xia Xi and Qian Shuying, and asked, "Have you finished the evacuation on your end?"

"Done!" Xia Xi ran back from the emergency exit, her hammer on her shoulder, her boot soles crunching on broken glass. "Everyone in the mall has been evacuated, and the Defense Bureau personnel have just taken over."

Qian Shuying followed behind, the tiger patterns on her skin still shimmering with a golden-white light.

"Then let's move out."

The four of them rushed out of the shopping mall entrance.

The scene on the street was completely different from when they were eating just moments ago.

The shops on both sides of the main road had all pulled down their shutters, and behind the glass windows, shopkeepers could be seen crouching under their counters, shivering in fear.

The road was littered with discarded shopping bags, lost shoes, and toppled shared bicycles.

Lu Cheng ran at the very front.

Xia Xi and Su Wan followed on either side.

Both of them frowned almost simultaneously.

Xia Xi bit her lower lip, gripping her hammer so tightly that her knuckles turned white.

This isn't right...

At this point in time in her dreams, there had never been a large-scale invasion of Black Seeds in Rong City.

What caused this butterfly effect?

She took a deep breath, and a more distressing thought flashed through her mind.

Father... where did he go...

In her past life, her father had stayed in Rong City for four full years, only transferring back to the Imperial Capital after she graduated.

He had always been alive, always been alive...

But this timeline had changed too much.

Xia Xi switched the hammer to her right hand and quickly sent a message to Xia Yunchi on her terminal with her left hand.

No reply.

The message was sent out, but it was like a stone dropped into the ocean.

Su Wan was running half a meter to her right, her face expressionless.

The Cold Soul Sword Cloak was wrapped around her sword, the cold air freezing the air around her into a faint white mist... She had the same confusion in her mind as Xia Xi...

She didn't know what had caused this deviation in the timeline.

Lu Cheng's existence? The premature clearing of the Northern Ruins? Or some deeper, hidden reason?

But regardless, one thing was certain.

Those people she couldn't save in her past life must be saved in this one.

She would not let anyone else die in front of her again.

The four of them pushed their speed to the limit.

Eight hundred meters, in less than thirty seconds.

The target location was a vacant construction lot right next to the wall of the old campus of Rong City No. 3 High School.

It was a construction site on the east side of the school that had been abandoned for several years; the foundation had been laid but no building had been erected, and it was piled with stacks of rusty rebar and two piles of broken bricks.

In the center of the vacant lot, five Polluted Exotic Beasts were besieging two people.

A young man with yellow hair was blocking a middle-aged woman, clutching a steel pipe he had picked up from a trash heap, his legs shaking like a sieve.

The woman cowered behind him, clutching a three- or four-year-old child tightly in her arms.

The child's face was buried in her shoulder, crying until their voice was hoarse.

All five Polluted Exotic Beasts were at the Source Gathering Realm, about the size of a calf, covered in grey-black corrupted carapaces, and the corrosive liquid dripping from their mouthparts caused the concrete foundation to hiss and bubble.

The yellow-haired youth held the steel pipe horizontally in front of him, squeezing out an awkward low roar from his throat: "Get... get away!"

The leading Pollution Beast took a step forward, black viscous liquid oozing from the gaps in its carapace, its six legs grinding over the broken bricks with a harsh, grating sound.

The yellow-haired youth's legs shook even more violently.

But he didn't run.

The woman behind him took a half-step back, tripped on a piece of broken brick, and almost fell.

The Pollution Beast lunged forward suddenly.

The yellow-haired youth closed his eyes and thrust the steel pipe forward.

The steel pipe struck the Pollution Beast's carapace without even leaving a mark.

The Pollution Beast raised its front claw, and the corrosive liquid on it dripped onto the youth's shoulder, instantly burning a few holes through his clothes.

Then, a flash of cold light streaked by.

The head of the Pollution Beast flew off.

Black blood sprayed all over the ground.

Su Wan brushed past the yellow-haired youth, the frost on her blade still lingering, and without stopping her pace, she cut directly into the middle of the remaining four Pollution Beasts.

Treading Snow Without Traces.

An icy surface spread across the broken brick ground, causing the Pollution Beasts to slip as they stepped on it, their claws scraping against the ground with a harsh sound.

One sword strike.

Two down.

Another sword strike.

Two more down.

From the moment Su Wan struck to killing all five Source Gathering Realm Pollution Beasts, it took less than four seconds.

The tainted blood on the blade flowed down the spine of the sword, dripping onto the ground and freezing into black ice beads.

The yellow-haired youth opened his eyes.

He saw the carcasses of the Pollution Beasts lying on the ground in front of him, black blood still flowing from their severed necks.

Then he saw Su Wan, saw the Navigator Academy uniform she was wearing, and saw that face as cold as an ice sculpture.

He recognized her... it was the girl he had blocked at the gate of No. 3 High School more than two months ago.

Back then, he had followed Zhou Lize's orders to block a girl at the school gate...

And then he had been taught a lesson by Lu Cheng...

Later, he found out that the guy named Lu Cheng had entered the Navigator Academy, and the girl he had blocked had also entered the Navigator Academy.

Later on, the Zhou Family was purged... Rong City had a crackdown on organized crime, which was also led by Lu Cheng, who wiped out 95% of the city's underground organizations...

The remaining 5% were just small fry...

He didn't dare to hang around anymore, so he quit that street and found a job at a construction site.

Today, when the Pollution Beasts rushed into the city, he happened to be buying water at a small shop opposite this vacant lot.

When he saw this woman holding a child being chased into the vacant lot by the Pollution Beasts, he didn't know where he got the courage, but he grabbed a steel pipe and rushed over.

Now he saw Su Wan standing in front of him.

The yellow-haired youth's legs went weak.

With a thud, he collapsed directly to the ground.

Then he raised his right hand and slapped himself hard.

The slap was loud.

Su Wan turned her head to look at him, her sword still drawn.

The yellow-haired youth knelt on the ground, the five-finger print on his face swelling up rapidly.

He lowered his head, his voice trembling: "Th-thank you... for saving my life..."

His lips quivered several times.

"Regarding the previous matter... I am truly very sorry..."

Su Wan glanced at him.

She didn't say a word.

She wiped the tainted blood off her sword on a piece of broken brick nearby, turned around, and walked to the other side of the vacant lot. There, a few more Pollution Beasts were crawling out from the street corner next door.

Xia Xi glanced at the yellow-haired youth on the ground, then looked at Lu Cheng.

Lu Cheng didn't have any particular opinion about this yellow-haired youth.

Back when he first transmigrated here, it was this yellow-haired youth who was blocking Su Wan, which was why he had to step in and beat him up.

As for grudges, that was the original host's business, and it had nothing to do with him.

However, the fact that this kid could stand in front of a stranger in the face of Pollution Beasts without running away meant he was a man.

"Let's go... to the next location."

Su Wan said calmly, glanced at her terminal, and immediately headed towards the place described on it.

Meanwhile, on the outskirts of the Northern Ruins.

Gravel was scattered everywhere, and the dark purple moss on the ground had been trampled into a mess.

Xia Yunchi was half-kneeling on the ground, his left hand covering his right ribs, beneath which was a wound cutting diagonally from his shoulder to his waist and abdomen.

Blood seeped out from between his fingers, dripping onto the purple moss on the ground, staining it a deeper color.

His breathing was heavy; every time he inhaled, one could hear something creaking inside his chest.

Standing in front of him was a man in a black robe.

War King Realm...!

The black robe covered most of his face, revealing only a pair of eyes.

The eyes were greyish-white, and it looked as if something was squirming in his pupils.

Two other people were standing nearby.

Both had auras at the War General Realm, one to the left and one to the right, blocking all of Xia Yunchi's escape routes.

"You have mobilized your entire nest this time..." Xia Yunchi raised his head, his blood-stained mouth curling slightly, "Aren't you afraid of being liquidated? You should be clear about the authorities' bottom line regarding you."

The black-robed man spoke.

His voice was very calm: "Indeed, and that is why you treat us like fish on the chopping block."

He took a step forward.

"When you eliminated a Divine Envoy, you should have expected... that today's event would happen."

Xia Yunchi looked around.

Two people blocked his escape route. One War King Realm stood directly in front.

Everyone's aura was steady without a single fluctuation, as if they had been waiting here for a long time.

"Two War Generals, one War King, huh..."

He lowered his hand from his wound and stood up.

Blood dripped from his fingertips, splashing onto the ground like a few dark red flowers.

"Barely enough."

The black-robed man tilted his head slightly.

Then, the aura on Xia Yunchi changed.

"Great Sun... Divine Furnace."

Using himself as the furnace, his blood and energy as fuel, he ignited every drop of blood, every trace of Source Power, and the strength of every bone in his body.

A golden halo expanded from under his feet, instantly spreading dozens of meters around.

Wherever the halo passed, the dark purple moss on the ground was burned into greyish-white powder, and the sweet, cloying smell of polluted Source Power in the air was scorched away completely.

A Great Sun appeared in the sky.

The edges of the golden sun wheel flowed with light like molten lava, illuminating the entire Wasteland Zone brightly.

"Today..." Xia Yunchi stood straight, his cultivation realm breaking through to the War King Realm!

The wound on his chest looked like a red-hot fissure under the golden light, and he said with a ferocious expression...

"Is the day of your death."

The black-robed man did not move.

He just raised his head and looked at the Great Sun in the sky.

"Is that so."

His tone was still as calm as before.

"I want to see..."

The black-robed man lowered his head, his gaze falling back onto Xia Yunchi.

"Whether you die first... or your daughter dies first."

He paused.

"Or whether Rong City is destroyed first?"

Xia Yunchi's pupils constricted sharply.

The Great Sun in the sky exploded suddenly.

Golden light poured down in all directions like a waterfall.