Chapter 23: Tornado

The mist inside the small town grew even thicker; she could not see anything around her. When she stretched out her arm, she could not see her own hand. She landed on the ground and looked down, yet could not see her own feet.

Everything around her coiled around her; this mist, tightly wrapping her, made her suffocate, as if countless shackles bound her.

Beneath her feet was a patch of grass. The grass grew very densely, its color a glossy, unnatural green, as green as if painted with green paint.

Yang Yi casually stepped on it twice. The lush green grass struggled like a living creature, and its leaves stood upright like blades.

Yang Yi narrowed her eyes and, with a thought, the surrounding mist was immediately pushed aside by an invisible hand, clearing a large space. Now she seemed to stand inside a soap bubble, while endless churning mist lay outside the bubble.

She tried to extend her mental power outward again. Those misty vapors, as if possessing life, began to struggle and stir, pushing back some of the mental power she had expanded.

After a brief struggle, Yang Yi frowned, her expression growing somewhat impatient. An invisible wave of mental power spread from her body like a storm. The soap bubble instantly expanded by over ten meters. That invisible force struggling against her silently dissipated, leaving only the mist still coiling and writhing outside the mental-power bubble.

That suffocating feeling of being wrapped up finally vanished, and the scenery around her clearly revealed itself before her eyes.

Only then did Yang Yi see clearly that she stood on a lawn in front of a house. This household was a two-story building with a sloped roof. Traces of white paint marked the walls, likely applied within the last two months. On both sides of the door grew climbing roses, blooming in large patches of pink-purple flowers.

Yang Yi recognized this flower; it had a pleasant name: Blue Rain.

And at this moment, the small town, just like the name of this flower, was silent, gloomy, and ominous.

She strolled into this white house—the door was open. Traces of life inside were vivid: children's toys scattered on the floor, a pet mat in the corner, and an unfinished dog bowl. In the open kitchen, soup simmered in a pot—it had already rotted. It was as if the owner had heard some noise outside, temporarily turned off the stove to go check, intending to return later to drink the soup, but never came back.

She circled the small town. Every house showed clear traces of life, as if the owners had merely stepped out for a short while. Only a thin layer of faint dust inside each house proved that the town's residents had been gone for some time.

Not a single person was in the entire town, no pets, not even any trace of living animals.

A profound deathly silence reigned. The mist surged, stirred, and writhed around her, as if a gigantic beast devouring living things, while the small town was merely a part of its belly.

Just outside, the sun hung in the sky, and the mist lay like a monster between heaven and earth, shrouding the small town. But inside the town, she saw no sunlight at all; everything around was gloomy, like the darkness before a heavy rainstorm.

The town's residents could not have vanished into thin air. Even if something truly had eaten them, they could not have left not a single trace.

Almost every household here had its door open. If something urgent had happened, it was impossible for everyone to have gone out peacefully without even locking the doors.

She wanted to follow footprints to track, but the creatures here, seemingly stimulated by dark matter in the mist and certain unknown forces, had undergone some mutation. The grass blades by the roadside were sharp; the flowers at the doorways bloomed fully, emitting a strange fragrance; vines crawled onto the path, covering the traces left by humans.

She had absolutely no clue. If only she could awaken Sherlock Holmes's abilities along the way. Yang Yi sighed.

But a fool also has a fool's method: since there was no one, she could act without restraint.

She slowly rose into mid-air, then closed her eyes.

Wind spun around her. It began as a light breeze, then grew stronger and stronger—gentle breeze, strong wind, gale—gradually forming a storm that began to spin wildly around her.

The mist was sucked into the storm. At first, that invisible force still tried to resist. However, as the increasingly wild storm formed a violent tornado, the mist was torn apart and pulverized, as if ground meat sucked into a meat grinder.

The sharp grass blades trembled, pressing hard against the ground; flower petals were swept up by the storm, dancing wildly in mid-air; vines shrank back their writhing bodies, trembling.

The power within the mist tested, resisted, struggled—and retreated...

————

Outside the mist, inside a tent.

Precision instruments before the monitoring personnel flashed with green lights. At the very moment Yang Yi struggled against the mist, some of those green lights suddenly turned red, flashing wildly.

"Quickly report to General Barroteli! There is movement in the mist!" one monitoring personnel shouted in alarm. Immediately, someone went to report.

With a rush of hurried footsteps, General Barroteli and Director Zhou walked briskly into the tent.

"What happened?" General Barroteli shouted loudly.

During this period, he had stayed here for fully more than ten days. The mist had always remained so gloomy. No matter how they experimented and probed, even by firing bombs into it, they could not provoke the slightest response from it. Yet now, just over ten minutes after Yang Yi had entered, the mist had changed. This left him both delighted and embarrassed.

"The dark matter energy within the mist is fluctuating! The magnetic field inside the small town has also changed!"

"What change! What caused it?" General Barroteli asked hurriedly. "Can you detect any life traces?"

"The change is extremely unstable, with large fluctuations up and down. We can only confirm that the energy inside the small town is in violent turmoil; we cannot determine what caused it." The monitoring personnel spoke, glanced at Director Zhou beside him, and said hesitantly, "I think it should be related to the human... Ms. Yang. The magnetic field fluctuations here have already exceeded the magnetic field control range of a Class-B Awakened..."

General Barroteli glanced at Director Zhou, whose face was serious, and gave the order: "Continue monitoring!"

"General! There is a situation in the mist!"

Personnel stationed outside observing the mist shouted. General Barroteli and Director Zhou rushed out of the tent again. The scene before them made their eyes widen.

Previously, although the mist was thick, it moved slowly like ordinary white fog. But now, the mist was like boiling water; internal mist surged out in waves, while external mist constantly expanded outward.

The mist filling heaven and earth surged, contracted, and boiled, as if a gigantic monster had begun to move. Before it, humans were like mayflies facing an ancient evil beast, able only to scream and scatter in all directions.

"Retreat! Retreat! Withdraw immediately!" General Barroteli shouted.

Only then did the shocked people come to their senses. Soldiers began to drive away the onlookers, while staff quickly packed up their things.

Suddenly, a tornado leaped up above the mist. Like a mist-dragon drinking water, it connected the heavens above and the earth below, towering between heaven and earth. The mist shrouding the small town was scattered, drawn out, and sucked into the tornado.

Nearby tents were completely overturned. Countless papers and documents flew through the air. People felt the suction force growing stronger and stronger, as if it would pull them into the tornado.

"Stop worrying about those machines! Grab the important documents and leave immediately!" General Barroteli frantically issued orders: "Drive the onlookers away! This place is dangerous!"

Director Zhou, his expression worried, was pulled far away by Feng Liancheng.

"Could something be wrong with Yang Yi?" Director Zhou muttered to himself while retreating backward. "If something happens to her, I will become a national traitor..."

"This is nothing but a small case for her! Did you forget how she dealt with the Fire Demon?" Feng Liancheng said, seemingly very confident. But as he looked back at that terrifying atmospheric phenomenon towering between heaven and earth, comparable to a supercell storm, his tone of speech became somewhat hesitant.

Sand and stones flew through the air; countless fallen leaves, papers, and trash were sucked toward the center by the tornado.

The mist was gradually torn apart by the tornado. The outline of the small town became faintly visible. Before the crowd could rejoice, they saw the tornado sweep up sand and stones once again, obscuring the small town.

Before such a terrifying atmospheric phenomenon, ordinary people's minds went blank; all they could do was flee.

A plastic chair flew straight toward them. Feng Liancheng, unable to dodge in time, quickly hugged his head. But he saw Wei Chang'an, far away, pull the air as if grabbing something; the plastic chair bent around in front of him, then was sucked away by the tornado.

Beside his ears, the wind howled. Every time he opened his mouth to speak, a mouthful of dust would be forced in.

Feng Liancheng, who had never experienced a typhoon, now knew that if the wind was strong enough, humans could not breathe.

Seeing Chen Chen Yushu and Wei Chang'an return, Feng Liancheng breathed a sigh of relief. The group from Xia Guo and the military personnel from Brazil hid behind a small hill.

This place was farther from the small town, but the wind was still violent, striking their faces with leaves and dust, causing sharp pain; they could not even open their eyes.

Everyone was organizing their equipment. Feng Liancheng moved close to Wei Chang'an. Wei Chang'an thought he was about to say thank you, but Feng Liancheng quietly asked, "Isn't your ability to control air flow? I remember your basic skills include wind blades, vacuum, and... what else? Air compression cannon, right? And tornado? Can you create this kind of commotion?"

Wei Chang'an glared at him. "I saved you, and you still mock me?! If I could create this, would I still be Class-B?"

Then he understood, lowered his head, and whispered, "Do you think this tornado was created by Yang Yi?"

"Cough, cough, cough!" Director Zhou beside her coughed frantically.

The two immediately straightened up as if nothing had happened, looking toward the direction of the town, their expressions showing a touch of appropriate concern.

————

At this moment, the Mashala Town was in utter chaos; almost all wooden houses had turned into ruins, trees lay toppled, and flowers and grass withered.

But the mist was shattered by the storm, and the scenery around gradually cleared. Yang Yi slowly opened her eyes in the midst of the storm, looking behind the town—that was a forest, where the invisible force just now had vanished.

Her figure immediately drew a faint line in the air as she lunged toward the forest.

Upon arriving, Yang Yi's pupils involuntarily contracted, and her heart began to beat violently; that was the sound of anger.

Corpses, corpses everywhere.

There were men, women, the elderly, middle-aged people, young adults, and even small children.

A little girl wearing a pink Peppa Pig T-shirt lay face down on the ground, her lower body clad in a fluffy pink skirt.

She looked to be only three or four years old.

Everyone lay face down on the ground as if in worship, hands stretched forward, foreheads touching the earth. Their skin was shriveled and gray-white, like desiccated mummies, as if they had been dead for hundreds of years.

The corpses lay everywhere, arranged in regular, onion-like layers circling the center in worship, while in the middle was a door—no, rather a crack, a crack floating in midair out of nowhere.