Chapter 915: Meteor

Hua reached over Kaluoer's body, turned the car window crank two turns, and the window glass rose steadily.

Her voice remained steady, but the concern in her tone was genuine.

She glanced at the half‑gnawed shampoo advertisement screen outside, her blue eyes dimmed slightly, then she quickly withdrew her gaze and looked at Heimu sitting in the passenger seat.

"Teacher."

Heimu turned his head from the passenger seat to look at Hua in the rear seat.

A gray‑white low ponytail rested on the edge of the seat headrest, and his dark‑purple eyes glowed faintly in the car's dim light.

She said nothing, merely raised an eyebrow slightly to indicate she was listening.

"These—"

Hua chose her words carefully, pursed her lips, "These things. And this situation. You don't seem surprised."

Heimu looked into Hua's eyes, the lazy curve at the corner of his mouth still hanging.

She was silent for a second, then took the lead in the conversation as naturally as ever.

"The teacher has seen scenes messier than this."

"Stay seated and focus; the most important thing now is to get your father out safely. The rest can wait until this is done."

Hua stared at her, ice‑blue eyes and dark‑purple eyes meeting in the car's dim light for about two seconds.

Then Hua gave a slight nod and turned her gaze back toward the window.

She did not follow up.

Heimu withdrew his gaze from Hua and looked forward again.

His right hand rested unconsciously on the side of the passenger seat, fingertips tapping the leather surface at a rhythm almost as fast as his heartbeat.

She was sensing the underlying data streams of the Painted World.

Those data streams flowed at the edge of her consciousness like fine sand slipping through fingers.

During the previous few rewinds, she could still clearly feel the tactile sensation of the Rewind function, that thing she jokingly called the "load‑file key," quietly hovering deep in her mind, ready for activation.

But now that feeling had vanished.

It wasn't just the Rewind function.

The Painted World's overall data architecture was undergoing a change she couldn't quite pinpoint, with all parameters fluctuating at an unstable frequency.

The previously clear Rule boundaries began to blur, like paper soaked in water.

Her fingers' tapping rhythm on the seat side quickened slightly.

The underlying logic of this Painted World was probably far more complex than Ailixiya originally designed; perhaps repeated rewinds triggered a protection mechanism, or perhaps external factors were intervening.

Regardless of the cause, the wisest course now was to resolve Hua's father's problem before this world's stability completely collapsed.

At the exact moment that thought finished, a blinding orange‑red light suddenly flared outside the car.

The light slanted in from the right‑front, passing through the window glass and casting a scorching orange‑red wash over everyone's faces inside.

Kaluoer was the first to scream, and there was nothing embarrassing about it, because any sane person would scream upon seeing a fireball roughly half a basketball court in diameter falling from the sky.

"Meteor! Meteor—!"

The fireball burst through the city's heavy cloud cover, dragging a thick black plume of smoke as it slanted downward at a terrifying speed.

Its shell heated to a glowing crimson from air friction, edges shedding tiny fragments that continued to burn in midair, trailing countless fine golden streaks behind it like a small sun in descent.

As it swept across the city's sky, the glass curtain walls of the buildings below turned a pallid white, and all red warning lights dimmed under the intense glare.

Then it slammed down swiftly!

It landed in a direction that Heimu knew all too well.

The Hua family's Martial Arts Hall!

Heimu's pupils contracted to the limit in that instant, his dark‑purple eyes reflecting the intense flash from the fireball's impact in the distance.

There was no sound in that instant.

The world seemed muted, all explosions, alarms, and screams vanished.

Immediately, a visible circular shockwave erupted from the impact point, overturning everything it could along its path and sweeping them into the wave, like a heap of trash swept outward by a broom.

Then came sound.

Boom!!!

The sound was so huge it didn't enter through the ears but rattled directly in the chest cavity.

The air in the cabin was briefly compressed, and everyone's eardrums buzzed.

The black sedan jolted violently from the shockwave's after‑effects; Kesi Mo gripped the steering wheel with both hands, the armored leg Thruster automatically deployed to steady the vehicle, the tires left four charred marks on the road, and the car slid half a meter before regaining stability.

Outside the window, distant flames reddened half the sky, a black plume rose from the impact point, rolling and spreading in midair, mingling with the city's scattered fires, dyeing the whole sky with a hue between dusk and apocalypse.

In the direction of Hua's home, only a sea of orange‑red light remained, blurring even the outline of the sky.

The cabin fell silent.

Kaluoer's lips trembled, her warm golden eyes reflecting the distant rolling flames, pupils contracted to the limit.

Ge Lei Xiu gently set the pencil beside the sketchbook, her pale‑purple round eyes quietly watching the direction outside, her long lashes fluttered once, then she picked up the pencil again and began drawing the mushroom cloud on the paper.

Hua did not scream.

She didn't shout "Meteor" or "Oh my God" or "That's my home's direction" like Kaluoer did.

Reason String told her it was too late to rush out; her instinct told her the priority now was to confirm her father's safety, but that direction, that fireball's impact point…

She simply remained silent, leaning on the window, ice‑blue eyes fixed rigidly on the distant flames.

Her finger pressed against the window glass, the pad whitening from pressure, leaving a faint fingerprint on the surface.

She did not cry.

Not once from beginning to end.

Kesi Mo slowly pressed the brakes.

The road ahead is completely blocked by vehicle wreckage that the shockwave has overturned.

Three or four sedans are piled together at odd angles, with a uprooted street tree wedged in the middle, its canopy littered with shards of broken glass.

She shifts the gear back to neutral, the armored right hand lifts off the steering wheel and hovers beside the gear lever, the helmet turning left; she is evaluating the road‑condition data ahead, but every datum tells her the same conclusion: this road is impassable.

The silence inside the car lasted about four seconds.

Within those four seconds, distant flames outside the window kept burning, and debris lifted by the shockwave began to fall like raindrops, striking the roof with a rapid crackle.

Inside the car, the breathing of the four occupants was clearly audible in the sealed cabin.