Chapter 985: Surrounded

Xing straightened up, her waist aching as if it had been taken apart and reassembled.

She flicked her slightly numb right hand, rolled her shoulder, and a few "cacka" sounds rang out.

The baseball bat was sticky with several patches of shredded cotton and black oil stains, and the fluid from the shattered red eyes still clung to the tip, dripping down the metal edge and trailing sticky strands.

Xing wrinkled her nose, scraped the bat forcefully across the ice, then lifted it disgustedly to her eyes, her mouth corner twitching sharply.

"Finally smashed those guys."

She exhaled, her throat dry enough to smoke, "The difficulty is absurd; the demon shadows I hit before were like newbie village stakes compared to these. Who's good soul treats elite monsters like fodder, without even a Task hint?"

She raised her hand to wipe her face, her fingertip brushing a speck of red liquid that had splattered sometime ago, making her brow knit tightly.

The three demon shadows covered in eyes were now completely dismantled, their broken limbs strewn across the ice.

The tiny red eyes still blinked intermittently on the wreckage, like fish not fully dead, making Xing's stomach churn with sourness.

She quickly averted her gaze, fearing she might actually vomit.

Just as she wondered how to leave this cursed place, a flicker at the corner of her eye was suddenly snagged by something.

Xing instinctively looked over, her sight passing low ruined walls and landing on the massive glacier that rose abruptly in the distance.

Under moonlight, the glacier had originally glimmered with blue‑white cold light, but now a few strands of teal‑yellow light seeped from deep within the ice.

The light was like a lamp trapped behind thick glass, slowly brightening, as if the whole glacier were breathing.

Xing squinted, craned her neck forward to see more clearly.

The teal‑yellow light threaded through layer after layer of ice, winding upward like someone pouring glowing pigment into a massive block of hard candy.

"Hmm?"

A knot of confusion rose inside her, and she muttered, "What's going on, a light bulb buried under the iceberg?"

Before she could figure it out, a faint rustle came from behind.

It drew ever closer.

Xing snapped her head around, eyes sweeping toward the street entrance she had come from.

Several familiar silhouettes leapt out of the alley, hunched, gray‑green branches jutting from their shoulders, moving stiffly yet swiftly.

Seeing them, Xing actually relaxed, her shoulders slumping a few degrees.

"Just these few, huh?"

Xing snorted, twirling the bat half a turn in her hand, "Just finished three upgraded ones, now cleaning up a few regular ones, all without a breath. I'm going to take down ten today!"

Before her words finished, the alley burst like a wasp nest punctured, a swarm of demon shadows pouring out with a whoosh.

They squeezed out densely from the shadows on both sides of the street, shoulder to shoulder, elbow to elbow, the gray‑green branches tangled like a moving forest of dead wood.

Xing's smile froze, the corner of her mouth dropping at a visibly rapid pace.

She counted them—no more than a few dozen—and each front was covered with red eyes, the eyeballs embedded in the skin, packed tightly, blinking so fast it made one's eyes dizzy.

Thousands of red eyes opened and closed in unison under the moon, like someone dumping an entire pond of red fish fry onto a person.

"Ten, I said ten!"

Xing took a half‑step back, "I never said dozens, let alone ones covered in eyes! Your production rate—are you wholesaling somewhere?"

The demon shadows ignored her jab, and the front few had already stepped forward toward her.

All the red eyes on their faces turned toward Xing, pupils shrinking to pinpricks, exuding an indescribable sinister force.

A layer of gooseflesh rose on Xing's back, her scalp tingling as if shocked.

She made a split‑second decision, spun and sprinted toward the glacier.

But after only a few strides, she saw an even more Despair‑inducing sight.

The distant glacier's surface, at some point riddled with spider‑web cracks, spewed several teal‑yellow beams from the fissures, like a massive beast beneath the earth turning over.

A heavy aura rolled in from that direction, pressing the whole sky down a few degrees.

Xing's steps slowed, and the aura pierced her bones, making her legs feel as if filled with lead.

She was forced to halt, gasping heavily, feeling her heart pound louder than the approaching swarm of demon shadows.

"They come from the front, they chase from behind."

Xing looked left and right, her expression growing more dramatic, "Am I being surrounded? Since when? How come there's not even a warning!"

The thought just formed when the deepest part of the glacier ahead suddenly "boom"ed open.

The sound was so loud the entire icefield jolted.

Countless shards of ice erupted from the blast, some as big as a house, some as small as a fist, hurled by the gale in all directions.

Xing only saw a blinding white expanse; the ice chunks glittered painfully in the moonlight, like a meteor shower of ice.

She instinctively tried to summon the Flame Gun, but before her hand rose, her ears were filled with the sharp whine of Ice Shards slicing the wind.

Just as a half‑person‑high chunk of ice was about to smash onto her forehead, her vision suddenly flashed.

The icefield, shards, red light, and teal‑yellow arcs in her sight were torn into several blurry bands, rushing outward on both sides.

She felt a force carry her across most of the street, as fast as a stone shot from a slingshot.

When her feet touched solid ground again, she was standing atop a tall building.

The night wind brushed past her ears, whistling.

Xing blinked, not pausing a beat.

She looked down at herself, then lifted her gaze forward.

In the distance was the glacier violently cracking, its teal‑yellow glow like a giant butterfly breaking out of a cocoon, pouring from countless fissures and tinting half the sky a murky gold.

The ice surface pulsed in the wind, undulating like a living thing.

She swallowed, her mind left with a huge question mark.

"What's the operation? Teleportation or speed?"

Xing murmured.

"Hey, you woke up surprisingly fast!"

A clear and flamboyant female voice rang from beside.

Star turned his head and saw a silver‑blue spiky‑haired cat‑ear girl squatting on the edge of the roof, one foot on a low wall, Tail held high, her eyes full of excitement at finding fun.

She flashed a pair of sharp little tiger fangs at Star, smiling in an extremely irritating way.

Star squinted, looking her up and down.

Silver‑blue hair, cat ears, cat Tail.

The more she looked, the more familiar she seemed, and a figure that had been scrambling in her mind that day suddenly leapt out with a "pop".

Isn't this the cat burglar who dragged her and Yang Shu around everywhere, even making Yang Shu cough up the money?

She remembered that when Yang Shu opened his phone his fingers were stiff, while she was beside him seriously pondering which street this cat‑ear girl had swaggered out of.

She seemed to have even introduced herself, calling herself Sai Fei Er.

"Is that you?"