Chapter 323: The Person Who Walked onto the Wrong Set

Lin Fan had both hands shoved in his pants pockets.

The soles of his shoes stepped on that layer of black water, motionless, as steady as standing on his own living-room floor.

He tilted his head, looking down from above at the pallid-haired man in the water, crawling on hands and feet desperately toward the remaining floorboards.

"You just asked me if I walked onto the wrong set?"

Lin Fan's tone was casual, like chatting with a classmate about what to eat in the cafeteria today.

"Perhaps you're the one who walked onto the wrong set."

He pulled his right hand out of his pocket and twisted the bronze ring on his index finger.

The black water beneath his feet instantly expanded outward by three meters.

The concrete slab Zhang Wei was hanging onto at the edge of the floorboard began bubbling up from the bottom, its edges softening at a visible speed, like a biscuit soaked too long.

"No no no no no——"

Zhang Wei screamed as he kicked his legs upward, his nails digging into the concrete cracks, all ten fingers turning white. His pallid long hair stuck to his face, mixed with sweat and blood into a mess, looking utterly wretched.

Just three minutes ago, the man who stood on the giant dog's back proclaiming himself a god was now no different from a mouse whose tail had been stepped on.

Lin Fan didn't chase.

He just stood where he was, the azure flame in his right eye flickering steadily, casting a cold-colored light over the water within several meters.

No rush.

Because this water is hers.

On her turf, nothing can escape.

Lin Fan lowered his head and glanced at the water surface. Something was swimming beneath, black strands of hair occasionally floating up then sinking, drawing silent ripples.

"Here, this is Xin Yu's absolute home court."

The bronze ring's ability can alter the physical environment to a certain extent, perfectly compensating for Ling Xinyu's fatal weakness of needing "water" or "radio waves" to activate her combat.

As long as there is water everywhere, everywhere becomes Xin Yu's "suffocation domain."

Using hair attacks is actually her weakened ability.

Zhang Wei finally climbed onto the remaining floor slab.

He lay there panting like a bellows, both legs still trembling.

His head buzzed; what happened three seconds ago still left him unable to recover.

Where are his troops?

Several dozen slaves. Seven or eight mutants. That giant dog capable of smashing walls.

All gone.

From stepping into this commercial street until now, less than twenty seconds have passed.

"Wrong...... wrong......"

Zhang Wei pressed his finger onto the "Seal of Domination," trying to reconnect with those enslaved individuals.

No response.

Signal lost. All of it.

Zhang Wei's pupils shrank to the size of a pinprick.

He tried again, increasing the output. The seal's dark-red light flashed brightly, flooding his face with red.

Still nothing.

Moreover——he suddenly realized something even more deadly.

Those mutant remnants still swimming in the water below should have been under his seal's absolute control.

But now, the movements rising from the depths told him that those surviving monsters had not only broken free of control, they were beginning to struggle.

A brittle crack of breaking bones came up muffled from the water below.

The mutants were in fear.

It wasn't fear of Zhang Wei, but fear of whatever lay beneath the water. This absolute terror, springing from the depths of biological instinct, pierced the mental blockade imposed by the seal's rules.

Zhang Wei's back pressed against the cold concrete, his whole body curled up.

He lost.

But he wasn't defeated in battle.

He had been disarmed from the moment he first stepped into this area.

Rules were restrained by rules.

The venue was covered by the venue.

The monster legion he prided himself on, before this black water, wasn't even worthy of being a side dish.

The water surface began to change.

At first it was just faint ripples, like a breeze blowing over a lake. Then the ripples became waves, the waves became surging. The entire black water seemed to be boiling, gurgling with fist-sized bubbles, the white cold vapor rising thick enough to grab with a hand.

Countless fine black strands of hair shot up from the water bottom.

Not just one or two.

It was tens of thousands.

They surged out wildly from beneath the water, like seaweed, like tentacles, like a living fishing net. Each strand was damp, coated with icy droplets, unfolding, twining, and weaving in midair without any wind.

Zhang Wei saw that once-mighty mutant giant dog being hauled up from the water bottom.

The giant dog's bone armor was cracked more than halfway, its limbs twisted by the black hair into knots at the joints, its mouth bound shut, only able to squeeze out a few broken whimpers from its throat.

Then the black hair tightened.

Like a meat grinder starting up.

A beast weighing over a ton was sliced in midair into uniformly sized chunks of meat.

There was no room to struggle.

The bone armor was as flimsy as paper mache before the black hair; the keratin layers that could deflect bullets only emitted a faint 'scratch-scratch' under the hair's cut, like cutting tofu.

A foul-smelling rain of blood fell from the sky, striking the water and splashing up dark red ripples.

Zhang Wei's stomach lurched.

He turned his head to vomit, but found his throat locked by fear, unable even to dry heave.

The cleanup beneath the water continued.

The slaves and mutants dragged into the water were being processed one by one by the black hair with near-assembly-line efficiency; occasionally a half-arm or a meaty rib fragment would float up, only to be yanked back down.

The whole process was eerily silent.

No screams—because whatever was underwater didn't give them a chance to cry out.

Lin Fan stood at the very center of this carnage, black hair pouring from his collar and cuffs, spreading across the water like an inverted black lotus.

He lowered his head, his right hand gently stroking the few strands of hair wound around his left arm.

That motion was very gentle.

So gentle it clashed completely with the hellish scene around him.

The water surface suddenly split open.

From the very center, from the deepest point.

A pallid hand reached out first.

Slender and elongated, its nails bore an abnormal bluish-gray hue. Water droplets slid down the pale back of the hand, each drop that fell back onto the surface raising a chilly ripple.

Then came the wrist, forearm, and shoulder.

Drenched black hair surged up from beneath the water, spreading across the sky and earth like spilled ink gone wild on the surface. Those strands were thicker than the ones that had earlier emerged from Lin Fan's collar, each glowing with a faint cold light.

She rose to her feet from the water.

Ling Xinyu.

Or, more accurately—'Suffocating Ghost Girl'.

Her skin was deathly pale and swollen, like a drowning victim soaked too long. Her ashen lips parted slightly, and a deep bruise ringed her neck.

Most horrifying were her eyes.

Two black holes.

Not a metaphor—literal, physical black holes. Her eye sockets were empty, no eyeballs, no whites, just two deep, pitch-black voids.

From those voids oozed a thick, dark-red liquid.

Blood tears.

They fell drop by drop onto the water.

With each drop, the water temperature within a three-meter radius fell another degree.

Zhang Wei's teeth were chattering.

Ling Xinyu drifted over the water, her soaked hair trailing tens of meters behind her; she did not look at Zhang Wei.

She drifted to Lin Fan's side.

A pallid hand rested on the boy's shoulder.

Lin Fan turned his head, his gaze falling upon that utterly distorted face.

Any normal human seeing that face would startle.

But Lin Fan gave a slight smile.

Very faint, very light.

He lifted his hand to brush aside her wet forehead bangs, his fingertip lightly gliding over the bruise.

"You've worked hard."

The hair wound around Lin Fan's waist tightened a little, like a cat rubbing against a person.

Zhang Wei took it all in.

He suddenly felt his brain about to explode.

What is this situation?

That terrifying Fierce Ghost that had emerged from the water, capable of chopping a huge dog into mince, was... acting coquettish toward this scrawny high schooler?

These two—one alive, one a ghost.

Yet their interaction was more in sync than any couple he'd ever seen.

The ring handles environmental transformation; the Fierce Ghost uses the environment to kill.

Flawless.

From start to finish, he, Zhang Wei, had simply walked into a pre-laid pocket formation.

"You... what exactly are you?"

Zhang Wei's voice shattered into fragments.

Lin Fan finally gave him a proper look.

His left eye clear, his right eye a deep blue; in his heterochromatic pupils there was no killing intent, no hatred, not even contempt.

Only a pure indifference.

"Ordinary person."

Lin Fan said.

"Just an ordinary person who has one more life than you, and one less."

He slipped his right hand back into his pocket.

Beside him, Ling Xinyu slowly turned her head.

Those two hollow eye sockets, streaming bloody tears, were staring straight at Zhang Wei's face.

The temperature was still dropping.

The edge of the last remaining floorboard beneath Zhang Wei's feet had begun to freeze.