Chapter 332: Encounter Lin Fan

TV Tower.

This tower, once a city landmark, now shrouded in the emerald weird domain, looked exactly like a huge finger bone jutting out from the depths of hell.

The tower's surface was covered with a thick, writhing translucent membrane; every few seconds, the membrane would spurt out thick green mist accompanied by a dull rhythm.

The square's originally flat stone tiles were utterly shattered, replaced by countless flesh-and-blood tissues thrusting up from the ground, intertwining like old tree roots, and the air reeked of a rot that made one's stomach churn.

Jiang Yuan, Liang Wen, and Su Ming's footsteps fell on the edge of this mire-distorted square.

Liang Wen lowered his head to glance at his boots.

Those were the Investigation Bureau's specially made combat boots; stepping on the dark red flesh fibers, they actually made a "puff-puff" sound, and viscous fluid crawled up along the soles' edges.

He flicked his leg in disgust, then, taking the opportunity, unfastened two buttons of his windcoat, revealing the short knife at his waist that exuded an ominous aura.

"To be honest, this place's decor really pushes the limits of my aesthetic."

Liang Wen curled his lips; his signature chuuni tone stood out jarringly in the dead silence.

Su Ming didn't pick up on his remark.

His pitch-black eyes stared fixedly at a point a hundred meters ahead.

Directly beneath the scarlet light pillar shooting straight into the sky stood a slender figure.

Lin Fan.

The light pillar above his head bathed everything within a hundred-meter radius in a bloody hue.

His right eye held a cluster of azure flame that flickered wildly in the red light; this extreme color contrast made him look like a revenant just crawled out of molten lava.

What made Su Ming feel even more shocked was the roiling shadow behind Lin Fan.

That was no mere shadow.

Countless strands of wet, cold-emitting black hair were spreading out from the void.

They resembled a swarm of self-aware snakes, sprawling across the ground and dancing wildly in midair, each filament trembling slightly as if greedily sensing all life around.

Lin Fan also noticed him.

He slowly lifted his head; his left eye showed a numb indifference to life and death, while his right eye's blue flame suddenly flared up upon sensing the threat of the Weird Master.

There was no exchange of pleasantries.

Not even a single probing harsh word.

Lin Fan slowly turned the bronze ring on his right index finger.

Just as his fingertip flicked the ring, the atmosphere of the entire square changed.

Those dark red flesh tissues were instantly covered by a black liquid welling up from the ground.

That was black water.

Bottomless and exuding an extreme cold that could freeze a soul to shards, it was the black water.

"Holy shit! This is literally cheating to alter the terrain!"

Liang Wen let out a strange yell and his whole body jerked backward.

But the black water spread so fast that in just half a second, the solid ground beneath their feet turned into an abyss that devoured everything.

Su Ming reacted the fastest.

He didn't even wait for his brain to give orders; his body instinctively activated its power.

He reached out with both hands, grabbing the collars of Jiang Yuan and Liang Wen.

"Go!"

His voice hoarse, space underwent a violent fold in that instant.

The three figures became blurred where they stood.

Just a tenth of a second after they vanished, that black water area yawned like a giant mouth picking its prey and lunged upward.

Large chunks of hard rubble and those mutated flesh lumps, upon touching the black water, didn't even raise a splash before vanishing straight into the shadowy depths.

In the distance, ruins collapsed with a boom, but in this dead zone, not a sound could be transmitted.

Thirty meters away.

The three figures reappeared.

Su Ming's face turned slightly pale, a layer of cold sweat beading on his forehead.

"This guy's divine gift is no simple matter."

He fixed his gaze on Lin Fan.

"This black water has tremendous suppressive power; once you fall in...... you probably can't escape."

Jiang Yuan said nothing.

He reached back and pulled from his waist card bag a card glowing with a dark light.

His gaze met Lin Fan's.

What he saw in Lin Fan's eyes was not greed, but a near‑mad determination to destroy the world in order to protect something.

Jiang Yuan had seen that look before.

That was the look only seen in the eyes of comrades who sacrificed themselves for home and country; yet now it appeared on the body of a revenant corrupted by a divine gift.

Suddenly, he felt the other was somewhat familiar, and the more he looked, the more familiar they seemed.

Wait a moment.

He remembered.

He had seen this boy before in the files.

At the same time.

From the shadow behind Lin Fan, Ling Xinyu appeared.

Her hollow eye sockets continually dripped dark‑red liquid, and her clothes had long been stained by yin energy into a weird gray‑brown.

She seemed to sense on Jiang Yuan the Shadow Lord aura that specifically suppresses the Weird.

That was instinctive hostility.

Her black hair, which had been swirling across the sky, suddenly gathered, and then, like a massive spear spanning the heavens, it hurled fiercely toward Jiang Yuan's direction.

Jiang Yuan's gaze hardened.

He did not dodge.

Dodging would only give its back to a monster of this level.

He swung his right hand violently, and the Spinal Sword appeared in his hand.

This weapon, twisted from Ouyang Feng's bone and the power of the Wish Bottle, came to life instantly.

Bone Spikes on the blade's surface grew wildly, each inch emitting a trembling hum yearning for blood.

Jiang Yuan let out a low shout.

He gripped the hilt with both hands and cleaved straight at the oncoming mass of black hair.

Bone Spikes and hair strands collided violently in midair.

There was no cutting sound of a blade as expected.

Instead came a grinding that made one's teeth ache, sparks flying, as the peak Anomalous Power collided purely.

Jiang Yuan felt a piercing coldness drill along the sword's hilt into his arm; his entire right arm instantly went numb, covered with a thin layer of frost.

"Not over yet!"

Liang Wen, seeing this, immediately drew his short sword.

He assumed an extremely humiliating opening stance, still narrating for himself.

"Rage of the Darkspawn, now blooms!"

His blade slashed diagonally at the strands entangling Jiang Yuan.

The effect of this attack was even more negligible.

But the move clearly enraged Ling Xinyu.

From her hollow eye sockets burst a mournful wail.

It was an attack that struck directly at the mental level; Jiang Yuan and the two others felt as if their heads were shoved into a high‑speed blender, their sense of balance collapsing instantly.

"Su Ming, restrain him!"

Jiang Yuan gritted his teeth, a trickle of blood spilling from the corner of his mouth.

A phantom of a clock running backwards appeared in his eyes.

"Space‑time, seal!"

Centered on Lin Fan, the air within a five‑meter radius seemed to solidify.

The churning Black Water, the raging hair, even Lin Fan's pulsating Blue Flame right eye all froze in absolute stillness at that instant.

"Only three seconds!"

Su Ming's words were cut off as his complexion changed.

He saw a near‑violent red emanating from Lin Fan's chest.

That energy was too massive.

So massive that it exceeded the region's capacity.

"Crack!"

A sound of glass shattering rang through the air.

Lin Fan actually moved.

He bore the Rules that could even slow time, and slowly raised his right hand.

His movement was slow, but each inch he shifted made Su Ming's complexion grow uglier.

When Lin Fan's fingers finally clenched, Su Ming erupted a large mouthful of fresh blood, staggered back five or six steps, and the clock phantom in his eyes shattered instantly.

"He... he forced the Rules to break..."

Su Ming stared at Lin Fan in disbelief.

The blessing of the four Divine Gifts made the boy's current power level akin to a walking human nuclear weapon.

Lin Fan's deep‑blue right eye stared fixedly at Jiang Yuan.

Ling Xinyu seemed to sense Lin Fan's anger, and her form mutated again.

The originally fine strands began to fuse, eventually coalescing in midair into a massive black hair sphere covered with barbs, bearing world‑shattering force as it slammed down on the three.

The coverage of this strike already prevented Su Ming from teleporting anyone short distances.

The air was compressed to the extreme, and Jiang Yuan could even hear his bones creaking in protest.

Liang Wen's short sword trembled, and his perpetually mischievous grin turned exceedingly serious.

"Damn it, this time it's big."

He muttered low, his hand tightly guarding his waist.

Just as that hair sphere was about to crush the three completely at the last moment.

Jiang Yuan suddenly made a move no one expected.

He sheathed the Spinal Sword.

He didn't even raise the defensive shadow barrier.

He stood upright in place, head tilted back, staring at the mass of black hair that could erase his very bones.

"Jiang Yuan! You've gone mad!"

Liang Wen roared in shock.

Jiang Yuan ignored it, his gaze piercing through the sky‑filled black hair, locked firmly on Lin Fan's left eye.

That left eye that belongs to a human, full of sorrow.

He saw in that eye a despair called "Hope".

Jiang Yuan recalled the top‑secret file on Lin Fan that he had seen before.

The file contained two photographs.

One showed Lin Fan in school uniform, his face beaming with a bright smile.

The other was a side profile of the girl named Ling Xinyu, bathed in sunlight in the library.

He placed a bet.

He bet on the last shred of humanity remaining in Lin Fan's heart.

"Lin Fan!"

Jiang Yuan raised his voice, using all his strength to emit a thunderous roar.

His words pierced through layers of gloom, striking Lin Fan's ears with pinpoint accuracy.

"I have a way; I can save Ling Xinyu!"