Chapter 42

When Shen Tingyu heard him out, he looked taken aback for about a second. Then he smiled amiably and invited him into the room, leaving Xu Qingran, who had come up looking for trouble, hesitating for a few seconds instead, for fear it was some kind of plot.

From the study, Shen Tingyu noticed his gaze from a distance. He looked up and gently reminded him, "Go to sleep. I wasn't planning to sleep tonight anyway, so you can climb into that bed whenever you like."

"..."

Xu Qingran thought, So that's what climbing into his bed meant. I misunderstood the system.

The system: "..."

You're both misunderstanding!!

After all that, Xu Qingran was no longer sleepy for the time being.

Mainly, he had noticed a lot of interesting things in Shen Tingyu's room, especially near the study. The first things to catch his attention were the irregular red models, which looked a lot like the strange creatures he had seen on the TV news before.

"If you're interested, feel free to look at them. You can play with them too."

Shen Tingyu was attentive; even though Xu Qingran's movements were slight, he still noticed them.

Xu Qingran was not the type to stand on ceremony. With the owner's permission, he got up and walked over to the models. As soon as he approached the display, a faint light suddenly came on beneath it, followed by an emotionless male system voice.

[Devils (The Devil) are an alien species that began to be active in areas around the empire in the middle of the last century.]

[Mr. Xie Wencai, a renowned researcher of extraterrestrial life in the empire, used data from various sources to simulate and calculate the location of their main habitat, placing it in the Pegasus Galaxy, thirty million light-years away. Two centuries ago, the empire's physics and aerospace teams had already predicted that a supernova explosion would occur in that galaxy in the near future. Although the empire's observatories have yet to capture images of the event, the migration of the Devils appears to indirectly corroborate the prediction.]

Xu Qingran reached out and touched one of the familiar reddish-brown models, discovering that it was made up of many tiny pieces. Not only could he turn, enlarge, and shrink them with his fingers, he could even mold their flexible, ever-changing bodies into all sorts of shapes.

[Type I Devils were the first type of Devil observed by our nation. They are collective organisms, with individual units measuring between 0.5 and 1 centimeter in size and no more than 2 millimeters in thickness.]

The enormous reddish-brown creatures commonly seen were actually made up of countless Type I Devils moving together, looking much like tiny scales from a distance. Their outer surfaces were smooth and dry, but underneath was a ring of sharp, slender teeth. They gnawed as a group to devour their captured prey completely.

Before devouring their prey, they would also extend something long and thin as a needle from their mouths and use it to drain the prey's Mental Power and energy.

Their flat, interlocking form was the shape they took when resting and moving.

Once they had surrounded their prey and were ready to attack or feed, the connected "scales" would begin to stand up.

These creatures also had unusual activity patterns: they could only be active after the sun went down. In broad daylight, they would take on a rusty appearance and cling tightly to inanimate objects. They could not be peeled off directly, but no matter what was done to them, they remained dormant and harmless.

Once night fell, they would begin to swell and could gather into a mass hundreds of stories tall.

Beside the Type I model, Xu Qingran saw another small model, this one blue-black.

It was the same color he had seen by the sewer entrance after leaving the Xu Family that day.

The display system called them Class IV Devils, the fourth group of Devils discovered by the empire.

Their basic structure was much the same as that of Type I Devils; they were collective organisms too. But their individual units were longer and thinner, and they likewise only became active after sunset. Their bodies were much more flexible and elastic than those of Type I Devils, and they could dissolve into water and enter towns through murky water sources, making them difficult to guard against.

Fortunately, people had discovered that on land, Class IV Devils were inferior to Type I Devils in destructive power, mobility, and defense. They were so weak that they did not dare approach any place with electric lights, and only dared grow in safe, dark corners of cities, feeding on rain and dew.

Even so, to prevent accidents, the empire still strictly controlled areas invaded by this type of Devil. Residents were strictly forbidden from going out after nightfall; otherwise, they would bear the consequences themselves.

Xu Qingran put the small Class IV model back and asked Shen Tingyu, "Are these the things your military has been fighting so often lately?"

"Yes. Devils are currently the invasive species that poses the greatest threat to the Kaian Empire."

As Shen Tingyu spoke, he picked up another ornament from his desk, a small stone with something embedded in it, and held it toward Xu Qingran, who turned at the sound of his voice.

"Whether Devils act individually or as a collective, they all have something called a Source Crystal inside them. It's the source of all their energy. Without it, their bodies will die within an hour, and they won't be able to revive or regenerate."

Xu Qingran walked over and took the small ornament, bracing himself with one hand as he leaned against the desk and examined it closely.

The Source Crystal inside the stone was beautiful, like a star fused into a transparent crystal.

"I see. Then is this thing easy to lock onto?" Xu Qingran asked curiously.

"Not particularly," Shen Tingyu answered, his gaze unconsciously shifting to Xu Qingran's left hand resting on his desk.

Perhaps because he was getting ready to sleep, Xu Qingran had not covered it when he came up to see him, leaving the bewitching blue Soul Mark plainly exposed before him. The mark's owner, however, seemed unaware that anything was amiss. His attention was entirely on the Source Crystal, his eyes full of interest.

Shen Tingyu suppressed the aggressive impulse that had surged up the moment he saw the mark and silently looked away.

In the end, he could not help interrupting their serious conversation. "Xu Qingran, you can sleep in my bed if you want, but could you put your gloves on first?"

Hearing that, Xu Qingran remembered being mocked over the same thing at school that day, and his temper flared again.

He did not notice Shen Tingyu deliberately avoiding his gaze. He thrust the back of his hand right in front of him and asked in a fierce, cold voice, "I've wanted to ask for a long time. What exactly is so unpresentable about this thing?"

Chapter 20: Sparks

The hand Xu Qingran had held out was quickly seized in a hard grip by another force.